Watching the World
Less Public Support for Spanish Church
In Spain the government continues to give financial support to the Catholic Church. According to the Madrid daily El País, last year the church received 15,000,000,000 pesetas ($140,000,000, U.S.). Part of the funds came from taxpayers, who marked a box on their tax forms designating a portion of their taxes as a contribution to the Catholic Church. However, El País noted that the number of taxpayers willing to make such a contribution is decreasing. In 1989 only 38 percent of the taxpaying public indicated that they wanted such funds passed on to the church. This is in a country that is supposedly nearly 100 percent Catholic.
Abused Children
In some parts of South Africa, physical abuse of children is on the increase. An alarming number of abused children are very young and unable to seek help. According to the Cape Times, a Cape Town newspaper, a recent survey of 350 children hospitalized for abuse revealed that “60 percent were sexually and 40 percent physically abused.” The Cape Times noted that “some 90% of victims of sexual abuse were girls averaging six years old, while 60% of physically abused patients were boys averaging five-and-a-half years old.” In the Red Cross Children’s Hospital, “a quarter of all physically (non-sexually) abused children (of all races) treated over the past two years were under a year old.”
More Harmful Than Cocaine
In 1990, said the Brazilian newspaper Jornal da Tarde, 58 youths in the state of Minas Gerais died from a cough-syrup overdose. As a result, “the Brazilian government prohibited the sale and importation of four cough syrups,” Veja magazine said. Veja added that according to one expert, “cough syrup with zipeprol can be a more merciless drug than marijuana or even cocaine because it can cause irreversible damage in a much shorter time.” The continued use of zipeprol can upset the gastrointestinal system, cause respiratory depression, paralyze the bladder, and cause heart failure.
“University of Life”
John Major served as Britain’s chancellor of the Exchequer before becoming prime minister in November 1990. He left school at 16, and by his own admission, his education came from “the university of life.” “I know an awful lot of people who have an armful of academic qualifications,” he said, “and . . . they are wholly useless, most of them. They have no common sense. It really has to be a combination of intelligence and common sense if people actually want to achieve things and often the common sense is more important.” Although many took exception to his observations, The Times of London reported former headmaster John Rae as agreeing: “Academic qualifications only mean that the person is qualified in that particular subject, nothing more. Some academics, particularly in the universities, are out of touch with the real world. . . . I see that people without qualifications are often much more capable.”
No Fear of AIDS
Federal officials at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A., have expressed surprise and dismay at the increase in sexual activity among teenage girls in the United States in spite of the AIDS threat. The Medical Post, a Canadian newspaper, reports that “15-year-olds, for example, are more than five times as likely to be sexually active today than their counterparts were a generation ago.” The number of young women from 15 to 19 years of age who admit to having engaged in premarital sex has almost doubled. This is especially the case among 15-year-old girls. According to The Medical Post, “health experts blamed the rising figures on popular culture’s emphasis on sexuality and the failure of sex-education campaigns in the 1980s.”
A Plastic “Stradivarius”?
According to Mrs. Judy Grahame, the marketing director of the London Philharmonic, “there comes a point in a professional violinist’s career where they would have to pay around £60,000 [$110,000, U.S.] for an instrument.” But now, after 20 years of research, an 81-year-old Englishman has produced what he calls “a plastic violin . . . as good as a Stradivarius.” Made of graphite fiber and epoxy resin, it is mat black. The inventor says that with mass production techniques and injection molding, it would take no more than five hours to produce an instrument that could retail for as little as £150 ($270, U.S.). “If the new violin is as good as claimed,” added Mrs. Grahame, “it would revolutionise the musical world.” Backed by numerous patents, plans are in hand to extend the range to include the viola, the cello, and the double bass, reports The Daily Telegraph of London.
War and the Toy Industry
Stimulated by television news coverage of the Persian Gulf war, the sale of war toys has tripled and even quadrupled in Japan. The Daily Yomiuri states that “the saturation media coverage of the Gulf war has sent children and young-at-heart adults to toy stores for plastic models of planes and tanks used by the allied forces against Iraq.” The most popular war toys are models of the radar-evading Stealth bomber, the F-15 Eagle fighter, the M-1 Abrams tank, and the Apache helicopter. Some in the toy business are afraid that the increased sales will give the industry “a negative image of warmongering.”
Animals in Danger
The Environment Committee of the State Council in China recently revealed that “because of reckless hunting, the number of wild animals is becoming smaller in China, and many rare animals are facing extinction.” After examining a number of restaurants, markets, ports, and private businesses in the province of Kwangtung, a group of inspectors recently found that rare animals continue to be killed and sold there. According to the magazine China Today, the “provincial forestry bureau reported that 1,286 rare animals, including the giant lizard, pangolin, giant salamander, monkey and civet, had been killed, sold or smuggled in 11 of the province’s cities.” China Environmental News notes that ‘some people, including some officials, do not fully understand the importance of protecting wild animals. In their view, everybody can hunt wild animals because they don’t belong to anyone.’
Trash in Space
Scientists are concerned about the increasing amount of man-made debris orbiting the earth. A collision between a spacecraft and such debris could result in death for the astronauts or could otherwise jeopardize space missions. Researchers estimate that some 7,000 objects larger than a tennis ball and about 3.5 million smaller items are floating in space. “Even chips of paint can cause damage as they hurtle through space at up to 60,000kph [40,000 mph],” notes The German Tribune in a translation of an article that appeared in the Munich newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. A growing number of pieces of man-made debris orbiting the earth and colliding with one another could result in “a ring of cosmic dust surrounding the Earth like the rings of Saturn.”
Dating in India
Dating is becoming increasingly popular in India, and some now seem to accept it as a fact of life. The magazine India Today notes that a decade ago, seeing couples walking together holding hands was “like spotting a rare bird. These days, they are as common as sparrows.” Dating couples may be seen on public beaches, in parks, in movie theaters, and at fast-food places. Public displays of intimacy are more common. Some attribute this change in Indian society to peer pressure in schools and colleges and the proliferation of sexually explicit films and television programs.
Catholic Witches
Witchcraft is becoming part of the daily life of many Mexicans. Siete Días, a weekly magazine, reports that people seek the help of witches in resolving a variety of problems, such as headaches, colds, and work-related and romantic difficulties. The southern and central states of Veracruz, Oaxaca, Morelos, and Michoacán are well-known for their witches. Siete Días notes that “witchcraft in Mexico dates back to the time of the Aztecs. With the arrival of the Spaniards, witches and healers incorporated into their practice European traditions, such as Catholicism.” One famous witch in La Petaca receives her clients in a room “filled with statues of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Jesus, photographs of John Paul II, and lighted candles.”