Excuse me, most of these massacres have used small arms or mortars… /s
Also, if that was a matchlock rifle, it was probably for hunting rather than battle.
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The title to this article is a bit clickbait-y, but it’s an interesting story.
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It baffles me why criminals whose racket dictates they live a life as international fugitives would choose to have a child, let alone such a large family. must be tied to their narcissism, but jeez, aside from being a shitty parent, just be practical; a wife and ten kids are a huge liability on the lam, not to mention a mark a mile wide.
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When you’re talking about traditional mafioso, they are very family oriented in general, I think, both in terms of the extended family they create among the people that work for them, and in terms of biological families - often leadership is passed down to children, so it’s important to have children - plus, in the Italian mob, they are often catholic, and tend towards traditional views on home life and gender roles. I don’t know if that holds true for other types of criminal enterprises like that, but it seems to be a big part of Italian gang culture.
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https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180313.html
Explanation: Is it possible to capture the entire plane of our galaxy in a single image? Yes, but not in one exposure – and it took some planning to do it in two. The top part of the featured image is the night sky above Lebanon, north of the equator, taken in 2017 June. The image was taken at a time when the central band of the Milky Way Galaxy passed directly overhead. The bottom half was similarly captured six months later in latitude-opposite Chile, south of Earth’s equator. Each image therefore captured the night sky in exactly the opposite direction of the other, when fully half the Galactic plane was visible. The southern half was then inverted – car and all – and digitally appended to the top half to show the entire central band of our Galaxy, as a circle, in a single image. Many stars and nebulas are visible, with the Large Magellanic Cloud being particularly notable inside the lower half of the complete galactic circle.
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Wow, Andy and Lance hit the jackpot!
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Fresh steaming pile, if you ask me.
“You can’t energy that away,” Dr. Holmes said.
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TIL
Thread
Now that is method acting.
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Astrology, Tarot and Psychedelics
(Sing it) one of these things is not like the others.
I can’t say whether psychedelics have any therapeutic uses and value, but my own personal experience would lead me to believe that it’s possible with caveats.
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I’m not sure about the “now” part. In general psych patients tend to be more into spirituality and other things unscientific. They encounter those first, realise they’re only helping a little or not at all, and then they seek out professional help.
At least, that’s how it worked with me and other people I know.
Tarot decks are great for Jungian archetypes, or for when your brain is spinning into indecision and you need a gut check. Mercury retrogrades give me something external to blame so I don’t get more paranoid than usual. Energy stones are the more durable version of a teddy bear (and look less weird on my work desk).
If you’ve never had the need for any of those, good on you. But when one feels like there’s nothing to hang onto, yes, woo helps, if only because it makes something out of nothing.
It doesn’t matter that it’s woo. It matters that it’s help, often the only help available. Same reason I thank my Roomba when it’s done cleaning the living room.
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Ninja
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I’m sorry for any offense taken!
I agree; they are chemicals, just like any other substance. The government is allowing some research into them but more is needed. There are thousands of chemicals tested for cancer; we need to ramp up psychopharmaceutical research.
I can understand. Our teddy bears are our cats, and they work wonders. We talk to them and answer for them, and are greatly comforted by it.
Psychologically speaking, I wonder if it is more healthy to believe in possibly non-scientific things, just because that seems to be the way we evolved. I developed my skepticism early on, and it hardened (or cured, as in epoxy glue) with age. I mostly posted this for the “You can’t energy that way” comment.
Perhaps I should have posted this in the Possibly Untrue Science News topic, but couldn’t find it on the main page. I should have searched!
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Oh thpppt, it’s not offence. It’s just re-establishing the situation.
I’m not terribly fond of woo types who use it to promote anti-vax and other awful things. There’s a difference between seeking comfort and advocating harm.
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Exactly. There is nothing wrong with a placebo, provided that it’s not used as a replacement for good medicine.
Your energy stones are a great example. They provide comfort, but you know that if you start hallucinating or have more dangerous thoughts, they aren’t going to cut it.
Ritual can be very comforting, because it gives us something that we can control. IMO, Mercury in retrograde is no weirder than “God’s Will”. The words are different, but the effect is the same – something external to blame. None of which is bad until taken to extremes. But a therapist is far more likely to chide someone for believing Mercury is in retrograde than for stating it’s part of “[Major Religion’s Supreme Being]'s ineffable plan.”
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Karla Maclaren has a very interesting spin on “new age” stuff. She considered herself psychic, but was actually just very empathic from terrible childhood trauma. Later she learned to talk about her uncanny skills of picking up subtle clues from people in other terms, but she couches her teachings as “for empaths” because that is how her customers see themselves. There’s a lot of things people attribute to psychic powers which are really just intuition. Reading Tarot cards or astrology or whatever is just a vehicle for a very intuitive person to do their work. I don’t think it’s problematic that therapists take it seriously.
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exactly this.
it’s not about what a patient believes, but why they believe it. some guy seeks therapy because “god is punishing me,” that’s easily understood. but god isn’t really punishing them. the therapist well understands the dynamic in play and can use that knowledge to attack the patient’s problem.
some dude comes in and says “Mercury is in retrograde and it’s fucking with my relationship with my wife.” well, as a therapist, you’d better figure out why they think that is a thing before you start.
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This. Years ago, I had an Egyptian card deck I’d use when I was trying to make tough decisions. In the process of interpreting the results of a spread, I got insight into my own feelings and thoughts on the matter. They were lousy for actual fortune-telling, but they helped me read myself. I still have them, though I haven’t used them in ages.
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I have 4 decks, plus 2 Tarot apps. (Why so many? I love the artwork and the slightly different interpretations that the different authors/designers come up with.)
Out of all the things mentioned, I think that they’re the closest to traditional counseling/therapy. They’re just prompts in images and text to get you to think or talk about different aspects of your life. The spreads are designed to get you to think about how those aspects interact, how they’ve changed over time, and potential future directions. To draw out your subconscious or unaddressed thoughts and feelings about situations and people and help you make those conscious connections.
Of course you can add hocus-pocus to that, and if you were trying to sell readings as a service of course that’s what people expect and enjoy and the part some are looking for. But that’s marketing. The core seems to me a lot like a counseling session or a tool for introspection.
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