Watching the World
Disappearing Treasures
In the last 12 years, Russia has lost as much as 90 percent of its art treasures, such as paintings and icons, according to an investigative report in Moscow News. In 1990, customs officials confiscated a fortune in folk art, gold coins, and religious articles. However, that was only a fraction—perhaps from 2 to 5 percent—of all the smuggled goods. Moscow News alleges that about 40 smuggling gangs, organized largely in Germany and Italy, are currently at work in the country. They have the most valuable items cleaned and restored and then send them to be sold in wealthy countries.
Pardoned At Last
Pope John Paul II has granted Galileo a “solemn pardon.” Until now, the Catholic Church viewed the celebrated physicist as one “censured by the Holy Inquisition” in 1633 for insisting that the earth moves around the sun. Now, 360 years later, the pope sought to close the issue once and for all with a solemn speech before the Papal Academy of Sciences. But according to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, even on this occasion the pope did not hold back from reaffirming that Galileo was wrong on at least one count. It seems the physicist rejected a “suggestion” that he present his conclusions as a hypothesis until there was “irrefutable proof.”
Life on the Bottom Rung
India’s Mushars have “always stood at the bottom rung of the ladder” of society, said India Today recently. This community of untouchables, as their caste is referred to, number about three million, living predominately in the state of Bihar. Most, according to one 60-year-old Mushar, “do not know what a full meal means.” India Today vividly describes a group of Mushar children who, foraging the countryside for food, smoke an army of rats from their holes, club them, roast them, and eat them. In the local language, the magazine explains, “Mushar” means “rat catcher.”
Teenage Satanism
Satanism is gaining ground in schools in Johannesburg, South Africa. According to the newspaper The Star, one psychologist says she has treated a number of students affected by Satanism. Patients spoke of suburban covens that took drugs and practiced sex and sadomasochistic orgies. Contrary to stereotypes, she says, “these children look perfectly respectable.” A police officer told The Star that police are aware of satanic groups throughout the country. Satanism is not illegal, but the police follow up on crimes related to satanic rituals. They recently arrested a teenage girl and her boyfriend for the murder of a 38-year-old woman. Both were involved with Satanism, and they told the police that they committed the murder under demonic influence.
Greenhouse Hurricanes
Many scientists worry that the recent spate of severe hurricanes may be connected to the greenhouse effect, the warming of the atmosphere due to human pollution. According to Newsweek magazine, an average temperature just a few degrees higher might intensify such storms and enlarge the area of ocean that breeds them. The magazine notes that Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which rated a 5 on a 5-point scale of hurricane intensity, would once have been called a hundred-year storm because that is how rare such disasters usually are. But Hurricane Hugo in 1989 rated a 4, and Gilbert of 1988 also rated a 5. Thus, Newsweek summarizes the concern of many scientists: “Look at Andrew; that may be what a greenhouse world would be like.”
Charity for Whom?
What happens to all the money that charities collect each year? Quite a bit of it goes to the people who run them. According to a survey, in more than one third of the 100 largest charities in the United States, chief executives raked in over $200,000 each in salaries and benefits last year. Thus reports the International Herald Tribune. Three of these executives received over $500,000. The survey was sparked by the ousting of the president of one charity, who was accused of financial mismanagement and lavish spending. He was making $390,000 per year. His successor makes “only” $195,000.
Till Divorce Do Us Part
In 1991 over 130,000 marriages ended in the divorce courts of Germany, reports the newspaper Allgemeine Zeitung. Marital breakup has become so common that divorce sympathy cards have proliferated, bearing such slogans as “Congratulations on your divorce” or “Welcome to the first of the best days of your life.” Some 10 percent of the couples who marry in Germany now make preparations for divorce well in advance of the wedding. They write up contracts specifying which spouse will get what—house, furniture—in the event of divorce. Why so many divorces? Allgemeine Zeitung comments: “Just a few years after exchanging rings, 80 percent of women complain that their husband shows too little interest in them. . . . A study covering 5,000 couples confirmed that they usually talked to one another for just nine minutes a day after six years of marriage.”
Parents Pay for Lack of Discipline
A court in Tokyo, Japan, recently ruled that the parents of three teenage members of a motorcycle gang must help to pay for their children’s crimes. The boys had beaten and repeatedly kicked a man in the stomach after he complained about the noise of their motorbikes. The man died a month later. “The crime was an extension of the kind of lives the four young men were leading, repeatedly not attending school, drinking, smoking and riding motorbikes,” Mainichi Daily News quoted the judge as saying. “While fully aware of the kind of lives their sons were leading, the gang members’ parents did not discipline them,” he said and ordered the parents to pay a total of ¥83,000,000 (almost $700,000, U.S.) in compensation to the dead man’s family.
Pollution and Infant Mortality
A recent study in Brazil links pollution with the mortality of urban children five years of age and younger. According to the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, Paulo H. N. Saldiva, researcher with the Faculty of Medicine of São Paulo, has found that whenever the air contains more nitrogen oxide (a gas released by burning diesel oil, gasoline, and alcohol), there is a surge in the number of deaths due to respiratory complications. An increase of a mere tenth part of this gas in every million parts of air means the death of eight more children per week in São Paulo. Since poor and undernourished children are most affected, Saldiva notes: “Those who are paying for the pollution by cars are precisely those who do not enjoy the convenience that the vehicle brings.”
Evangelizing Outer Space?
The Catholic Church is still contemplating the problem of evangelizing new worlds. Holy See astronomers involved with the search for intelligent life-forms in outer space have already evaluated the theological implications of finding such beings. “Baptize extraterrestrials? Why not?” asks Jesuit George Coyne, director of the Vatican observatory in Italy. “If one day we have the good fortune to meet them, we would be obliged to consider the problem.” Coyne sees it this way: “First of all, we would have to ask the extraterrestrial a number of questions, such as: ‘Have you ever had the same kind of experience as Adam and Eve, that is, of original sin?’ And then as a consequence: ‘Do you also know a Jesus who redeemed you?’” If the answer is no, then “the question of his evangelization would certainly arise.”
Long, Happy Marriages
“It’s the old line: do everything by the Ten Commandments and live happily ever after,” grumbled psychologist Gary Schoener in a recent issue of Newsweek magazine. The object of his scorn? Widely publicized data from surveys of nearly 6,000 people showing that older married couples are happier than young singles who are sexually promiscuous. The findings, which Schoener dismisses as promarriage and moralistic, show that while the frequency of sexual relations does decline somewhat with age, the happiest people surveyed were older couples who still found their mates “very attractive physically” and still enjoyed intimacy on a regular basis. Other studies have shown that those who control their weight and exercise regularly are more likely to remain sexually active in their later years.
Rapture Deadline Passes—Again
The Mission for the Coming Days in Korea confidently predicted that on October 28, 1992, the “rapture” would occur, whisking faithful church members to heaven. The Korea Times reported that thousands of people who embraced this prophecy left jobs and family and sold off their belongings. Reportedly, one pregnant believer had an abortion out of fear that the fetus would weigh her down during her ascent heavenward. The day came and went without incident, except that a few disappointed churchgoers beat up their preachers, demanding to know why the rapture had not come. However, the church founder was already in prison. He had been arrested for embezzling church funds. The Korea Times notes: “Some of his investments included bonds maturing next May, months after his predicted doomsday.”