THIS WEEK'S MOVIE REVIEWS "Spanglish"  by Mike Smith "The Life Aquatic"  by Drew Reiber

DEADGUY'S DEMENTIA Atlantis Found!  by Mike "Deadguy" Scott

ODDSERVATIONS "Filthy" Unites Friends....Hey, '90s, Git Your Own Station!!!..."The Machinist"....New Wave Concert: Duran Duran/The Go-Go's...."Ocean's 12" Fells "Blade: Trinity"....Mark Biero....Bye Bayfront Center....Yes, Jeff Strand, You're Allowed to See That...."Mandatory Guidelines" for the Week:  by Andy Lalino

MATT'S RAIL Danger, Will Robinson  by Matt Drinnenberg

MIKE'S RANT Andy's Letter .... Congratulations .... Did Someone Say 20 Years? ... Meet The Beatles, Part 47  by Mike Smith

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Atlantis Found!

Although I feel like I'm swiping a potential "La Floridiana" here, Nolan has encouraged me to write about an article I forwarded to him the other day. I haven't written in a while, and figured what-the-heck, this thing is pretty entertaining.

Here's the deal, I'm sure you've all heard about the fabled lost city of Atlantis. As the legend goes, it was a rich eutopia; an island with a fairly advanced, wealthy civilization that sunk beneath the sea, long before recorded history.

Well, according to the 20 years of study by a Hawaiian researcher on the subject, this may have occurred in a location fairly close to home.

In fact, if you live in Florida, it's EXTREMELY close to home. If you live in Tampa, it's ridiculously close.

Here's a hint, the former site of Atlantis's main capital and high temple is.. (drumroll please...)

Harbour Island?

Yeah.. that's what I said, too.. though possibly more colorfully.

Tampa is considered by the author to be the main city of Atlantis, and Harbour Island was the high temple area. The Florida Plain itself is considered to be the country/continent of Atlantis.

The legend all starts (or at least the first time it was written down in any form that has survived to this day) with Plato. As was customary in the days of Plato, stories were presented by philosophers for the discussion of other philosophers, with their students looking on.

The other thing present at these meetings were scribes that would document the discussions that took place there. Of course these weren't written in English, and a lot of these discussions have been translated multiple times, but here's the gist of what happened at one of them:

"Hey, Plato.. remember that fictional civilization you spoke of a few days ago? Well, I was listening and was suddenly reminded of a story that my grandfather told me when I was 10. I remember most of it because I had to memorize it at the time for story day.

Anyways, your race of ficticious people seem to match the people that I was told about, though I have more of their story. Would it be OK if I talked about it in tomorrow's discussions?"

Plato, "Yeah, whatever man.. far out... dust in the wind, man.." (or something to that effect).

So the next day he got up in front of everyone and said.." OK, In the old days (9,000 years before Plato's time), if you went out past the straits of Gibralter, and just kept going, you'd find an island that rivaled the size of Lybia and Asia combined.

There was a plain on this island, with a shallow hill on it. This shallow hill was the spot where Poseidon's human girlfriend is buried. Poseidon didn't want her grave disturbed, so he hired contractors... err, I mean.. Cast a spell that cut-off the hill from the rest of the island by surrounding it with water... Here.. let me bore you to death with a ridiculous level of detail on how it looked, and how they lived, and feature after feature of this marvelous place from 9,000 years ago.. Thank god I'm not required to actually PROVE any of this.. after all.. I was 10 when I heard about it.:"

The decriptions included things like the hill was transformed into a triangular shape, etc, but the level of detail included descriptions of specific sizes of "zones" of land and water. To most researchers, the designs indicated concentric circles of water and land, but to the researcher making the Harbour Island Claim, they were 3 straight "zones of water" otherwise known to the rest of us in modern times as "rivers". A river is a... oh, nevermind.

So after presumably irritating even the most patient listener, he continued with his story:

"In any event, this whole island was called Atlantis. The grand temple palace of which was on the small hill I mentioned earlier today. Atlantis had a race of people on it called Atlanteans....not to be confused with similar Marvel or DC comic characters.

The Atlanteans, along with the conquered lands they held, including Libya, invaded and attacked the "true world" (including Egypt) and were repelled. Shortly after the invaders were repelled, the gods were angered at Atlantis for their attacks upon the "true world", and sent earthquakes and floods within a single day, to wipe it from the face of the Earth. Those who then attempted to reach Atlantis by sea, could only find mud shoals blocking their passage.

So, of course, it must have sank, with all of its riches."

All that's known of Atlantis was told during the course of the story, and included descriptions of riches, including a temple to Poseidon that contained two large golden statues that were "tall enough to reach the ceiling" though the actual ceiling height didn't seem to have been disclosed, from what I can tell. They also mentioned that the land was rich in copper, and that there were two springs, a hot one and a cold one, a lot of hairy elephants, and various other details of that nature. There was no discussion of pyramid building, depsite the claims.

In any event, the version I gave you is a highly condensed version that matches the points of... It's remarkable in the fact that the researcher didn't actually translate anything, he merely looked at other translated accounts, and he's "found" stuff that no one else had previously noted:

#1- All translations that I'm aware of include the "plain penninsula" that was Atlantis. This, the author decrees, must be Florida.. because... well.. just because.

#2- The reference to a hill, where Poseidon's love interest lay, is referred to as a small montain with low sides. Since Florida doesn't have mountains.. it's obviously a hill.. right?

#3- The rivers that surrounded this hill were supposedly put there because "large ships were not available in those days, so man could not cross them". OK, if this is really Harbour Island, I think I'd be hard pressed to try and shove a large ship in there merely to cross the river. It's more like four ships.. side by side attached together with boarding planks. I'm sure a dinghy would suffice, though if it were as polluted as it is now, I can see why they'd want to use a large ship to stay away from the water.

There seems to be a sense of scale that's being overlooked here. I find it hard to believe that the original orators, fully conversant with the measurement of distance they used (called "staids"), would have had such a blatant oversight. It's akin to saying, "Hey I can't get to the store a block away because I'd need a Winnebago, and all I have is this Ford Taurus."

The author appears to have mangled the sizes involved somehow, he claims all of the dimensions match the conditions of Harbour Island, but I swear there's still something wrong here.

#4- The rivers, or "water zones & land zones" as they are referenced in most translations, has always been believed to be concentric rings of water and land. In fact, most of the translations directly refer to it as that. Our intrepid researcher has discarded this, because NOWHERE in Florida are there any water circles... Or at least that's the only reason I can come up with.

The author was also quick to point out that further proof of Atlantis being the United States is as follows:

#1- The Name Atlanta comes from the word Atlantis. Atlanta, Georgia is therefore obviously named after the country.. neigh, the continent that it is a part of. Obviously, the American Indians and suchlike were fully conversant with the concept of Atlantis, and thought, "Gee.. let's name it after the continent." Early explorers were apparently cool with that.. thus, it is proven. Atlanta is considered by the author to be a part of Florida's plain.

#2- "Temple Terrace" is located nearby. Obviously it was named for the fact that the Atlantean capital, or temple, was nearby. Again...Indians who had done their homework, coupled with Explorers that were quickly running out of names for stuff, agreed that the Oranges in the area should be called "Temple Oranges", and subsequently, the area known as Temple Terrace was later named for these oranges.

#3- "Apollo Beach is nearby" Oh, well....then OBVIOUSLY that's a reference to Poseidon, which clues back to his hill, and the Atlantean capital. Explorers and Indians agree...this beach DEFINITELY has something to do with the Atlantean connection, so we'll call it Apollo beach...because...well, Poseidon Beach seems a little pretentious.

In any event.. twenty years of research apparently overlooked what we know of Harbour Island's history:

Harbour Island is man-made. It used to be a mud flat reffered to as Sneddon Island.

It wasn't even a natural mud flat, it was made with material dredged from the nearby shipping channel in something like 1902. It was built up with landfill by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, and served as both a phosphate terminal and a transfer site for ships unloading cargo to the railway system. Shortly after 1970, it changed hands and a Hotel, marketplace, and around 213 residences were erected on it by 1985.

I contacted the researcher and presented this information to him and he replied with. "Oh, that explains a lot". He then proceeded to offer quote after quote from his source material. That's where a lot of this article comes from. Unfortunately he's having difficulty translating the English to English... you know, hills are not referred to as mountains, rings of water are circular, etc. He simply loaded me up with passages that specifically call out "mountains", etc., and threw in his own interpretations of the passages, which generally had little to do with the originals he was translating.

In any event.. he's made it known that he wanted people's reactions to his discovery, so that he can document it in his final book. He has a preliminary book availible for free download on his website.. which ironically enough is called: www.cramschool.us

It seems somehow that this Atlantis discovery is a testament to those that cut corners on research projects, and force the findings to match pre-drawn conclusions. It has a fitting position on this website, replete with missing graphics.

If this article has been amusing to you, I strongly recommend that you download the preliminary book in PDF format. There's even some maps in there where the author added text to indicate the positions of the cities and temple. I found myself chuckling everytime I found one.

I suppose I'm blasting the author, but the reality is he wanted my reaction to it, so after I wrote a brief synopsis of the history of Harbour Island, and explained the origin of the name, Temple Terrace, I explained that my reaction was to suspect that this was all an internet hoax. I then explained how quickly even minor research would have told him more about Harbour Island.

He reassures me that it's not a hoax, but also enigmatically noted that my email "explained a lot".

I dunno...who am I? Maybe this guy is onto something? I have no idea, but I can safely say that it sure sounds preposterous to me.

What do YOU think about it? Seen any monstrously oversized gold Poseidon statues lately? How about the thousands of gold nymph statues, or the gold statues of all the ruling families of Atlantis?

One thing is for sure...if any of that DOES show up, I guess I owe this guy an apology.