Check your facts PLEASE
I was watching one of those autopsy shows on HBO last night. For anyone interested in that kind of stuff, they'd readily recognise the name of the medical examiner, Dr. Baden. He is supposedly an expert and one in the know. uh huh.
One part of the show was about the Romanovs, the royal family that had been killed by their own people. The Russians found bones in a grave and through DNA testing was able to say that they had found everyone, except for Alexi and Anastasia. So then that brought up the case of Anna Anderson who had claimed that SHE was Anastasia. Now they could know for sure if they tested her dna against the family's. Only Anna Anderson was dead however (and here it comes) they had some tissue of hers from when she had her appendix removed in Berlin. As in Germany. HUH? What? How?
Anna Anderson lived in the US for years, decades and the tissue they did have and tested was from an operation she had in Charlottesville Virginia... in the US! Not exactly in the neighborhood of Berlin. I checked my facts this morning and I was right. Dr Baden was wrong. You would think that someone along the way would have checked the facts or would have said "gee, Berlin, before the second world war? Hmmm. Didn't the Allies basically destroy Berlin? Wasn't it handy that that tissue was saved in a deep frezee someplace while the rest of the city was reduced to rubble?" Sigh.
Now it wouldn't be so bad if people tended to get their information from someplace other than TV but most don't. Tv and movies are taken as gospel. I remember when I was working in the library and suddenly the Romanovs were hot property because Disney was releasing their Anastasia cartoon. A Client was checking it out and asked if I had seen it. I told her I had but it only followed history slightly and was nothing like the real story. The Client blinked and said what. And then she asked me if Anastasia had been a real person. Apparently she hadn't read any of the million articles that had come out at that time riding on the Anastasia coat tails or the equal number of tv shows about it. Of course those shows were the discovery channels and A&E and the like. double sigh.
One part of the show was about the Romanovs, the royal family that had been killed by their own people. The Russians found bones in a grave and through DNA testing was able to say that they had found everyone, except for Alexi and Anastasia. So then that brought up the case of Anna Anderson who had claimed that SHE was Anastasia. Now they could know for sure if they tested her dna against the family's. Only Anna Anderson was dead however (and here it comes) they had some tissue of hers from when she had her appendix removed in Berlin. As in Germany. HUH? What? How?
Anna Anderson lived in the US for years, decades and the tissue they did have and tested was from an operation she had in Charlottesville Virginia... in the US! Not exactly in the neighborhood of Berlin. I checked my facts this morning and I was right. Dr Baden was wrong. You would think that someone along the way would have checked the facts or would have said "gee, Berlin, before the second world war? Hmmm. Didn't the Allies basically destroy Berlin? Wasn't it handy that that tissue was saved in a deep frezee someplace while the rest of the city was reduced to rubble?" Sigh.
Now it wouldn't be so bad if people tended to get their information from someplace other than TV but most don't. Tv and movies are taken as gospel. I remember when I was working in the library and suddenly the Romanovs were hot property because Disney was releasing their Anastasia cartoon. A Client was checking it out and asked if I had seen it. I told her I had but it only followed history slightly and was nothing like the real story. The Client blinked and said what. And then she asked me if Anastasia had been a real person. Apparently she hadn't read any of the million articles that had come out at that time riding on the Anastasia coat tails or the equal number of tv shows about it. Of course those shows were the discovery channels and A&E and the like. double sigh.
posted by ---me--- at Friday, January 18, 2008
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