CLICK YOUR FLAG:SEE YOUR LANGUAGE. HAGA CLIC SU FLAG:SEE SU LENGUAJE. CLIQUETEZ VOTRE FLAG:SEE VOTRE LANGAGE. KLICKEN SIE IHR FLAG:SEE IHRE SPRACHE AN. SCATTARE IL VOSTRO FLAG:SEE IL VOSTRO LINGUAGGIO. ESTALE SEU FLAG:SEE SUA L�NGUA. MORE LANGUAGES: CLICK HERE Type or paste text or Web address (beginning with http://) here: Poweredby Systran Translate from:� English to FrenchEnglish to GermanEnglish to ItalianEnglish to PortugueseEnglish to SpanishFrench to EnglishGerman to EnglishItalian to EnglishSpanish to EnglishPortuguese to English For Some, Fear Of Violence Borders On Syndrome September 8, 2000 LOS ANGELES (Los Angeles Daily News) - Call it secondhand fear - most people, even those who are not crime victims, feel threatened by the perception that violence lurks everywhere, a trio of clinical psychologists at California State University, Northridge, said Thursday. The researchers have dubbed the condition Secondary Violence Syndrome, characterized by chronic underlying feelings of alienation, depression, anger and anxiety. Although more criminals are in prison than ever before and crime declined sharply over the past decade, many people still cloister their children, covet walled homes in gated communities or even keep weapons because of this affliction, they say. "The assault on your feelings of safety and security is attacking us from all directions," wrote the three Ph.D's, Corinne Wilburne Barker, Marshall Bloom and Bruce Shapiro. "Whether real or imagined, most of us feel we are not safe on the streets, the highways, in our homes, in our schools or even in the workplace." The study, which is nearing completion after four years of research, included a recent survey of faculty and staff members at CSUN and a 1998 survey of employees of a large corporation. The team also drew on other research and the members' own observations about society and tolerance for violent or threatening behavior and speech. "If you move in the wrong way, or I give you an aggressive look, there's that threat of violence" that pervades and suppresses human interaction, Bloom said. After seeing reports about high school and elementary school shootings, even such simple activities as signing one's child up for kindergarten can be filled with apprehension, Barker said. "Now, do we need to check out the other parents to see if they might keep a loaded gun at home?" she asked. "Hesitance in meeting new people and helping new people" because of an overwhelming fear of crime, Shapiro said, "that becomes a restriction on our freedom." About 2,500 people responded to the statewide company survey, which the researchers describe as a good cross-section of incomes, education levels and urban/suburban/rural dwellers. More than half of those surveyed, or 58 percent, said they were likely to be the victim of violence or a criminal act. Even more, 81 percent, said they were concerned about becoming a crime victim. Like many people, Mike Winnik, 44, of Tarzana said he could identify with the issues raised by the study. "I came out to live here (from New York) because of the difference in raising kids," he said as he collected his two daughters, Mariana, 6, and Julia, 3, from a fenced-in playground at a local park. "I don't read the newspapers and I don't watch television just for that reason: Because I don't want to learn about it. I hate hearing about a child who just got killed today by a stray bullet or there's a maniac on the loose." Although only about 8 percent of the respondents in the statewide survey said they "stopped watching the news" to "cope with violence and crime in our society," it did find that many people had changed their lives in other ways. Sixty percent agreed with the statement, "I try not to open my door to strangers or solicitors." Thirty-nine percent said, "I watch my children more closely in public," and 32 percent selected, "I use my car horn with caution." Even Barker said she recently honked her horn at an errant motorist, "and I thought, uh-oh, this is not a great area of town, maybe a gun's going to come out." A significant number of respondents also took more drastic measures to help them feel safer in what they perceive, correctly or not, to be a crime-infested world. A full quarter of them said they kept a weapon at home, 14 percent said they carried pepper spray and 15 percent checked off, "I do not go out at night." The three said they hope their research, which they are incorporating into a book on the fear of crime, will lead to the development of strategies to help people cope with the condition. Calling attention to the side effects of a fear of crime - often an irrational fear - is a worthwhile pursuit in the eyes of Barry Glassner, a University of Southern California sociology professor and author of "Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things." "I think it's time that we recognized that the fear of crime is dangerous in and of itself," Glassner said. "It results in parents raising frightened children. It results in people voting their fears, rather than their ambitions or self-interests in an election." Copyright 2000 The Los Angeles Daily News. All rights reserved. THE COMMENCEMENT Below is a commencement speech made by Anna Quindlen to students at Villanova University: It's a great honor for me to be the third member of my family to receive an honorary doctorate from this great university. It's an honor to follow my great Uncle Jim, who was a gifted physician, and my Uncle Jack, who is a remarkable businessman. Both of them could have told you something important about their professions, about medicine or commerce. I have no specialized field of interest or expertise, which puts me at a disadvantage talking to you today. I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. The second is only part of the first. Don't ever forget what a friend once wrote Senator Paul Tsongas when the senator decided not to run for re-election because he had been diagnosed with cancer: No man ever said on his deathbed... I wish I had spent more time at the office.... Don't ever forget the words my father sent me on a postcard last year: "If you win the rat race, you'restill a rat;" Or what John Lennon wrote before he was gunned down in the driveway of the Dakota: "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans." You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree; there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account but your soul. People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is a cold comfort on a winter night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've gotten back the test results and they're not so good. Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the center of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cutout. But I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, or at best mediocre at my job, if those other things were not true. You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger. Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And, realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have nobusiness taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beers and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough. It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of our kids' eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of to live. I learned to live many years ago. Something really, really bad happened to me, something that changed my life in ways that, if I had my druthers, it would never have been changed at all. And what I learned from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And, I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And, think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived. Trivial fears: Stepping out alone By Carolina Carlessi Not long ago, Carmen came to the Opera House and my trivial tragedy unfolded: I didn't have anybody to go with. My friends were either sick, out of town, had previous commitments or plain didn't have the money. My friend Susan could not accept my offer to buy her a ticket because she had a meeting at school and suggested I go alone. "By myself? No!" My voice quivered. The palms of my hands got all sweaty just thinking about entering the theater alone. We experience these vital fears, fears that threaten our lives or our integrity. We also experience trivial fears, those almost insignificant anxieties that often define our lives. Years ago I lived in Lima, Peru, raising two kids as a single mother. Peru was undergoing the most violent time in its history. Terrorists tried to erase every hint of "capitalist society" through bombings, kidnappings and executions. As a reaction, the anti-terrorist forces tried to erase everyone who looked like a terrorist � which could mean anybody. We, the people, were in the middle of their war. I call those fears vital. They showed their ugly faces especially at night. In the darkness of the blackouts, the explosions would shake the house as if in an earthquake. I would lie awake wondering which government building, which bank, which mall had been destroyed that night. Whether or not a night guard or passerby had been blown to pieces and his limbs scattered with the rubble. Sometimes, gunshots whistled in the nearby park. Holding a candle, I would check the doors and windows and then step into my sons� room, look at their beautiful faces and wonder what would I do if violence came even closer. Sleep would eventually come, with me tired and weary, thinking the end of the world was indeed very near. Invariably the next morning, the gardener at the nearby park saluted the sun with his Andean tunes. He pruned the roses while whistling with all the power in his lungs. The house woke up to the bright light, to the familiar sounds of the milk and bread delivery, to the smell of fresh brewed coffee. I got up, got the kids ready for school, and went to work at an international magazine. And every morning, life went on in Lima. It was as if the night terror dissolved with the sheer energy of determination. People walked briskly to work, filled the buses to the utmost, and drove their cars with a purpose. People in Peru were not giving up, they were embracing life. Life is stronger than war and terror. Life is resilient, stubborn, stoic and optimistic. Trivial fears are not that overwhelming. Trivial fears lurk in the back of our unconscious and present themselves as one element of the makeup of our personalities, as an insignificant characteristic, a small idiosyncrasy. But beware, there are certain moments when these trivial fears can define aspects of our life. They keep us in a house when we should be talking in public, they cause us to lose a cherished job for fear of losing the guy. They can make us miss a great play because we don't have anybody to go with. That night and the following day after I heard about the opera, my thoughts kept going to the same question. Why do I feel so scared? Where does this fear come from? The image of me as a shy girl came to my mind together with a sinking feeling in my guts. Boys calling me ugly and me running past them to get to the shop and buy noodles for dinner. And the Sunday matinee. I entered the movie theater convinced that everybody had their eyes fixed on me, made fun of my big nose, ugly dress and dark skin. Their glances made my feet become heavy and clumsy. If I didn�t still feel that way, then why was I terrified of going to the theater by myself? It was fear also, but a different kind. People might criticize me for not having a man at my side, for not being able to attract a guy, for not being woman enough to keep one. Or they might pity me, which is worse. The idea came as a revelation. If I am complete without a man, why should I care what people think? One ticket for a single woman, I said jokingly to the woman at the ticket booth, when I arrived at the Opera House. And here is the best place in the house for her, she answered with a wink, offering me the numbered ticket. (It is easier to find tickets for singles. Odd seats remain unsold after couples buy theirs.) The main floor of the Opera House swarmed with people. Some dressed elegantly, and some just wore their working attire, like me. I sailed easily around the groups and climbed the curved stairs leading to a glass foyer overlooking the river. I waited there. Rosy clouds peeked behind the clock tower of the river park. I watched a couple, almost hiding under the bent willow branches. The man embraced the woman from behind while she threw the pieces of bread up, high into the air, for the swans to catch. I watched them with no envy. I was going to see Carmen by myself. When the time came to enter the auditorium, my nerves didn�t fail me. I went to the right door and found a uniformed usher who guided me to an aisle. People were trying to find their seats. No eyes were fixed on me. Signaling to an empty seat, the usher gave me the ticket back and said, There is J-15, beside that gentleman. Seat J-15 was located in the center of the mezzanine. It dominated everything, the scenario, the orchestra pit, and the audience. A sense of power grew inside me. I relaxed in my seat, smiled, and felt the presence of the man at my side. He said hello, and I noticed sparks of intelligence in his eyes. He was the perfect guide for the evening, a musician exempt from playing for the night. And across the centuries, Bizet's dreams enchanted me. Afterward, the musician invited me to the artists' cocktail party and gave me a ride home. He did not send a dozen roses thanking me for the wonderful evening. I did not either. We did not date and fall in love. He is not practicing his violin in the next room while I write this article. Nothing romantic ever happened between the violinist and me. The evening when I saw Carmen didn�t have to do with finding a man. It was a lesson in joy and discovery. Joy, because the little shy girl was no more, discovery because I realized that living as a single woman requires a constant shedding of vital and trivial fears. Carolina Carlessi is a regular contributor to UnderWire. See In the time of Dona Elena. SHARE WITH SOMEONE YOU LOVEPASS THIS ON SHOW YOU CARE-SHARE HOME PAGE NEXT PAGE 35HOME PAGE
For Some, Fear Of Violence Borders On Syndrome September 8, 2000 LOS ANGELES (Los Angeles Daily News) - Call it secondhand fear - most people, even those who are not crime victims, feel threatened by the perception that violence lurks everywhere, a trio of clinical psychologists at California State University, Northridge, said Thursday. The researchers have dubbed the condition Secondary Violence Syndrome, characterized by chronic underlying feelings of alienation, depression, anger and anxiety. Although more criminals are in prison than ever before and crime declined sharply over the past decade, many people still cloister their children, covet walled homes in gated communities or even keep weapons because of this affliction, they say. "The assault on your feelings of safety and security is attacking us from all directions," wrote the three Ph.D's, Corinne Wilburne Barker, Marshall Bloom and Bruce Shapiro. "Whether real or imagined, most of us feel we are not safe on the streets, the highways, in our homes, in our schools or even in the workplace." The study, which is nearing completion after four years of research, included a recent survey of faculty and staff members at CSUN and a 1998 survey of employees of a large corporation. The team also drew on other research and the members' own observations about society and tolerance for violent or threatening behavior and speech. "If you move in the wrong way, or I give you an aggressive look, there's that threat of violence" that pervades and suppresses human interaction, Bloom said. After seeing reports about high school and elementary school shootings, even such simple activities as signing one's child up for kindergarten can be filled with apprehension, Barker said. "Now, do we need to check out the other parents to see if they might keep a loaded gun at home?" she asked. "Hesitance in meeting new people and helping new people" because of an overwhelming fear of crime, Shapiro said, "that becomes a restriction on our freedom." About 2,500 people responded to the statewide company survey, which the researchers describe as a good cross-section of incomes, education levels and urban/suburban/rural dwellers. More than half of those surveyed, or 58 percent, said they were likely to be the victim of violence or a criminal act. Even more, 81 percent, said they were concerned about becoming a crime victim. Like many people, Mike Winnik, 44, of Tarzana said he could identify with the issues raised by the study. "I came out to live here (from New York) because of the difference in raising kids," he said as he collected his two daughters, Mariana, 6, and Julia, 3, from a fenced-in playground at a local park. "I don't read the newspapers and I don't watch television just for that reason: Because I don't want to learn about it. I hate hearing about a child who just got killed today by a stray bullet or there's a maniac on the loose." Although only about 8 percent of the respondents in the statewide survey said they "stopped watching the news" to "cope with violence and crime in our society," it did find that many people had changed their lives in other ways. Sixty percent agreed with the statement, "I try not to open my door to strangers or solicitors." Thirty-nine percent said, "I watch my children more closely in public," and 32 percent selected, "I use my car horn with caution." Even Barker said she recently honked her horn at an errant motorist, "and I thought, uh-oh, this is not a great area of town, maybe a gun's going to come out." A significant number of respondents also took more drastic measures to help them feel safer in what they perceive, correctly or not, to be a crime-infested world. A full quarter of them said they kept a weapon at home, 14 percent said they carried pepper spray and 15 percent checked off, "I do not go out at night." The three said they hope their research, which they are incorporating into a book on the fear of crime, will lead to the development of strategies to help people cope with the condition. Calling attention to the side effects of a fear of crime - often an irrational fear - is a worthwhile pursuit in the eyes of Barry Glassner, a University of Southern California sociology professor and author of "Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things." "I think it's time that we recognized that the fear of crime is dangerous in and of itself," Glassner said. "It results in parents raising frightened children. It results in people voting their fears, rather than their ambitions or self-interests in an election." Copyright 2000 The Los Angeles Daily News. All rights reserved.
It's a great honor for me to be the third member of my family to receive an honorary doctorate from this great university. It's an honor to follow my great Uncle Jim, who was a gifted physician, and my Uncle Jack, who is a remarkable businessman. Both of them could have told you something important about their professions, about medicine or commerce. I have no specialized field of interest or expertise, which puts me at a disadvantage talking to you today.
I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. The second is only part of the first. Don't ever forget what a friend once wrote Senator Paul Tsongas when the senator decided not to run for re-election because he had been diagnosed with cancer: No man ever said on his deathbed... I wish I had spent more time at the office....
Don't ever forget the words my father sent me on a postcard last year: "If you win the rat race, you'restill a rat;" Or what John Lennon wrote before he was gunned down in the driveway of the Dakota: "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans." You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree; there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account but your soul. People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is a cold comfort on a winter night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've gotten back the test results and they're not so good.
Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the center of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cutout. But I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, or at best mediocre at my job, if those other things were not true. You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So here's what I wanted to tell you today:
Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And, think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.
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