What I learned: Spontaneous Human Combustion (it seems redundant to say spontaneous” since combustion itself seems kind of spontaneous, no?) is the burning of a living (or very recently deceased) human body without an apparent external source of ignition.  The body doesn’t necessarily explode; combustion just means that it catches fire and burns.  More people than you would imagine believe, even today, in SHC.  While there are a large number of folks out there who just as vehemently do not believe it to be possible, I can’t tell which side of the argument has more people in their camp.  Interestingly, neither of the general theories for why/how spontaneous combustion happens, paranormal (divine intervention, ghosts, etc.,) and natural (abnormally concentrated gas, raised levels of blood alcohol, etc.), mention record-breaking heat or triple-digit temperatures as a possible cause.

Interesting factoids:  In September 2011, the coroner in Galway, Ireland, declared that Michael Flaherty’s death was due to SHC.  Really!  In Charles Dickens’ novel, Bleak House, a character dies by spontaneously combusting.

See for yourself:  http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/02/28/spontaneous-human-combustion-and-the-wick-effect/     http://www.csicop.org/

Related wonderings:  Does one believe in spontaneous human combustion because any reason is better than the uncertainty of no reason?  Why do skeptics spend so much time and energy working to prove that SHC is not possible?  What would it take for me to believe in SHC?

Simon Raper at Drunks & Lampposts extracted the information in the influenced by section for every philosopher on Wikipedia and used it to construct a network– a picture of whose thought formed whose.

See the full map– and read how one can easily construct one’s own network diagrams– here.

[TotH to The Stone]

***

As we parse our precedents, we might recall that it was on this date in 1951 that Mrs. Mary Reeser, of St Petersburg, Florida, was the victim of “spontaneous human combustion.”  Her landlady took her a telegram, found the doorknob too hot to handle, and phoned for help. Firemen discovered a blackened circle on the floors, a few coiled springs, a charred liver, a backbone fragment, a skull shrunk to size of a fist, and a black slipper enclosing a left foot burnt off at the ankle. Despite the temperature necessary to cremate a body, the rest of the apartment was virtually untouched.

 source

Also affirming to a universe that by chance just happened is equally as absurd. In order for there to be chance or probability there needs to be something, chance or probability in of itself causes nothing to occur, it has no effect of it’s own, it has no existence of it’s own, it cannot act or create, it has no being and no personality, no force. It is merely a mental concept to describe mathematical probabilities.

It’s bad science; it’s absurd, illogical and unreasonable to affirm the universe has created itself or to affirm that the universe by chance just happened to be.

there are some daily and weekly rhythms that we have in place – some wisely put here by the people who occupied this space before us, and others that we have worked out as a community during out stay – morning prayer at 8am where we work through the book of Common Prayer together, followed by a conversation if there are visitors or else breakfast and a walk to the office where we work… on monday’s a group of local volunteers and neighbors come together to pack and hand out 30 really good bags of food… tuesday’s to thursday’s we have an after school program with some of the neighborhood children… friday night’s is a potluck dinner, and so on…

the rhythms we have in place echo some of the values we have – we value time spent in prayer and so five days a week we have a space created to pray and to invite others in to join us because we value community…

but because we value community and reaching out to those who would be known as ‘the least of these’ we also carve out space for the day to day interruptions…

the person knocking at our door late at nite because “they didn’t make it to the food distribution” for whatever reason… the fried down the street who is about to be evicted from her home… the kid knocking at the door and then peering through our mail slot who is desperate to borrow sueihn’s bicycle…

and so on.

do we answer every interruption? not at all, we would burn out or burn up or possibly simply spontaneously combust. we don’t have the energy [or sometimes the grace and love] to answer each one. sometimes a housemate will grab one because i don’t have the strength to answer the door. sometimes we will choose not to answer the door because we place value on helping people with love, and sometimes if you can’t give a loving response to someone in need, then no response is better.

the most annoying thing about these interruptions? they never come when we are ready for them. hence the name i guess. they come after a long day or in the middle of a game or conversation, or just as you are about to take that first sip of coffee and it’s at that moment sometimes that we really get to see what this intentional community thing is all about.

at the heart of it all, we are followers of Jesus [or trying to be] and His life was characterised by making space for the interruption – sometimes He allowed His time with God to be interrupted, sometimes people died because He allowed the interruption [although He did have a habit of raising them to life again] and yet each time someone felt valued and loved, and important. lives were completely transformed for ever, because Jesus didn’t find the rhythms and responsibilities so important as not to leave space for the interruption.

and so should we.

People worry about the dangers of guns, but what about the dangers of bullets? This woman learned the hard way.

The freak accident occurred Sunday afternoon at a Lowe’s store in Montoursville, the Williamsport Sun-Gazette reports.

“She did not have a gun in her purse or on her,” Montoursville Deputy Police Chief Jason Bentley told the newspaper.

Bently said the 56-year-old woman, whose identity was not released, was carrying two or three bullets at the time.

“Something must have hit the primer of one of the bullets,” he said. “The bullet stayed in the purse, but its casing put a hole in the purse and caused a minor leg wound.”

The woman didn’t seek medical help for her injury until three hours after the incident, at her son’s request. She was treated at Williamsport Regional Medical Center and released shortly after, according to the newspaper.

Good thing we now have an alternative to guns, all we need are the right bullets, some sling shots and we can stop arguing about gun control. Drive-bys will soon be a bunch of teenagers throwing bullets out of their window and it will be more simple than ever to carry arms inconspicuously, well as long as you aren’t walking too fast near table edges.

But now I must beg the question.. why was a 56-year-old woman carrying around 3 bullets in her purse?
Source

There was a pleasant piece about Wantage Road in The Guardian last week by Mike Selvey http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/may/23/northants-county-ground-cricket . He described it as

“an airy but intimate ground, a proper county ground for county cricket without pretensions beyond its status or means”

Which is about right (somehow the floodlights seem to add to the airiness), though I’d say the same is true of Grace Road.  So it was a pity to find Matthew Engel, in the course of an otherwise hear hear-provoking article about outgrounds in The Cricketer writing

‘So they [Leicestershire] stay in unloved Grace Road, mouldering towards oblivion” 

It’s not clear whether it’s the ground or Leicestershire itself  that he thinks is mouldering towards oblivion, but although he is – or was – a habituee of Wantage Road, I wonder when he last set foot in Grace Road.  I can assure him it’s not entirely unloved.

Wantage Road was at its best on Friday, when the real star of the show – making its first appearance of the season – was the sun.

The flags fluttered topically in the breeze

and Gallone’s found their business picking up at last.

There was plenty of slow and steady batting, from Marshall of Gloucestershire, to avoid the follow on, and Peters and Coetzer of Northants, to bat Gloucestershire out of the game, which they succeeded in doing. The sort of third day that’s necessary to set up an interesting fourth.*

I sometimes wish Leicestershire (who are rarely dull, and were losing by an innings at Canterbury at the time) were capable of playing in this unmemorable way.

The only really surprising incident came when play was held up for a few minutes by what sounded like an explosion from the general direction of the scorebox.  The players and umpires looked up at the floodlights, as though worried that one of them was about to topple over on to the pitch.  I worked out that, if this were to happen, the flat end would land on the square.  The incident remains unexplained.

Another possible safety hazard, I’d say, is the huge skip full of grass cuttings to one side of the scoreboard 

A few more days of fierce heat and there’s a definite risk of spontaneous combustion.  Another possibility would be to use it – on the principle of the hay box – for toasting sandwiches and reheating pies. 

In his piece, Selvey reminiscences about

“The tiny cobbler’s shop of Albert Whiting  just around the corner from the ground” 

where he used to get his boots made and repaired.

There is a tiny shop near the ground, which looks very much the kind of workshop shoemakers and cobblers used to operate out of, which is now occupied by a man (African, I supect) who makes and repairs false teeth.  I’m sure this says something significant about the Way We Live Now, but I can’t quite think what it is.

*On the Saturday, Northants won in the last over.  Delayed gratification in action.

The best memorabilia from the beach is shells and/or rocks. The last think you would expect is that they will set your pants on fire.

Orange County Fire Authority officials tell the newspaper that the woman collected the rocks on a nearby beach, returned home and “was standing in her kitchen … when the pocket of her cargo shorts caught fire.”

“I talked to the paramedic who treated her, and in his 27 years in responding to calls near the beach, he’s never seen this,” Fire Authority Capt. Marc Stone told the Register. “The rocks were still smoking when firefighters took them to the hospital.”

Now, they’re being tested. It’s possible, Stone said, that phosphorus in the stones may have caused the combustion.

Nature is starting to take its revenge on us, soon it will be like the day after tomorrow (but probably less funny).

Now we all know I’m generally an optimist, but if you suffer from spontaneous combustion, something in the universe wants you dead – therefore, kill yourself.

Source 2

MORE.

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. (AP) — Authorities in Southern California are investigating what appears to be the spontaneous combustion of rocks scooped from a San Clemente Beach that left a woman with third-degree burns.

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2012/05/17/california-woman-apparently-burned-by-rocks-collected-from-beach/

via 10news (local):

“The 43-year old woman’s children picked up the seven orange and green rocks on Saturday at San Onofre State Beach, which is popular with surfers and known locally as Trestles.

The woman, whose name was not released, was hospitalized at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana with third-degree burns to her right thigh and knee, Stone said. He added that the victim “stopped, dropped and rolled” in an effort to douse the flames, and her husband suffered second-degree burns to his hands as he tried to help.”

http://www.10news.com/news/31076377/detail.html

more from google news:

http://urlet.com/looked.precisely

VIDEO:

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=8664884

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

A rock bursts into flames of lichen. These licking flames scorch the granite

 surface in a slow burn that simmers over years of constant combustion.

 Strangely, it is drought that extinguishes such a vibrant blaze.

Water only heightens their intensity.

You can hold your hands to such a fire and feel its energy.