What is wrong with the world today?

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So I get on the bus this morning and pick up a copy of the Metro, expecting to read some silly story to entertain myself on the way to work. Instead, here's a quick recap of the articles:

Iraq: A bunch of utter bastards strapped explosives to an 8-year-old girl, sent her to an army checkpoint and blew her up. The sheer cowardliness of this has left me with a feeling of indescribable rage.

Kenya: 9000 people displaced by the violence going on in that country were forced to leave a refugee camp at a few hours' notice, without being told the reason.

Spain: Eta strikes again, killing a police officer.

Italy: 3 teenage boys strangled a pregnant 14-year-old girl and burned her body because they were afraid one of them was the father.

Austria: A father picked up an axe, killed his wife and child, drove over a hundred miles to his parents', killed them, went over to his father-in-law and killed him, then calmly walked into a police station and announced he's murdered five people.

Expected death tolls from China and Burma are on the rise. The estimate for Burma is now 200,000 according to some sources.

By comparison, the rioting and stabbing in Manchester yesterday seems like a quiet and relaxing picnic.

Is it me or is the world going even more mad than it already is?

 

The world's always been a crazy place. It's just the nature of the madness that changes.

What the world needs now is love - sweet love.

 

...and maybe a Valium prescription.

 

Valium? More like a mixture of Sodium thiopental, Pancuronium, and Potassium Chloride in that order...

 

No, it's always been like this. In fact, by way of comparison throughout history, we're living in one of the most civilized and non-violent times ever. Tempting to believe otherwise, I know, because it sells papers and gets ratings, hence we hear about it constantly in the ever-present media.

So like most things in life, blame the internet.

 

Manchester - 200,000 Scottish football fans wreck the city, piss where they wish, steal from shops and trash them, stab a Russian supporter in the back and throw glass bottles at police. They even started fighting with themselves at one point.

But not to worry, Scots are all loveable drunks, no violence from those peacable fellas. It must have been something to do with the English.

Hooliganism is very much an English epedemic .

 

I agree the Scots are loveable and peaceable - until they start drinking (never mind getting drunk), at which point I lock myself in my room, hide under the bed and pray the madness will be over soon.

Seriously, I've stopped going out on Saturday nights because of some of the utter madness I saw every single week. The only times I made it home without feeling I'd just escaped a traumatising experience was when I'd head back at 3am, at which point the only Scots on the streets are the ones that dropped on the sidewalk from too much alcohol. A night out on a weekday is so much more relaxing - no gangs of kids trying to smash your head with a glass bottle, no witnessing some crazy drunk/stoned guy trying to murder his girlfriend (I assume she was his girlfriend), no screaming women being chased by a psychotic and oversexed man screaming obscenities...

The only good thing about the Manchester debacle is that it happened far away from here. If all these Rangers fans had actually been in Edinburgh at the time I wouldn't have been surprised if there had been fatalities, considering the enmity between Glasgow and Edinburgh football fans and the fact there almost was one yesterday.

 

Sidewalk??! It's the pavvie! Pavement if you want, but not sidewalk! Check yaself before you wreck yaself bredren.

Wow, I assumed the streets of Edinburgh wouldn't be affected by that kind of nasty behaviour! It's always looked quite prim and proper (well, for a Scottish city) when I've been there and the people are nice (read 'old'). Glasgow, I can imagine that being a bit dodgy, but Edinburgh?

Around my town, there's usually a fight breaking out towards the end of the night, but nothing major. No woman beating or girlfriend chasing! The obsceneties are par for the course wherever you are though. I don't see the big problem really. A word's a word. We're an island kingdom mate, fighting is part of our nature!

Love the Tartan Army, but I'm so glad Rangers didn't win the cup. The Scots are unbearable when they win stuff! All they do is go on about they've won something that England haven't for the next 10 years and how that makes Scotland better than England. They can't just celebrate their win then go about their day. Obsessed, I tells thee! We love Scotland down here, not necessary! (hah, "no' necessary" always reminds of Pops out of League of Gentlemen).

I'm rambling again I'm afraid. I'm such a wobblegob when I get going. Oops.

 

I think that as society "advances" the opportunity for things to turn to utter crap in a spectacular manner becomes more pronounced.

Iraq: They call it a war. They have no qualms about using children aqs weapons. See the (No) honour killings thread for more ranting on that topic.

Kenya: Petty warlords squabbling over a bigger piece of the armpit of the world that don't care about the innocent caught in the middle. And how is this different than the behaviour of lords in Feudal Europe? Today you hear more about it.

Italy: Is it the first time someone was a little careless with his willie and fired live rounds? Is it the first time that they resorted to despicable depths to cover their transgressions? No and no.

Austria: There has always been psychos that went around killing people that pissed them off. Again, nothing new, but we hear about it now because the means exist to report that around the world.

AS for disasters, there's more people in smaller spaces, meaning that when these natural disasters will cause more and more damage. Put a monster Earthquake and accompanying Tsunamis in a city like Kyoto and see the death toll and financial value on the damages skyrocket.

Soccer Hooliganism: We see that in North America too over other sports. Montreal had riots after winning the first round of the NHL playoffs. I guess that the crowds just aren't that big here.

Most of this is nothing new, it's the technology that's new.

 

This is a valid point, but the severity and frequency of hurricanes, tornadoes, and other such weather phenomena has been on the rise.

 

I thought that was an urban (scientific) myth -- I've read several articles refuting that claim.

 

It's just as well England never does that!

...I don't have to keep a straight face when I say that, do I?

 

In Chicago last week an SUV was involved in an accident -- he had been clipped by a car that had been run into a soft shoulder (by a third car -- van actually). The result was the SUV going out of control, sliding swideways, and rolling a couple of times. The children in the back were thrown from the vehicle and lying in middle of the interstate.

The driver of the car saw the children in the road and ran out onto the interstate, directly into oncoming traffic (moving at 70 miles per hour) and managed to get drivers to stop before any of the children were hit. The driver and passenger of the SUV ran away. The children from their vehicle were lying injured in the interstate and they just ran away. To repeat -- they left the kids in the road and ran away, they didn't even try to get one injured victim to safety. They just ran away.

 

Not exactly refuting, T2. What you have is some scientists pointing to a rise (which had been predicted as one of the side effects of climate change) and other scientists arguing that we either haven't been measuring such phenomena long enough to be sure or that it is simply part of the natural cycle. In other words, if you subscribe to the climate change theory, these phenomena have been on the rise as predicted. If you do not, you claim that it is just a cyclic fluctuation or that we don't have enough information to say for sure.

 

Alright alright it's a pavement! I'll never use an American word again, I promise!

Don't get me wrong, Edinburgh is a lovely city and a great place to live (I wouldn't be here if it wasn't). Most places are not nasty, but it's got its share of dodgy people (maybe not as many as Glasgow, but then again Edinburgh's significantly smaller), and on Saturday night all these people converge on the center. When they get kicked out of the pubs at 1am they're all on streets, drunk, and nastiness usually ensues. You rarely get massive gang-on-gang fights, but it's been known to happen (though not in a while now, I think the last one was a couple of years ago).

I've never really bought the "I was drunk" excuse. It's just so convenient. Get drunk and you know you can get away with just about anything except murder. If you know you're going to lose control when you're drunk, then drink more responsibly.

Anyway that's the end of my rant

 

I would say that what is wrong with the world is that there is no accountability anymore -- western society does not punish people for their crimes. I'm alll for being lenient if there are VALID mitigating circumstances, but when someone commits a crime today, we start looking for bogus reasons to excuse their stupidity and venality and blame everyone BUT the criminal.

 

Good lord, just spotted that thing in Italy...Monsters...

 

Yet at the same time, we are said to be living in a culture of blame where everything that goes wrong is someone's fault. Odd combination.

 

I can relate with that Ziad!
Kinda makes you feel bad to be part of Mankind!
There are days wish I was just a Visiting Alien!

I dunno what's wrong...but like Aerosmith said
"The light bulb's getting dim!"

Bloody Right!