Peace on Earth or Blood in the Classroom?

This is the season when people give lip service in talk and song to “peace on Earth,” yet we live in a society that promotes violence. From video games to the NRA, the gunslinger as hero is promoted in thousands of ways, some subtle, some blatant. On December 13, 2013, the day before the first anniversary of the massacre of 20 first-graders and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Bill Moyers interviewed Richard Slotkin, former professor at Wesleyan University and author of “The Fatal Environment,” “Regeneration Through Violence,” “Gunslinger Nation,” and his most recent book, “The Long Road to Antietam.” Discussing the Newtown shooter, Adam Lanza, Professor Slotkin pointed out that Lanza was obsessed with violent video games and used them, in effect, to train himself for his deadly attack on children and teachers. He also shot his mother and himself. Violent video games like “Grand Theft Auto,” -- of which there are now five versions -- can act as “training films” for criminality similar to the way the military uses video games to train soldiers. Moyers showed an excerpt from a video game that has even been developed about the Newtown massacre. The game allows the viewer to follow and actively shoot students in a classroom. Greed and exploitation know neither good taste nor compassion.

Since the Newtown massacre there have been 26 more school shootings with 200 children killed. It’s possible to look at violence as a disease epidemic in the U.S. Indeed, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in 2010 alone (the latest year for which the CDC has records), a total of 31,672 Americans were killed by guns; 2694 were children or teens. “We produce the lone killer . . . [who’s] trying to validate himself or herself in terms of our society,” Slotkin said. But the school shooters are all men, Moyers pointed out, asking why that is. Slotkin replied that white men “feel their position is imperiled” and turn to the “mystique of weapons.” Guns are symbols of “productive violence,” Slotkin said. Yet the only thing produced is dead bodies, heartbreak and grief.

Incredibly, following the Newtown shootings, the NRA campaigned for more guns, arming teachers, rather than accepting even the weakest, most basic, of gun control measures such as background checks. I have no quarrel with hunting. I grew up on a farm. My father and all the other farmers in our neighborhood had guns for hunting. Daddy shot rabbits and squirrels, and Mother cooked them, and we ate them. I learned to shoot but unlike my brother, was never interested in hunting. In rural environments where populations of some animals, such as deer, have exploded because they have no predators, a hunting season makes sense. But the hunting argument can’t be used to support military assault weapons in city streets. You don’t hunt deer with AK-47s. People are the only prey in urban environments.

Peace on Earth is just another dream unless we begin teaching peace as fervently as we teach war. The reality of school shootings is the nightmare we currently inhabit.

Global Revolution

Blasting off to outer space in my rocket ship
I'm not on drugs but I'm high from the trip.
My mission is to find another place,
a planet or a moon where the human race
can start a new world when ours is destroyed
by leaders who treat lethal weapons like toys.

As I orbit the Earth, tears come to my eyes
'Cause it's the only living planet in these pitch black skies.
The only one that shines with a deep blue sea,
The only one that breathes life's chemistry,
The only one to harbor life's amazing evolution
But to keep it going, we need a revolution,
not the kind that's fought with weapons of terror
but with intelligence to admit human error.

From the windows of my ship in the vacuum of space
Earth looks as small as one human face,
And I think of all the people as one and the same,
The same human species with one human name.
Underneath the different languages and different colored skins,
We're all the same -- just women and men.
All living together on this one cosmic ball
where survival will depend on the efforts of us all.

The view is very different when you go out far.
You can see the total folly of any kind of war.
You can see our leaders acting out with their primitive brains
Ancient battles that took place on Africa's plains.
But the weapons are no longer sticks and stones.
It's high technology with nuclear bombs.

And if that's not enough hanging over our heads,
Radioactive wastes may kill us all dead.
Or destruction of the ozone can let in deadly rays
of that blazing solar furnace that lights all our days.

The dolphins are dying, and they say it's from pollution,
But the leaders of the world haven't found a solution.
Maybe they're dumb or just too lazy
Or maybe they're just downright crazy.

From my vantage point in my rocket ship,
It seems like a shame to let things slip
right out of our hands when we have the power
to protect the Earth and make it flower.

I am coming home because my mission is over.
There is nowhere to go for this interplanetary rover.
No other place in the whole Milky Way
Where human beings could possibly stay,
No other planet, no asteroid or rock
Where human beings could set up shop.
If we start anew, it will have to be down there
On our planet with water and breathable air.

I make my last orbit and tears come to my eyes
'Cause Earth's the only planet in these pitch black skies.
The only one that shines with a deep blue sea,
The only one that breathes life's chemistry.
The only one that harbors life's amazing evolution,
But to keep it going, we need a global revolution,
Not the kind fought with weapons of terror,
But with intelligence to admit human error,
A change that comes within the heart and mind,
Achieving peace for humankind.

This was written several years before 9/11.

Interview

I am honored to be featured on Morgen Bailey's wonderful Writing Blog. A great blog for writers to follow.

50 GREAT WRITERS YOU SHOULD BE READING

I made it into the Authors Show 2012 edition of 50 GREAT WRITERS YOU SHOULD BE READING. Thanks to everyone who voted for me.

Climate Change is the Greatest Threat to Life on Earth

Today's EXPLORING NATURE podcast was devoted to climate change. Hurricane Sandy brought this issue to the fore. There is no more urgent issue than climate change. Worry about whether Iran develops a nuclear weapon pales next to climate change, which will have devastating consequences for the entire planet if governments don't address it. The two governments that most urgently need to address climate change are the United States and China. Yet we have some politicians and the fossil fuel industries that refuse to recognize the seriousness of climate change. They are stuck in denial and in an anti-science attitude that endangers all life on Earth.

The science and signs of climate change are out there. The scientific community has been in agreement about climate change for some 40 years. The changes are accumulating rapidly, more rapidly than originally predicted. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2000 to 2009 was the warmest decade ever recorded. If people keep on adding greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at the current rate, the average temperature around the world could increase by 4 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100.

Increased temperature affects the oceans, weather patterns, snow, ice, plants and animals, including people. As the top layer of the ocean gets warmer, hurricanes and other tropical storms grow stronger with faster winds and heavier rain. That's what we saw with Sandy.

Since the 1980s, the U.S. has experienced more intense single-day storms that are dumping a lot more rain or snow than usual.

In the past century, there has been about a foot of sea level rise in the New York City area, and this figured in hurricane Sandy with the storm surge added to the normal tidal surge, producing devastating flooding for New York and New Jersey.

Melting sea ice is also a factor and will continue to be a factor in the world's coastal areas where so many large cities are located. Arctic sea ice reached its lowest seasonal minimum since satellite data began to be kept in 1979.

Summer 2012 was the third hottest on record.

The trends of wilder weather and greater temperature extremes are expected to continue. Exactly what climate scientists have been predicting for more than 20 years is happening. Everyone needs to pay attention and pressure their governments to do something about it while we still can.

Rape is not a Religious Ritual

Rape is the topic of my latest podcast, EXPLORING NATURE. Rape is not a pretty topic. It's downright ugly and the politics of rape are uglier than I've ever seen them in my lifetime. Rape victims are under attack again. I say again because for centuries there was a blame-the-woman attitude toward rape, as if rape was not something to take seriously--just some "boys-will-be-boys" fun. Women somehow brought on rape by dressing seductively or by inviting intercourse and then lying about it to trap some poor unfortunate man. The man was the victim. When rape began to be taken seriously as a crime, it was seen as a property crime against the husband or the father. It was his property, not the woman victim, that suffered the attack. The raped woman was "damaged goods."

It took many decades for rape to be defined as a violent crime against the victim. The World Health Organization defines rape as "physically forced or otherwise coerced penetration--even if slight--of the vulva or anus, using a penis, other body parts or an object." The FBI's definition, as of 2012, is "The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim."

Rape is a crime of violence but this fact seems to have been lost on a group of Republican male legislators whose goal is to deny women victims access to abortion for any cause. Displaying ignorance of women's anatomy and science, and a stunning callousness toward rape victims, these legislators are more concerned about the rapist's sperm investment than the woman's violation. They downgrade the seriousness of rape by parsing "forcible rape," "legitimate rape," and pregnancy from rape as a gift of God. But rape is rape. There is no acceptable rape and no holy rape.

Most recently, Richard Mourdock, Indiana Republican running for the Senate, made the astounding statement that pregnancy resulting from rape is, "something God intended to happen . . . a gift from God." This statement is one of the most offensive remarks about rape I have ever heard. It implies a theory of divine rape. Mr. Murdock's view would open the door for a rapist to defend himself by arguing that he was just carrying out God's will.

Then there was Todd Akin, Republican congressman from Missouri, coining the term "legitimate rape," and displaying his ignorance of science by proclaiming that a woman's body could "shut down" pregnancy resulting from rape.

Murdock and Akin are extremists but they aren't alone. Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan is on the record saying rape is just another method of conception and not a reason to allow abortion. About a dozen Republican Senate candidates oppose abortion for rape, incest or to protect the health of the mother. Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said he would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned.

There are several things to note about these efforts to turn back the clock on rape victims. First, these men constitute an anti-abortion Mafia. Their extreme view on pregnancy from rape are part and parcel of a general war on women being waged primarily by Republican men. Secondly, they don't talk about rape as a violent crime. By their statements and the bills they sponsor, they are more interested in protecting a fertilized egg than in protecting women from rape. What they end up protecting is the rapist.

Every year in the United States, between 25,000 and 32,000 pregnancies result from rape. Mr. Akin needs some medical instruction about women's bodies. There is no mechanism for "shutting down" pregnancy from rape. Perhaps Mr. Akin is more familiar with the bodies of some female insects than with women's bodies. Female tenebrionid beetles of the species Pterostichus Lucublandus produce a kind of chemical mace that they use not only against predators but also against unwanted males. This spray is so disabling that even after the male cleans himself, he falls into a kind of coma for several hours, giving her time to get away. Of course, the female pays a price for this defense. Until she can resynthesize her supply of defensive spray, she is vulnerable to predators.

Women are vulnerable to predatory men. The worst predators currently are the male legislators who are passing laws and sponsoring bills that have the intent of controlling women's bodies and denying women autonomy over their reproductive biology. The remarks of Mourdock, Akin and Ryan display contempt for women and should be unacceptable to any sane person.

Hear more by listening to the podcast. Also see my book, Sexual Strategies: How Females Choose Their Mates, which has an entire chapter on how males across the animal kingdom try to subvert female choice.

War: The Culture of Death - Part II

Today's podcast, EXPLORING NATURE, presents Part II of the discussion about war as the culture of death for the human species, the environment and the planet. Unlike the Stone Age, when people hurled stones at each other and had no weapons of mass destruction nor any concept of a global ecosystem, violent conflict was a local head-bashing between neighboring tribes. Today's techno-warfare with remotely controlled drones, missiles and bombs threatens all life on Earth. Yet humans use these weapons as if they were living in the Stone Age, and that is the most dangerous aspect of warfare today. The humans who promote war as the only way to resolve conflicts, who substitute bombs for brains, are using Stone Age behavior with Space Age weapons. This disconnect between behavior and technology imperils the planet and the survival of the human species. Given the awesome destructive power of modern weapons, war should be declared obsolete by all nations on Earth.