Watching the World

◼ “The average American home now has more television sets than people”​—2.73 TV sets to 2.55 people. “Half of American homes have three or more TVs.”​—ASSOCIATED PRESS, U.S.A.

◼ Every day in courts across South Africa, 82 children are charged with “raping or indecently assaulting other children.” According to some, a large proportion of the accused claim that the abuse “was inspired by acts they witnessed on television.”​—THE STAR, SOUTH AFRICA.

Sleep Loss Lowers Productivity

Sleep habits among some Spaniards are ruining their ability to be productive. Dr. Eduard Estivill, who runs a sleep clinic in Barcelona, notes that compared with other Europeans, Spaniards wake up earlier, work longer hours, eat dinner later, and sleep an average of 40 minutes less. Sleep deficit, however, can result in such problems as irritability, memory loss, anxiety, and depression. Hence, “any professional who performs intellectual work or other activity that requires concentration,” warns Dr. Estivill, “should sleep between seven and eight hours daily.”

Wheat for Heat?

Is it ethical to burn wheat for heating purposes? The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung explains that with the price of grain falling and that of fuel oil rising, it is more cost-effective for a farmer to burn his wheat for heat than to sell it to buy oil. Six pounds [2.5 kg] of wheat costs him 20 cents to grow, but if burned, that quantity of wheat would produce about the same heat as a quart [1 L] of fuel oil, which costs 60 cents. Hence the dilemma mentioned by the newspaper: Can you “burn cereal when other people are starving”?

Papal Visit Commercialized

When the pope visited Germany in 2006, manufacturers, merchants, and the tourism industry geared up well in advance to profit from his visit. The church too selected a business partner for exclusive marketing of paraphernalia. Souvenirs made available included rosaries, candles, bottles of holy water, coffee cups, caps, T-shirts, key rings, and Vatican flags. The newsmagazine Der Spiegel commented: “The Catholic Church has its own fingers in the money-making pie, as if Jesus Christ . . . had never banished the merchants from the temple.”

Violence Desensitization From Video Games

“Exposure to violent video games can desensitize individuals to real-life violence,” say research psychologists at Iowa State University, U.S.A. Previous studies showed that exposure to such games “increases aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiological arousal and aggressive behaviors.” This study monitored the heart rate and emotional response of participants to filmed episodes of actual violence shown to them immediately after they had played either violent or nonviolent video games. The results showed that those “who play violent video games habituate or ‘get used to’ all the violence and eventually become physiologically numb to it.”