I JUST DON'T KNOW!

Marion Pellicano Ambrose

What's going on in the world today? I was browsing through events of the past 24 hours and these three articles just disgusted me. What were these guys thinking?

Minnesota, USA                                                                                                               A Minnesota man tried to kill a fetus by stomping on his pregnant girlfriend's stomach, police said. Kenneth L. Turner, 28, of Fridley, kicked, punched and choked his on-again, off-again girlfriend at her apartment during a three-hour attack early Friday, at one point ordering her to lie on her back before stomping on her stomach with both feet. The victim is two months pregnant. During the attack, Turner told her she didn't "deserve the baby" and said he was going to kill it, the newspaper said. He was arrested after the woman managed to call police at around 8 a.m. The woman, who was not identified, suffered vaginal bleeding and pain in her stomach, but police say the fetus survived.

Edinburgh, Scotland                                                                                                    One of three women who claim a man tried to murder them in Edinburgh and Fife has told a court she was raped, bitten and repeatedly strangled by him.The 20-year-old also claimed James Paterson, 23, from Lochgelly, Fife, kicked her in the stomach when she was expecting a baby. She told the High Court in Aberdeen she still has Mr Paterson's teeth marks in her arm from more than two years ago. Mr Paterson denies the allegations against him. He is also accused of raping two of the three women and attacking two newborn babies.

Pennsylvania, USA                                                                                                          A Bristol Township man is accused of stabbing his pregnant girlfriend several times with a large knife early Thursday.  Glenn Witherspoon, 24, told Jessica Field "I'm sorry I have to do this," before attacking her as they sat in a car.Field, 22, told police Witherspoon called her several times early Thursday morning and asked her to come to his home on Airacobra Street. Investigators say When Field arrived, Witherspoon got into her car and wanted to go to the Lennox Parking Lot to watch the sunrise. When they arrived at the lot, Witherspoon pulled a knife and stabbed Field in the chest, just above her heart. Field and Witherspoon struggled and Field was stabbed several more times according to officers who say Field suffered a three inch laceration on the side of her neck. Field was able to lock the car doors when Witherspoon got out to get something from the trunk, as Field drove away, Witherspoon jumped on the hood of the car to try to stop her, said police.She made it to her home on Jackson Street and relatives called 911. At about the same time police received a call about a man walking along Monroe Street who appeared to be bleeding from the head. When officers arrived on Jackson Street, investigators say they approached the man, later identified as Witherspoon, and he told them, "I didn't want to do it, is she alright?" Witherspoon is facing charges of attempted murder, aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person and possession of a weapon.He was arraigned Thursday before Bristol District Judge Frank Peranteau and sent to Bucks County Prison in lieu of $1 million cash bail. Field is being treated at Aria Health's Torresdale campus and is expected to survive. Police said that Fields is about eight weeks pregnanat and it's believed that Witherspoon is the father.

THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE

Marion Pellicano Ambrose

You know the drill - everywhere we go, people are talking about the Mayan Calendar, Nuclear War, The Doomsday Clock and all things pointing to a dark and bleak future for us all. Consider this scenario:
A man and his son are pushing a shopping cart with their belongings across a devastated American landscape. There has been a global catastrophe, and the few survivors cling to a meager existence. Ruthless gangs roam the ruined cities in search of food. Nothing grows, the animals have all died, and the canned goods have nearly run out, so cannibalism has become the default option. In this world drenched in violence, human interaction is mediated almost solely by rod and gun. As they trek westward to the coast, the father tells his son that they are the carriers of the fire, that they are the good guys, that they must blunder on until they meet the other good guys. The boy struggles to understand, for his experience of survival has been full of pain and hunger and death. At one point, he asks his father plaintively how the two of them could possibly be good guys since they haven’t actually helped anyone on their journey. Short of utter annihilation, it’s the bleakest future imaginable.

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is a modern classic of post-apocalypse fiction. It depicts the effects of a great burst of violence, perhaps a nuclear attack, and then the horrific violence that the survivors visit upon themselves. The science fiction genre once  produced a plethora of utopian narratives – Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s Herland, H.G. Wells’ Men Like Gods. But after the great bloodlettings of the 20^th century, the genre became a great deal darker. The future was no longer an island paradise but instead a totalitarian state (1984), a planet decimated by disease (The Stand), or a world so degraded by nuclear war that even language had begun to devolve (Riddley Walker). Published in the post-9/11 era, The Road reflects a resurgent anxiety over the barbarism that lies just around the corner and just beneath the surface.

This anxiety over an impending barbarism is reflected in headlines that trumpet the threat of nuclear terrorism, melting icebergs, paralyzing pandemics, and disappearing food stocks. If the promise of future cataclysm doesn’t raise your blood pressure, then there’s all the daily global violence to which we’ve become dangerously inured. The Syrian government has killed thousands of protestors. War drags on in Somalia. The narcobattles in Mexico have left tens of thousands dead. The insurgencies in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq continue. Nigeria is on the verge of civil war. Each year we build a new addition to the charnel house of contemporary life.

Virtually everything we read in novels and newspapers, not to mention the video games we play and the Hollywood movies we watch, reminds us that we’re steeped in violence and that it’s only going to get worse. And then, along comes Dr. Steven Pinker with "The Better Angels of our Nature".

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species existence. For most of history, war, slavery, infanticide, child abuse, assassinations, pogroms, gruesome punishments, deadly quarrels, and genocide were ordinary features of life. But today, Pinker shows (with the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps) all these forms of violence have dwindled and are widely condemned. How has this happened?

This groundbreaking book continues Pinker's exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly nonviolent world. The key, he explains, is to understand our intrinsic motives- the inner demons that incline us toward violence and the better angels that steer us away-and how changing circumstances have allowed our better angels to prevail. Exploding fatalist myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious and provocative book is sure to be hotly debated in living rooms and the Pentagon alike, and will challenge and change the way we think about our society.

Are you as tired as I am of seeing, hearing, and reading about impending doom and inevitable destruction? I think we all should take the time to read what Dr. Pinker has to say. At the very least, it will give us several hours of peace and non violence in our lives!

http://books.google.com/books?id=J7ATQb6LZX0C&dq=%22The+Better+Angels+of+Our+Nature%22&source=gbs_navlinks_s
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-feffer/the-better-angels-of-our-nature-pinker_b_1228554.html

TRAGEDY ON THE HUDSON

Jenn Copp

My heart goes out to the family of the woman who drove her kids to their death in the Hudson River. Not knowing the full details and hearing it had to do with domestic disputes makes me sad. I know so many people going through divorces and watch as the parents can't get along. It saddens me that for the sake of their children they can't make it as smooth as possible. A lot of times one person is helpless in the process as the other person is going to show them paybacks. Not paying child support, not making sure their kids will be taken care of. Why does this have to be?  It is hard enough on the children. Do they have to be in the middle of a domestic war. Splitting from a significant other is hard enough, to feel so desperate that you drive your children into a river is the saddest thing I have heard. In my life I am a fixer, be it a good or bad trait I am still figuring it out but I wish I could one day reach out to people in need and help them.