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Educated Indian teen cuts out own tongue as offering to Hindu goddess Kali after dream vision


RT
Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:03 UTC
shiva offering
© Amit Dave / Reuters
A girl places offerings on Shivling (a symbol of Lord Shiva) on the last day of Jaya Parvati Vrat festival at a temple in Ahmedabad, India, July 21, 2016.
A 19-year-old college student who sliced off her tongue with a blade as a sacrifice it to the Hindu Goddess Kali, said she did it because the deity appeared to her in a dream and offered to grant all her wishes.

Aarti Dubey, a student at TRS College in the central Indian state of Madya Pradesh, made the offering a day after dreaming that the goddess demanded her tongue in exchange for granting her wishes, according to the Daily Mail.

Sachin Dubey, the teen's brother initially thought she was joking when she informed her him of the plan.

"Aarti had confided in me about the dream and told me that she was going to offer her tongue to the deity," he told the paper. "But it never occurred to me that she was serious about it. I thought she was kidding."

Such incidents are often associated with illiterate members of society in India, which is why it came as a shock to Dubey's family.

Comment: When your god starts asking you to self-mutilate, perhaps it's time to find a different god. Better yet, get familiarized with this sort of phenomenon (religious experiences, parapsychology, hypnosis) so that if and when it happens to you, you have the critical distance to question what is going on.

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Family

'Truthiness' and the death of empathy: When truth becomes disposable we are endangered beyond measure

Archbishop Richard Clarke
The Irish Times
Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:47 UTC
Death of empathy - barbarism
© pattisonblog.com
As Dostoevsky's "idiot" would remind us, it may be beauty that will save the world, but is it impertinent to suggest that right now a more pressing requirement for saving the world may be empathy?

Empathy is that quality that enables us - theoretically at least - to enter into the feelings of others, particularly those in trouble, pain or distress. Social psychologists suggest it may be a basic and inbuilt moral instinct within most of our human species, something for which we are hard-wired.

It is beyond sympathy which may contain some element of detachment or sentimentality. As the derivation of the two words suggest, sympathy is to be alongside the emotions of others, whereas empathy is to be totally inside those feelings.

At its best, empathy makes us grasp that another person - every other person indeed - is not an object on a landscape but a real subject, a subject of beauty and of infinite value, regardless of who or what he or she may be.

It is empathy that refuses to allow us to distinguish and, in the worst sense, discriminate between those who are like us and those who are not. The Christian perspective will link all of this instinctively with the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, but it does, of course, have a wider dimension for all of humanity, including those who do not profess religious faith.

Greatest threat

As with all moral instincts, however, empathy may be suppressed, distorted or deliberately stunted in its application. Perhaps the greatest threat to empathy in the human psyche of today is the new attitude to truth in our culture.
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Attention

Craigslist perverts offering homeless UK women shelter in return for sex


RT
Tue, 16 Aug 2016 15:47 UTC
homeless
© Chris Helgren / Reuters
Online advertisements are offering free accommodation to vulnerable homeless women, as long as they are "stunning" and can prove their attractiveness with a picture, a British charity has warned.

Posted on Craigslist, the "sordid" ads are "targeting desperate women who feel they have no other options - and women who may already have experienced sexual or domestic violence," homelessness charity Shelter said in a statement.

There are hundreds of listings on the site, some of which boldly state that women will be given free accommodation if they're prepared to return the favor in the form of sex. The ads vary from explicit sexual demands to implied intentions.

"If any young female student is in need of free of charge accommodation and is prepared to act as a 'resource' in return, then please provide full personal details and a recent pic and reply from your own private email address please. No pic, no reply," one ad states.

Another explicitly states that only "stunning" women need apply.

Comment: There is a real crisis in Western 'civilization'. This is the reality of "freedom" and "democracy": the freedom to exploit, to enslave, and to be enslaved fully by the powers of egoism, egotism, and egocentrism. Sit back and watch the world burn.

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Cowboy Hat

The Corporation: Dakota Access pipeline threatens to press charges on protesters - restraining orders, monetary compensation


RT
Tue, 16 Aug 2016 15:33 UTC
pipeline
© Andrew Cullen / Reuters
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has spent months protesting the Dakota Access pipeline, out of concerns for their tribe's drinking water. However, Dakota Access LLC is trying to get a restraining order against protesters, along with monetary compensation.

A dozen protesters were arrested last week when they came too close to the area slated to be used for the Dakota Access Pipeline, a project that, in terms of length, rivals the nixed Keystone XL pipeline. The company behind the pipeline, Dakota Access LLC, has decided to press charges against the protesters, claiming a need to guarantee the safety of their staff.

One of the arrested was a leader of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, Tribal Chairman David Archambault II. He and the other protesters face a restraining order and potential monetary damages that Dakota Access LLC did not specify.

Comment: Corporations are psychopaths. Keystone is blaming the victim, the ones who are really at risk. And they'll get away with it, in all likelihood.

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Gold Bar

Fabled Nazi gold train could be discovered this week as researchers get ready to dig


RT
Tue, 16 Aug 2016 15:09 UTC
Nazi gold train site
© XYZ Spółka Cywilna / YouTube
One year after claiming to have located the mysterious Nazi train filled with gold, treasure hunters in Poland are on the brink of finding out whether it actually exists.

Andreas Richter and Piotr Koper, who in August 2015 said they'd located the train using ground-penetrating radar, will be leading a dig at the site near old railway tracks between the cities of Wroclaw and Walbrzych starting Tuesday.

A privately-funded team of 35 researchers are involved in the search and have been busy preparing the site over the past week.
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Attention

Clinic staffers forget 86-yo Massachusetts woman on dialysis and close facility


RT
Tue, 16 Aug 2016 14:22 UTC
Maureen Perry
© Erica Crosby
An 86-year-old woman has been rescued from a Massachusetts dialysis clinic after its staff closed the facility for the day, leaving the patient on a dialysis chair. The clinic has apologized, but the family is demanding answers.

Maureen Perry, of Chelmsford, spent several hours locked alone inside the Fresenius Medical Care center after receiving her four-hour dialysis on Saturday.

The old woman, who is bedridden, has her rehabilitation facility to thank for her rescue. Rehab staff alerted Perry's family that she had not returned from the procedure three hours after it finished.

"It's about 5:15pm and we haven't heard from any place, and your grandmother isn't back yet," Perry's granddaughter, Erica Crosby, told reporters.
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Roses

Alabama plane crash kills 3 couples, total of 11 children left behind

Carol Robinson
AL.com
Sun, 14 Aug 2016 12:16 UTC
Tuscaloosa plane crash
© WBRC/Supplied
A plane crash in Tuscaloosa County has killed six people, three married couples who had attended a dental conference in Florida, and left a total of 11 children behind.

"It's tragic to lose these wonderful Mississippians. Deborah and I pray for the loved and lost, their families and friends,'' said Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant. "Life can be so uncertain, so we depend on the blessing of eternal life and reuniting. May God assauage the families' sorrow and hold them all in the palm of his hand."

The crash happened about 11:20 a.m. just east of the Tuscaloosa Regional Airport in Northport. The crash site is in a wooded field of Van de Graaff Park near an area known as Gate 1.


Tuscaloosa police Lt. Teena Richardson confirmed the six deaths. Northport police officials on the scene said the plane is not intact. Richardson said the plane was traveling from Kissimmee, Florida en route to Oxford, Miss. when the pilot reported engine problems. The pilot sent out distress call, and the plane went down behind the farmers market in Northport. According to Flightaware.com, an Oxford University Aircraft Charters departed the Florida airport at 9:55 a.m. but was diverted.
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Wolf

'Koran for Dummies': Most Daesh recruits ignorant about Islam, AP survey shows


RT
Tue, 16 Aug 2016 12:54 UTC
Islamic State recruits
© Reuters
Most Islamic State recruits know little about Islam or hardly care about religion at all, an AP investigation shows. Another study found that the few with the most religious knowledge among the ranks of the terrorist group do not rush to become martyrs.

As many as 70 percent of the recruits were said to have had only "basic" knowledge of Islam - one of the three possible choices on an Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) recruitment form, according to a study conducted by Associated Press. The agency looked at thousands of leaked IS documents collected by a Syrian site, Zaman al-Wasl, and conducted numerous interviews with former IS fighters.

The probe found that some 24 percent of IS recruits could boast "intermediate" knowledge of Islam and only about 5 percent considered themselves to be "advanced" learners. Only five recruits claimed to have memorized the Koran.
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Pocket Knife

Man with knife goes on rampage inside Austrian train, stabs 2 passengers


RT
Tue, 16 Aug 2016 12:42 UTC
Austria train knife attack
© Kronen Zeitung / Twitter
A 60-year-old man "with mental health problems" armed with a knife has attacked passengers on a regional train in Austria, injuring two people, police said. The attack is the latest in a string of knife assaults in Europe.

The knife attack took place on a regional train traveling between the Austrian towns of Bludenz and Feldkirch at around 6.30am local time on Thursday, according to local media.

Police said that a German man aged 60 had stabbed a 19-year-old passenger in his stomach, also injuring his back, and afterwards attacked another passenger's neck. The second victim was 17, according to police.
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Arrow Down

Distinguished hospitals in India complicit in organ harvesting


Sputnik News
Tue, 16 Aug 2016 05:39 UTC
Surgery
© RIA Novosti/Grigoriy Sisoev
Five doctors from one of India's most distinguished hospitals were charged this week with performing illegal kidney transplants connected to an organ harvesting ring.

The doctors, including a medical director and a chief executive, worked out of the prestigious L.H. Hiranandani Hospital in Mumbai. The trafficking racket was discovered in July after police were tipped off by poor villagers from Gujarat state who were sold their kidneys.

The trade for illegal organs is booming in India, where it is lawful for people to donate organs to blood relatives in need. The practice of buying and selling organs, however, is banned and punishable by fines and prison sentences.

Unrelated donors can donate organs if the government confirms that no money has changed hands in the transaction. People can also source organs from cadavers or brain-dead patients, with the family's permission, but these options are not common.
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