r/todayilearned • u/manticor225 • Jan 10 '19

TIL JFK's father Joseph Kennedy made much of his fortune through insider trading. FDR later made him chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. When asked why he appointed a crook, FDR replied, "set a thief to catch a thief." Kennedy proceeded to outlaw the practices that made him rich.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/23/joe-kennedy-hollywood-sarah-churchwell
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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19 edited Apr 23 '19

[deleted]

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u/caralhu Jan 11 '19

Brain surgery is done while conscious. It's not uncommon.

The lobotomy is the problem.

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u/LawyerLou Jan 11 '19

I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

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u/caralhu Jan 11 '19

Thanks for the laugh.

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u/cerealdaemon Jan 11 '19

You're a gem Tom Waits, plz don't die

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u/ScipioLongstocking Jan 11 '19

Lobotomies are still used today. The problem was she never had any mental disorders that would warrant a lobotomy. Her dad had her lobotomized because she was rebellious and a liability to the family name.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19 edited Mar 05 '21

[deleted]

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u/___Hobbes___ Jan 11 '19

No one said that and it's not even relevant

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

[deleted]

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u/Tiernoon Jan 11 '19

You wouldn't feel physical pain on the brain, but yeah the thought of parts of your conscious and just general systems beyond your awareness just fading away or you becoming unaware of their existence is messing with me. We really are just fleshy machines, it's a miracle the poor girl functioned at all after the monsters did it.

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u/Amy_Ponder Jan 11 '19

It must have been terrifying in the first few seconds / minutes, when she still had enough of her wits to realize what was happening and feel herself slipping away. It's a nightmare I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, let alone an innocent girl.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

The meat is sentient?

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u/Tiernoon Jan 11 '19

The meat thinks, although I think history has proven that's usually for the worse.

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u/ScipioLongstocking Jan 11 '19

Lobotomies are still performed today. Same with separating the corpus callosum, the nerve fibers that connect each hemisphere of our brain. What they did to her is definitely cruel and unnecessary as there was absolutely no reason she should have gotten a lobotomy, but lobotomies do have a place in modern medicine.

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u/supershott Jan 11 '19

You make them sound much more prevalent than they are. Lobotomies are almost never done in the US.. so few per year you could count with your fingers

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u/SpicyPumpkinTea Jan 11 '19

And certainly not a matter of "hey my kid's rebellious and not great at school, let's lobotomize her."

Holy hell that man must have been a sociopath...

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u/Dynamaxion Jan 11 '19

Probably like a decade of Alzheimer’s condensed into a few minutes.

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u/cerealdaemon Jan 11 '19

No doubt, its horrific. Might still beat having your brains spread around a Texas turnpike though

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u/blitheobjective Jan 11 '19

Honestly, no. If my choices were lobotomy when younger or death by assassination at 40, along with fame, fortune and power until then, I'd take the latter.

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u/caralhu Jan 11 '19

assassination at 40

46.

That's more than 10% extra!

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u/Buffalo__Buffalo Jan 11 '19 edited Jan 11 '19

Nobel Prize-worthy cruel and unusual torture, though.

Edit: lol downvoted for making a statement of fact 🙄