VIOLENCE  AS  GAME

A ten-year-old student in Columbus, Ohio, shaped his hand into a pistol, put his finger to the head of another boy and pretended to shoot, “kind of execution style.” The school principal, Patricia Rice, suspended him from school for three days as his punishment.

The boy’s father says, this time it is not the child who is being childish but the principal. The district education spokesperson says, the principal had, several times this year, warned the students against pretend gun play.

The Father is right. There is probably no male adult who in his childhood days did not “shoot” his playmates more than once in the course of their games. The principal is right. It is not a great idea to encourage children to play games that involve pretended violence. People have campaigned long and hard against toys for children the like of pistols and guns.

What is worse still is when children see just a game in torturing living creatures. It is not difficult to find children who catch a chameleon, tie a string around its tails and drag it around, children who get hold of an insect and pull out its wings, feet, etc., one by one till it is dead.

The fear is real that “pretend violence” hardens the emotions of children, hardens their heart, immunes them to pain not only to animals, but also to humans.

Is it not unfortunate that children watch so much blood, cruelty and violence on TV today, even in programmes meant only for them – even on cartoon networks?

BABY  LION  KILLED  FOR  ITS  NAILS

A five-month lion cub in the Gir forest was killed. What for? For its nails! Even the ‘worst of animals’ would not kill a baby of any other species of animal to collect its nails! What is it exactly that makes human beings so heartless. What makes us sink to levels below all standards of behaviour?

There is no doubt whatever that nature is crying – that nature is gasping for breadth. Are we becoming for planet earth a cancer that needs to be removed urgently through an operation? When a particular sort of cell in the human body starts multiplying out of control, we have a cancerous tumour. If the tumour is not removed, it soon kills the body.

Human beings are multiplying in numbers. Worse than that is the multiplication of every human being’s ‘needs’ and ‘wants’. This multiplication of wants is indeed a cancerous growth. It is destroying the individual himself, the value system that guided his behaviour till now and the culture of entire communities. The struggle for the satisfaction of his wants is threatening the survival of nature itself of life on earth in an form.

If we are not capable of removing soon the cancerous growth of our silly wants, will nature take control and remove us from the face of the planet?

HOW  MANY  BEDS  DO  YOU  NEED  TO  SLEEP  ON ?

Khalid Mohsen al-Shaeri of Saudi Arabia needs only one bed because he is ONLY 290 kilos now. He needed three beds placed side by side when he used to be 610 kilos. He was then ordered by king Abdullah to get hospitalised. Doctors helped him shed 320 kilos in four months.

Some people are obese due to genetic disorders. They need professional medical help. In the developed nations over 50% of people are obese. Even in a poor country like India 25% of young people are today obese.

The majority of obese people do not have genetic problems. They have problems with self-discipline or self-management. They eat the wrong foods or too much of the right ones and do not exercise enough. Being fit and trim is not a sign of vanity. It is a duty to ourselves and to the people around us.