Watching the World
The Most Influential Book
What book has made the greatest difference in the lives of many? The Bible. It ranks as number one in that it has influenced people more than any other book, according to a survey of reading habits conducted for the U.S. Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club. The survey of 2,032 members of the book club, which was released last November, showed that the respondents spent an average of 9 hours a week reading books, compared with 12 hours a week watching television. Yet, one can only wonder, How much of that time is really spent reading the Bible?
Alcoholism—Twofold Burden
Alcoholism is just as disastrous for the economy of developing countries as inflation, debt, and mismanagement are, concludes a study by Worldwatch Institute, as reported in the Dutch magazine Onze Wereld. For example, in Papua New Guinea, 30 percent of the income of the average family is spent on alcoholic drinks, while the men in the African country of Burkina Faso use 44 percent of their income on beer. Too impaired to cultivate the soil, alcoholics become “an important contributing factor to the cause of food shortages.” Their children are the saddest victims. In one Guatemalan city, one third of all children suffer from undernourishment because of the parents’ alcohol abuse. To make matters worse, notes Onze Wereld, the burden of alcoholism is twofold: It lowers national income and raises health-care costs. For instance, 47 percent of all men admitted to the largest hospital in Trinidad suffer from alcohol-related medical problems.
Racial Bias in Europe
Europe’s largest-ever study on racial feelings came up with some unpleasant results. “Many of the 13,000 respondents in 12 European countries express hostility towards racial minorities in their countries,” reports The European. Prejudice is based on color, anti-Semitism, economic factors, and old territorial disputes. The survey found that Germans are disliked in Poland, just as Poles are in Germany. Hungarians do not like Romanians; neither do Bulgarians like the Turks, who used to be rulers in Bulgaria. Another cause of tension is religion. “North Africans want to impose Islam on France,” complained a French taxi driver. Clearly, efforts to consolidate Europe into one peaceful entity have a long way to go.
New Twist on Shoplifting
In South Africa the constant drift of rural dwellers to the cities is resulting in an ever-increasing number of unemployed. With rising inflation adding to the problem, more people are resorting to an unusual kind of supermarket shoplifting in order to keep themselves alive. There are “more opened packages on the shelves than before,” reports the journal Security Focus. “More people are hungry enough now to come in and simply eat what they can find in the store. The risk of being caught is lessened and they get something inside their stomachs.”
Practicing Believer—A Thing of the Past?
According to a conference on religion among Europeans, held in Turin last October, 2 out of every 3 Europeans claim to believe in God. The Italians and the Spanish take the lead in claiming to be religious. However, why are the majority of Europeans believers? La Stampa quotes researchers as saying that “today’s religiousness is weak, not too prescriptive [orthodox], very individualistic, and in [this religiousness] everyone can carve his own niche.” This religious devotion, however, appears contradictory. For example, although in Germany less than 60 percent of the population consider themselves religious, 92 percent had their children baptized; but in Italy, where 83 percent consider themselves religious, 53 percent do not attend religious ceremonies. The experts say that religiousness has undergone profound changes. “The last decade has been characterized by a progressive disassociation between faith and practice or, as the sociologists would say, ‘between religious belief and religious belonging,’” reports La Stampa. “The practicing believer has almost become a thing of the past.”
Welders at Risk
Studies that have been conducted on the long-term effects of welding fumes on humans reveal some disturbing facts. For one, welders are reported to suffer a higher-than-average incidence of lung cancer. An article entitled The Dark Side of Welding in the South African magazine Safety Management lists at least ten different metals and fumes common to welding that are potentially harmful to humans. The journal reports that cadmium fumes in high concentration can cause “irritation of the breathing passageways and fluid in the lungs” and that “long-term exposure to low levels can lead to emphysema and can damage the kidneys.” Safety Management says that the best safeguard against the harmful effects associated with welding is proper respiratory protection and adequate ventilation, which may include the use of proper exhaust systems.
Not at Home
Mainstream churches of Australia recently conducted a census called Attender Survey. The religion correspondent for The Weekend Australian newspaper saw some major shortcomings in this survey and wrote: “In the past 20 years I have only been visited by the local churches on three occasions. Each was to discover what brand of Christian I was in a survey being conducted to separate the sheep from the goats. . . . Of course pastoral visiting at home is a thing of the past for most churches, its abandonment defended by arguments that no one is ever at home, or that a pastor is too busy. . . . Today the knock at the door is much more likely to be from the Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, or some other ‘sect’, usually considered unorthodox by other Christians, or worse than unorthodox. . . . Unfortunately in the matter of evangelism the sects do much better, since they actually talk about what they believe.”
Captive Audience
Telephone callers who are put on hold are a captive audience. Often companies take advantage of this and bombard them with a sequence of advertisements—even, it is suspected, if the caller could have been put straight through. Now an American company has replaced the recorded messages with live ones in an effort to appease customers. Since it gets more than 13,000 calls a day, customers are often left waiting for ten minutes or more. As reported in The Economist, the “hold jockeys,” like radio disc jockeys, chat with their audience, play soothing music, and give time and traffic reports in addition to reading their advertisements. They also give periodic updates as to how long it will be before the caller will get through to an extension to have his question answered. The company claims that not only does it now have fewer irate customers but it has a competitive edge in customer service and can even target its advertisements to specific customers.
Improved Child Care
Following UNICEF’s (United Nations Children’s Fund) recommendations, the Brazilian state of Ceará has “lowered its infant-mortality rate, from 95 deaths for every 1,000 babies to 65,” reports Newsweek. A UNICEF representative says: “No country or state has obtained the same dramatic results in the same short period of time as Ceará state.” Newsweek says that after 80 hours of training, 4,000 health workers have gone into the countryside, traveling by foot, bicycle, horse, donkey, and canoe, to teach mothers basic baby care, such as breast-feeding. When taught how to prepare a lifesaving oral rehydration formula of sugar, salt, and water, a mother of three said in surprise: “I thought it had to be more complicated.”
Indian Rights
For centuries, the Ianomami Indians have occupied a vast territory along the Brazil-Venezuela border. Blanketed by the Amazon forest, the region is six times the size of Belgium. It is also rich in gold and tin ore—tantalizing to miners and developers. Brazil’s Veja magazine reports that President Carlos Andrés Pérez of Venezuela recently signed two decrees that transformed the area on the Venezuelan side of the border into a biosphere reserve and national park, thereby protecting the rights of the Ianomamis to the land. He also banned “from their land those whites who for decades have tried to conquer their souls—the missionaries—and their mineral riches—the miners.” Some ecologists hailed it as “a fantastic decision.”