Watching the World
Women Advised to Resist a Rapist
New research has shown that women have a better chance of escaping rape and injury if they fight back than if they plead or cry. Examining records of women who had been sexually attacked, researchers at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, discovered that women who fought back or screamed and ran away fared much better than those who did not. “In fact, the women most apt to be raped or harmed were those who didn’t fight back, relying instead on begging or reasoning with their attackers,” says the magazine American Health. Dr. Sarah Ullman, who conducted the study, gives this advice: “A woman shouldn’t hesitate to shout, fight and resist with all her strength. Pleading and begging probably won’t help.”
The Church in Poland
Some four years after the fall of Communism in Poland, the Catholic Church is facing serious difficulties. According to the Guardian Weekly of London, public opinion polls reveal that “the priesthood has lost much of its prestige status.” It adds that “the number of seminary applicants is falling off and attendances at religious instruction classes in schools are dwindling.” The majority of those questioned believe that Catholic influence on public life is excessive. The Guardian notes that Polish “intellectuals believe that although in the past Poland acquired a reputation for religious fervour its Catholicism was in fact only skin-deep and ritualistic.” Some are convinced that the church was mainly an instrument to fight Communism and that it did not stop Polish Catholics from “divorcing or having abortions while the law still allowed them to.”
“Use It or Lose It”
A number of studies conducted all over the world have revealed that the more a person uses his brain, the less likely he is to experience brain disorders. “Having more education means not only that you develop your brain more when you’re young, but that you use it more throughout your life, and that produces some sort of protective mechanism” against mental disease. “Reading, writing and arithmetic may be the best way to protect your brain against” a condition of deteriorated mentality, reports The Toronto Star of Canada. Neuropsychologist Marilyn Albert said: “This finding has been validated enough that we know it’s real.” She added: “For the brain, it means ‘use it or lose it.’”
Radiation-Induced Cancers
Seven years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine, doctors in Belarus (formerly Belorussia) are reporting a substantial increase in the number of thyroid cancers in children. According to the French medical journal Le Concours médical, reported cases in Belarus of thyroid cancer in children jumped from an average of 4 cases per year between 1986 and 1989 to 114 cases per year from 1990 to June 1992. Because the radioactive isotope that causes thyroid cancer, iodine 131, was released in the accident in far larger quantities than other radioactive elements, scientists are hoping that other types of radiation-induced cancers will be limited.
Chickens With “AIDS”
It appears that AIDS is not restricted to humans and certain types of monkeys. The Indian Express of Bombay, India, reported that a disease similar to AIDS has stricken the country’s poultry. According to the Express, the viral disease gumbaro, which results in an acquired immune deficiency syndrome, “has assumed epidemic proportions in the country, affecting lakhs [hundreds of thousands] of birds.” More than 1.5 million egg-laying birds have died. The report claimed that there is likely to be an acute shortage of eggs in India.
Teenager Troubles
“Today’s teenagers [in the United States] face a reality far more grim and risky than the teenage years remembered by their parents and grandparents,” reports the International Herald Tribune. Citing U.S. statistics, the Tribune says that the number of teenagers who drink alcohol is up 30 percent over the 1950’s. Teenage suicide has risen from an extremely rare occurrence to the third most common cause of death, after accidents and homicides. Among youngsters from 10 to 14 years of age, unwanted pregnancies increased 23 percent from 1983 to 1987, and the rate of gonorrhea quadrupled between 1960 and 1988. Psychologists are groping for new ways to understand and help young people.
Watching Them Without Eating Them
The catching and the eating of whales has become a major issue in recent years. In a few countries, such as Japan, some people claim that whale meat is part of their traditional diet and are upset by the ban on commercial whaling by the International Whaling Commission. Some Japanese, though, have discovered that whales can bring in a profit without being caught and eaten. The inhabitants of the Bonin Islands, south of Tokyo, are busy expanding their latest tourist attraction, whale watching. Upon seeing whales in their normal habitat instead of on their plates, whale watchers give rousing cheers, especially when the whales blow and splash about.
“Gun Crazy”
Under that caption, an editorial in The New York Times of May 25 commented on the trial of a Louisiana man who was acquitted of manslaughter after killing a Japanese exchange student in October 1992. The 16-year-old student had mistakenly rung the man’s doorbell. When the man’s command to freeze went unheeded by the student, who did not understand its meaning, he shot the Japanese teenager in the chest. “You have the legal right to answer everybody that comes to your door with a gun,” said the man’s lawyer in his defense. That, said the editorial, means that anyone who comes to your door, including “the local minister . . . , can expect a bullet if he dares ring your bell.” “We Japanese don’t understand the gun society of America,” said a Japanese reporter. “Actually, it’s easy,” the editorial replied. “Just think stupidity, intolerance, a warped interpretation of the ‘right to bear arms’ and a refusal to learn anything” from the deaths of countless people killed by guns.
Women Drivers
Women behind a steering wheel are often stereotyped as being inferior to men in driving skills. Do the facts uphold this generalization? Not according to The Motorist, a journal published by the Automobile Association of South Africa. Of all road accidents in that country in one recent year, over 83 percent involved male drivers. Many insurance companies thus offer women drivers better rates than men. “This confidence in women’s driving skills,” explains the above magazine, exists because the industry “believes that women are less aggressive behind the wheel, less inclined to take risks and less likely to be involved in traffic offences.” The magazine concludes that the right attitude, irrespective of a driver’s sex, is what ensures good driving habits.
The State of the World’s Health
How fares global health? A comprehensive report published recently by WHO (World Health Organization) reveals bad news and good news. The good news is that measles, polio, whooping cough, and neonatal tetanus are in decline because of global efforts to immunize children. Cardiovascular disease is likewise on the wane in most developed countries. Infant and child mortality rates are dropping worldwide, and life expectancy is increasing. The bad news, reports WHO, is that tropical diseases, such as cholera, yellow fever, dengue, and malaria, “seem to have gone on a rampage.” AIDS, tuberculosis, and diabetes are also on the increase.
Video Gambling
Video lottery machines are “the crack cocaine of gambling” and should not be in public places, says Garry Smith, a University of Alberta professor. Interviewed in The Edmonton Journal of Canada, Smith, who authored a study on compulsive gambling, notes that addiction to video gambling can occur “in as little as six months.” He states that gambling expansion brings an increase in crime and other serious problems. Two thirds of compulsive gamblers embezzle and commit forgery, fraud, and theft just to keep up their habit. The addiction brings on depression and suicidal thoughts that contribute to careless driving and accidents, in addition to defaults on debts “and costs to the health care system.” According to Smith, “each compulsive gambler costs society $56,000.”
Adolescents of the ’90’s
Vittorino Andreoli, psychiatrist at Verona University, Italy, reports that in contrast with previous generations, today’s youngsters “lack or have a reduced perception of the future.” He adds that this makes it difficult for young people to “sacrifice today for happiness tomorrow.” Many also lack “the perception of good and bad,” meaning that “all behavior is dictated by the situation alone” rather than by any fixed moral code. Many of today’s youngsters do not quite understand what death is. Andreoli notes that “they know only television death, from fiction . . . Youngsters know how to bring about death, but they do not know what it is. Thus, they may cause it or even inflict it upon themselves, imagining completely different results.”