Watching the World
Violence Sinks to New Depths
For those who feel that such sports events as boxing matches or martial arts tournaments are not violent enough, promoters in the United States have come up with a new alternative called “extreme fighting,” or “ultimate fighting.” According to a report in The New York Times, the concept is simple: “Two men clobber each other until one surrenders or is knocked unconscious.” They wear no gloves to soften the blows; there are no rounds or time-outs; there are few rules aside from restrictions against biting or eye-gouging. The opponents use techniques from boxing, judo, karate, wrestling, or street brawling—often with very bloody results. The contests are held before wildly cheering crowds of fans, who pay as much as $200 for tickets; the fights are also popular on cable TV and as rented videocassettes. Many states, though, have already banned these events.
Extra Work Load for Women
Do men and women share work equally around the home? Not according to a survey carried out by the German Federal Office of Statistics. Economists Norbert Schwarz and Dieter Schäfer asked 7,200 households to analyze and record the amount of time spent doing work around the home. The survey included such jobs as washing the dishes, shopping, caring for sick relatives, and tinkering with the car. “Irrespective of whether they have a job or not, women spend about twice as much time performing unpaid work as men,” reports the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Religion in “Cyberspace”
Those who use the computer to explore “cyberspace,” the networks of interconnected computer data bases, have more religious options to choose from these days. The World Wide Web now has The Mary Page, where the curious can find answers to the ten most-asked questions about the Virgin Mary, such as why she is always depicted as wearing light blue. The Amish, who shun such technology as electricity, are represented by a feature called Ask the Amish. A printout of questions is relayed to them, they answer in longhand, and the answers are transmitted by computer—through an intermediary. The Christian Century notes that there is now a “site” on the Internet called The Confession Booth, where a digital priest asks, “And what is it you wish to confess?” The next line is a multiple choice answer. “I committed the following sin: (Murder) (Adultery) (Sloth) (Lust) (Avarice) (Deception) (Gluttony) (Pride) (Anger) (Covetousness) (Misplaced Priorities).”
A Really Big, Really Smelly Flower
The largest flower in the world is a strange creation indeed. Called rafflesia, it is approximately the size of a bus tire and takes as long to bloom as a human takes to grow from conception to birth. And size is not the only reason this flower would make a poor choice for a bouquet. It stinks. To attract the flies it needs to pollinate it, rafflesia smells like rotting flesh. In the past the Malaysian villagers who live in the rain forests where the rafflesia grows have dubbed it the devil’s bowl and have chopped it up on sight. According to the South China Morning Post, however, the Malaysian state park of Kinabalu has moved to protect the rare flower so that scientists may study it further. Local villagers now earn extra money by guiding tourists into the forest to photograph rafflesias. Most, no doubt, keep at a discreet distance.
An Italian Lourdes?
In the Italian city of Civitavecchia, a statue of the Madonna was recently said to have wept blood, resulting in an influx of tens of thousands of curious onlookers and pilgrims. For this reason the mayor, Pietro Tidei, who calls himself an unbeliever, traveled to France with a Catholic prelate. They visited the famous town of Lourdes, renowned for its Catholic sanctuary in which “miracles” are supposed to occur. The visit was not a pilgrimage. Rather, its objective was to study the “economic miracle” of Lourdes, evidently to get ideas as to how to organize and administer Civitavecchia as a similarly lucrative Mecca for tourists and pilgrims.
Brazil’s “Holy War”
A Pentecostal pastor in Brazil recently touched off what the nation’s press has dubbed a holy war. On a national TV broadcast, the pastor, Sergio von Helde, decried the image-worship of the Catholic Church. To make his point, he displayed a ceramic image of Our Lady of Aparecida, a black version of the Virgin Mary, which serves as patron saint for Brazil’s 110,000,000 Catholics. Von Helde called the image a “horrible, disgraceful doll” while slapping and kicking it repeatedly. Thousands of Catholics have protested, carrying images of the patron saint through the streets. Screaming, rock-throwing mobs have surrounded some temples of Von Helde’s Pentecostal sect, called the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Von Helde, who has since been suspended from his post by the head of this church, blames the media for repeatedly broadcasting footage of his attack. “TV Globo [the nation’s largest television network] transformed me into a monster,” the pastor claims.
Vigilante Killings
In South Africa a group suspected of being vehicle hijackers were taken from their homes by an angry mob, hacked to death, and covered with paint. The Saturday Star newspaper commented that the increase in such incidents is “a symptom of a society which has lost faith in its police and which is both obsessed by and hysterical about crime.” While not condoning such behavior, criminologists see the act of painting the victims after their murder as significant. It was meant as a warning to other potential criminals. One criminologist commented: “All indications are that the situation is completely out of control and that the public have lost control of their own ability to handle the perception that they are under siege by criminals.”
Trouble With Adolescent Condors
The California condor—a giant carrion-eating bird that has become virtually extinct in this century—is posing special challenges to conservationists trying to release captive-bred condors into the wild. The birds, released as adolescents, are “at their exploratory, teenage, try-everything-out phase,” says one conservationist quoted in New Scientist. Having no fear of humans or of power lines has cost several either life or freedom. So conservationists have devised new tactics in rearing condor chicks. They use mild shocks to teach the bird to avoid power lines. To teach aversion to people, they keep out of the condor’s sight except when, on occasion, several people suddenly rush at the bird, capture it, and hold it down on its back. “Condors hate this,” notes New Scientist, and thus they learn to avoid people. So far the strategy has met with a measure of success.
Tunnel Mystery Hypothesis
Archaeologists have long wondered why Hezekiah’s tunnel, excavated during the eighth century B.C.E. to assure water for Jerusalem when besieged by the Assyrian army, followed such a haphazard, meandering course. A straight, more efficient route would have taken only 1,050 feet [320 m] of digging, instead of the 1,748 feet [533 m] the tunnel took. An inscription, written in ancient Hebrew, was found on the tunnel wall in 1880. It explained how two teams of workers started at opposite ends of the rock-hewn tunnel and met in the middle. This raised the additional question of how they managed to do so, considering the tunnel’s wandering route. Geologists now feel they have the answer. According to Dan Gill of the Geological Survey of Israel, the workers followed and widened natural channels formed by water traversing through the rock where cracks occurred under seismic stresses or where different layers met. Over time, these could become quite broad in places, which may explain why the tunnel height varies from 5.5 feet [1.7 m] to as much as 16 feet [5 m] and also how the workers, using oil lamps, could get enough air. The workers were skillful as well, for the success of the tunnel depended on having a slightly descending slope—a mere 12.5 inches [31.75 cm] over the entire course.