Weekend Reading #51

 Some longer and more involved reading for weekend:

• First up is Greg Ellifritz's Weekend Knowledge Dump for this weekend. He links and offers some brief commentary to some great resources. Here are some that caught my attention in particular:
• A "crash course" in self-defense from Art of Manliness, which goes over some basic self-defense concepts.
• In that vein, a link to a piece that discusses the differences between how men and women are attacked. Basically, women tend to be grabbed and dragged, and violence against them can often turn into a sexual assault, whereas men are likely to be victims of "social" violence. He has some other points as well.
• And a link from Recoil Magazine discussing what criminals look for when trying to determine who to attack: things like gate, posture, age, sex, fitness, etc. Basically, traits that would identify a weak and easily intimidated target versus one more likely to fight back.
• An interesting review of a couple of common .380 ACP defensive rounds (Hydra-Shok and Critical Defense) against a meat target where the meat target was bare, had medium clothing layers, and heavy clothing layers. All rounds were fired from a KelTek P38T which is probably one of the smallest .380 pistols available. Expansion was uniformly good against the bare target, but clothing had a tremendous impact on expansion with both rounds. 
• A link to Issue 24 of Armed Lifestyle magazine. The magazine includes a number of articles including one on the importance of dry fire, another on situational awareness for runners, and even one on pirates!
• And an article from Outdoor Life on the last interview of Buffalo Bill Cody. One of the interesting insights, which Greg excerpts, is how Wild Bill Hickok was able to win his gun fights despite being, in Cody's opinion, a mediocre gun fighter: once Hickok determined he was going to shoot a man he was cool, calm, and didn't hesitate. 
• John Wilder discusses Lent in his post: "In Which I Discuss What Mustard, Ramen, Historical Timekeeping, Fasting, And Booze Have In Common." He did the fasting and praying and it helped: he says he went down a size on his waistline and he feels closer to God. And reading his article, I learned more about Lent and Ash Wednesday than I knew before. 
• Digging through old bookmarks, I happened across one for this article from Aish: "Jews and Booze: The Fascinating History of Jews and Alcohol." It begins with how Jews in Eastern Europe came to dominate the alcohol trade--particular in running taverns--how that fell apart, and their subsequently taking a substantial role in the organized crime and smuggling of alcohol during prohibition. An excerpt:

    While the vast majority of Jews had nothing to do with organized crime or bootlegging, Jewish mobsters played a disproportionately large role in the illegal alcohol business. The most prominent Jew in the bootlegging business was an Eastern European immigrant named Meyer Lansky who had teamed up with the Italian American mobster Charles “Lucky” Luciano to develop the National Crime Syndicate in the U.S.

    Across the border in Canada the production and sale of alcohol was completely legal, and Lansky saw this as a great source of booze for the American market. His number one supplier in Canada was Sam Bronfman. The Bronfman family, also from Eastern Europe, had immigrated to Montreal and acquired the Canadian Seagram’s Distillery Company in the early 1920’s. Sam Bronfman turned Seagram into a very profitable enterprise in no small part due to prohibition.

    The challenge for Lansky was how to smuggle the alcohol into America. The safest route was by water, across Lake Erie, the smallest of the Great Lakes, located on the border between the U.S. and Canada. So much booze was smuggled across that lake by Bronfman to Lansky that it was nicknamed “the Jewish Lake.”

    There were also a number of exemptions to the prohibition of the sale of alcohol. One of them was for sacramental or religious reasons. Because sacramental wine could be legally distributed through synagogues, many congregations reported massive increases, up to tenfold, in membership during prohibition and there were even cases of non-Jews establishing “Jewish congregations” for the same purpose! 

•  And speaking of organized crime: "How a Botched Contract Killing Exposed Freemason 'Mafia' Network Inside French Secret Society as Murder Trial Begins for 22 Accused"--People. The article begins:

    A trial is underway in France for 22 individuals who officials allege ordered or carried out crimes for a group of Freemasons living in a suburb of Paris.

    The group is accused of mafia-like dealings, ordering hit squads to vanquish rivals and allegedly killing one individual.

    This was all exposed when two individuals allegedly contracted to carry out a murder were arrested outside their target's home, according to Le Monde, France 24 and Radio France Internationale.

    The men at the center of the scandal are all members of the Athanor Freemasons, a former sect of the Grande Loge de l'Alliance Maçonnique Française that was closed in 2021 after these crimes came to light. 

• And now for something completely different: "America’s First UFO Sighting"--History.com. Recorded on March 1, 1639, by John Winthrop. It also discusses another recorded sighting several years later in 1644.