Fear of a different kind

We've been living in Cambridge for almost 2 months now. Although the crime here is vitually non-existent there has been some petty theft and the occational freak mass killing! So there is fear here, fear of a different kind.

There has been a lot of petty theft like bike and bag theft at the university as well as at residences. Three of Athol's classmates' bicycles were stolen in 2 days! as well as someone's backpack. These bicycles were locked up and the backpack was taken during a class break. One classmate had left her expensive mattress in the lobby (with a sign not to remove) for an hour while waiting for the delivery company to arrive, when she came back the mattress was gone. There is a fine line to all of this, today bicycles/bags/mattresses... tomorrow your car or jewellery. Apparently a lady was raped at Harvard yesterday! Not so safe as I thought.

A couple of weeks ago at the Batman screening in Colorado there was a mass killing where at least 12 people (including an infant) were killed and many injured. Innocent people just going to watch a movie and some crazy person goes on a shooting spree - really sad.

Last week, there was another shootout at a Sihk temple in Milwaukee, at least 6 people were killed. Again, innocent people just going to pray.

Sadly, this seems to be a common occurence here in the US - crazy gunmen going on a shooting spree killing many innocent people. And these killers appear to be ordinary people like you and I. The Colorado killer was a student.

So what causes people to do this?

To me, it seems that there is a lot of anger and unhappiness amongst the youth. Not only in the US but also in places like London (remember the youth riots last Aug) and even Norway (remember the student who also went on a killing spree last year). Clearly, there is something mentally wrong with these people. It is society's responsibility to identify these individuals who require help. I really think that tv/computer games with guns and killing should be banned, surely if children are playing these games eventually it will become normal for them. The world would be a better place without violence, guns, bombs and weapons of mass destruction. Also, people need to stop labelling themselves (by religion, country, race, school, profession), we are ALL humans! Here is a great poem by a great poet AE Ballakisten called 'World Peace' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7My-TtjEN5U

Sometimes life seems a bit random....

We could be the most cautious people just living our lives and then we just happen to be in the wrong place the wrong time. Sometimes things just seem so random and so unfair.

Here in the US, you could die of heat exhaustion, you could be at work and planes smash into the buildings, you could be going to pray or watch a movie and get shot or you be killed in a flood or a tonado....

In SA, you could be knocked down and killed by a truck walking to the shops or killed by your own car which rolled in your steep driveway or killed by a falling rock off a mountain in Cape Town while you are cycling or killed by a bolt of lightning while mountain climbing. This sadly has happened before.

So the moral of the story is to enjoy life, live it to the fullest! Here are some inspirational words by an inspirational poet :) One Finite Life  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwYlBktN_q0