Watching the World
Freedom of Religion Upheld
On March 8, 1996, the Supreme Court of Japan ruled that the Kobe Municipal Industrial Technical College violated the law by expelling Kunihito Kobayashi, one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, for his refusal to participate in martial arts training, reports The Daily Yomiuri of Tokyo. In so doing, Japan’s highest court rejected an appeal made by the college and established a precedent for future cases. (Please see the October 8, 1995, issue of Awake! for further details.) The court recognized that the student’s reason for declining to participate in the kendo martial arts drills “was earnest and closely related to the very core” of his faith. The court called Kobayashi “an outstanding student” and stated that the school could have offered him an alternative physical education program in place of kendo.
Atheism On The Move
Cardinal Joachim Meisner sees in Germany a “powerful push toward atheism.” Communism may have lost out economically, but it appears to have gained ideologically, observed Meisner. He comments: “This trend seems to have spread from the new [formerly Communist] federal states to the old [west] federal states.” According to the newspaper Weser Kurier, about 70 percent of the 16 million inhabitants of the former East Germany belong to no church. The report continues: “If the church does not have the courage to go on the offensive in announcing the truth revealed to her, then she has given herself up for lost.”
Pass the Bugs, Please!
Many people, though apparently not all, would find the prospect of curing ailments by eating insects to be less than appetizing. Nevertheless, according to Asiaweek magazine, the idea is nothing new. In Singapore the Imperial Herbal Restaurant serves up dishes with ingredients such as ants and scorpions, both reputed to be not only nutritious but also healing. The restaurant’s proprietress, Mrs. Tee Eng Wang-Lee, says that ants are good for rheumatism, while scorpion’s poison is said to ease the nerves and relieve migraine headaches. Other bug drugs include dried grubs to relieve pain; cicada larvae to fight gas, cold sores, and measles; and dried hornets’ nest to kill parasites. How do these creatures taste? Ants have a tangy, vinegarlike taste, and scorpions are chewy. Mrs. Wang-Lee points out: “It’s an acquired taste.”
Put the Brakes on Burnout!
Stress of all types is on the rise, and Ellen McGrath, a psychologist writing in the U.S. magazine Health, offers a few strategies to keep stress from leading to burnout in your life.
◼ Take a break, any break: Take a ten-minute walk or five minutes of calm, deep breathing. Set aside 15 minutes to read or reflect at the beginning and at the end of each day.
◼ Take control: Surround yourself with things that make you smile—photos, flowers, or mementos. Take responsibility for your schedule and arrange less-stressful times to do necessary things.
◼ Eat well: Don’t work until you are ravenous or settle for a junk-food snack to get you by—no matter how busy you are. Frequent meals centered on fruits and vegetables will help you to avoid fatigue.
◼ Keep moving: Vigorous exercise reduces stress and increases feelings of contentment and a sense of control. Make it fun!
Avoid Childhood Poisoning
Young children are in danger of being poisoned in their own homes by ingesting as little as one tablet of a medicine not intended for them, says FDA Consumer magazine. Swallowing medicines, household chemicals, and alcoholic beverages may cause illness and even death in a small child. Therefore, these products should be kept out of their reach and sight. Overdoses of iron supplements, including children’s vitamins, are of special concern. “Because [pediatric vitamins are] marketed to look like candy or cartoon characters, it looks like candy and doesn’t seem like medicine,” explains Dr. George Rodgers of the Kentucky Regional Poisoning Center, U.S.A. If a child develops unusual symptoms, such as abnormal eye movement or excessive sleepiness, or if an open bottle of pills is found, call a doctor or a poison control center immediately and follow their instructions precisely, experts advise.
Reading—“A Slow Death”?
According to a survey conducted in Italy for the Association of Small Publishing Houses, last year 80 percent of Italians “never opened a book, or if they did, they do not remember even the title of the book or the name of the writer.” Traditionally, the behavior, actions, and life of Italians is affected more by visual images, including television, than by reading matter, observed Rome’s La Repubblica newspaper. “The Italians do not read, and they have no idea that they are missing anything important,” the newspaper stated. The survey also showed that many Italians associate reading books with an “incapacity to establish ‘warm’ human relationships” and with a “lack of passion.” Nonreaders “are convinced that reading is only a waste of time,” that it is ‘stuff for old folks,’ or even that it “constitutes ‘a slow death.’”
Calls for Help
A nationwide toll-free hot line for distressed youths in Canada receives 4,000 calls a day, revealing “a deeper level of despair than ever before,” reported The Globe and Mail newspaper. Christine Simmons-Physick, director of counseling services for the program, stated: “The [economic] transition going on in the world is creating uncertainty in adults and this is filtering down to the kids.” Almost half the calls are about relationships, and 78 percent are from girls, who find it easier to ask for help than do boys. Youngsters call because it gives them an opportunity to have their problems taken seriously by an adult, observed Simmons-Physick. Parents and other adults often “tend to dismiss kids’ problems as transitional—they say they’ll grow out of it,” she said, adding: “If you convey that attitude, you can guarantee they won’t come to you for help again.”
Butterfly Navigators
Every March clouds of monarch butterflies navigate across 500 miles [800 km] of open sea, migrating from Mexico to one small part of the coast of Louisiana, U.S.A. The monarchs then continue north, some as far as Canada. The following October their great-great-grandchildren return to Mexico over the same route. But with a tiny brain, only the size of a pinhead, how do they know where to fly? That is still a mystery. The Enterprise-Record of Chico, California, reports that butterfly researcher Dr. Gary Noel Ross believes that the insects may be guided by magnetism. The baffling question is, How does the flight plan for the trip back to Mexico get passed down through five generations? “The fine-tuning of all this is beyond comprehension,” Dr. Ross said.
New Clothes Warning
Warnings regarding the dangers of chemicals used in the manufacture of clothing are being sounded in France, England, and Thailand, reports Asiaweek magazine. Formaldehyde, a potent preservative used in dyes, is found in many fabrics, and it is said to cause skin, eye, and respiratory problems. Workers in the textile industry may be at risk unless their factories are well ventilated and dry, according to the report, and consumers should wash any piece of new clothing before wearing it, to avoid possible adverse reactions.
Crime and Russia’s Teens
In St. Petersburg, Russia, “juvenile crime is becoming more brutal and deliberate,” reports The St. Petersburg Press. For example, at a city school in 1995, a 13-year-old boy was tied up and beaten to death just after finishing his year-end exams. Concern on the part of parents and teachers about violent school crime prompted a special course for schoolchildren on “Basics of Surviving,” including “Medical Basics” for girls. At a seminar for teachers of the course, it was revealed that 25 percent of secondary-school girls in the city think that prostitution is an integral part of Russian life. Moreover, the number of abortions among girls 17 and younger is believed to have doubled over the past five years, according to Populi, the United Nations Population Fund magazine.