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Charles Fort, the original anti-science skeptical-of-everything and at the same time too-credulous collector of strange facts and events, I've a long time kept an eye peeled for his works, none forthcoming, and so finally read his "Book of the Damned" online at Project Gutenberg. Link provided at the end.
Now this, a list - long, with notes as to sources, with everything that (in his view) flies in the face of science. He refutes any attempts to explain away unusual events by science, instead preferring to come up with even stranger and more imaginative explanations of his own - for example, Star Jelly - of which he gives numerous examples (a strange jelly like protoplasm sometimes found falling or upon the ground after meteoric events), and any odd sky-falls - large hail, rains of fish, frogs, what nots, on an adjacent place near to the earth but invisible, the "Super-Sargasso Sea" or Genesistrine, and while a good many of his sources do demand extraordinary explanations, a great many do not.
While he himself is positively feverish with imagination he doesn't allow that other people may have been as well.
There's the impossible rains and sky falls, atmospheric phenomena, thunderstones and thunder-axes, sky arrows, sky axes, thunder-teeth, Nostoc, all the craziness reported throughout human history, impossible rains, atmospheric phenomenon, thunderstones, thunder-axes, sky arrows, sky-axes, thunder-teeth, Nostoc, the IYNKICIDU of Philadelphia, Cyclorea, his confusing of staurolites, a mineral, as evidence of a tiny race of fairies, Monstrator, Elvera, the Vitrification of Ancient Forts, extra-telluric, marvelling over extreme weather events (now becoming commonplace), hailstones nucleated on frogs, Algol, Planet “Neith”, Melanicus, celestio-metathesis, his “other worlds” hypothesis, quake lights, Super-Tamerlanes, bird-falls from the sky (poisoned food, now largely attributed to glass skyscrapers), blood rain, Stone of Tarbes, the wheels of light and spokes seen upon the sea by captains and sailors, sea monsters, recalling: “those who go down to the sea in ships”; otherwise extraordinary events now made explicable, but we have our own inexplicable dark matter, quantum action at a distance, light discerning the slit, etc.
"Still the Dominants are suave very often, or are not absolute gods, and the way attention was led away from this subject is an interesting study in quasi-divine bamboozlement.”
His prose style, well, somewhere between incredulous, manic, rattling a fist against an establishment (science), world (god) that he can make no sense of, no an easy read, but filled with interesting ideas, and some worth more considering...
Oh, and if you ever have heard the term - "Fortean", it derives from him, applying to situations, events, objects, that in themselves appear inexplicable.
A short bio: https://skepdic.com/fortean.html
read online here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/22472/22472-h/22472-h.htm
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So, in the news lately - Kamala Harris takes over the candidacy for Biden - finally, the right move, and then - an even better move making Tim Walz her running mate.
Good news for a change, they both seem nice, and what a change in focus from the Trump/Biden shitshow it was the past few months. And - the news that JD Vance is Trump's running mate?
Well, never a better contrast in choices.
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Other news of the world, the fact that Disney is trying to use a loophole - because a former customer once signed up for Disney+ they can't be sued for poisoning one of the customers (anaphylactic shock, waiter assured customer the food was allergen free, it wasn't, customer died) - which goes to prove quite literally what an evil company Disney has become.
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/aug/15/disney-wrongful-death-lawsuit-dismissal
And then there was the Elon Musk/Trump interview on "X", which - well, I've never been fans of either of them. For a time it seemed with the electric car and such he was possibly brilliant, but - the company he keeps, his views, he's easily every bit as evil as Trump.
Then there was the article quoting the UN stating that Canada's foreign worker policy is no better than Slave Labour. Of course, I've known this for a while, as have many others, but having it said out loud by a body that has some clout with Trudeau might mean a long overdue reflection and revamping of it.
Link: CBC on UN report
And that's the news that I've been following, the rest, well, it comes and goes. It finally seems that capitalism is in it's final death throws, the world is heating up and - for the moment that's all. I've started looking forward to the US election...
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More news, ridiculous, that Trump is now more popular in Alberta than he is in the US, and, sorry Alberta, but this can be no surprise, that Barron Trump's nanny has spoken to the press and revealed that while in school he tortured and killed animals as well as assaulted various classmates. So the apple never falls far from the tree...
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Thursday off, South to Explore a few new roads. The Oscar-Bear FSR, behind Ymir, metamorphic shales, basalts, to about 10 KM where it gets too overgrown to continue. Probably it got overgrown at 5 KM, but I never let that stop me...
Then, to the Penne-D'oreille & Beaver Valley, pan for gold, look for sapphires. Nada. Although they're there I'm sure it was not a day to be south.
Done at around 2:00 PM, too early to find parking in town, so head on up to Balfour, where I spend a couple of hours looking for arrowheads. One find, a very old red jasper point, broken and reworked into a scraper, some other debitage, and a great view of the Balfour Eagle, now moved on by the lost of his/her nest...
Balfour eagle...
Finally, the payoff of the day:
Red jasper, the tip broken off and then refashioned into a scraper. Judging by the wear on the edges a few thousand years old...
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Forever pushing back the timeline of humans in the Americas, a couple of articles that seem to substantiate the presence of humans or homo-??? well outside the conventional timelines. There are actually an awful lot more, but you can do your own research.
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Trying to overcome my (entirely reasonable) fear of driving in my son's car.
Today, up to Woodbury to collect some garnets, a few larger ones, time to start doing things with them.
And a walk along the lake at Balfour, looking for arrowheads. An hour, a few bits of debitage, then this:
It was actually point in to the gravel, a black obelisk, tough to spot. And unremarkable when I laid it out on the gravel.
very old and worn, knapped on both sides, a tough black rock. Noteworthy it's a thick piece of stone, and spirals slightly, perhaps not so suited for an arrowhead but more an aul or drill. Nonetheless, a great find and I'm quite pleased.