Blake Whiting - The Author - Does Not Exist

   I am still in the Comox Valley which is why I have not been doing much blogging. There are many better things to do, but it is cloudy this morning so I will produce something for those who are eagerly awaiting more prose from me, and for a few others who may be mildly curious about whether I still exist. I will finally get back to the subject of books.
   If the title has prompted you to search for "Blake Whiting", you will have found a baseball player and a lawyer and likely an obituary-or-two. You will not have found anything about the prolific author of the many books found on Amazon and elsewhere which appear under that name. Here are some samples from goodreads and more can be found on Amazon.

   I also have not been doing much reading while roaming around Vancouver Island, but I did notice an article and it is worth calling to your attention. If you are not interested in books, I will mention Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is the actual author of the books supposedly written by Blake Whiting. Who is behind Blake Whiting directing AI queries is not known at this point. Basically if one chooses a subject and a few books and articles related to it, AI can absorb the material and produce something which is not exactly plagiarism, nor is the resulting book actually  a 'new' one about the topic. It is best not to buy these books which are compiled from the work of real authors. Regard them as coal mine canaries since many more by other 'authors' will soon be available.

Source:
  "Who Is Blake Whiting?: The Most Astonishingly Productive Historian in Recent Times is Someone You’ll Never Meet," by Andrew Lawler, The American Scholar, April 16, 2026.
   "No living American historian is as prolific as Blake Whiting. In one week alone last fall, he published 13 books on a host of complex archaeological and historical subjects, ranging from the collapse of Near Eastern civilizations in 1177 BCE to the recent discovery of a huge Silk Road–era city in Central Asia.
   Amazon sells his hardbacks for $28.99, the paperbacks for $20.99, and the Kindle versions for a bargain $7.99. What you can’t buy from Amazon at any price, however, is Blake Whiting’s CV. Though the books claim to be copyrighted in his name, you won’t find an author picture or bio, nor will you find his website or Instagram. He does not belong to the faculty of any college or university, and he is unknown to those academics he cites in his books—which are not actually copyrighted.
   Whiting, as you have guessed, is neither historian nor human. His fake persona is harbinger of an alarming trend threatening disaster to academics and journalists alike.
   I know this all too well; I am a science and history author who has published extensively on many of the subjects covered in Whiting’s books. I have written magazine features that have been clearly reshuffled, reorganized, and supplemented with other freely available material to masquerade as the unique work of “Blake Whiting.” This is not plagiarism in the old-fashioned sense, in which a few sentences or paragraphs are lifted from a previously published work. This is word-laundering on a truly industrial scale, aided and abetted by one of the world’s largest corporations. Using AI tools and a pseudonym, unknown culprits are now profiting from my work and that of my colleagues."

London's Bicentennial (Snippet 12)

    It is a chilly morning out here in Courtenay, B.C., so I will attempt to post a short post about an astronaut who was born in London and is now safely back on earth.

JEREMY HANSEN
  There has been plenty of local news about Hansen, but here is an article about him from an American source.  And to add even more CANCON, the piece is written by Mike Neufeld, an Albertan.

“Jeremy R. Hansen: First Canadian In Deep Space."
  From a blog post "Smithsonian Voices” linked in the Smithsonian Magazine, March 31, 2026.
   "Born in 1976 in London, Ontario, Jeremy Hansen cannot remember a time when he did not dream of being an astronaut. And now, as member of the crew of Artemis 2, he will see the far side of the Moon as they loop around it.
   During Hansen’s youth, it became increasingly possible to imagine a Canadian doing such a thing. Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space in 1984, when he flew on STS-41G as a payload specialist. NASA had made that seat available because the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) provided the Canadarm Remote Manipulator System for the Space Shuttle. Garneau flew two more missions as a mission specialist after NASA allowed non-Americans to join new astronaut classes. Other Canadians served on Space Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) crews, most memorably when Chris Hadfield commanded the station in 2013. For that program, CSA contributed Canadarm2, a more advanced, double-ended remote manipulator system with a mobile base.
   Hansen followed a classic path to the astronaut corps—he became a fighter pilot.  Growing up on a farm near the mid-size city of London, Ontario, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Cadets at age 12. He earned his glider wings at age 16 and his pilot license at 17, which set his path to becoming an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force (he is now a colonel). His eyes still set on space exploration, he graduated in 1999 from the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, Canada’s primary service academy, with a bachelor of science in space science. He added an master of science in physics there in 2000, with a thesis on satellite tracking. After completing jet training on the CF-18 (a Canadian version of the McDonnell-Douglas F-18 Hornet), Hansen served from 2004-2009 in squadrons in Cold Lake, Alberta, that were part of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)....
   When NASA asked CSA to nominate someone for the Canadian seat, Jeremy Hansen was the obvious and logical candidate. (Jenni Gibbons, from my hometown of Calgary, is his backup.) He will be not only the first Canadian to fly into deep space, but he will also be the first from any nation other than the United States. No human has left low Earth orbit since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972. If all goes well, he will enjoy a spectacular view and help pioneer the human return to the Moon. It’s a fitting assignment for someone who has dreamed of going there since he was a small boy."

   The author of the piece above is also worth noting. There is a Wikipedia entry about him, from which the following was borrowed. 
   "Neufeld was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1951. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Calgary, and a Master of Arts from the University of British Columbia in 1976 with his thesis "He who will not work, neither shall he eat": German social democratic attitudes to labor, 1890-1914. He received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1984 with the dissertation "From artisans to workers: the transformation of the skilled metalworkers of Nuremberg, 1835-1905....."
Since the 1990s, Neufeld has written several works about Wernher von Braun.
  For the rationale for these London snippets see the first one: 
London's Bicentennial (1826-2026)

The Bonus:
  Here are some remarks from the astronauts after they returned: 

  Ms. Koch talked about what the word “crew” meant to her now — “a group that is in it all the time, no matter what” — and about how, when she looked at Earth from the neighborhood of the moon, it “was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the universe.”

She concluded, “There’s one new thing I know, and that is: Planet Earth, you are a crew.”

Mr. Hansen said that, if people liked how the Artemis II astronauts worked together, that joy was something everyone could share.

   “I would suggest to you that, when you look up here, you’re not looking at us,” he said. “We are a mirror reflecting you. And if you like what you see, then just look a little deeper.”

from:

"Artemis II Crew Reunites With Families and Fellow NASA Astronauts: The four astronauts made an emotional return to Houston a day after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at the end of their 10-day lunar journey," Kenneth Chang, April 11, 2026, New York Times. 

London Bicentennial (Snippet 11)

   I am currently travelling and don't have time for one of my thoughtful and deep philosophical posts. So, as a substitute, another snippet is provided about London, which is 200 this year.

The Oldest Baseball Park
   Is not in the United States. It is Labatt Memorial Park in London, Ontario. The colonizers started playing baseball here in 1877, just a little over fifty years after the trees were cut down and the ground broken along the Thames River.  Since I live in London and know one of the people responsible for the authentication of this historical fact, and since the people here in London know and brag about this 'first', I will simply supply the sources you need for validation.
  You can begin with the Wikipedia entry, "Labatt Park."  The park pictured above has its own website: "Labatt Memorial Park."
   The photo provided above is from Aimee Grace and it is found in an article by Thomas Vesey which is in the Mar. 27, 2026 issue of the Western Gazette. (The Gazette is a student publication at Western University in London.) Here's more:
"Inside the World's Oldest Baseball Grounds".
   "It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball, especially at Labatt Memorial Park, the oldest continually used ballpark in the world, which first opened in 1877...."
   "The London Tecumsehs, a former men’s professional baseball team, first built the field, then known as Tecumseh Park. The Tecumsehs were one of the oldest professional baseball teams in Canada and helped bring organized baseball to Ontario. 
   Robert Barney is a sports historian specializing in the Olympics and 19th-century baseball. He has studied Labatt Park and has helped prove the authenticity of its history during his time at Western University.
   “Labatt Park is the oldest baseball grounds in history. No other baseball grounds in the world are older than Labatt Park, and so the authentication of that has been my biggest episode because it had a challenger,” says Barney. 
   The challenger Barney references is Fuller Field in Clinton, Massachusetts. Fuller Field was built and began operations in 1878, one year after Labatt Park....
   The London Majors — who play in the Canadian Baseball League — and Western Mustangs baseball teams have called the park home since 1925 and 2006, respectively.  
   Now, nearly 150 years after its first games were played, Labatt Memorial Park continues to serve as it did in 1877, bringing people together through community and baseball."

   It is fitting that "Labatt" is a brewer, which began in London in 1847. It does not appear that the hot dog was invented here, however, and I am not sure when one was first served in Labatt Park. 
   I just thought to check the ultimate arbiter these days and when asked, "Where is the oldest baseball field?" AI responded, "Labattt Memorial Park in London, Ontario, Canada".