When the Moon passed in front of the Sun
Notes from Mennonite country. Is the government really banning 'forever chemicals'? The gender dysphoria connection. 40th anniversary of the HIV theory of AIDS, part one.
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Tonight’s program includes discussion of two scientific matters of global proportion: the false announcement by the United States government of an “AIDS virus” on April 23, 1984, and “forever chemicals” or “GenX” chemicals, which the Biden administration promised to remove from drinking water.
My guest for the AIDS segment is Rebecca Culshaw Smith, and for the forever chemicals segment Carol van Strum. The segments are separated out if you want to listen separately.
Here is the article I read from, Conspiracy of Silence, from 1994, covering the chlorinated versions of PFAS chemicals. It’s all the same stuff. Here is Chiron: Key to the Gemstone File about the IBT Labs fraudulent safety testing scandal and the EPA and FEA’s joining with polluters to cover it up. Reporter Peter von Stackelberg tells how be broke that story — an incredible interview.
Corrections to the Carol van Strum Discussion
Period 9, the Halogens, consists of the highly useful natural nonmetals Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, and Iodine. I mistakenly included Sodium, a metal, in this group. It’s all the way at the other side of the table, way back in Period 1 — is far more reactive. Most Sodium on the planet is bound up with Chlorine and other Halogens as salt (the source of my momentary confusion). In this state, both Sodium and Chlorine (or other Halogens) are stable at normal temperature and pressure. That, and the Baileys live in New Zealand, not New England (at the other end of the planet, 9,000 miles away).
Dear Friend and Reader:
After watching this eclipse coming for many months, I had no idea where we were headed (except for north, into the path of totality) when we departed for our eclipse viewpoint location early Monday morning. It’s hard to believe this was nearly a week ago, though as you’ll hear, it was quite a lot of unexpected adventure packed into seven days.
As for where we would go to see the Moon pass in front of the Sun, I left that part up to my traveling partner Jim Fealy, a retired 35mm film cinematographer I met after Celia Farber referred her readers to my work.
Jim had the local information. I had spent the previous two days on his small, off-grid Biodynamic farm near Penn Yan, NY. There was no running water, and electricity came from solar panels and a sophisticated electrical system.
Our destination on Monday, eclipse day, turned out to be to Canandaigua, at the north end of the lake, for a gathering of Mennonites (and some Amish) from all over the eastern United States, including many from the local region. The location was on the grounds of the Steam Engine Museum, apparently a Mennonite institution.
Predictions for traffic in Western New York verged on apocalyptic; declaring an emergency in advance was considered. Our running joke during the hour-long drive was something about only seeing a person riding bicycle on the way there. I don’t think we passed one other car.
Many at the event had seen the 2017 eclipse. Two farmers who I talked two were both out in their fields innocently bailing hay and did not know that it was coming. Suddenly the sky got dark and they figured out that it was a total eclipse of the Sun. Years on, they still thought this was funny; I thought so too.
What I found most impressive was the complete lack of apocalyptic discussion. They thought of the eclipse as a natural wonder in God’s beautiful world.
They were ready with hot coffee, breakfast, lunch, bathrooms, and a packed revival tent where presenters gave lectures on the astronomical nature of eclipses, the cycles which track them throughout history, and discussions of the way predictions of eclipses have been used to manipulate unsuspecting people.
I thought the presentations were accurate and interesting, particularly the discussion of Saros cycles (Monday’s eclipse was part of Cycle 139). They were better than anything I’ve ever seen at an astrology conference. It was clear that the Mennonites take a serious interest in understanding science even if their religion leads them to avoid most electrical technology.
They differ from the Amish in that, depending on their church, they can have electricity, use the internet and use motorized vehicles. Some had good cameras. There were many telescopes and pinhole camera setups.
What I found most impressive was the complete lack of apocalyptic discussion. They thought of the eclipse as a natural wonder in God’s beautiful world.
At about 2 o’clock, the presentations ended and people started gathering in a field. As you can see, thick overcast obscured most of the sky.
I guess it’s traditional for the men-folk and the women-folk to gather separately for an approaching eclipse. In the photos above and below, the Moon is closing in on the Sun’s light.
This was the sky a few moments before totality. At one point durin the eclipse, I caught a glimpse of the crescent Sun, but did not look for more than a second or two. Hundreds of Mylar-type eclipse viewer things were passed around; I don’t trust them and was not interested in anything but a quick look — no more than I might glance at the Sun before dropping my visor when driving.
I made no attempt to photograph the eclipse itself; my brother and sister astrophotographers had worked toward that their whole careers, preparing for this moment. What I was interested in were the people, the atmosphere and the environment on the ground.
I was probably the only photographer anywhere using a 15mm lens that day; I also used a 24mm-70mm (the necessary evil in the Canon product line). With rare exceptions in certain news photos, the look of my images is what photographers call “short glass,” or wide angle, which I think of as showing the world in context.
An official narrator calmly gave a description of the location of the shadow, said to be moving northeasterly at about 2,000 miles per hour. Finally, it arrived in Western New York. Even during totality, there was a streak of light on the horizon.
After the eclipse, a television in the revival tent was tuned to news reports about it. The Mennonites are not fully divorced from technology. Even though we had all just seen it, things are not quite real until they are on television.
With love,
— efc
Corrections to the Carol van Strum Discussion
Period 9, the Halogens, consists of the highly useful natural nonmetals Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, and Iodine, plus fake ones Astatine and Tennessine. I mistakenly included Sodium, a metal, in this group. It’s all the way at the other side of the table, way back in Period 1 — far more reactive, and a metal rather than a nonmetal. Most Sodium on the planet is bound up with Chlorine and other natural Halogens as salt (the source of my confusion). In this state, both Sodium and Chlorine (or other Halogens) are stable at normal temperature and pressure. That, and the Baileys live in New Zealand, not New England (at the other end of the planet, 9,000 miles away).
It is awesome to see a people able to exist in a non- apocalyptic state of being or state of mind. What sucks is that they are being [sprayed] subjected to the unknown toxins being sprayed into the skys. The skys look exactly like the skys are everywhere. How would one go about identifying the men or women insistent upon treating [presuming] and acting as is they have the supreme authority (permission) to do as the wish to the earth. This world of Commerce exist in its entirety under the Uniform Commercial code (UCC) as such the sprayers are engaged in a commercial activity. I.e. they are doing business. And as private corporations or businesses under the UCC they are obligated to be the holders in due course of a preexisting contract or agreement with the parties with which they are performing a commercial activity. I know that I have consented to being infumegated, it is not probable that anyone has agreed to the spraying. The alternative construct for creating an agreement without provision of consideration to the other parties, is through the creation of adhesion agreements. Adhesion agreements are formed when offers another party and offer to contract. Offers are usually spoken by can be in the for of an action. The act of spraying is the unspoken offer to contract. Because do not decline the offer they presume that we have accepted the offer through our (acquiescence) silence. And so the have formed an adhesion agreement, for which under the UCC statutes they are obligated to inform the joindered to the concealed agreement parties. Sneaky way to circumvent a conventional of contracting. In order to file a claim (not a complaint) one must known whom to press the claim upon. IT CAN NOT BE A CORPORATION, BUSINESS OR THE LIKE! Hence the question about determining who is creating the trespass. All that is legal is by agreement, you can rest assured they have obtained an agreement they can defer to. They are just not obligated to inform the entrapped into studied deception agreements. Studied deceptions are fraud.