Jack’s Walk

Tuberous Vetchling

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This beautiful flower is Tuberous Vetchling and I don’t see it very often. It’s mostly a meadow wildflower and the places Jack and I go are more wooded in nature. Today, though, as we were driving along I saw this bright shock of pink just on the edge of a field so we stopped to investigate. The plant is a cousin of Sweet Pea and the blooms are similar, but without the scent.

Song Ci: The Washing Away of All Wrongs.

Nomenclature of human bones in Sòng Cí: Xǐ-yuān lù jí-zhèng, edited by Ruǎn Qíxīn (1843).

Nomenclature of human bones in Sòng Cí: Xǐ-yuān lù jí-zhèng, edited by Ruǎn Qíxīn (1843).

Song Ci (Sung Tz’u) is considered to be the founder of forensic science. In 1247, Song Ci wrote Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified or The Washing Away of Wrongs.

Different versions of the book exist, but the earliest existing version was published during the Yuan Dynasty, containing fifty-three chapters in five volumes. The first volume describes the imperial decree issued by Song Dynasty on the inspection of bodies and injuries. The second volume contains notes and methods on post-mortem examinations. The third, fourth, and fifth volumes detail the appearances of corpses from various causes of death and methods of treatments to certain injuries of a wounded person.

Song Ci ruled regulation about autopsy report for court, how to protect the evidence in the examining process, the reason why workers must show examination to public impartiality;how to wash dead body for examining the different reasons of death. At that time, the book had given methods to distinguish suicide or pretending suicide.

The particulars of each case must be recorded in the doctor’s own handwriting. No one else is allowed to write his autopsy report. A coroner must not avoid performing an autopsy just because he detests the stench of corpses. A coroner must refrain from sitting comfortably behind a curtain of incense that masks the stench, letting his subordinates do the autopsy unsupervised, or allowing a petty official to write his autopsy report, otherwise any potential inaccuracy is unchecked and uncorrected.”

He also said:

“Should there be any inaccuracy in an autopsy report, injustice would remain with the deceased as well as the living. A wrongful death sentence without justice may claim one or more additional lives, which would in turn result in feuds and revenges, prolonging the tragedy. In order to avoid any miscarriage of justice, the coroner must immediately examine the case personally.” [Source]

Medievalists has a list of ten observations Song Ci made when it came to discerning murder, and different types of murder.

Last year, photographer Robert Shults did a photographic series called The Washing Away of Wrongs, all taken at a forensic research facility in Texas.

Robert Shults, photograph from The Washing Away of Wrongs, with flowers from a nearby tree fallen across a donor’s body (courtesy the artist).

Robert Shults, photograph from The Washing Away of Wrongs, with flowers from a nearby tree fallen across a donor’s body (courtesy the artist).

You can read all about that, and see more too, at Hyperallergic. There are some graphic photos, so have a care.

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

Fungus grows so quickly it can be a bit astonishing. 3 days ago these weren’t here and today they’re not only here, they’re fully grown and aging. All it took was 2 days of rain and then, like magic, there they are. How does that happen and are faeries involved?

Sunday Facepalm: The Convenience of Conspiracy.

Liz Crokin, who has never met any outlandish idea she didn’t like immediately, jumped all over Kate Spade’s suicide. It’s certainly ugly enough to have no respect whatsoever for Ms. Spade and her loved ones, but Liz always has to take it one step further. Back in the first week of June, within hours of the news breaking about Ms. Spade, Liz was conspiratatin’ away:

…“The circumstances, just from the initial reports are very shady, they’re very suspicious, she allegedly hung herself with a red scarf and when I hear things like that I immediately think Illuminati and occult symbolism. The Illuminati is obsessed with the color red, we also know that the pedophile Satanists are obsessed with handkerchiefs, talk about handkerchiefs in the [John] Podesta emails,” Crokin said.

Crokin said that pictures of Spade and her husband show them to be “your typical creepy occult couple” and said the couple reminded her of “Tony Podesta and his ex-wife, who looks like Cruella de Vil.” She then urged viewers to search for images of Andy Spade and “pizza,” claiming that numerous photos of him delivering boxes of pizza were evidence that Spade is a pedophile.

That’s conspiracy number one, which she was pushing all over the place, including tweeting photos of Ms. Spade’s husband with pizzas. Gosh, that pizza thing, it’s so darn rare, why normal people never order pizza!

Apparently, conspiracy number one wasn’t good enough, or Liz just decided she could not leave it alone, so she came up with a new one:

…During her recent appearance on Dave Hodges’ “The Common Sense Show,” Crokin seized on the fact that Spade’s husband was spotted wearing a mouse mask in the days following her death, which she asserted was something he was forced to do in order to signal to others not to “rat out” the Clintons.

[…]

“There is so much symbolism to that,” she said, adding that she read a theory on the internet that this mask “was strategically left and he was instructed to wear that mask in public. It looks like a mouse but it is really supposed to represent a rat and he was instructed to wear it in public because allegedly Kate Spade was ratting on these people. That is why she was—quote unquote—a suicide and he had to wear that mask publicly to let the others know this is what happens to you if you rat any of us out.”

“I believe that because I know how these people operate and that’s how they operate,” Crokin said.

When Hodges asked Crokin exactly who Spade may have been ratting out, Crokin replied by noting that Spade had been “tied to the Clinton Foundation.”

“So there you go,” she concluded.

There you go indeed. This is conspiracy number two. I wonder how long before conspiracy number three shows up. That’s the convenience of being a conspiracy fan, you can simply switch things all about, and pretend it’s all connected in this ooga booga scary way. For thinking people, it’s a headache inducing eyeroll, and it’s hard to believe so many people are willing to buy such utter bullshit wholesale.