seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from Chile
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from China
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seen from United States
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Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men — Lundy Bancroft
It was a fine dry night; frost in the air; the streets as clean as a ballroom floor; the lamps, unshaken by any wind, drawing a regular pattern of light and shadow.
— The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)
“She had studied the universe all her life, but had overlooked its clearest message: For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.” ― Carl Sagan, Contact
Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men — Lundy Bancroft
The universe is not empty. We are very aware that we are bound to the Earth. The Earth is bound to the Sun and the Sun to the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is bound to the neighboring galaxy Andromeda, both residing in the Virgo supercluster of galaxies. And the Virgo supercluster senses all the other galaxies and all the accumulated energy in our observable universe. So we don’t live in a flat, empty spacetime.
Astronauts also don’t float in empty space. They can see the Earth spin and the Sun roll along. They are falling and weightless, but on a path we’ve been accustomed to calling an orbit, an orbit around the Earth in orbit around the Sun in a glacially long orbit around the galaxy. Their paths aren’t straight. Their paths are curved into a circle around the Earth sewn into the circle around the Sun sewn into the path around the galaxy, because free-fall paths are curved when the sky isn’t empty. Because space is curved by the presence of matter and energy.
Black Hole Survival Guide — Janna Levin
Face that lights up my face, you spin intelligence into these particles
I am. Your wind shivers my tree. My mouth tastes sweet with
your name in it.
— Rumi, The Glance
There are many reliable pre-incident indicators associated with spousal violence and murder. They won't be present in every case, but if a situation has several of these signals, there is reason for concern:
The woman has intuitive feelings that she is at risk.
At the inception of the relationship, the man accelerated the pace, prematurely placing on the agenda such things as commitment, living together, and marriage.
He resolves conflict with intimidation, bullying, and violence.
He is verbally abusive.
He uses threats and intimidation as instruments of control or abuse. This includes threats to harm physically, to defame, to embarrass, to restrict freedom, to disclose secrets, to cut off support, to abandon, and to commit suicide.
He breaks or strikes things in anger. He uses symbolic violence (tearing a wedding photo, marring a face in a photo, etc.).
He has battered in prior relationships.
He uses alcohol or drugs with adverse effects (memory loss, hostility, cruelty).
He cites alcohol or drugs as an excuse or explanation for hostile or violent conduct (“That was the booze talking, not me; I got so drunk I was crazy”).
His history includes police encounters for behavioral offenses (threats, stalking, assault, battery).
There has been more than one incident of violent behavior (including vandalism, breaking things, throwing things).
He uses money to control the activities, purchases, and behavior of his wife/partner.
He becomes jealous of anyone or anything that takes her time away from the relationship; he keeps her on a “tight leash,” requires her to account for her time.
He refuses to accept rejection.
He expects the relationship to go on forever, perhaps using phrases like “together for life,” “always,” “no matter what.”
He projects extreme emotions onto others (hate, love, jealousy, commitment) even when there is no evidence that would lead a reasonable person to perceive them.
He minimizes incidents of abuse.
He spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about his wife/partner and derives much of his identity from being her husband, lover, etc.
He tries to enlist his wife’s friends or relatives in a campaign to keep or recover the relationship.
He has inappropriately surveilled or followed his wife/partner.
He believes others are out to get him. He believes that those around his wife/partner dislike him and encourage her to leave.
He resists change and is described as inflexible, unwilling to compromise.
He identifies with or compares himself to violent people in films, news stories, fiction, or history. He characterizes the violence of others as justified.
He suffers mood swings or is sullen, angry, or depressed.
He consistently blames others for problems of his own making; he refuses to take responsibility for the results of his actions.
He refers to weapons as instruments of power, control, or revenge.
Weapons are a substantial part of his persona; he has a gun or he talks about, jokes about, reads about, or collects weapons.
He uses “male privilege” as a justification for his conduct (treats her like a servant, makes all the big decisions, acts like the “master of the house”).
He experienced or witnessed violence as a child.
His wife/partner fears he will injure or kill her. She has discussed this with others or has made plans to be carried out in the event of her death (e.g., designating someone to care for the children).
— The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker (1997)
Followers of obsolete unthinkable trades, doodling in Etruscan, addicts of drugs not yet synthesized, black marketeers of World War III, excisors of telepathic sensitivity, osteopaths of the spirit, investigators of infractions denounced by bland paranoid chess players, servers of fragmentary warrants taken down in hebephrenic shorthand charging unspeakable mutilations of the spirit, officials of unconstituted police states, brokers of exquisite dreams and nostalgias tested on the sensitized cells of junk sickness and bartered for raw materials of the will, drinkers of the Heavy Fluid sealed in translucent amber of dreams.
— Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs (1959)
