People who take pleasure in the downfall of others are almost always relieving pressure inside themselves. Someone else’s failure gives their ego a brief sense of elevation – “at least I’m not them”, or “at least I was right”, or even “at least my suffering has company.” When a person feels fundamentally unfulfilled or powerless, watching others fall becomes a substitute for inner stability.
At a deeper level, what the delight in another’s collapse reveals is a mind trapped in scarcity. If your sense of worth depends on relative position – who’s up, who’s down – then someone else’s success feels threatening and their failure feels comforting. This is why genuinely grounded people don’t gloat. When someone is rooted in their own life, their own practice, their own work, there’s nothing to gain from another’s misfortune. Cruel satisfaction only appears where presence is absent and the self is still feeding on comparison instead of on real substance.
- Damien Echols
Amanda Knox confronts the man who sent her to prison — and continued court battle — in Hulu documentary ‘Mouth of the Wolf’
In a new documentary released on Hulu Monday, Amanda Knox — the now-exonerated American who was convicted of murdering her roommate while studying abroad in Italy — heads back to Europe to meet the prosecutor who sent her to prison in 2007.
Titled Mouth of the Wolf: Amanda Knox Returns to Italy, the documentary features Knox meeting with Giuliano Mignini, the Italian prosecutor who led the investigation into the murder of Meredith Kercher, Knox’s roommate.
Knox was released from prison in 2011 when an Italian court reversed the murder conviction on appeal, and was acquitted in 2015. Now 38, she is a podcaster, author and activist for criminal justice reform. The new Hulu documentary, directed by Knox’s husband, Christopher Robinson, chronicles multiple trips to Italy with Knox and initially began when Knox was asked to deliver a speech in the country on behalf of the Innocence Project in 2022.
I’ve obviously been following this case for years.
Chicagoland is midst of coldest late January stretch in more than six decades
Tuesday was another cold one across the Chicago area as highs failed to reach freezing for the 11th straight day, topping out at 14 degrees both at O’Hare and Midway international airports despite another day of abundant sunshine.
Coldest stretch in 63 years
The cold has been persistent! The average temperature since January 20th has been 9.1 degrees when you take the high and low temperature for that period, which is a rather stunning 15.4 degrees below normal and the coldest such late January period in the 63 years since 1963!
I was lucky enough to hang with Howie a few times. A true original.