Esoteric Order of Herodotus

Is anybody there?

2007-01-15T08:38:00.001-05:00

A friendly message from the homepage of the Taipei Police Department. Just the kind of reassuring "coppers" you'd want to meet if you'd lost your purse in the R.O.C.'s capital:

Sweet Jesus, that's smooth!

2006-10-10T19:46:00.000-04:00

I seem to be on the tale end of pop culture phenomena, but this is incredibly awesome.

The Innocence of the Mid-Victorians

2006-09-22T06:46:00.000-04:00

So in February 1854 a gentleman walks along Delaware Avenue and sees a "street urchin" stealing from a nearby wharf. He apprehends the ten year old boy and threatens him with a cane. The child protests, thinking his wealthy captor is a policeman. "'Hush,' said the gentleman. 'I am no officer. Here's a sixpence for you, if you will come into this alley and let me talk to you awhile.'"

You couldn't get away with that nowadays.

Awesome

2006-08-09T07:48:00.000-04:00

Perhaps being in France has made me strangely patriotic, but this tribute to the Father of Our Country may be the most awesome thing ever:

A Postcard from Nailsea 2 - Pikeys

2006-07-23T18:50:00.000-04:00

The esteemed Daily Mail (a paper that adopted a black masthead in support of the British Union of Fascists way back in the 1930s) columnist Richard Littlejohn recently outlined his perceptive take on the trouble in Israel. The problem, as he saw it, was that the Palestinians were “the pikeys of the Middle East”. For those of you unfamiliar with the British slang, a “pikey” is a traveller, or gypsy - caravanners who roam the countryside throughout the year squatting on land that isn’t strictly-speaking theirs. Thus when a train of pikeys parked itself onto a council-owned field abutting my parents’ home about three weeks ago all it took was a glance in the Daily Mail to know that the converse of the Littlejohn rule must be true: pikeys are the Palestinians of the English Middle West.

In true Likud-like fashion, Mater and Pater immediately began assembling a security fence to keep the suicide trespassers out. Hedgerows that are usually cut down to let in light were allowed to grow free. Doors were locked, cars placed securely in the garage. All this seemed to be enough to deter our new neighbors from impinging on the lawn, and the moderate success of Operation Keep ‘Em Out seemed to deter my brother from launching a preemptive strike of bricks and tiles from the bedroom window.

Meanwhile, the appearance of the gyppos / Pallys had led to the formation of the English middle class. Students of middle class formation have often noticed the irony of a class existing in and for itself that essentially rejects the logic of collective action in favor of meritocracy, individualism, domesticity etc. They clearly haven’t studied the effect of undesirables moving into poshed-up suburban neighborhoods. Within hours of the caravans arriving, a door to door campaign had begun that would lead to letter writing, concerted calls to the council, and even the prospects of protests demanding that action to be taken to remove the incubus on property values. The protestors instinctually grasped the language of the Civil Rights movement: their liberties had been infringed, they were oppressed and abused in their own homesteads. The pikeys even had dogs! But no property!

Rumors quickly began to circulate. There had been a break in down the road. A mini crime-wave had hit Nailsea. Our local supermarket had been forced to hire extra security guards. There had been a sexual assault and a mugging in the field. None of this was ever reported in the local newspapers (both of which are owned by the Daily Mail, and as you can imagine from Littlejohn’s comments, are just too pro-Palestinian to condemn their pikey bedfellows), and as yet no criminal action has been taken. Murmurs were heard that some of the travelers were darker skinned, and had Irish accents. Clearly things were serious.

It was at this point that my father called the police and threatened to take a baseball bat into the field. Never mind that he doesn’t own a baseball bat - this was a show of military force intended to intimidate the Pikeys into stopping their four-year olds from treading on our front garden. The pathetic appeasers at the Police Station urged him to hold back from taking the law into his own hands and the road was forced to put up with the caravans for another whole week. Had daddy been given the authority to carry out his (jovial, I think) threat, he would have probably been welcomed as a liberator. Instead, the misery of generators running through the night almost 60 yards from our windows and slightly unwashed people in an otherwise exclusive residential development continued unabated.

Two eviction orders later and with the threat of court appointed bailiffs marching in the travelers took and left. We did not even have the satisfaction of seeing them driven into the sea. To prevent any repeat incursions into our promised land the neighborhood is now a militarized zone, with terrorist proof bollards blocking the broken entrance to the field and pitchfork wielding bourgeois checking the property tax receipts of every stranger. Meanwhile, the neighborhood (though not my parents on this one, I’m pleased to say) continues to struggle against plans for a nursing home that is projected to be built in the vicinity of the estate. I continue to await the reception of the first Afro-Caribbean resident with interest.

A Postcard from Nailsea

2006-06-19T17:44:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm back here to write but while I've been away I've learnt from my mother that the village has been taken over by cow-fuckers. Here's the story in Rupert Murdoch's very own soft-porn rag. To be fair to the naughty 67 year old (the cow-fucker, not Murdoch), there really isn't much else to do in these parts.

To employ a step-ladder as a mounting device marks a novel innovation in the world of bestiality. The Welsh, who take the sheep as their beast of choice, have been known to use Wellington boots to control the hind legs of the animal. Or so I've been told.

Revelations

2006-06-12T11:50:00.000-04:00

A shocking reservation for all - I am in fact, none other than the Grand Master! Although all the stuff I wrote about did not actually happen, and was in fact a persona created in order to write HP Lovecraft parodies that nobody understood.

But, seeing as I deleted the Grand Master login from the blog, and don't feel like going to the trouble of reasserting it, I decided to reveal my identity and stop doing silly HP Lovecraft parodies.

I am, at any rate, in Paris.

Proof can be found here.

Paris is nice enough - more to be posted soon, but now I must watch the US play in the World Cup. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I feel wrong rooting for the US, because it would seem lame for a team that nobody cares about to win. If, say, Ecuador won the World Cup, the entire Ecuadorean nation would rise in a celebration of a sort never seen before for the next several weeks. If the US wins, a couple of guys in sports bars will be mildly psyched for a few hours, and irritating boobs will be able to feel more US triumphalism. On the other hand, given the extent to which people in other countries put so much into their team's chances in the World Cup, it feels kind of disrespectful to root against one's own team.

I am Mrs. Herodotus's Seventh Grade Brother

2006-05-08T22:04:00.000-04:00

AND I (WITH MY ATTACK KITTEN) AM TAKING OVER THIS BLOG!

On Herodotus:

"He is pretty ugly and fat."

On Rupert Thwumplewink:

"I like the gnome. And he's less fat than Herodotus."

Recommended website:

www.albinoblacksheep.com

Favorite song:

Frontier Psychiatrist by the Avalanches.

BEHOLD MY POWER. THE ESOTERIC ORDER IS DEAD. THE ORDER OF MRS. HERODOTUS'S SEVENTH GRADE BROTHER IS BORN!

Is this how a Blog dies?

2006-05-05T20:24:00.000-04:00

Hot-Dog Dog....

Wow, this blog's still here

2006-04-28T01:23:00.000-04:00

Who knew? I'd virtually forgotten about it in the wake of a horrific encounter with an unholy and monstrous abomination that bore the form - and let us hope it was only the form, for the other possibility is too horrible to contemplate - of the kind and generous man I once called my advisor. In light of the horrors I witnessed on that day, I've been seriously reconsidering my graduate career.

I cannot begin to describe the horrors of that day, so instead, here's a video of weird British people singing in their weird British way:

On this Day in History:

2006-04-18T08:54:00.000-04:00

Jacques Lacan, was not born, did not die, and as far as I know he did nothing of consequence.

Although not a member of the EOH, he loved fart jokes and all other forms of sophomoric humour.

Sir Arthur takes Academic Gunslinging to its (il)Logical Conclusion

2006-04-13T21:31:00.000-04:00

Sir Arthur received the following "Awesome" offer! See below for his cheeky reply!

[SIR ARTHUR],

My name is Captain Gavin. I am the Marine Corps Officer Selection Officer in Philadelphia. The reason that I am contacting you is because I want you to be aware of an awesome summer training program called the Platoon Leaders Course (PLC).

The PLC summer course is six weeks for freshmen and sophomores. For juniors and seniors, the course is ten weeks. It is offered to all qualified college undergraduates.

If you are an American citizen, a full-time enrolled student, and found to be medically and physically fit, then you may be eligible to participate in the PLC program.

This program will benefit you in many ways:

1. You will attend what Inc. magazine calls "the best management training program in America", and test your leadership potential, physical fitness and mental prowess.

2. You will earn approximately $2400 (six weeks) or $4000.00 (ten weeks), plus room and board during the training.

3. If you are interested in aviation, have 20/40 vision or better, and decide to accept your commission, you will go down to Pensacola, FL and train to fly some of the most advance tactical aircraft in the world. The Marine Corps is the only branch that will GUARANTEE YOU A PILOT SEAT as early as your freshmen year.

4. You will NOT incur any obligation to the Marine Corps, even after completing the training (you can choose whether or not to continue with the program).

5. Tuition assistance will be available to you after you complete your summer training. You could potentially earn $8,000 to $25,000 for school, depending on your graduation date.

6. This program does not interfere with academic or athletic pursuits because your training is conducted during the summer.

7. This is not ROTC. No on-campus training, drills or meetings.

If you successfully complete Officer Candidates School, you will be on your way to becoming a Marine Corps Lieutenant with an exciting job after college. Marine Lieutenants receive starting salaries of $40,000-49,000 a year plus incredible benefits.

This is an unparalleled opportunity to see if you have what it takes to be a leader in one of the most elite organizations in the world without committing yourself to service. If you are interested in attending a top business school, becoming a military officer will give you the leadership experience that business schools look for. Many military officers go on to work for the FBI, CIA, and government, or become executives in Fortune 500 companies.

If this sounds like something that you would like to do, contact me at 1-800-531-1878 or email me at gavinma@marines.usmc.mil. You can also check out the Marine Officer Web site at www.marineofficer.com.

Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,

Capt Gavin

************

Mike,

Thanks for sending me this awesome offer for PLC summer training, but I must confess I'm disappointed. I was willing to sign up until I realized there was no training in killing mentioned anywhere in the program. Frankly, I could do without the business management skills and financial perks, if I were promised some blood in combat or at least a 'sweep and clear' tour in Fallujah. But with the rate of body bags shipped out of Iraq being what it is, I understand you have to downplay this aspect in order to attract candidates for the Green Killing Machine. Maybe some truth in advertising would help you there -- you might want to reassess your marketing strategy of presenting military service and its "incredible benefits" as some kind of video game / business opportunity for
gullible college kids (or maybe the poor kids of South Philadelphia are getting too smart to be considered good cannon fodder for recruitment anymore?).

Sincerely,

[Sir Arthur Streeb-Greeling]

Results of the Battle for Middle Earth

2006-04-10T18:12:00.000-04:00

Drunken diplomacy got off to great start with dainty gourmet sandwiches and sausage balls. Not enough drinking occured, but it is tough work making secret alliances in bathrooms and the Grand Master's closet. Right now the Eurpean powers are stuck in Spring of 1906. Frontiers are pretty firmly established between the Great Northern Alliance of Great Britain and Imperial Russia a.k.a. the "Entente de l'amore" opposite the "Unholy Alliance" of France, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. Imperial Germany was engulfed by the Cossack Hordes, while Turkey and Austria-Hungary bungled about trading the same territory back and forth for no reason. I was nerdy enough to create a full-color map so that all could view the current state of affairs. If I had it to do over again, I would have drank more. Will the war continue? That is the burning question that no one really cares about. If I ever want to play dilpomacy again, I fear that I'll have to join the thousands of 30-40-year-old proto -fascists still living with their parents, who play Diplomacy by mail. I call them proto-fascist, but I think they really are fascists. Unlike other gamer types, who are usually English majors, who were capes and dress up for Star Trek conventions, these Diplomacy guys are kind of like the kids in the World at War (HIST 431?), who always wonder if Hitler could have won if the Waffen SS would have parachuted into Toronto, or something counterfactual like that. They also would find John Keegan to be a fascinating read, and wonder why their history TAs want to get them to talk about the Home Front and "society" rather than the size of tank treads.
Anyway, this is what I'm going to have to do if I want to play Diplomacy because the Grand Master and Herodotus don't like me anymore. And probably Alphonso Bigot is going to ridicule me for whining again. Is it wrong to have a dream? A dream to play a simple board game? A way to avoid writing my dissertation?

From the Orc Pit of my Bibliography

2006-04-06T15:28:00.000-04:00

So I'm on campus the other day and I pick up the DP and it's joke issue. What fun! Rodin is appointed Harvard President! Playboy is putting Penn on its cover thanks to the sex-in-window scandal! Bin Laden is planning to hijack planes and fly them into the Grad Towers! Etc. etc. Hilarious.

Then somewhere roundabouts the bottom of page 3 there's an ad that I think is all part of the joke. Some guy called Leonard Tabachnik has taken out space to lambast a New York judge for imposing "Nazi confiscation laws". Then there's something about the Philadelphia riots of 1844 (See Herodotus, "The Manifest Destiny of Philadelphia", (Ph.D. Diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2013), Chapter 2.), plagiarism, and a Bruce Dorsey. Then it all comes together, and I realize these are two authors who have appeared more than once in the course of my research. They also seem to be in the midst of an unseemingly legal tiff. But is it serious? I retire to a computer, and check Lexis Nexis.

And serious it is:

LEONARD TABACHNIK, PH.D, Plaintiff, - against - PROFESSOR BRUCE DORSEY, and the PRESIDENT'S OFFICE OF SWARTHMORE COLLEGE; CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS; and PRESIDENT JEFFREY S. LEHMAN, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, Defendants.
04 Civ. 9865 (SAS)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14267
July 15, 2005, Decided July 15, 2005, Filed DISPOSITION: [*1] Cornell defendants' motion granted and case dismissed in its entirety, with prejudice, as to all defendants.COUNSEL: Leonard Tabachnick, Ph.D, Plaintiff, Pro se, New York, New York. For Cornell Defendants: Nelson E. Roth, Esq., Ithaca, New York.JUDGES: Shira A. Scheindlin, U.S.D.J.

Dr. Leonard Tabachnik, proceeding pro se, has sued a number of defendants alleging copyright infringement, monopolization of trade and commerce and academic conspiracy. Cornell University Press and President Jeffrey S. Lehman (the "Cornell defendants") move to dismiss plaintiff's Amended Motion and Complaint n1 ("Cmpl.") for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a legally cognizable cause of action. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) & 12(b)(6). For the following reasons, defendants' motion is granted and this case is dismissed as to all defendants.

I like the "academic conspiracy" angle. I'm not going to rule out using it as a pretext to make legal threats when the rejection letters start piling up before next year's AHA. Anyway, Tabachnik appears to have lost. But at what cost?

In his pleading, Dr. Tabachnik alleges that his doctoral dissertation, entitled Origins of the Know-Nothing Party: A Study of the Native American Party in Philadelphia, 1844-1852, is the subject of copyright protection. n2 See Cmpl. P1. Dr. Tabachnik further alleges that parts of Professor Bruce Dorsey's book entitled Reforming Men and Women violate the copyright laws "by describing important events using virtually identical language as is found in the text of Dr. Tabachnik's dissertation." Id. P14. Professor Dorsey's book was published by Cornell University Press. See id. Dr. Tabachnik further claims that the academic community "successfully subverted" him so that others could present, and get credit for, his research. See id. P18 ("Had Dr. Tabachnik been allowed to publish his research years ago, those who have subsequently published on the subject could have made their citations accordingly. Since that is not the case, the press, the authors, and the universities are all committing illegal acts against Dr. Tabachnik."). Dr. Tabachnik is claiming damages in the amount of $ 2,0000,000,000 (two trillion dollars). See id. P3.

Note here the "academic conspiracy" appears to involve the whole "academic community", which if it could only form itself into a body corporate would probably have been in court with the other defendants. But there are some pretty serious allegations here. Plagiarism, subversion, breach of copyright: all heinous crimes in the scholarly world. For all that, the two trillion dollars (that's $2,000,000,000) the plaintiff asks for seems a trifling amount, especially for a university press growing fat on the profits of Walter Licht and Thomas Dublin's Face of Decline (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).

So what of the actual plagiarism. Here's a particularly flagrant example:

Tabachnik:

"In 1844, two related events -- a controversy over Bible reading in the public schools and a series of riots between Irish Catholics and those who later call themselves Native Americans -- led to a dramatic change in the political life of Philadelphia.["]

Dorsey:

"Between May and July 1844, one of the worst incidents of ethnic and religious violence in the history of the US erupted in the outlying districts of Philadelphia."

There is little question here that Dorsey, along with just about every other historian of the riots - and I count myself among them even though my advisor once struck out the "historian" from "historian [Herodotus] argues..." from a colleague's dissertation draft - has been flagrantly plagiarizing Tabachnik's brilliant original contention that ethnocultural conflict might have had something to with the Nativist riots. We have also repeatedly borrowed the term "Philadelphia" without attribution.

Now the Judge dismissed the plantiff''s claims "with prejudice", and the late Grand Master, communicating with me through the medium of a spirit channeler, suggests this means the case cannot be brought again before the same court. Nazi confiscation laws indeed! Nevertheless, I believe strongly Tabachnik is in the right on this one, and as part of the academic community, I hereby pledge myself to him as a debt peon to spend the rest of my life paying off my portion of the $2 trillion we all collectively owe to him and his heirs.

He is also immediately promoted to the shortlist for next year's EOH Kaplan Lecture!

Index of Sacred Insults and Invectives

2006-04-06T11:13:00.000-04:00

The esteemed leaders of the Esoteric Order of Herodotus herewith publicize its list of the most hollowed slanders. Speak them and their derivatives with due reverence and solemnity:

douchebag
shitworm
fuckwad
shit pellet
frothy cunt
tempestuous twat
dick cheese
pussbag
assclown
dingleberry
who-were
Renal Nurse

On the Topos "Shitworm" and Its Derivatives

2006-04-05T17:02:00.000-04:00

n. shitworm
adj./adv. shitworm-like; or (obs.) shitworm
n. shitwormery

In the history of concepts, there are functional shifts in meaning but never abrupt ruptures or smooth transpositions. A functional framework of linguistic continuities is always the prerequisite of consciousness across the epochal threshhold. "Shitworm" has had a long and abiding conceptual life. It is derived from the Greek "sonalectikoin", meaning "worm of the earth-feces." The Romans adopted a variation as "Sonas Letius", but this connection is very thin and there can never be certainty of sources in the dark regions of the etymological domain. For 400 years the term and its cognates disappear from usage--no doubt under the pressure of religious authority.
Alois Pickelhauber wrongly attributes the term to Luther in one of his letters to Melanchton; but here the term is "Scheissblase" in "Du bist echt eine Scheissblase"--"Thou art really a shitbubble!" The elder Luther, never ceasing to heap scorn upon his one time friend in their direct correspondence. This has been convincingly traced to other capillary traditions in the history of the concepts such as Leibniz's comment of 1726 "jeder ist monadistisch wie ein Stück Scheisse im Clo oder eine Blase in der Luft." However, these circumlocutions are not the work at hand.
John Locke writes to Damaris Masham Cudworth: "Such a shitworm ne'er didd I dowt." Diderot includes an entry in volume 6 of the Encyclopedie on the "Dung worm" of the ancients, which Helvetius then mobilized against the critics of evironmentalism, stating roundly, "even the worm if removed from its steamy pile of dung would not prosper."
During the French Revolution the concept received a future-orientedness in light of the acceleration of events and a concomitant expansion in the horizon of expectations. The Young Marx testifies to this process when he writes to Engles 1844, "We might expect that with the state of affairs that would be realized in communism, even the bourgois shitworm would no longer be alienated from the smelly fruits of its labour."
This may have been what the translators of Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece "Hidden Fortress" had in mind, when instead of chosing the more banal "maggot", the Japanese insult became "shitworm" in the English subtitles. The richness of the term and its embeddedness within within the structure of signs will surely mean its continued relavance, even if this lineage is forgotten.

Thwumplewink on Issues II--The Grad Chair

2006-04-04T14:59:00.000-04:00

Q. What is your view on an collective body representing grad students vis a vis the grad chair and administration?

A. "I have been in this department for over 16 years. I have seen many grad chairs come and go--from the most otiose to the most anal-retentive. If elected, there will be no need for collective or representative bodies. This is liberal academic naivite. This is the high road to communistic shitwormery. The Gnome who decides is sovereign; and he does not share power."

Q. So is this election merely plebiscitary? In fact, is your political strategy a kind of Bonapartism?

A. "I do not acknowledge such intellectualizations. These are the devices of liberal, academic shitworms, who have never been in politics. Reality is that "collectivsim" intrudes upon the natural order of things, where every individual must be responsible for his own lot in life and not depend on the government to change his diapers! In 1917 such shitworm-like views were circulated and in 1792 as well. Look where that got us. Why don't you go exume Stalin and kiss his ass? Why don't you move to Cuba and see if Castro will let you indulge in this intellectual "criticism." We have gotten too lazy. Yes. Taken things for granted. The Gnomic Volkspartei will return to the most gnomistic qualities of the people. I never asked why I was only 1.5 feet tall and born in a garden! I didn't ask the government for handouts, shoe lifts etc. Give me a blowtorch and a pair of pliers and I'll get this department into shape, believe me. Torture yes... torture is good...."

Thwumplewink On the Issues - Spending

2006-04-04T00:03:00.000-04:00

Q. Where do you see money going from Clio's budget?

A. "I'm going to the ask the University for an additional $250bn for my Dissertation Defense spending. The best strategy for a Dissertation Defense is offense, and the way to stay on the offensive is to buy the latest range of laser-guided precision weaponry and battlefield nukes. I also want to provide ample sandwiches and cookies for those in attendance."

Rupert's Version of Baby-Kissing Scares Small Children, Conservationists

2006-04-03T21:54:00.000-04:00

"You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover"

2006-04-03T16:35:00.000-04:00

Is this the exception that proves the rule?

Vote the Gnome!

2006-04-03T10:21:00.000-04:00

Thwumplewink has promised to run a positive campaign that focuses on the issues and does not involve "Swift Boat" style icepick attacks on his opponents. So far I've been impressed.

Thwumplewink Wags the Dog - Mass Panic in Swansea

2006-04-02T21:50:00.000-04:00

Wally-Mac Comes out for Thwumplewink!

2006-03-31T10:43:00.000-05:00

Penn Professor and Pulitzer Prize winning author, Walter McDougall throws his support to Thwumplewink. McDougall told EOH reps, "Thwumplewink came to the Penn history departement 16 years ago with the intention of writing a Foucaultian analysis of women's undergarments in Colonial America. But his sober thought processes, and political maturation led him to see that all of that Foucault business was intellectual masturbation and liberal academic bias. His new project deals with Hayek, Leo Strauss, Tocqueville, and the greatest event of the last 4 centuries...you know what I mean...aw yeah! I'm, takin' 'bout the foundin' of da U-S-to the muther fuckin' A! Yeah, bouy! Now, lotta people sez that the American Revolution wasn't radical enough. Dat is just anachronistic, yo. Ain't reactionary just 'cause it didn't abolish slavery and shit. I mean we gots ta not impose 21st century standards. I mean, look at how momentous and stupendiferous the birth of America was. Wat kinda bitch aint't goin' admit dat its revolutionary! I mean it was a change. And change is good, muther fucker. I mean, unless it wuz Bolsheviks or some kinda communards, dat shit is wack utopian bullshit. But 'Merica, sheet, dat was some old school gangsta. You know how we do!" (c.f. My Freedom Just Around the Corner. A New American History, 1585-1828 [New York, 2004], pp. 310-311.).

"I pity da foo that don't elect Thwumplewink!"
--Walter McDougall

Join Rupert's Fight Against Judeo-Bolshevik Clio

2006-03-31T10:11:00.000-05:00

I believe Professor Waldron is being talked about as a potential running mate:

Clio is briefly forgiven

2006-03-17T21:11:00.000-05:00

Because this is really funny...

Woof!

2006-03-17T19:52:00.000-05:00

Woof!

[Ed: Note Kangaroo jerking off in the background]

I Only Got a Bean Burrito from Mad-4-Mex

2006-03-15T20:10:00.000-05:00

It was the summer of 2000...the summer of love. I was dressed in my blue blazer and tie. I looked like the poster-child of the G.O.P. We had to find parking on Walnut Street at midday; that was like trying to find an un-openned bag of Fritos in the Grand Master's bedroom on a Friday night. See, in those days the History Department resided in old 3401 Walnut, a windowless, humorless marvel of East German functionlist architecture. I had an appoint with my advisor. But he was late. There I sat in the mailroom, glared at off and on by the office staff, who asked periodically: "who are you again?" I was given the graduate student handbook and a free history dept. refrigerator magnet.
Well my advisor arrived. In those days, no body was there to wine-and-dine you. No grad students to be seen. By my advisor was a good sport. He took me around the corner to Mad-4-Mex and bought me a "burrito"--that is what they called it, anyway. I also felt kind of silly in my Sunday's best, when my advisor wore jeans and a fashionable shirt unbuttoned to his navel.
So there has certainly been much progress in the department since then. Yes, now three professors take you out to dinner, and sometime you get lunch with other grad students too! And what can I say? It is certainly evident that all of these efforts at recruiting have produced an exceedingly better qualified and diverse pool of new grad students.

Ye All Bloody Well Better Worship The Cult of ProCite

2006-03-14T22:27:00.000-05:00

All apostates who follow the Cult of Chartier be warned! You are following an idol, and you will be punished with a corrupt database and random error messages. For the established creed of the EOH is hereby changed from whatever it was last week to the worship of ProCite. Today I continued on my mission and converted the Grand Master. After two years of steadfastly ignoring my proselytizing he has finally seen the light! Now he too basks in the heavenly glory of automated footnoting and rapidly assembled bibliographies. Hallelujah! ProCite is the Messiah!

Many miracles have been attributed to the omnipotence of the Great Reference Manager (for it is He). One saintly graduate student, having devotedly sacrificed over 60 notecards a day to the Software for a little under two years, found her dissertation had by some divine force written itself. Others have discovered after similarly penitential endeavors that ProCite bestowed upon their thesis previously unknown powers of coherence and empirical weight.

We must not be lured by the evil temptress EndNote. Some years ago at the Dawn of Time EndNote purchased the rights to ProCite and sent the God-Program to Paradise, where He (for it is He) waits to return in the incarnation of Version 5.x. As a fallen deicide, EndNote must be resisted at all costs. The Grand Master and I shall burn at the stake anyone found using it who refuses to recant.*

*That includes Mrs. Herodotus, even if it does allow Chinese characters.

Roger Chartier Sings Your Favorite Sailor Songs!

2006-03-01T22:08:00.000-05:00

http://sailorsongs.com/

He could give Micky Katz a run for his money!

Roger CHARTIER est directeur d'Etudes à l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.
Il travaille sur l'histoire culturelle de l'Europe moderne, notamment l'histoire du livre et de la lecture. Récemment il s'est concentré sur la relation entre la culture écrite et la littérature en France, en Espagne et en Angleterre.

In What Circle of Hell is the King of Spain?

2006-02-28T05:43:00.000-05:00

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling corresponds once more. On the whole, this is probably a good thing. Now some of you may have heard of Dante Alig... Anyhow, take it away Sir Arthur:

"The “Where is Jonathan?” good book club is proud to present:

The Divine Comedy
Part I: Inferno [Excerpts]

Dramatis Personae:
Dante Alighieri
Virgil
Jonathan Steinberg
The cast of the EOH

Canto I

Midway along the journey of our life
I woke to find myself in a dark reading room in Cambridge
for I had wandered off from the straight path

How hard it is to tell what it was like,
this university of wilderness, savage and stubborn
(the thought of it brings back all my old fears)

A bitter place! Death could scarce be bitterer.
But if I would show the good that came out of it
I must talk about my fascinating work on Admiral von Tirpitz

….

Canto III

I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY,
I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL GRIEF,
I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN WEBSITE.

JUSTICE IT WAS THAT REMOVED MY GREAT CREATOR;
DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE CREATED PUPPY,
AND HIGHEST WISDOM JOINED WITH PEDANTRY.

BEFORE ME NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGS
WERE MADE, AND I SHALL LAST ETERNALLY
ABANDON ANY HOPE, ALL YOU WHO ENTER.

I saw these words spelled out in somber colors
Inscribed along the ledge above a gate;
“Master,” I said, “these words I see are cruel.”

He answered me, speaking with experience:
“Now here you must leave all distrust behind;
let all your cowardice die on the spot.

We are at the place where earlier I said
You could expect to see the suffering race
Of souls who lost the good of intellect.”

Canto VII

“Pape Jonathan, pape Jonathan aleppe!”[1]
the voice of Margo clucked these words at us,
and that kind sage, to whom all things are known,

said reassuringly: “Do not let fear
defeat you, for whatever be her power,
she cannot stop our journey to Switzerland.”

Then he turned toward that swollen face of rage,
crying, “Be quiet, cursèd she-wolf of Hell:
feed on the burning bile that rots your guts.

This journey to the depths does have a reason,
for it is willed on high, a just revenge
for your usurping the graduate chair.”

As sails swollen by wind, when the ship’s mast breaks,
Collapse, deflated, tangled in a heap of incompletes
Just so the savage beast fell to the ground.

….

More shades were here than anywhere above,
and from both sides, to the sound of their own screams,
straining their chests, they rolled enormous weights.

And when they met and clashed against each other
they turned to push the other way, one side
screaming, “Why pedantry?,” the other side, “Why Chartier?”

And so they moved back round the gloomy circle,
returning on both sides to opposite poles
to scream their shameful tune another time;

Again they came to clash and turn and roll
forever in their semicircle joust.
And I, my heart pierced through by such a sight,

spoke out, “My master, please explain to me
who are these people here? Were they all priests of the EOH,
these tonsured souls I see there on our left?”

He said, “In their first life all you see here
had such myopic minds they could not judge
with moderation when it came to jesting;

Their barking voices made this clear enough,
when they arrive at two points in the circle
where opposing cults divide them into two.

The ones who have the bald spot on their heads
were priests, and grand masters, in whom
pedantry is most likely to prevail

And I: “Master, in such a group as this
I should be able to recognize a few
who dirtied themselves by such crimes as these.”

And he replied: “Yours is an empty hope:
their undistinguished life that made them foul
now makes it harder to distinguish them.

Eternally the two will come to blows;
then from the tomb they will be resurrected:
these with pedantic quips, those without any hair.”

[1] This line, while it has never been interpreted satisfactorily, has certainly been interpreted variously. Critics as early as Boccaccio have noted a relation of “pape” to papa (pope). Boccaccio implies that “pape” is a word expressive of great admiration, fascination even, and applies it to Satan, “the prince of demons.” Ciardi notes that “pape Jonathan” would be the opposite number of “il papa santo” or the pope. “Aleppe” has been connected with aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, either meaning “prime” – or used as an expression of fascination. Some think that the line is addressed by Margo to Dante; “Jonathan” then is seen as the traditional, biblical term for “enemy.” But the main thrust of modern criticism is to accept the line as simple gibberish."

Cults

2006-02-27T19:58:00.000-05:00

While we don't have a "Cult of Chartier" among grad students here in the Ancient Mysteries department, we do have a "Cult of Cthulhu." While of course Cthulhu couldn't be described as a "uncharateristically humble Frenchman", but rather as "the ancient and unspeakably evil high priest of the Great Old Ones who lies dreaming in sunken R'lyeh, waiting for the time when he can emerge again and throw the Earth back into primal madness," I must say that I would have to take Herodotus's side in opposing the propagation of cute grad student "cults."

Let me explain. The historical Cult of Cthulhu, the unspeakably monstrous high priest of the Great Old Ones who lies dreaming in sunken R'lyeh, is, of course, a phenomenon well worth investigating on its own merit. My own dissertation concerns a comparison between the ancient rituals of the cult of Cthulhu in the Eastern Mediterranean, as revealed by ancient Aramaic texts still preserved by certain tiny, persecuted communities in northern Iraq, and the practices of present-day Cthulhu worshippers among the Zimakani peoples of the New Guinea highlands.
I'm particularly concerned with possible degradations of the rituals over time, to see if it is possible that Cthulhu may still be communicating with his followers through dreams, as He did in the days before R'lyeh sank beneath the waves - a possibility the implications of which continue to haunt my nightmares.

But, at any rate, I obviously don't have any objection to scholarly study of the actual Cthulhu cult. What I object to is the absurd, over-intellectualized "Cthulhu Cult" perpetrated by several of my colleagues in the Ancient Mysteries department - putting supposedly "hilarious" captioned pictures of Cthulhu up around our lounge; ridiculously self-conscious chanting of the ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn and repetition of lines from the Necronomicon to intimidate unsuspecting first years; impromptu skits of conversations supposedly held between Cthulhu and Azathoth; occasional meetings in the depths of the night in attempt to summon forth Nyarlhotep; and so forth. Not only is all this cute "Old One Chic" tiresome, it is deeply dangerous. What if these "hilarious" rituals did manage to summon up an Outer God? The horror and destruction which this would wreak not just on the summoners, but, doubtless, on an entire segment of the city of Philadelphia, would be too awful to contemplate. At least they've stopped short of hilariously bringing up Yog-Sothoth, the Key and the Gate - I guess having the Grad Chair as a constant reminder of and Outer God's monstrous consorting with a human woman is enough to dry up the comedy there. But the basic fact is, cults are nothing to joke about, whether they concern great old ones or apparently kindly Frenchmen.

Afterthoughts on the Roger Cult

2006-02-27T18:13:00.000-05:00

I do not oppose the search for the fascinating professr. What I would like is a clarification of the official EOH position on Roger Chartier. We oppose the cult of Chartier; for we are disgusted by all cults other than our own. Now, that certainly is not to say that we have anything against the man himself. In fact, I had lunch with RC a few days ago. Along with the usual antics and jests directed at the social habitus of the faculty club, he railed against disgusting people such as Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut, he commented on the library practices of the late Michel Foucault, expressed unflinching adherence to the Manichean cosmology of medieval Gnosticism, and told me of his general contempt for Clio and the Philomathian Society. All this seems completely in line with the politics of the Order. I see no reason why this uncharateristically humble Frenchman should be disparaged by our organization.

1-A

Fascinating Professor Immortalized in Novel?

2006-02-26T15:01:00.000-05:00

I tracked down the leader of the Cult of Chartier to a private members' club in Oxford a few days ago and before I could bury the ice-pick into his emaciated frame he promised to tell me the secret of Steinberg if I let him live.

It sounded fascinating, so I decided to put off killing him for a while.

It seems the old man once had a bit part as an Anglo-American Don in a C. P. Snow novel. Problem is - though this may have been merely been a ploy to persuade me to put away my ricin-laced umbrella - he couldn't remember the title, and given Mr. Snow was rather prolific when it came to publishing it's not all that easy to narrow the search down. The most likely candidate seems to be The Masters, a sardonic take on the race for the mastership of a Cambridge college, but its setting in the 1930s seems to make it at least thirty years too early. I've found a number of other possible candidates on Franklin and Amazon, and we may need to go through these systematically to discover where the fictionalized Jonathan can be found.

Meanwhile, the High Priest of the Cult of Chartier has been released into the wild and returned to Berlin. I didn't have the heart to put him out of his misery given the information he disclosed, and it's not like anyone has ever been able to do any harm based out of Germany.

A Beginning

2006-02-24T00:43:00.000-05:00

To begin with, I'd like to thank Puppy, and to a lesser extent Herodotus and the First Acolyte, for giving me the opportunity to post on this blog. But, to begin with, I suppose I should introduce myself.

My name is Randolph Carter, and I am a fifth year doctoral student in the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Ancient Mysteries the Likes of Which Man Was Not Meant to Know (or AML, for short). I was asked to join the Blog, in spite of my lack of standing as a history student, so that I could help provide some perspective due to my experience as a member of the Penn department whose graduate students are most likely to mysteriously disappear under suspicious circumstances, or sent to mental hospitals.

Having read through the blog archives, I will begin by saying that many of the everyday annoyances and problems facing history and AML grad students are quite similar. For instance, there seem to be a lot of complaints here about your new grad chair. We have a lot of similar complaints. Ever since our last grad chair, Charles Ward, was found gibbering insanely in front of the library and was unable to continue his job (see the Daily Pennsylvanian's article on the subject "Popular Penn Professor Discovered Naked, Insane on Locust Walk," March 31, 2005, if you don't remember it), we too have had problems with our new grad chair, Wilbur Whateley.

Dr. Whateley is a well-known and widely-respected scholar of eldritch mysteries, and his publications have been widely-cited. As such, it would probably become us to ignore his obvious eccentricities - his apparently strangely and unnaturally shaped body, barely discernable beneath the enormous overcoat he wears at all times; his monomaniacal obsession with the Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the fact that, despite looking at least fifty, he is apparently only eighteen years old, having grown to maturity in an unnaturally short period of time. I suppose you'll have to just accept these as the usual professorial eccentricities. But none of this excuses his lack of interpersonal skills, and his utter contempt for the lives and sanity of the AML graduate students supposedly under his care. Since his tenure began at the beginning of this academic year, at least four masters students have mysteriously disappeared, having been last seen going into his office for a meeting. Disappeared, that is, if you discount the horrific maddened creature, which I myself can barely consider to be human, now thankfully imprisoned in a mental institution, who apparently killed, dismembered, and partially ate three West Philadelphia locals, whose face bears a striking, impossible resemblance to one of the missing students - but that possibility is too horrible to give credence to.

But the horrific treatment Penn affords to its masters student is surely already known to you. Beyond this, Whateley is entirely unsympathetic to graduate student concerns. I know that when one ABD student in my department was trying to find a year of additional funding to pursue his dissertation on the timing of the return of the Great Old Ones, Whateley told him that five years should be more than enough time, in spite of the difficulty the student was having in securing the needed texts - many of them only to be found in obscure archival collections in Heidelberg and Budapest - and in preserving his sanity from the bizarre dreams of unspeakably ancient cities full of disturbing buildings whose geometry could not be conceived by the human mind. Whateley even had the gall to note that he had finished his dissertation in six months, ignoring, of course, the fact that we grad students lack the unnatural powers of concentration and speed writing which are his gift thanks to the unspeakable daemonic creature which sired him on a human mother.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to using this space as a way to vent about injustices in our department, and hopefully build up some solidarity between our two departments.

Who Would Be Eaten First?

2006-02-22T19:22:00.000-05:00

Over dinner this evening, Miss Scarlet and I discussed the hypothetical situation of crash landing somewhere in the mountains--a very pressing concern indeed. We both decided that we would need little convincing before resorting to cannibalism. We like meat, and we hate people, so it works out well. But this incisive, apodictic discussion led us to further speculation. Who among the Order would be eaten first, were we all to crash in the mountains? Now, we are assuming that puppy is not along, or that it would scurry away after the crash to scavenge on its own.

The Grand Master is a most lucious and meaty tidbit. But the meat would have to be most thoroughly cleaned and his ample hair removed. Herodotus seems tender enough, but he's been stuffed with poor English food, or spicy Asian cuisine, which might make him a bit gamy. The Grand Master, on the other hand, eats mostly Hemo's subs and processed meat products; that could give us unwanted animal antibiotics and carcinogens. Sir Arthur, a vegetarian would be nice and plump and full of vitamins. But he is of a wily sort. He'd be difficult to wrangle. One would have to catch him napping. Alphonso Bigot is also cantankerous, and his diet also questionable.

Now, I think that I would be too scrawny and tough. Plus, well, you don't want to know. Miss Scarlet is right out. She would need to be kept alive to cook for us all. Most of you have tasted her trascendental, horseradish-encrusted pork tenderloin. She is also the only one to ever be involved in a "hog scraping". Need I say more?

When all is considered, we settled on the Grand Master. Point one! While he would take more preparation, he would be the most edable. All those hours of sitting in front of the computer with snack food, and all those oat sodas would make him a most tender morsel. Point two! He would be the least likely to fight back. Point three! If left alive, he would complain all the time about not having enough to eat, or that the food didn't suit him "My Herodotus is too tough" or "why do I always have to eat the shins?" or "You know, cannibalism actually comes from Latin cannibolis, meaning dog shit"...etc.

But who would YOU eat first?

1-A

Phoenix from the flames

2006-02-21T20:35:00.000-05:00

The very act of declaring the Esoteric Order dead has ironically led to its rebirth. I therefore retract all previous admissions of defeat and pay homage to our warlike leader the First Acolyte. The War Against Clio, on hiatus for over three weeks, is now on once more.

Distinguished German Professor Speaks out against EOH Revisionism

2006-02-21T19:52:00.000-05:00

BOCHUM, Germay--Emeritus Professor of History, Hans Mommsen spoke to students, journalists, and shopsterwards today about current trends in the historiography of the EOH. When asked about the demise of the Order he declared, "it is part of the structure of the institution that makes availability the principle for the representation [knowwati'msayin'] of an order that approaches the administration of any bureaucracy with the aim of reform to disepell with its revolutionary potential [you dig] once it enters into contact with a level of coplexity in the bureaucratic apparatus of authority [bitchez]." But how was this realated to Herodotus' filthy, sweaty defeatistism? Mommsen continued, "once the organization which had faced the bureaucratic authority [muther fuckas] within a field of structural similitude between competing orders of direction from above and as result divided itself [like yo ass] in relation to that structure of skirted decision-making, it is inevitable that when this organization comes to ruin [like a bitch] its agents will attempt to ellucidate the strutural process in terms of conscious decision making in which agents are called upon in the present to declare the ideological facade of structural relations a conspiracy [dat means Herodotuz' dumn ass] that had apparently obtained in the past....[bitch]"

What this will mean for the future of the Order is uncertain. But that old guy was pissed off! And nobody, I mean nobody wants to piss off Hans Mommsen. If my boy Hans catches you out on the street GM, you ass is goin be tore up fo sho. He be up in yo shit wit da quicknessss! And as for Herodotuz, he better watch hiz back in ole England, you hip, cuz Hans has a conferenz comin up over dey! He be bussin out da intentionalists one minute deen yo ass da next. You better run if you see Hans de Orijinal Muthu Fuggen' Gagzsta wit hiz mad old skool funtionlizms coming down the steet. Word is bond.

1-A

This is Why the British Empire No Longer Exists 2

2006-02-21T00:29:00.000-05:00

Check out the first paragraph on this Wikipedia entry on Herodotus's very white and very lower middle class Bristol suburb. Then wonder how my people ever ruled the world.

*

On an unrelated note, you should heed Sir Arthur's words of wisdom and show Penn we really are a bunch of trembling alcoholics ready to kill for the next shot of Banker's Club by taking the survey linked to below:

"Sir Arthur is a well-seasoned curmudgeon and does not care for sharing his precious liquor with anybody else, even on high-profile conferences where drunken behavior is the order of the day. Seems his reputation has been spreading for he was recently sent this preposterous survey: "Due to the significant amount of media attention about alcohol and other drug use here at Penn and on college campuses across the nation, this survey is an attempt to discover the truth about student alcohol and drug use and to put rumors and inaccurate statements to rest." As inducement, they offer 100$ coupons to buy books at Amazon.com if you take the survey. What kind of an idiotic incentive is that?! How about an 18-year-old bottle of Glennfiddich instead? I urge the faithful EOH readership to complete the survey and put all false rumors to rest – proving once and for all that Penn students are indeed drunken bastards.

Here's the survey: https://www.fusionlink.com/upenn/survey/index.cfm?surveycode=447279287033479700000AE72079AFBF76323DE713FE122881719

Herodotus a.k.a. "Francois"

2006-02-20T23:21:00.000-05:00

As the once mighty ramparts of the EOH crumble around us, the former leaders scury away like rats desserting a sinking shipt (mixing metaphors gives me gas). After the Grand Master declared the revolution to be over, Herodotus quickly engaged the forces of reactionary historicism. He declared the social interpretation of the EOH defunct. And he is sporting a new tupee. All former believers in structure and class struggle must now repent. We should all focus on how the wonderful numbness of cliotic late capitalism has really not been so bad all along. How did we ever get seduced by the utopian illusion of a better, more democratic organization, and fart jokes? We now can settle for a puppy as our leader because individuals and market forces will naturally create social order on their own!

Well, I say fucking blow that bourgeois-lickspittle defeatism shit out your ass Herodotus! The Ciotic relations of production were burst asunder by the EOH; but this only gave way to a new antagonism at the level of the relations of production. The truly democratic revolution is yet to come, where we will tend cattle in the morning, criticize after lunch, and tell fart jokes in the evening. Out of the filthy, stinking corpse of the EOH will rise the beautiful, stinky vision of a new dawn rising over the hills like a mighty stampede of horses that drapes the landscape like a flowing bolt of velvet folding and crushing under the windy gusts of freedom!

1-A

The fall of the Esoteric Order of Herodotus: A Historiographic Symposium

2006-02-20T11:58:00.000-05:00

Wed. February 22, College Hall 200, 2.30

All alcohol will be precirculated, and is available from either state controlled liquor stores or Sir Arthur’s hip-flask.

Paper highlights:

Maxim Bolshiebastardov - Penn State Stalingrad - “The rise of the bourgeois student and counterrevolutionary College Hall, October 2005 to February 2006”

Amanda Beet-Wigglesstein - University of the Third Way - “Signifying the Sign in a Post-Semiotic System of Signification: Making Sense of the EOH Alliteratively”

Rupert Thwumplewink - University of Pennsylvania - “I Regret to Inform You That I Will Have to Kill You All at the End of this Paper; or, Chapter 4 of my Dissertation”

Iver Hacksworth - Heritage Foundation - “Reagan and the Fall of the Esoteric Order”

Jesus H. Antiquarianus - Independent Scholar - “Was the First Acolyte Really First? Some Notes on the Early Days of the Order, with Appendices Attached”

Discussant: Puppy

Grand Master Defiant

2006-02-20T10:18:00.000-05:00

In a rare interview, the Grand Master told EOH acolytes that he would not retake his seat of authority over the Order. "I have complete confidence in my canine successor", he told disappointed apostles. When Herodotus was approached for comment he also remained reticent, stating roundly: "I have always every been a figurehead, nothing more. The Grand Master infused this Order with its pedantic energy. I am but a little curvy yellow bug."

Clio can only gain from these developments. Though the Puppy, a willful, and friendly animal, has micturated quite freely on EOH enemies, this is no substitute for real action!

1-A

Top Ten Reasons Why the Puppy is Better than the GM

2006-02-09T22:19:00.000-05:00

10. Puppy doesn't correct blog posts pedantically.

9. Woof!

8. Woof!

7. Puppy gesticulates less--more cudly.

6. Woof!

5. Puppy has longer attention span for the blog.

4. Puppy doesn't watch the OC

3. Puppy attracts more chicks.

2. Better balance, lower to the ground (perhaps GM should consider walking on all fours)

1. Puppy can piss on Graduate Chair's desk while humping her leg with relative impunity.

[Edited by: Puppy, 1150 P.M.]

Grad Chair in Her Own Words

2006-02-09T10:51:00.000-05:00

This sums her up pretty well:

"...truly egregious. Truly. Mystifying, really...."

Ruf!

2006-02-08T16:57:00.000-05:00

This is all tiresome

2006-02-08T16:42:00.000-05:00

Like so many enterprises, the EOH has become what it has always hated most - bloated, self-satisfied, and banal. The spark is gone, and all that is left is tiresome posturing and heated rhetoric. I proclaim the EOH disbanded, and hereby abdicate my role to a cute puppy, who will be your figurehead while I conduct a reign of terror behind the scenes, aimed at cleansing the former order of its putrescenece so that it can re-emerge, phoenixlike, from its own demise.

Grand Master is Dead!

2006-02-03T11:21:00.000-05:00

I saw him meandering across the street the other day with Herodotus, as I sat with my trusty wench in the Balkan Restaurant. Though this person looked like the Grand Master, he did not act like him. He had on no shoes and held a cigarette in his right hand. As we all know, the Grand Master wears his shoes when he can find them, and if he cannot, he doesn't go out! Second, the Grand Master is not right handed! And he doesn't smoke. Was this the Grand Master, or some sort of replacement to confuse us? I thought that whole mysterious "trip to California" was a strange, sudden, and uncharacteristic thing to do. I warned Herodotus! I said out there they don't have much respect for the Ancients! All they care about are lattes, foreign cars, and boob jobs. But no one listens to me. Now, supposedly Herodotus and the GM are back. But they never come to the Balkan Restaurant for food or a cup of coffee. They certainly haven't posted, though it is their right! Puzzling. I see the GM in his window before his computer. But that is no Grand Master! I put it to you that it is an imposter, and perhaps only an effigy! Oh, the deceit! The cliotic chicanery! Abducting the most beloved Grand Master! They shan't get away with it. We're mounting a counter assault!

1-A

Grand Master Arrested by Clio Secret Police

2006-01-27T14:04:00.000-05:00

Was First Acolyte Involved as Part of Coup Attempt?

The Grand Master - for it is He - was flagged down yesterday by a man claiming to be a California State Trooper while driving at 85mph down U.S. 110 between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. He was subsequently beaten, interrogated for 12 hours, and given a $75 fine.

While the policemen insisted the GM's "speeding" led to the arrest, EOH intelligence has long suspected that the state police in California have been working secretly on behalf of Clio to suppress the Esoterics on the West coast. Moreover, there are fears that the First Acolyte might have been involved in setting up the man trap as part of his ongoing efforts to take over the Order and cofound a fast food chain with Devil-Faced Roper.

Meanwhile, I can assure you from our Pacific hideaway that the Grand Master did not squeal. In spite of the horrors of the rack and the human pyramid he refused to give to the trooper the password that would have allowed the First Acolyte to award himself administrator privileges. These remain firmly in the possession of Herodotus and the GM himself, who are currently debating whether to remove all posting rights from their erstwhile ally.

In other news from California, we watched a seagull pick the afterbirth of a new born seal cub yesterday a few miles down from William Randolph Heart's country retreat. Rarely since the marriage of Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton have the adorable and disgusting come into such intimate contact.

List of American Ignobility

2006-01-25T10:29:00.000-05:00

Why are not Clio presidents and Philomathian Scum listed here as well? A link sent to us by a svelt Australian who travels Europe in search of truth! As if it needed finding!

http://buffalobeast.com/91/50.htm

EOH operatives have seized Opra and George Lucas. They are currently awaiting deportation to Siberia. We have had to separate them after a nauseating 10-hour long argument about which one was more famous.

1-A Institutes First FIVE-YEAR PLAN

2006-01-24T15:08:00.000-05:00

Herodotus and the GM have departed for sunnier climates. They cannot handle the near arctic temperatures of Philadelphia. The trip also contains the possibility for a long-distance booty call for the GM! How Grand is the Master? you might ask. Well, some questions are better left unanswered. [Shutter of disgust]. Herodotus is likely visiting some English friend with whom he likes to discuss cricket or football or some such bourgeois diversion! Now, the revolution devours its childeren. I shall usher in two weeks of bureaucratic efficiency! Before anyone can post on the EOH blog they must complete three copies of our "blog-contributor transmittal form", which must then be submitted complete with passport photo and birth certificate to ME, the First Acolyte. Then, in 4 to 6 weeks you will receive a letter in the mail. The letter will give you a time to come to the Central Office for Blog Contributors Foreign to the EOH. Then you will wait in line before the sacred gates. You will be given a number. When your number is called, and not before, your case will be reviewed! You may or may not be given a stamp. At which time you may solemly post to our blog.

Before then, I say to you, who would challenge me: go to hell and fucking die!

1-A

This is why the British Empire no longer exists

2006-01-23T23:02:00.000-05:00

Sigh...

Thread of a discussion forum on a British soccer website

(thanks to Herodotus)

Opinion on Graduate Policy

2006-01-21T19:34:00.000-05:00

Disregard this if the previous post was meant to be a joke. I know this post is probably too serious for our Blog; but maybe some will like to see it. I leave it to my betters, Herodotus, the GM, and the Pary to purge me if I have become too serious.

1-A

This is something I wrote to the Evil One. As I told Him, I tell anyone here; it is simply a viewpoint. You'll pardon me if I devole too often into sarcasm; sometimes there is no other way to express the irrational. Finally, those of you who know me, know that I had my own problems going through the first three years. This isn't about my case, which was, well, exceptional. These comments concern the recent course the department has taken in its graduate policy and what I think is fair for those going through it now.

As a 5 1/2 year, I suppose this is none of my business, but I can speak as someone who has gone through the exam process and has seen many before and after me go through it as well.

I heard of the suggestion of the graduate chair at last semester's session that grad students should be able to take their exams in the middle of their second year. This to me seems quite unreasonable. That the grad chair would
express such a view, is frankly disturbing. In the second year, most, if not all grad students would still be taking a full load of classes and teaching, unless given special dispensation by the department, and as I understand the
new system, they would also be writing a second year research paper; and then, let's not forget that they will have to prepare for the dissertation workshop in the late Spring of the second year as well. It is simply ludicrous to expect grad students to take their exams in the second year, unless the department were to dramatically change the program itself in order to reduce the work load in the second year.

It seems to me that many grad students could be prepared by the end of their third year. Most can expect a lighter course load because of the ungraded 999 courses. What is more, most professors are generally amenable to allowing students to take independent studies or reading courses that do not require extensive written work in the fall and spring of one's third year. Still, it is inevitable that some students may not be prepared by April, and may want that summer to study. The obligations differ from student to student. For example, some students may be able to grade a course in the second semester of the third year, and some may still have to TA. In other words, the amount of work each of us have differs, and therefore, we cannot all be expected to conform to the
same deadline. What is more, it is often difficult with the schedules of busy penn professors to get them all to agree on the same date. It is simply naive to expect that all students and their committees will be able to arrange exam dates by or in April.

Every grad student encounters a different set of obligations. This is the essential thing that I do not believe the current grad chair understands. If some are ready in April, while others or not, it may not be because of some
deficiency on the part of the student. Some professors will require a student to prepare more for exams than others. Some have reading lists of 100 books or less, others may contain 300 books or more. Some have to do written exams, others do not. Some are able to specialize more than others as well.

This lack of understanding for individual cases is also present in the department's attitude towards incompletes. As long as I have been around, this policy has been inconsistent and wrong-headed. The attitude and policy of the department and the administration reflect the mistaken notion that incompletes stem solely from the laziness or inadequacy of the student who takes them. When the incomplete problem was more chronic than it is today, very few professors were willing to admit that there might be structural problems with the program itself: that for example a grad student cannot be expected to teach and to take three seminars that each assign 300 pages of reading a week and require the student to write 30-page papers, which presumably one was to complete at the
end of the semester, right at the same time they also had to grade 50 final exams. Indeed, I encountered some penn professors, who were not even aware of how many courses students were required to take at a time (hence, when they assigned two books to us to read in one week, they didn't realize that there were two other professors doing the same damn thing).

Now, the number of incompletes has decreased. But why? Is because students have been scared straight? Perhaps they are letting in better students? Doubtful. It seems more likely that individual professors have made changes. There are several of them, who no longer assign research papers in their courses. This is a big help, for it means that at least one to two courses a semester will most certainly not become incompletes. But these are not structural changes to department policy, but the localized, ad hoc measures of certain sympathetic professors. Many professors still expect 30-page papers and a hell of a lot of other work in their seminars. And they have the right to make these demands. But suppose a student has three courses with such professors. They may have to
take one incomplete. Does this make them less of a student as the one, who has to write only one paper because they have professors in their field that do not assign written work?

Students find themselves having to make decisions about which seminars to take because of the work load. This means that decisions are not made according to what is best for their intellectual development and the widening of their knowledge, but for how they can fix it so that they do not have to take an incomplete, and incur the punishments the department and administration will mete out.

In such a system, where these contingent factors are not acknowledged or dealt with, is it fair to adopt an explicitly punitive policy toward incompletes? The benefit of the Penn program has always been its flexibility. I'm not saying that grad students should be allowed to take 8 incompletes. But if someone wishes to take three courses all requiring heavy work loads, and they need to take one incomplete, then they shouldn't be threatened by Margo Todd, the administration, the Chair, their professors, and any other bureaucrat who happens to feel the need to assert their authority. The policy must be consistent, but it also has to take into account the situation of each individual. One cannot jump to the conclusion automatically that it is solely the fault of the student. That is not codling or laxity, it is flexibility. And this works both ways. With a more flexible policy on incompletes, this
would allow each professor to assign the amount of work he or she wishes, without the result that students will avoid a course with a paper like the plague. There needs to be deadlines, expectations, and standards, but because we are not processing automatons or exact clones, they have to have the elasticity to be tailored to the individual student, the necessities of their field of study (e.g., the difficulty and number of languages they must learn, or the distance of primary sources for their work), and their committee’s expectations. This seems to me to be the collegial and nurturing environment that everyone seems to pay lip service too, but we never seem to actualize.

And, finally, for people of my advanced status: all of this is not only applicable to students still in coursework, but also to those in the dissertation process. Not everyone finishes in 5 years, or even six. I'd like to know how many Penn professors in the history department can boast of that! And, frankly, the ones who can, like Margo Todd are the exception and not the rule. Let us all congradulate them for their assiduousness and get back to
reality. Again, flexibility and attunement to the individual cases would seem the most reasonable way we have to ensure diversity in the dissertation projects that people will undertake and can complete, otherwise I suppose we
can all write on Philadelphia and finish in 5 years or less.

Exam Discussion Forum

2006-01-21T17:10:00.000-05:00

Devil Faced Roper has a thought:

"At the 'Grill the Grad Chair Session' last semester there was some discussion on the third year exam process: timing, expectations, etc. As a follow-up to this session, Cate and John, along with Susan Epting, student representativeon the Graduate Committee, have been invited to attend the Graduate Committee meeting next week to present the feelings of the graduate student body on the exam process. We are particularly interested in your thoughts on timing (would it be possible to take exams, say in April of the third year?), reading list lengths, and managing committee expectations. Please send any thoughts or comments to any of us and we will pass them along to the Grad Committee. As these discussions continue, we will keep you posted on any developments or the possibility of significant changes."

As we are the true embodiment of Graduate Student Will, that discussion will take place here. Any thoughts?

Can We get Flagged?: A Thought Experiment

2006-01-20T10:26:00.000-05:00

Along with my own private enterprise to see how many "questionable" Google searches I can put in before I have the Dept of Homeland security or its affiliates come to my door (and we get so few visitors these days!), I am going to see how many posts I can put up before something happens. Is it paranoia? Of course it is! To think that the US goverment would even care if I wrote Taliban, turban, bomb, kill capitalist American swines!, Allah is my favorite deity, Osama is in my closet, how to make a suicide bomber belt, Bush is a big dopey monkey, if I had my druthers I'd see Donald Rumsfeld drowning in his own bullshit.
They surely wouldn't care if I checked the Communist Manifesto from the library, or Mao's little red book. Hooray for Mao! I'm going to go to North Korea on holiday. Be sure to wear a crew cut! Iran is nice in the late Winter near the nuclear power plant. Hell I'd sell uranium to the Iranians if the price was right! Did I forget to wipe my ass with the flag today? I hate baby Jesus and apple pie, and everything that is wholesome. Why can't a man marry a man, or a goat, or a horse? Hussein has a nice beard; would he marry a horse? He belongs to a union and wants universal health care. Rich people should pay taxes too. Chemical weapons? I produce chemical weapons everytime I eat deviled eggs. Perhaps the American army should invade my ass! A camel, in Pennsylvania? Arabs ride camels. Perhaps we could ban the use of camels. Camels could be used to hide bombs on commercial airliners. Box cutters and too much garlic. Have you ever seen an Arab drink water, Mandrake? Do you have the floorplan of the Pentagon? If we trained a wombat, it might be able to gain access through the ventillation system like in mission impossible. Tom Cruise is like a wombat, only less interesting conversation. Bombs, bombs, bombs, how to make bombs, love the bomb, fear the bomb, Herodotus is the bomb!

Devil-Face Roper is Back

2006-01-19T15:11:00.000-05:00

After much hectoring (well, two requests), I've reluctantly agreed to restore Devil-Faced Roper to the blog. I just hope Beelzebub isn't too offended by the comparison.

Take Note

2006-01-18T20:34:00.000-05:00

Before Mr. Heath is accused of abandoning his revolutionary credentials by leading Clio's "happy hour" this week, please note that nowhere in the email he has sent out does it specify that the libations at Fiume, Friday, from 6 o'clock have anything to do with Clio. This will be an EOH Happy Hour and nothing else.

So come along: Fiume (enter through Abyssinia and go upstairs), 45th and Locust, from 6pm Friday.

Clio President Pimps for Philomathians

2006-01-18T20:19:00.000-05:00

I bring this to the attention of the Party for immediate, violent, and prejudicial response.

COLLEGE HALL--in a press release today Clio club president "Roper", if that is his real name, disclosed a recent pact of military agression against the EOH. We are not impressed. I excerpt some of the hate-filled EOH-baiting for your amusement:

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania—January 18, 2006—Clio(r) announced today that it had sent official representatives to the fabled fourth floor of College Hall to broker a monumental security agreement. Co-Sovereign Roper emerged from
the historic meeting ebullient. "Today I am proud to be one of a select few history graduate students invited into the Philomathean society's celebrated meeting rooms." After posing for a series of photos (below) with noted Philomathean memorabilia, Roper entered into discussions with prominent
Philomathean leaders about continuing threats to the sovereignty, security, and residency of Clio(r) and the Philomathean Society in College Hall. "We share many hostile enemies who would see our honorable institutions pillaged and destroyed." Standing before a memorial to Philomathean members who fought in the First World War, Roper was visibly moved and fell to his knees. "In a time of unrelenting threats of violence, I am saddened that members who claim to be motivated by the best interests of the History Department have publicly vowed to harm this treasured society," said Roper. "On behalf of historians worldwide, I apologize for the disgusting and reprehensible actions of the EOH. We indeed live in troubling times when a
group of so-called historians would seek to harm the very organization that translated the Rosetta Stone! When I was elected, I promised to pursue a policy of Dritte-etagepolitik. We have an unparalleled opportunity to face down our enemies and proclaim our right to self-determination. This unprecedented meeting is the culmination of months of secret diplomatic talks. And today I have agreed with the Society to create a College Hall Defense Community. We share a common threat from the Administration to encroach on our cherished inheritance and seize these floors for their own purposes. It is also no secret that rogue terrorist organizations, such as the opprobrious EOH, continue to make threats of impending violence. While those threats have proven comically empty, and we have diffused several poorly executed and inept plots, we announce that CHDC is a message of hope
and a warning to all those who would threaten our ascendancy. I say to Amy Gutmann, 'Madam President, do not tear down this wall.'" Roper and a delegation of Clio(r) representatives were greeted by the cheers of thousands of local school children who released hundreds of doves during an impromptu rally and candlelight vigil. From an open window of the fourth floor, Roper lifted his top hat and proclaimed, "Be vigilant!"

Well, you know this Acolyte's opinion. They can go to hell and fucking die! What is more, EOH operatives led by a certain Southern lady have already infiltrated these negotiations, and did naughty things such as micturating in the sacred Philomathian ice cube trays, stealing office supplies, and hiding EOH attack wombats in the bathrooms (if they even go to the bathroom!). Chaos!

1-A

Morbidly Amusing

2006-01-17T20:45:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Eva Peron for the link. Though I'm only going to call her that because I don't know of any famous Bolivian women.

One Blog Over...

2006-01-16T22:54:00.000-05:00

They write:

"Dave and I split. Our sissy Western hides couldn’t take the next pool either so we settled in to a tepid job that was probably the onsen equivalent of the kiddie pool. Comfortable, relaxed, and finally warm we chit chatted about other onsens. Dave told me that there are some mixed sex onsen and in fact he went to one with Julie.
I later read that mixed sex onsen used to be the norm. . . . .
Apparently, when America forced Japan open in the nineteenth century, Western visitors with Victorian sensibilities found the mixed sex onsen the most vile Japanese practice. Can you imagine! Sure, public executions are somewhat clumsy, and ritual suicide is downright distasteful, but men and women bathing naked together, God preserve us!
After getting my fingers nice and wrinkly, Dave and I moved to another pool. At this point, I had tried all of the pools, except one small one filled with a bunch of drunk men that had probably known each other since childhood, and the cold pool.

***

I did the cold pool. When I slipped in, I was alone. Shortly, a young man joined me and steeled himself against the pain with samurai determination. Not having any samurai determination, I just tried to ignore it. He left and I went a little deeper. Then the strangest thing happened. The temperature change left me feeling a little woozy, drunk even, and I had to grasp the handrail on the way out of the pool to keep myself from slipping.
I showered again, dried off, and got changed. It took me about twenty minutes to heat up again. Dave soon followed and we met up with the girls. We took a bus back to the train station which meant that, of course, I had an embarrassing time when I royally screwed up their Rube Goldbergesque fare payment system.
My first time in the onsen left me freezing cold, yet strangely relaxed and clean smelling. . .There was nothing for it but to have a delicious dinner back in Urawa and drink a lot of beer. I’ll be back to the onsen. Oh yes, I’ll be back."

Reads like a trashy romance novel, but with no goodies! No jouissance! All we have are history in-jokes and sophomoric parlor tricks on our blog. Can you believe that Dave went to a mixed onsen with Julie? And what about the orientalism? What would E. Said say if he wasn't dead? How the US "forced open" Japan! Ooo! The imagery. The anthropomorphisms! It's just Toddasmic!

Why We Must Disarm Political Science

2006-01-16T20:31:00.000-05:00

Thwumplewink has his say

For the past fifteen years, the University of Pennsylvania’s Political Science Department has terrorized its own students and ridden roughshod over the wishes of other College faculty. One group have had the balls to say this has got to stop. The EOH Foundation, a university affairs thinktank specializing in inter-faculty conflict (and a Fox News contributor) has produced a pamphlet on “The Coming Conflict With Political Science”. Urging the History Department to eschew the “pussy-like appeasement” that characterized the administration of Professor Jonathan Steinberg, author Rupert Thwumplewink makes a powerful case for military action against 208 S. 37th Street. Brief excerpts are cited below:

“…Reason #386 - We will be welcomed as liberators

Defectors from Political Science have painted a dire, uncompromising, but completely accurate portrait of the department. They insist that all Political Scientists really want to be Historians, and would buy them cocktails at Pod and / or sacrifice a suckling pig in their honor if Historians were to invade. I see no reason to disbelieve their claims, as I rejected Eltonesque empiricism about the same time I joined the Republican Party…

…Reason #563 - Political Science may be developing the Linguistic Turn

In a part of campus from which threats to the History Department are always emerging (see Death Star, the), the danger of a department acquiring conceptual weapons of mass distraction is troubling. For years, an effective inspections regime allowed us to make sure that Political Scientists were confined to using only the most rudimentary analytic devices, including crude psephological tools, rational choice theory, and the car bomb. Now, however, in the wake of “Chamberlain” Steinberg’s womanly-like tenure as History Department Chair, intelligence has indicated that a number of Political Scientists may be able to speak knowledgably about Foucault within 45 minutes. The situation could get even worse. Detainees griddled lightly on my George Foreman Grill reliably informed me (as the fat tray began to bubble) that within six months Political Science could have the paradigm shift. Inside a year, they will be able to menace their rivals with the linguistic turn…

…Reason #862 - Political Science has links to the Clio Club

Somebody in Clio knew somebody at the Grad Center who knew somebody who knew somebody in Political Science. This is all the evidence we need. Political Science and Clio are virtually indistinguishable, and must be wiped off the face of the earth at a time of our choosing…”

Thwumplewink’s pamphlet clocks in at a hefty 2,732 pages, and is expected to receive lots of undeserved media attention over the next few weeks. It will then frame the debate for the 2006 mid-term elections.

Ain't no blasphemy if it true. Daa-yem!

2006-01-16T19:46:00.000-05:00

ward, you know, miss scarlet be all up in my shit about the bible verses on the bloggy-blogg. so you know if i want dem biscuits, i gotta come correct. so here is some shit i can remeber from my dayz as a molested alter boy, in catholic school.

And god said to abraham, kill your fucking kid or you don't love me anymore, bitch. and then abraham was going to do it; and god was like: "psyc! shit i be just foolin'. daaaaaamn, i didn't know you gonna take dat shit seriosly, Abe, daayem!"

then god was like, who else can i fuck wit? and he thought about his homeboy job. so he like capped all his family and his livestock. then he gave him some kind a rash and shit. job was like, naw dogg, i still ain't going put down tha G-dogg. god like took a big giant shit on his head. and job was like, aw-ight! like diss be funny and shit, but where tha mutha fuckin' punch line. den god just up and wacked his ass too. 'cause dat was tha old testament, and shit, and god waddent playin, fo sho. all vengeful up on yo ass!

so deen jesus was like walkin' down the street with some of hiz boyz, you know how he do, and mathew, the mutha fuckin' tax collector was up in a tree checkin' if he could get up on dat shit--goin jump down like, and bizza! but then he was like fuck diss tax collectin' shit, ain't even get christmas off or fuckin' easter! so he decided to join jesus ass; you know for dem fringe benefitz, you know.

shit. i can't remeber no more. there's like one where some dude gets thrown in a pit by hiz brothers fo bein' like all goody, goody and shit; then the fuckin' lion comes and drags his ass out and he becomes king.

fucking methusula begat some shit too.

go to fuckin' church on sunday!

word is bond!

One to the Mutha Fuckin' A

Graduate Chair Institutes the Draft

2006-01-15T18:00:00.000-05:00

Citing a crisis in the number of graduate students attending department job talks and faculty papers, Graduate Chair Margo Todd will begin moves tomorrow to push through the "History Department Selective Service Act of 2006". The act will mandate that every student chosen in the draft lottery must prepare for and all attend seminars and presentations held in College Hall, Van Pelt, and the McNeill Center For Early-American Studies if ordered by Todd herself.

Speaking from her eyrie on the third floor of College Hall, Todd decried the "culture of complacency" that has seen graduate participation in seminars decline by 25% over the past two years. Attempts to use ad hoc methods to boost participation at talks like the press gang at local bars had proved inadequate, she added, as the PhD candidates recruited in this manner were often hopelessly inebriated and woefully ill-prepared. Another move to employ immigrant Bulgarian workers as "dummies" was similarly unsuccessful, leading to an embarrassing "meet the grad students" chat conducted almost entirely in a Slavic tongue alien to the job candidate.

In response to the news graduate students in the department rioted, burning down much of Philadelphia's Little Sofia before fleeing to Canada. Rupert Thwumplewink, meanwhile, has retired to his pond to begin work on a protest song. The work, which begins "I'm so pissed / Don't want to listen to no medievalist", has already been attacked as "giving aid and comfort" to talk-dodging graduates students by Todd.

Go to Hell/Fucking Die

2006-01-14T11:17:00.000-05:00

I've heard the suggestive dispersions cast against my character. I know there are some who are upset with me for not attending the happy hour festivities. Well, as Rupert Thumpelwink yelled "once more into the breech!" Yours truly was fighting a no less important battle to secure College Hall for the EOH. I, the prudent, sometimes reclusive sage rode atop a warrior camel (Herb is his name) with 50 Mujahidin warriors into the ancient gothic shrine of our people. Once inside we stained the icky beige walls red with the blood of our oppressors! After hanging the few pasty-faced bureaucrats, who remained at 5 pm on a Friday from the cornices and spires, we entered the sacred grad lounge into the heart of the cliotic babylon! But, alas, none of the pusillanimous perverts were there! So we soiled the furniture in a most impolite way. (And heads up to EOH members: yeah, I wouldn't use any of the condiments in the refrigerator either if I were you). We then proceeded to the forth flour to find the Philomathian cult. We wiped our hairy asses with every tome in their red-rimmed library. We found a few of them in there sipping tea with some free masons. They felt the remorseless fury of our scimitars!

"Denying responsibility is not holding people responsible."

Wittiness from Witty.

Top Secret: Assault on College Hall 3 - The Trojan Lager

2006-01-13T15:55:00.000-05:00

Fellow Fanatics! Happy Hour is almost upon us. We convene at 5pm in Doobies for libations. There, we welcome our erstwhile enemies from Clio who believe they have come to conquer our own weekly conclave. As a peace offering, we shall leave them a pitcher of lager on the table. Just as they prepare to pour the nectar of victory we shall leap forth from the jug and most verily smite them. (For obvious reasons, this assault will be led by Rupert Thwumplewink)

Meanwhile, with the diversion created by the Trojan Lager, the First Acolyte and Grand Master shall move on College Hall and soil the Graduate Lounge furniture in whatever manner they see fit.

Victory will be ours! Clio's minions shall obey their new masters...

2006-01-10T16:37:00.000-05:00

"This is not the end. Nor is it the beginning of the end. Nor is it the beginning of the beginning. Or the end's beginning. Rather, it is the end of the beginning. I think. Now pass me the gin and cigars, you bald fuckwit."

- Winston Churchill, as told to the First Acolyte in 1940, after he'd downed a Mescherschmitt 109 with a well-aimed brick.

Today's announcement that Clio Happy Hour will be held this Friday at 5pm at Doobies represents our first victory in overthrowing the forces of darkness that have taken over College Hall. The legions of cliotic Goebbels who spewforth their putrid propaganda will claim the EOH have voluntarily ceded their space to make way for the foul muse. Ignore their dastardly lies! This does not mean our cooptation, but unconditional surrender on the part of Clio! They meet at our headquarters, at our time and day, and under the direction of one of our leading acolytes! For us this is a most splendid Anschluss.

We hereby declare Friday 5 o'clock at Doobies to be EOH Happy Hour, and all those who attend (apart from myself and the First Acolyte) shall pay homage to His Grand Masterliness*.

* The precise details of this ceremony are to be determined later this week by our Revolutionary Committee on Rituals and Sacrifices. It may or may not involve the cannibalization of all past and present Clio officers in Hemos Special Sauce #1.

True

2006-01-09T22:11:00.000-05:00

George Galloway, the anti-War MP who faced down a Senate committee accusing him of receiving money from Saddam Hussein's regime while calling Christopher Hitchens "a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay", is currently a contestant on the British reality show Celebrity Big Brother. Joining him in the house are a Paris Hilton lookalike, Dennis Rodman, and a Welsh rapper known as "Maggot".

Galloway has just run out of toilet paper. He is quite upset.

A Bad Pun Will Follow This Headline

2006-01-09T21:57:00.000-05:00

Childers gives his stamp of approval to US Postal Service release...

All Not So Quiet on Western Front

2006-01-09T20:47:00.000-05:00

LOGAN HALL—Tom Childers’ beloved spring time course, The World at War failed to begin today because of the unexplained sounding of a fire alarm in Logan Hall. Over three hundred thousand undergraduates streamed from the lecture hall in panic upturning recycling bins, tearing up innocent shrubberies, and burning copies of Paul Keegan’s masterpiece, The Second World War. Moses O’Casey-Rothschild IV, a second-year econ major said, “Dude, like, we thought this meant the class would totally not happen. But there was no fire. And nobody could like see Professor Childers anywhere. So then we saw some Alpha Lambdas and like they invited us…”

Indeed, baffled TAs loyal to the EOH could not locate Professor Childers immediately following the alarm. This led to rumors of foul play. The first version speculated that Childers had actually pulled the fire alarm himself and was in hiding in his office with a bucket of fried chicken and/or Tennessee barbecue and a coke. The second, much more disturbing scenario was that Childers, late to class, had encountered a group of randy senior associates, who then forced him to take part in an octogenarian gangbang. The latter thesis has some credibility for Childers had reportedly received sexually explicit email messages after last semesters heart-stopping “Be Vigilant” Third Reich finale.

However, all of the people concocting these unfounded hypotheses can go to hell and fucking die. The EOH has once again uncovered the whole truth. No one could locate Professor Childers because there is no Professor Childers. At least not the Childers we know and love. Robot Childers is more machine than man, twisted and evil. Sinister Clio operatives, working in cahoots with former President Judith Rodin, whose painted portrait now hangs in our own College Hall, looking like an ugly Jessica Lang, planned that fire alarm, so that they could hatch their evil scheme to put forward this fraud as the REAL Childers. Francis Fukuyama said this would happen.

And I might add that it was none other than our own Grand Master, who, shortly before this whole incident unfolded, sat comfortably in the Graduate Lounge eating a Hemos Sub with Hemos sauce #1! Hemos sauce #2 is apparently upsetting to the Grand Master and therefore we collectively dub it a cliotic, counter-revolutionary condiment.

Copies of Tom Childers’ book Wings of Morning can be purchased at the following link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743223098/qid=1136857227/sr=12-10/102-7535470-8673719?s=
books&v=glance&n=283155

AHA: Behind the Scenes Report

2006-01-07T00:02:00.000-05:00

While working at the 120th annual meeting of the American Historical Association in the Local Arrangements Committee Office, I was able to see many aspects of the meeting not apparent to the mere visitor. As a public service, I present details of these events, which may or may not actually be true.

Point! A certain distinguished professor known to friends as "Moose Bailey" may have had a little problem with a dead hooker in his hotel room. Fortunately, the unflappable staff coordinator of the Local Arrangements Committee was able to see that matters were taken care of without any difficulties.

Point! The water and glasses to be found in each session room at the AHA does not appear by magic. In fact, tiny elves, who have served the American Historical Association as servants ever since Henry Adams signed a treaty with their king when he was President of the AHA in 1894, make sure they get to their proper place in time for each session. It is considered polite to leave them shoes as a tip.

Point! The lowest attendance ever recorded for an AHA session was today's morning session entitled "Out of the Garden, Into the Workplace: World War II and the Integration of Gnomes into American Industry." Besides the speakers - Penn's own Rupert Thwumplewink; Tiberius Tunnywangle of Arizona State; Eleazar Morrindingus of the University of Michigan; and Robert Jenson of the Naval War College - the only attendee was an elderly woman who had apparently gotten lost on her way to the book exhibit.

Point! The so-called "Job interview" area in the Grand Ballroom on the fifth floor of the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown does not actually contain any job interviews. In fact, it is a perilous maze filled with traps and hazards to dissuade (and possibly kill) those whose hearts are not truly in the job hunt. Those truly determined who reach the center of this maze are greeted by a tiny old man who kicks them in the groin and laughs at them for thinking that they might possibly make a career in the historical profession.

From the Wire

2006-01-06T12:30:00.000-05:00

This just in:

"Rumors that Steven Spielberg only attended the American Historical Association's Annual Meeting last night to negotiate a 7 figure sum for the movie rights to University of Pennsylvania Professor Michael Katz's 1973 classic The Social Organization of Early Industrial Capitalism have been flatly denied by both parties. The showbiz world is abuzz with word that Brad Pitt has been lined up to play the part of 4.25% 20-29 year old joureymen mechanics (Katz, Doucet, & Stern, 275-6)."

Gedanken über den amerikanishen Historikertag II

2006-01-06T11:45:00.000-05:00

As First Acolyte of the EOH I have been elected to post on the present AHA conference in Philadelphia, PA. I cannot hope from my little bed in my humble sky lodge on Catherine street to surpass the wittiness on Herodotus, nor could I ever seek to amass the eccentric, greasy charm of der Große Meister; however, allow me these few out-of-joint observations:

1. Lynn Hunt has always struck me as a person enamored with her own overratedness. To paraphrase the great A.J.P. Taylor, who, I might add, has wisely shunned AHA conferences since his death: Hunt’s uncollegial behavior would harm her reputation as a serious historian if she had a reputation as a serious historian.

2. Richard Wolin apparently will deliver yet another tired panel on ‘intellectual irresponsibility’ beating the same old dead horse: Heidegger was a Nazi and so was everyone who influenced him or was influenced by him from the German Romantics to poststructuralist French types, who don’t agree that capitalism, Western reason, and Western style democracy were all great boons to world civilization. Let us hope that he has shown his scales and dried-up ressentiment for the last time.

3. On the Roger cult, I shall reserve judgment, as you all know, I was one of its adherents. Although Roger is a great historian, I think a crisis is reached when people begin to name panels after you. Roger would have no part in this if he could. Should we not aim our invective at the shameful acolytes, rather than the man himself? He should give them the counsel of Zarathustra: “Now I go alone, my disciples, You too, go now, alone./ Thus I want it.”

4. I like Anthony Grafton’s beard. He has trimmed it since the “Forgers and Critics” days.

5. Let us take bets at who we will see drunk at the hotel bar: I vote for some Germanist like David Blackbourn, Eley, Margaret Anderson, or, dare I say, the President himself, James Sheehan (he is Irish).

6. Ah, and the great hog pageant, the job interviews! Oh, these poor souls, their torment and humiliation hid by flowing velvet (pobably polyester) curtains that emit only a low murmur, punctuated at times by muffled groans and pitiful sobs. Will this too be our fate? Let us hope that when our time comes the local college will shell out the money for private suites, so we can be spared public humiliation.

The EOH must collectively decry this ignoble event. Verily, a strong wind is the EOH for all who are low; and this counsel I give to all its enemies and all who spit and spew: Beware of spitting against the wind!

Thus Spake The First Acolyte

Thoughts on the AHA

2006-01-05T21:18:00.000-05:00

1. A fire alarm interrupted the session I attended, and when the all clear was given one of the participants had mysteriously vanished. Could this have been spontaneous human combustion? Or the lowest form of historical cowardice?

2. The "Job Register" - or whatever godawful name it's been given - looks vaguely reminiscent of the interior of an English betting shop. I put a tenner on Joe Stiles at 5-2 for the tenure track position at Ohio State.

3. Somebody at the session I attended clearly hadn't prepared a bloody thing, adlibbed nonsensically for five minutes, then finally mustered-up the dignity to sit down. This was the same woman who subsequently disappeared after the fire alarm. I have not yet established whether the piss-poor presentation, alarm, and disappearence are related, but I do believe it is a subject worthy of historical inquiry.

4. Lynn Hunt apparently shouted at a minor acolyte. For some reason.

5. Clio scum were well represented among the staff at the event. We must not rule out the possibility that the AHA is a Clio front organization.

6. There seems to be some awkwardness over whether to applaud each individual speaker or to reserve the handclap until the conclusion of the forum. This awkwardness was sometimes palpable. I would not have applauded the dissapearing-fire-lady. She was rubbish.

7. Tomorrow I will name and shame the historians I observe with bad faces and / or unusually shaped mouths.

Ominous

2006-01-05T21:02:00.000-05:00

This is serious:

"FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 2:30–4:30 P.M.

AHA Session 53. Roger Chartier and the Practice of Cultural History— Roundtable"

Sir Roger and the Knights of the Round Table have gathered in Philadelphia and before long will be spreading the Cult of Chartier like venereal disease through an eighteenth-century port. Even his mad monk, who survived the Paris riots only because his head was too dainty for the guillotine, is growing restless. A communication has been received:

"i see your petty little band has declared war on the Cult of Chartier. Not a wise move. Note that Chartier has just been elected to the College de France, making him perhaps the most important historian of Europe in France. Of course, some may see my presence in Paris at this moment as sheer coincidence. I leave everyone to draw their own conclusions. But if the CoC were moved to respond to your feeble challenge, the destruction would be so complete and the justice of my cause so evident that you would thank me for it."

Our response must be immediate and vindictive. Rendez-vous tomorrow at Session 53 and hum audibly throughout the pretender's presentation. That'll put the bugger off.

A Warning

2006-01-03T12:49:00.000-05:00

I hereby give public notice that Herodotus will be reentering U.S. airspace early tomorrow afternoon and expects the Grand Master to prepare for his return by ridding the apartment of all rodent and insect life, along with any unpaid bills. If my words are not heeded, all chocolate gifts will be withheld from his Grand Masterliness and consumed by the Father of History.

The EOH Declares War on Christmas!

2005-12-27T17:58:00.000-05:00

Die fucker, die

First Acolyte Orders Troops to Burn Nativity Scenes, Santa

On December 25, a day that will live in infamy, the Esoteric Order of Herodotus was attacked by the perfidious (and suspiciously Oriental-looking) spirit of Christmas. We will not tolerate this assault on our spiritual integrity, and we will attack Christmas and all those who celebrate it with hammers.

The War on Christmas is now part of a global struggle against the Clio Club. This struggle now encompasses the following minor conflicts:

The War on Francophone Belgians
The War on Robert Darnton
The War on the Philomathean Society
The War on the Cult of Chartier
The War on poorly sourced baked goods
The War on Peace

Whither the EOH?

2005-12-21T23:17:00.000-05:00

While Herodotus himself continues to slave away at posts. I must admit that I have been rather inactive of late, and the First Acolyte's post have deteriorated to the point where they seem to revolve around inexplicable yule logs speaking with French accents. Clearly, new energy, and new motivation is in order. In that spirit, I present you with our new mascot, the simple wombat:

Like the order itself, the Wombat may appear slow-moving and easygoing, but in pressure situation it can display extraordinary speed and strength. It is also noted that the wombat lives for five hundred years, before spontaneously bursting into flames. From the ashes of the old wombat, a new one is born. So, like the brave little wombat, the Esoteric Order will rise from the ashes of that bizarre French yule log to a bright new day of lazing around eating grass!

We're Number One!

2005-12-21T18:38:00.000-05:00

Following our first link, the stock of the EOH continues to rise almost as quickly as the time we briefly entered the nuclear reprocessing industry. Consider the following Google searches:

"esoteric + gulag" - first
"esoteric + childers" - ninth
"grand master + acolyte" - fifth
"cult of chartier" - first (only...)
"wawa + herodotus" - first
"thumplewink" - first (only...)

A search for "clio + club" meanwhile leads us to Clio Sport, a site run by enthusiasts of the little French car that I treachorously happen to drive while plotting the downfall of our nemeses from the Old World.

Towards a History of the Historically Inarticulate Part 2: The Absent or Silent Undergraduate

2005-12-20T08:32:00.000-05:00

Writing a history of the sullen sophomore is never easy. The written record they leave behind in the form of midterms and finals is often fragmentary and incoherent. Close scrutiny of such ephemera by the careful reader appears to uncover the contradictory mind of a simpleton, yet we know from their rising scores in standardized tests this could hardly be the case. Where else can we look for evidence? Their three to five page papers are often mysteriously missing from our archives. We may hold oral accounts of the excuses they provide for such omissions, but this would lead us only to the conclusion that these people are unskilled tricksters or at best journeymen dissemblers. In class they sit at the back and say nothing; probably as often, they are historically - and literally - invisible.

It is unlikely we will ever know the history of silent undergraduates at 9am on a Friday morning. We will certainly never get them to talk about the reading. However much we tinker and tease at our source material that hour is forever lost in the mists of time. Yet if we are to follow E. H. Carr’s dictum and take causality as the critical problem of our discipline then we can ask: how did they get in that state? Look at their bleary eyes. Are they not suggestive of a night on the margaritas at Mad 4 Mex? Or the skinny spotty one at the back blowing his nose. Cokehead, perhaps? We can discover more by menacing recidivist surly students into attending office hours. Threaten them with a fail and before long they’ll be telling you about their strained relationship with their father and how they caught their boyfriend last month with that skank from Deltas. This is the starting point for producing a historical knowledge of these otherwise shy, unforthcoming people.

This may help you write a history of inarticulate undergraduates. It will also make you want to leave the academy immediately and start a new life working as far away as possible from young adults.

We've been linked!

2005-12-19T12:11:00.000-05:00

Astonishingly enough, this webpage has been linked to by somebody we don't (as far as we can tell) know!

Congratulations to the first acolyte for winning the coveted "first to get post linked to by somebody we don't know" award.

March of the Penguins Reviewed

2005-12-15T05:51:00.000-05:00

I'm going to give it three stars out of four. It was far superior to the average Clio Happy Hour but certainly no EOH pissfest or Kabobeesh Kabob.

It was a brave decision for the seal to go against type. Almost always cast as the tragic-but-adorable victim of a brutal clubbing or the playfully hilarious mammal with the ball on the end of its nose this time it took on the role of evil predator and really did rather well. The gasp when the seal snared a mother penguin was audible through the theater. I can see this as a real breakthrough performance for the seal, perhaps paving the way for more villainous leads in the future.

The penguins themselves were great although none really stood out. I can't help thinking, though, that they're waddling proof of the inherent stupidity in God's design. The poor bastards have to walk 70 miles about four times a year to their breeding grounds, despite being the least well-adapted (sorry, intelligently created) critters for walking this side of the "Lost Island of Paraplegics" (c. Miramax Studios, 2007).

The Christian Right have apparently gone in their droves to this movie because the birds are monogamous. For a year. While I find this quite convenient as a definition of monogamy, I really think they'd be better off using the film as a powerful critique of evolution. If Darwin had it all figured out than surely over the millennia some penguin or other would have mutated a pair of serviceable legs or wings? If the Grand Master can explain this to me, as he did with other evolutionary conundrums when we paid a State visit to the Smithsonian, I will abandon my literalist reading of Genesis and worship him instead... To the comments Grand Master...

The Yule Log Speaks

2005-12-13T16:12:00.000-05:00

Bien, bien! Oui, I will not come to your Oliday festivicities! I do not like your silly Istorie deparment at all! It Ass become rank with ze stench off bureaucratie and petty squibbling, mon fraire! Zo no Yülé Log for you swine!! Oh, you are so big wiss your Gérald Feldman and your Fukuyama types! I wipé my nose wiss you! More-oover, I fart on all of your festering Toddisme! Ooo! ze petit hamster ooo sez zat ziss Istory is only for zee types which study ze silly English puritanicalè Kaniggits!

You may Avv your stinking lesser pastries, but not ziss log, in all of its stupendicitie! Look at my ca-reeemé centre, you squeeling Clio piggies! I will not make present my deliciousicity for such embourgeoismentated turds like you! No! I waill not Avv anysing to doo wiss your flatuent "Olliday Pearty." I stay wiss ze EOH to avv ze haute guerre wiss ziss Clioticity! I roll my buttocks on your big fancy pearty! And will say no more!

--Mme. Log, directeur EHESS

The Mother of All Conspiracy Theories

2005-12-07T07:45:00.000-05:00

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling has something to say:

At last, after years of painstaking academic effort, it is my honor and patriotic duty to reveal to the public the true calling and diabolical intent of the EOH.

An etymological tracing of the meaning of ‘EOH’ in English reveals its origins and connection to other Indo-European languages: the Sanskrit ‘asvas,’ the Hittite ‘asuwa,’ the Greek ‘hippos,’ the Latin ‘equus,’ the Old Irish ‘ech,’ and the English ‘eoh’ -- all mean ‘horse.’ What could be inferred from such a specific connection?

Though a momentous hint is rendered by the EOH’s postings frequently enmeshing in bull, more decisive proof is furnished by the following trustworthy study entitled “An investigation into the psychosexual dynamics underlying an individual’s preferences with respect to political philosophy,” claiming that an individual’s self-reported political preference(s) can be predicted with a relatively high degree of accuracy based on the answers given to a subset of the Kinsey Comprehensive Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors. The study offers the following essay question to the subjects participating in its investigation:

Background: You are twelve years old. One year ago, both your parents
died in a fiery car wreck on a lonely stretch of highway near Tucson. Shortly
thereafter you moved to your Uncle Dave’s farm, where you live with Dave
and his wife, Marcia. Dave was your mother’s brother, and he and your aunt
treat you like their own child. The two are kind and loving, but they do not
spoil you; they have high expectations with respect to your academic performance,
and you are required to perform basic chores on the farm, as well.

Among these tasks—which total approximately an hour a day in labor—it is
your responsibility to groom the three horses and keep their stable clean.
Though you were raised in a city, you love the work, and you develop a particular
fondness for the stallion, Zane.

Please write an essay of approximately 1000 words describing your thoughts
and feelings about Zane. You should describe the sensation of running a
brush through Zane’s matted mane, and the many hours you spend removing
the dirt from Zane’s hooves. Recall Zane’s musky scent after a hard day
of riding, and his stance when you hose him down afterwards. Be sure to
discuss the pride you feel when you ride Zane along the horse trail beside
the creek that passes through the nearby bedroom community: you, in your
cowboy hat and boots, sitting atop the meticulously groomed and well behaved
Zane. And describe the jealously you feel each Saturday morning
when mares are brought to the farm to be impregnated by Zane. Explain
why you spend these mornings alone in your bedroom, crying.[1]

The sickening horse connection is clear to see. The same group sponsoring the study proposes the following analysis, connecting these deviations to political activity, which bare the monstrous backstabbing and heinous anti-American leanings of the EOH:

Setting aside the question of whether it even makes sense to speak of a "war
on terrorism," one thing is for certain: this action represents a once in a generation
opportunity for employees of participating agencies to build individual
and institutional relationships that will persist for years to come. FBI
agents, special forces, intel analysts and their covert counterparts, and even
local law enforcement personnel are engaged in a massive meet-and-greet
operation, one with real consequences for our nation.

This won't be the first time such a thing has happened. Though dwarfed in
scale by the present undertaking, the anti-Castro effort of the early '60s is an
instructive case study. That operation brought together active CIA, retired
FBI, and a small army of enraged Cuban exiles, and the result was a disaster
for our democratic institutions. MK-ULTRA, Watergate, Iran-Contra—any survey
of the most appalling incidents of the past thirty years shows the same
names appearing again and again. Theodore Shackley, Chi Chi Quintero,
Felix Rodriguez—all were veterans of the war on Cuba.

And now history is repeating itself. Our leaders have signaled a willingness
to make cause with anyone, no matter how sordid, so long as they give lip
service to the struggle. Our generals speak of the need to adopt new tactics,
including assassination squads operating covertly in other nations. All levels
of law enforcement are pushing for an expansion of police powers, and onetime
civil libertarians now make the case for using torture as an interrogation
tool. While the majority of the persons involved will resist the temptation to
abuse these new techniques, a few will succumb, and these are the individuals
who will undoubtedly be at the center of every immoral project undertaken
by our government over the next fifty years.

So we might as well start preparing for it. "We, the people" were at a disadvantage
the last time around; it took years to build an accurate roster of the
players, and many of the most egregious incidents occurred during this period
of ignorance. This time, though, we can be ready; towards this end, EoH
proposes the creation of a database dedicated to tracking the foot soldiers in
the war on terrorism. We need to start cataloging their names and faces,
indexing news stories and TV appearances, and filling in the details: where
they were posted, who they worked with, that sort of thing. The picture that
emerges—a map, if you will, of social networks and institutional alliances—
will be invaluable when trying to understand future events, because these
people are going to be with us for a long, long time.[2]

The truth, though shocking, can no longer be denied. The EOH, a pathological horse-loving congregation of psychosexual delinquents, is demonstrably plotting to undermine the sacred endeavors of the intelligence services in their war on terrorism, promote copulation with animals (cf. the First Acolyte’s revolting confession here), and end the world. For the sake of all law-abiding, healthily copulating citizens of this nation, it is time to bring the hydrogen bomb back to service and wipe this scum from the face of the planet.

[1] http://www.endofhistory.com/archive/issue_3/pathology.pdf
[2] http://www.endofhistory.com/archive/issue_3/last_words.pdf#search=

Kaplan Lecture Nominees Eliminated - New Vote Here

2005-12-06T17:38:00.000-05:00

Estimated Time Required for this Ballot: 5 minutes (or less)

With David Irving in a spot of bother in Vienna, Bush back on the bottle, and George Dangerfield dead for most of the past two decades it's clear that the EOH need to rethink our slate of nominees for this year's Kaplan Lecture. I think everybody will agree with me when I say that the system we have devised below is far superior to Clio's new online balloting process.

Rules:

The nominee will be selected after a series of heats, qualifiers, backroom deals, and sex-for-votes scandals. To ensure all historical perspectives are represented on the final ballot, one registered Democrat and one registered Republican scholar will be allowed to defenestrate another historian of their choice after each round and claim a place in the contest. They may not defenestrate each other. Cliometricians, Belgians, and Simon Schama are automatically disqualified. The nominees will be sorted into a series of arbitrary categories utterly devoid of all taxonomic reason in order to ensure a more confusing slate. Electronic voting machines may or may not be rigged to ensure that however you vote, Stephen Thernstrom wins.

To select a nominee, take your middle name and the first street that you lived on. There! I nominate David Freshwater! Now, throw him into the Goblet of Fire. Does he burn? If not, he will go through to the next three challenges. These involve trial by ordeal etc. etc...

After all your nominees have drowned or been eaten by dragons, the final ballot will feature the membership roll of the American Historical Association (see exceptions above). Circle your favorite historian with a sharp pencil and let the dark sorcerers of the EOH figure out the rest.

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated

2005-12-04T06:48:00.000-05:00

Ignore the First Acolyte's lies! The coup of which he speaks was all of his own making. The Grand Master and I are not dead but exiled, I to my mother country, he to the futon. There we will raise great armies and return to College Hall to slay his treachorous arse. It will come to pass.

I was killed off once before in a similar manner. After September 11 my parents got a series of worried phone calls from people asking whether I'd escaped the twin towers. I'd always blamed a local newsagent I'd been to school with who had misunderstood my "I'm off to graduate school in Philadelphia" with "I'm off to work on the top floor of the World Trade Center" - an easy mistake for someone lacking my higher intellectual and moral powers. Now, though, I wonder whether I have been accusing the wrong person. Could 1-A, anticipating the rebirth of the EOH, have preemptively bumped me off so that four years later he would be well-placed to claim total, miserable power?

The Grand Master and Herodotus Are Dead

2005-12-03T13:53:00.000-05:00

Many of our legion of regular readers have noticed a lack of postings by our illustrious founders, the Grand Master and Herodotus as well as a lack of an announced EOH Happy Hour. Sadly, this is due to their untimely demise at the hands of Frimairian reactionaries. It was only by the grace of Thor that I, First-Acolyte survived. At first, I didn't believe it myself, so I attempted to post silly things, sure to elicit a response. My calls in the night have gone unanswered. And...there was a sign. Last night, I killed a most ornery helot in my kitchen. It is said in the annals of the EOH mythology that an Acolyte would be born, and he would do battle with the furry one among the apples and garlic, that after much strife and the screaming of wenches baking cookies, the helot would expire at the hands of the chosen one. Verily, I squeezed the life from the frothing beast, but not before it succeeded in destroying the Grand Master and Herodotus. Let them not have died in vain! Clio still creeps and sulks like a diseased and mangy hound near death; and the Philomatheans continue their tea parties and reactionary plotting against us! We will mourn the Grand Master and Herodotus but not before we vanquish these nefarious foes and free the graduatarians from the indentured servitude and tutelidge of dead ideas and rotting values.

1-A

Save Tookie!

2005-12-02T23:11:00.000-05:00

Heidegger, a Nazi, and Not a Memeber of the EOH

2005-12-02T21:08:00.000-05:00

Als I was komming from skiing in die Berge, there komms a kleiner Mann, und he say to me, "Herr Professor, whyso do you not belong to die Esoteric Order of Herodot." Ja, I say, "It ist the kondition of jeder Dasein dass what ist the to which it holds on resolutely that makes its Being a question for it. And, although I am German, I don't like fart jokes." Then, he turn from me and goes down der Berge.

M.H.
Todtnauberg, 1974

We receive mail

2005-11-30T15:07:00.000-05:00

Correspondent Alphonso Bigot writes:

Right-leaning mouth-breather Bernard Goldberg made a list of the "100 People Who
Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken is #37)." Guess who made number 87 as a
surrogate for rampant political correctness in academia? Sheldon Hackney.

Please note that he beat Aaron McGruder (88), Barbra Streisand (91), Michael
Jackson (90), and the parents of Paris Hilton (100). (He seems to think she's
some kind of who-were.)

I believe that the Esoteric Order should celebrate this high honor, perhaps by
inviting Dr. Hackney an honored guest at an EOH happy hour.

see

http://www.philosophistry.com/specials/100-people.html

http://aggressive-voice.com/zz669.html

Yours Faithfully,
Alphonso Bigot

UPDATE: I notice that Professor Hackney also beats Matthew Lesko, crazy infomercial guy whose son attended high school with the Grand Master.

EOH Stages First Protest

2005-11-30T11:34:00.000-05:00

Graduatarians of the world unite!

The Grand Master appeared alongside loyal EOH supporters outside of the Penn Book Store to protest the publication of a new book entitled Why Academic Freedom and the American Way of Life must be Defended against Liberal Scum Trying to Form Silly things Like Esoteric Orders and Graduate Unions, when What they Should do is be Grateful that they Live in the most Free and Wonderful Country on Earth that Will Destroy Evil and Realize the Good Lord's Plan for an Individualistic Society Where Everyone Pulls their Own Weight and Doesn't Whine About Inequality and Try to Get Something for Nothing with Things Like Dirty Communist Social Programs and Unions: An Objective Scientific Reexamination. The book is co-authored by former president Judith Rodin, Rupert Thumplewink, and other nasty people. David Horrowitz calls the work "A Triumph". The New York Times says: "We think that it is important that all viewpoints, no matter how despicable be heard, and as long as nothing really changes right now who cares anyway?" The book is sponsered by the Congress for Academic Freedom (so long as by Freedom, we mean the Freedom not to criticize anything the Congress does or says). EOH sources have not yet confirmed the rumors that the Philomathean Society has pre-ordered 10 copies of the book for their hallowed red-rimmed library.

Oh Fiddledee-Dee!

2005-11-28T22:23:00.000-05:00

I have been duly distressed by the absence of propriety and womanly finesse in the endeavors of the EOH. Now, I have nothing against the occasional reference to the taking in of spirits, nor am I coldly indifferent to the sufferings of my social lessers; however, I think that I, Miss Katie Scarlet Calhoun can be of special service in clarifying a few matters that might be confusing for the uninitiated.

First, I could stand this calumny heaped against the good faculty gentlemen no more. Upon learning that my advisor, Mr. Thomas Childers of the Tennessee Childers may possibly be a robot, I decided to give him a test. No southern man could ever refuse a basket of my homemade buttermilk biscuits. Of course, being from a lesser southern state, he did not extend the necessary proprieties particular to and expected from a southern gentleman, but he was nonetheless pleased as punch that I graced him with such a gift. So there just isn’t a robot in the world that could emulate the pleasure derived from my home cooking.

Now, when I was returning from debunking the aforementioned slander, I noticed a piece of Yankee scum on the third floor of College Hall. Evidently the smell of my savory southern delights attracted this white trash from his lair. This scoundrel accosted me in the a ungracious manner. My Mammy done told me before I left the plantation that all them Yankee men want to do with a lady like me is to plough a row so that they can plant their dirty seed!

Worse than that, it was apparent by this one’s demeanor that he was a malodorous member of that deceitful Philomathian bunch. Now, in the South, we learn all about secret societies. Being the granddaughter of a Master Mason, I was warned that such lesser organizations have often pretended to possess the magnificence and honor of great southern fraternities. Oh, and mercy, speaking of secret societies, I do declare that I was most disappointed that in the latest posting of the Grand Master he was not wearing the appropriate dress robes. I believe First Acolyte may be washing his sheets soon; perhaps the Grand Master can fashion fitting attire for future photo opportunities.

Well, the aforementioned Philomathian scum got wind of my intimate connections to the EOH and was trying to use me in some Yankee plot to march through Center City and burn Doobie’s to the ground. I immediately demanded that he unhand me upon pain of death and apologize for the insult to my honor. To think that I, the product of 250 years of fine southern inbreeding could be swayed by a carpet bagger! Why that Yankee varmint was lucky I didn’t run him through with my Great-Great-Granddaddy’s saber. I am warning the EOH, the Philomathian society is up to no good! They’re gonna burn your crops, rape your women, ~~free your slaves,~~ and take away your cherished way of life!

And might I also humbly propose that from now on we include a section where southern ladies of breeding can trade recipes and bible hymns.

New Grand Master Video Emerges

2005-11-27T23:12:00.000-05:00

Speaks from cave on Maryland - District of Columbia Border; Calls for "Death to Clio"

The Grand Master, in hiding in the wilds of Washington D.C. since last Tuesday, released a video today urging his followers to take up arms against Clio, destroy the "infidel" Cult of Chartier, and expel the Philmathean Society from College Hall. In response, the History Department immediately upgraded the EOH-Alert up to Piss-Orange.

The Grand Master's precise location changes daily as he moves between desk, bathroom, and couch, and even the upper echelons of the EOH are usually unaware of his exact position. Sources close to the Clio Club's intelligence agency say the only way to find the terrorist mastermind is to carefully scrutinize the network schedules and establish when he is likely to be at home in front of the OC.

Bush - In His Own Words

2005-11-25T17:23:00.000-05:00

EOH promises to use same sign for Kaplan Lecture if Bush wins
Unashamedly lifted from here

Are you a History Graduate Student? Find Out Here...

2005-11-25T16:50:00.000-05:00

This blog is devoted almost entirely to injokes, and is therefore utterly meaningless to the uninitiated. Unfortunately, graduate student life in the History Department can be so goddamn exciting its easy to forget that you’re a grad student at all. Here’s a quiz that should help you determine whether you’re indeed one of us, an undergraduate, or a common pleb. If you’re the former, it may be worth reading more on this site.

1.History 430 - The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is:
a. “I’ve read everything by Stephen Ambrose”
b. “Let us now worship Tom Childers”
c. Indentured servitude

2. 42nd Street is:
a. Times Square
b. An electrified fence separating Penn from the strange mutant creatures that live in the post-apocalyptic wilderness beyond
c. Six blocks closer to campus than your stipend will extend

3. I say “Death to America”, you say:
a. “People like you should be strung up”
b. “Dude, Bin Laden cracks me up”
c. “Rather than simply condemning this statement we need to situate it in the historical context of U.S imperialism and anti-colonial…”

4. Penn is:
a. “Penn State?”
b. “Wharton”
c. “Proprietor of a colony granted to him by the crown in the seventeenth…”

5. Your thesis is:
a. Best pull the flusher straight away lest it cause a nasty smell in the bathroom
b. Incoherent and often contradictory
c. The Holy Grail; incoherent and often contradictory

6. GET-UP is:
a. An early morning alarm call
b. “Papa, why can’t they pay for dental-care with their trust funds?”
c. The fusion of grad students and proletarians into a new superhuman class of gradletarians that will ultimately rule the universe, lower co-pays.

7. AHA is:
a. Norwegian 80s rockers
b. “Morton was soooo cute”
c. An annual festival thrown by the historical profession to ritually humiliate job-seekers

8. The Library is:
a. “A waste of my tax-dollars”
b. Within projectile vomiting distance of Mad-4-Mex
c. Sixth circle of hell; home.

9. A C- is:
a. "Unacceptable if you want to get into a good college"
b. Subject to negotiation
c. Subject to negotiation only if sex and / or money is on the table

10. A “mental block” sounds like:
a. An impediment to thinking
b. 40th and Baltimore
c. A French historian of the Annales School run amok in an insane asylum…

If you scored:

Mainly As: You are a common pleb. This site is meaningless to you. Go away. Now.

Mainly Bs: You are a Penn undergraduate. Sorry. This site may be of interest to you providing you can deal with the brutal treatment of Professor Childers meted out on a regular basis by 1-A. You have been warned. It might also disabuse you of any notions that grad students are witty, intelligent types.

Mainly Cs: You are one of us, a true history graduate student! Leave the Clio Club and join the Esoteric Order of Herodotus and we can do great things together. Although I’ve found that chat up line is of limited utility in campus bars.

The Helot Returns

2005-11-22T23:19:00.000-05:00

The ugly beast appeared in my kitchen. When it saw me, it quickly scurried into my oven of all places! Thinking I could fricassee the varmint, I turned all my burners and oven on high; but the little bastard escaped out the back!
Now, this was all too surprising because I am not a filthy, crumb-dropping ape man like the Grand Master. However, neither am I so tolerant. This aggression will not stand! I'll catch this bird, but it ain't going to be easy! Fish like this will swallow you whole, little wigglin' and tenderizin' and down you go. I value my life a lot higher than 3000 bucks, Chief.

EOH Supper Club Reviewed: Four Stars out of four

2005-11-21T23:06:00.000-05:00

The 'Beesh was at its brilliant best Sunday night as hearty kabobs and strange beefy-lentily goo were consumed by all. Among those in attendance was none other than our latest recruit Alphonso Bigot, a mid nineteenth-century Philadelphian whose remonstrance against a proposal to build a railroad along Broad Street led to his immediate impressment into the EOH.

1A, meanwhile, decided to build a defensive wall around his bowels and stayed at home with his trusty wench. Coward.

Thumplewink Salutes Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Smurfdom (1944)

2005-11-21T21:03:00.000-05:00

Rupert Thumplewink insists:

“Hayek saw it all coming years ago. He knew that those ole’ commie good-for-nothings Roosevelt and Atlee were taking us bad places and he cried out “stop” but no-one listened. Instead we just gave out food stamps here and aid to dependent children there and before long all the smurfs were on free school meals and there was no stopping the state juggernaut. Now the color of poverty is blue.

Here’s why Hayek was right: take Papa Smurf as an example. Looks a good smurf doesn’t he? But he’s fathered twelve different baby smurfs by seven different smurfettes and he can still afford to lounge on his Section 8 couch knocking back tax-payer subsidized 40s while watching reruns of Sports Center. Hayek would never have stood for this. He’d have made Papa Smurf do something useful like sing a medley or brew a potion.

King Smurf is even worse. Thanks to his consequences-free libido there are seven Welfare Queens getting royally bloated at your expense. If only I’d listened to Hayek, I hear you say, as you wave goodbye to the 28 cents of your IRS return not going to fund the latest generation of battlefield nukes.

You see Hayek grasped the link between government and laziness. Give smurfs money and they’ve no incentive to work. Give them healthcare and they’ll make themselves sick. Let the state half-build a levee system and they’ll be too idle to get out when it bursts.

There’s not much we can do now beyond creeping up on government from behind and stabbing it in the back and even that probably won’t save the smurfs from their culture of poverty. Oh Hayek! How you must wish Alexander II had never set them free in 1861.”

A message from Sir Arthur (Harris)

2005-11-20T15:14:00.000-05:00

Stop all of this silly nonsense about people being poisoned with biscuits, drunken, killer animals, and dirty Communist play acting! The EOH website should be reserved for good wholesome Anglo-American protestant fun. Why not have a bible discussion board, where young, pious, but patriotic Americans can quote from scripture? And we could have a recipe sharing board for the ladies. My wife makes makes a lovely blueberry cobler. No one likes a good joke as much as I do, except maybe my wife and captain Johnson.
Right, now I'm going to pop off to the S & M bar for some grain alcohol and rain water. In the meantime, I hope you will take my suggestions seriously because if you don't I'll murder your aunties.

Sir Arthur

Herodotus and Grand Master Liquidated

2005-11-19T21:55:00.000-05:00

The Grand Master and Herodotus have just left my chateau. Little do they know, but the buttermilk biscuits they consumed...were poisoned! I gave them whiskey and brandy to numb the pain and leave them unawares. They will expire in 3-4 hours. Now I, First Acolyte, am supreme leade!. Sir Arthur has been throttled in his sleep, a fitting end to that sulking ape!
As my first decree, I ban the use of underpants! They constrict the flow of blood southward. Also, Happy Hours will be held everyday from 2.15pm to 12.43.

1-A, Supreme Leader

The EOH Supper Club

2005-11-19T16:24:00.000-05:00

Will hold its inaugural eat-fest this Sunday evening at Kabobeesh on Chestnut at 42nd. The food is Pakistani / Afghan and the decor virtually non-existent. It's a BYOB so bring along something fermented or other.

We meet at the 'Beesh at 7pm unless anyone can come up with a more agreeable hour. Prices are about $8.

EOH Happy Hour Reviewed: Four stars out of four

2005-11-19T12:51:00.000-05:00

(Picture to the left is the first image attained from a google image search for "Happy Hour")

As one can see from the picture below, EOH Happy Hour was once again a glorious success. The powers of Clio to oppose us are clearly waning - for the last two weeks they have not even dared to hold a happy hour.

As to the Order's own happy hour, it was all that could be hoped for. Our ancient rituals of humiliation and depravity were used to determine the location of the next happy hour to be held in two weeks; large quantities of beer and spirits were consumed; attacks were made on the petty bourgeoisie; heretics were expelled from the order, and so forth.

In other news, members of the Esoteric Order were victorious in Quizzo against their hated enemies, Douchebag Kingdom at the Bards on Thursday, allowing us to earn money towards boozing. See here for more details, most of them utterly fraudulent, and a picture.

EOH Happy Hour: Grand Master's Review to Follow, Click Photo for More Detail

2005-11-19T12:37:00.000-05:00