The day's busy-ness calls me elsewhere right now, but I just have a comment or two.

To pdc, I would say first that, to all intents and purposes, you will probably be just as safe in the United States as you are where you are right now. I've already discussed the matter of films and other entertainment. But in newspapers and magazines—and on the evening television news—the current principle seems to be "if it bleeds, it leads." If a violent crime tops the news, people pay attention, not out of a pathological fascination with violence, but with a reasonable regard for their own safety; wanting to know what happened so they can avoid the same thing happening to them. Inspired fear rather than a taste for blood. And in any city of any size anywhere in the world, violence occurs almost every day. Finding a lead-off story is easy pickings for the news vultures, creating the impression that things of this sort are far more prevalent and wide-spread than they really are. This same attitude slops over into magazine articles as well (Cover article: "How to Keep From Being Mugged"). There are millions of random—and not so random—acts of kindness that happen every day, but they are so commonplace that they're not newsworthy. In a class I took on broadcast news, and later on while working in a radio news department, I got a pretty good picture of what most radio and television stations think of as "newsworthy." (You want to draw the viewers/listeners in so they'll hear your commercials between news items rather than some other station's.) "Statistically skewed" hardly describes it. Rather than becoming the victim of intentional violence, you'd probably have a greater chance of being run down by some dodo in an SUV with a cell-phone up his ear. Now, there's a real danger!

And, daylia, I too wonder why the statistics for violence are higher in the U. S. than in many other countries. I'm working on a theory, but I haven't had a chance to work it out yet. It has to do with a couple of factors, which do, indeed, seem to be cultural: an inordinate emphasis on competitiveness that sometimes starts as early as pre-school and continues (obviously) into a person's work-life, where it can get downright cut-throat (speaking of violence); and despite the supposed guarantees of equality, the obvious examples one hears of and encounters every day that "some people are more equal than others." One common example is the fellow who thought he had a secure job for life and then he gets laid off because some CEO he has never even heard of in a company that owns the company he worked for is in a competitive struggle with another company. Anger and frustration caused by things over which one has no control can lead to violence—sometimes misdirected violence, such as domestic abuse, for example.

Blazes! I've got to get busy! It seems I started to work on my theory right here. Sometimes I don't know what I think until I say it!

I'll be back.

Don Firth