Watching the World
The Clergy and Sexual Abuse
Australian National Television recently broadcast a documentary entitled “The Ultimate Betrayal.” The program claimed that 15 percent of clergymen in Australia had committed sexual offenses, ranging from the molestation of children to the rape of women parishioners. Within hours of the television program, various centers set up to handle complaints of sexual assault were inundated with telephone calls from alleged victims. Many callers said they had kept their experience secret for many years. One woman said that she was speaking about her ordeal as a child for the first time in 40 years! Another said that after her clergyman had sexually abused her as a child, he threatened her with hellfire punishment if she dared to tell anyone. Spokesmen for various church groups disagreed with the 15-percent figure but did admit that the sexual misconduct of clergymen was a serious problem.
Children Prefer TV
Most children feel that reading books is too strenuous. That was the finding of a study that the German magazine Eltern conducted among 1,960 school students from 8 to 15 years of age. The majority preferred watching television. Reporting on the study, the newspaper Schweinfurter Tagblatt stated that 64 percent favored TV viewing and that the one thing children like to read most is the guide to television programs. One 14-year-old theorized that TV viewing must be a natural inborn ability of humans while reading is a troublesome process that has to be learned.
Fewer Varieties of Farm Animals
Many species of domestic farm animals are in danger of extinction, says the Paris newspaper Le Figaro. Since the beginning of the century, half of Europe’s species of farm animals have become extinct, and a third of those that remain may soon disappear. A basic trend in modern agriculture has been to concentrate on breeding only those strains of livestock that bring the highest yields and thus the greatest profits. The same trend is prevalent in developing countries. Consequently, as more and more varieties of cattle, swine, and fowl are allowed to die out, the world’s food supply becomes increasingly dependent on fewer and fewer species of animals. Scientists now fear that this loss of genetic diversity greatly increases the danger that one new disease could wipe out much of the earth’s livestock.
The Song of a Dead Bird
The song of the huia, a New Zealand bird, has recently been artificially reproduced with the use of a computer and a synthesizer. Considering the fact that the huia became extinct in 1907, this is surprising. According to The Times of London, David Hindley located recordings of Henare Hemana, a Maori huia impersonator. In 1954 when the songs were recorded, Hemana was 80 years old, but he could whistle “an impressive range of huia calls” from memory. Later Hemana’s version was confirmed when other recorded imitations of the bird’s song were found. With these recordings, and the information gleaned from books, Hindley may have composed a song performed by a huia bird for the last time 85 years ago.
Rape in South Africa
“South Africa is one of the most violent places on earth,” noted the Sunday Star Review of Johannesburg, South Africa. One violent crime that is receiving international attention is rape. In South Africa an average of 23,000 rapes are reported yearly. However, it is estimated that “only one in 36 rapes are reported.” A large percentage of the rapes are perpetrated by men who know their victims, such as husbands, male relatives, or friends. The Sunday Star Review noted that “according to a study on violence by Lloyd Vogelman of the University of the Witwatersrand, one in two South African women will be raped in her lifetime.”
Credit-Card Fraud
The Canadian Bankers’ Association (CBA) reports that credit-card fraud in that country has more than doubled in the past two years, and it continues to accelerate. Paul Facciol, chairman of the CBA’s credit-card subcommittee noted that the ‘majority of the losses are on lost and stolen cards.’ According to The Globe and Mail, “stolen, counterfeit and altered credit cards last year cost the two biggest companies, Visa and Mastercard, more than $46-million—about 14 times the $3.3-million stolen in all bank robberies.”
Dangerous Buckets
“On average, about one infant every other week drowns after toppling into a large bucket containing water or some other liquid,” says Don Barkas of the Santa Barbara City Fire Department in California, U.S.A. An article published by The California Fire Service specifically mentioned five-gallon [20 L] buckets, which are used in many homes for miscellaneous household chores. Apparently, an unattended toddler could pull himself up to the rim of the bucket, reach into it to play, and topple into it. The rigid five-gallon container filled, or even partially filled with liquid is heavier than the average 8-to-12-month-old infant. The article states that over the past seven years, more than 200 small children have drowned in the United States after falling into liquid-filled buckets.
More People
The United Nations Population Fund recently released their latest estimates for worldwide population growth. According to The New York Times, the “new projections show the world adding 97 million new people every year until the end of the century and 90 million a year thereafter until 2025.” Ninety-seven percent of this population growth is expected to take place in developing countries. Such population increase poses a serious threat to the quality of human life. “The report warned that such rates of growth mean greater numbers of poor and hungry people, increased migration toward cities and richer countries and increased pressure on the world’s reserves of food, water and other natural resources,” noted the Times. The present world population of 5.5 billion is expected to rise to about 10 billion in the year 2050.
Injured by Fashion
“There’s a long history of fashion being injurious,” observed costume historian Barbara Schreier. What did she mean? According to In Health magazine, a National Safety Council report revealed that in just one year in the United States, “102,397 people were injured by their clothing and 43,868 were shackled, slashed, or impaled by their jewelry.” Carrying heavy handbags has resulted in injury to shoulder and neck muscles. Of course, the above figures reflect only the cases in which people sought medical assistance.
Slavery Today
The issue of slavery is thought to have been resolved back in the 19th century. Nonetheless, a recent investigation carried out by Newsweek magazine “suggests that cases of involuntary servitude reach well into the millions.” The British organization Anti-Slavery International alleges that more than 100 million people suffer as slaves throughout the world. People are being held as property and induced into forced labor in places such as the Caribbean, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. “Many are routinely beaten to enforce obedience,” notes Newsweek. Some workers are allegedly branded with red-hot irons. In some areas there are men who make a living as slave-traders specializing in the abduction and sale of young women. In one country the “going rate” for a girl is six cows.
AIDS in Brazil
Dr. Luís Alberto Pelegrino Ferreira, a Brazilian virologist, recently noted that in the state of Santa Catarina, 42 percent of those sick with AIDS are between the ages of 20 and 29. He stated that the high percentage of AIDS among young adults “leads us to believe that these persons were infected between 15 and 19 years of age.” Evidently, promiscuous sexual activity at an early age has contributed to this sad situation. However, it is widely acknowledged that the transmission of HIV is also possible through blood transfusions. The newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo reports that six hemophiliacs, members of the same family, all were infected with HIV through contaminated blood transfusions.
A Belligerent World
The term “New World Order” has recently been used extensively to describe the changed political climate in the world. The term often has a positive connotation, associating this new set of circumstances with the possibility of world peace. However, under the heading “The New World Order,” the magazine Asiaweek recently listed the names of over 100 nations, painting a more realistic picture of world conditions. The nations were listed in order of army size. At the top of the list was China, with an army of 2,300,000. India and North Korea followed, each with about 1,000,000 soldiers. Some 30 countries boast armies in the six figures. At the bottom of the list was Burkina Faso with an army of 7,000. The grand total of all the armies listed by Asiaweek adds up to over 15,000,000 soldiers!