Watching the World
‘The Last Absolutist System’
“Discontent in the German Catholic Church toward the conservative orientation of the Vatican is rising,” reports the Rome daily La Repubblica after the recent appointment by John Paul II of 30 new cardinals. The well-known dissident theologian Hans Küng maintains that to elect the next pope, there is “urgent need for a body of electors that is truly representative of the whole Catholic Church.” Küng believes that “the pope has simply lost the confidence of a large part of the faithful.” Continues Küng: “It cannot be ignored that, after the collapse of Stalinism, the Roman system is the last remaining absolutist system in the Western world.”
Prevent Early Aging
“People adapt houses for children. Why not adapt them for older persons?” asks gerontologist Wilson Jacob Filho of São Paulo University, Brazil. Besides safer homes for the elderly, he suggests that they exercise to strengthen the muscular system in order to reduce the risk of falling. What are the greatest enemies of longevity? According to plastic surgeon Rogério Izar Neves, also of São Paulo University, the enemies are “a sedentary way of life, unbalanced nutrition (especially diets rich in fat), smoking, excessive use of alcoholic beverages, stress, lack of sleep.” Jornal da Tarde explains that extreme stress weakens the immune system, “which is intimately related to the onset of various diseases and consequently also of old age.” Dr. Neves further claims: “Disinterest in life is the major cause of early aging.”
Body-Piercing Health Risk
“People are having parts of their body pierced that weren’t pierced years ago,” says John Pelton, director of environmental health for Calgary Health Services in Canada. This includes eyebrows, lips, tongues, and navels, according to a report in The Vancouver Sun. Fears that this growing fad could pass on AIDS and hepatitis B and C have prompted Environmental Health Services at Alberta Health to introduce guidelines to control body piercing. “New standards will eventually cover a whole range of unregulated personal services, such as branding, waxing, tattooing, electrolysis and sensory deprivation,” and a draft of these regulations will be reviewed by public health officials and the industry, adds the report. As for the use of ear-piercing equipment to do body piercing, one who does the procedure admits: “We have seen people go to hospital with infections. It’s really scary actually.”
Church in Demise
Canada’s largest Protestant denomination, the United Church of Canada, “has a rapidly aging and shrinking membership, and its leaders and parishioners are at odds over what its priorities should be,” says The Toronto Star. While over 3,000,000 identify with the church, only 750,000 are on the church register. The majority of its best supporters are over 55, whereas children and grandchildren of members are not attracted to it. The church was warned that it must take immediate action to correct its approach or die. Members want priority given to worship and spirituality, while the leaders of the church want to give more attention to social and global issues. If the church collapses, “it will also mean that what has been important to the United Church has not been important to Canadians,” warns Alberta sociologist Reginald Bibby. “It has not been worth their time, money or attention.”
The Legacy of War
Seven thousand veterans of the Allied invasion of Europe, 51 years ago, returned to the Normandy beaches in June 1994. But the memories were too much for hundreds of them who had to be given psychiatric help to cope with anxiety brought on by the celebration. “Some veterans became extremely distressed after D-Day,” explained Dr. Graham Lucas, speaking on behalf of Combat Stress, a charity that assists ex-servicemen. “They had feelings of guilt, that they didn’t deserve to be spared when others had died, and were suffering from nightmares and impaired sleep.” Such feelings suppressed over the years have led to ulcers, asthma, and skin complaints, reports The Sunday Times of London. One old soldier, whose memories still give him nightmares, put it this way: “You can overdo these things. People who weren’t there can’t understand what it was like.”
Parasitic Fish
The candiru is a parasitic fish that breeds in the rivers of the Amazon basin. This translucent eellike creature, measuring about an inch [2.5 cm] in length, is usually found in the gills of larger fishes, where it feeds on their blood. It can also enter human orifices and cause inflammation, hemorrhage, and sometimes death to the victim. Recently a smaller and more voracious version of this fish, barely half as long, has been discovered in Brazil. It has two hook-shaped teeth at the back of its mouth that give it a powerful grip, making it impossible to shake off. For “riverside communities, with little or no medical facilities, it can lead to serious infections,” reports New Scientist.
Universities in Trouble
“Africa’s neglected universities are on the verge of collapse,” reports the WeekendStar of Johannesburg. Because of lack of funds, there are few computers, and in some cases telephones have been disconnected. One university has 35,000 registered students, but it was originally designed for just 5,000. Only half the lecturing posts are filled at one formerly prestigious university in Uganda. A lecturer’s salary on this campus is evidently about $19 a month. Some universities have been closed for months as a result of striking lecturers or students. A Kenyan professor observed: “Academic self-destruction in Africa is going from bad to worse.”
Who Does the Housework?
“It would seem that equality [between men and women] has still not entered the family environment,” says Corriere della Sera, reporting on a Central Statistics Institute survey of Italian families’ use of time. Whether she has an outside job or not, it is still the woman who has to “take on the weight of family organization,” dedicating—if she has children—an average of 7 hours and 18 minutes to housework, compared with the 1 hour and 48 minutes of her partner. Paradoxically, single mothers seem to do better, managing to dedicate two hours less to housework each day. “From tender years, mothers ‘destine’ their little girls to household chores,” adds La Repubblica.
Losing the Tuberculosis Battle
In the war against disease, the battle with tuberculosis has been a “complete failure on a worldwide scale,” according to Professor Jacques Grosset, head of the bacteriology-virology department of La Pitié-Salpétrière Hospital in Paris. If patients are untreated, the mortality rate for tuberculosis is about 50 percent. While diagnosis and treatment are unavailable for about half the world’s TB sufferers, Professor Grosset pointed out, the real disaster is that in technologically developed countries, where antibiotics are freely available, only half of those who have the disease continue their treatment until they are fully cured. “The other half do not take their treatment, or take it very irregularly, which causes a much higher mortality rate (25 percent of those treated) and also produces a strain of tubercle bacillus that is resistant to antibiotics.”
Venezuela and AIDS
Venezuela has the third greatest incidence of AIDS in Latin America, after Brazil and Mexico, says El Universal of Caracas, Venezuela. Dr. Arellano Médici estimates that there are 350,000 people in the country infected with the deadly virus, although the Ministry of Health will only admit to 3,000. The fact that for every infected person, there are probably a hundred more who are infected but not aware of it is attributed, according to Médici, to the “marked promiscuity in our society.” Médici points out that infected persons should live a morally clean life, not just because of the risk of infecting others but because of the existence of various AIDS viruses. They can easily become infected with a different virus, worsening their existing health problem. One source calculates that by the year 2000, every family in the world will have a member with AIDS.