Child Abuse and Murder: Spare The Rod And Spoil The Child?

Answer: The exact opposite is true.

The San Francisco Chronicle and Newser.com recently reported the tragic story of an abused teenager who was shackled and repeatedly beaten in Tracy, California before he escaped. The woman charged with his kidnapping and torture admitted she beat the boy, partly because she had been told that was how to discipline him.

The misguided notion of beating weakness out of a child has Germanic roots going back to before Hitler was born, which Swiss psychotherapist Alice Miller explored in an article published in the Journal of Psychohistory 1998. One could say the misguided child rearing techniques espoused by Dr. Daniel Gottlieb Moritz Schreber were partly to blame for World War II.

We can all thank Dr. Benjamin Spock from saving the world from more victims of child abuse. Although he specialized in pediatrics, he studied psychoanalysis for six years which made him the only practicing pediatrician of his time with that combination of training. In 1946 his book The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care was first published by Pocket Books for 25 cents (Pocket Books is also the publisher of Cause of Death: A Perfect Little Guide To What Kills Us) and included the ground-breaking notion that holding and showing affection to children would not only make them happier it would make them feel more secure.

The opposite effect of a happy childhood is exposed in the excellent book Base Instincts - What Makes Killers Kill? In it Dr. Jonathan H. Pincus, M.D. points out "it is the interaction of childhood abuse with neurologic disturbances and psychiatric illnesses that explains murder." In the 150 murderers Dr. Pincus observed, 94% had experienced severe physical and sexual abuse as children.

If not for Spock, and other more recent good writers on better child rearing techniques, we might be experiencing a lot more murders in the U.S. than the 18,124 homicide deaths in 2005. Perhaps a good book on child rearing might be the perfect gift for anyone expecting a new baby in the New Year. Sphere: Related Content

Human Vampires Are Not Nice People

The inspiration for Count Dracula, in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, was Vald "the Impaler" who ruled Romania in the 15th century. He impaled hundreds of his enemies on stakes and displayed them in the town square. http://www.romaniatourism.com/dracula.html

If vampires are those who feed on the blood of the living, the closest thing we have in real life today are cannibalistic killers. According to the FBI, serial killings represent less than 1% of all murders (based on total homicide deaths of 18,124 in 2005, serial killings in the U.S. would be fewer than 180. That's about 118,000 fewer than the number of Americans who died as a result of accidents that year). Cannibal serial killers are even rarer.

Some famously disturbed cannibal serial killers are:
Andrei Chickatilo: born October 1936, died February 1994. Killed 53 people in the Soviet Union between 1978 and 1990.
Jeffrey Dahmer: born May 1960, died November 1994. Killed 17 people in Ohio and Wisconsin between 1978 and 1991.
Albert Fish: born May 1870, died January 1936. Killed 5+ people in New York between 1924 and 1932.
Hadden Clark: born April 1951. Killed 2-3 people in Maryland between 1986 and 1992.

For more information on the #11 cause of premature death in the U.S., see the Murder chapter in the Cause of Death book.

photo from wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_killers

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How Americans Use Guns

The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the individual right to possess and carry weapons and, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, citizens need guns so they "can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police." So what did Americans do with their guns in 2005? 17,002 used them to commit suicide (out of 32,637 total suicides); 12,352 used them to commit murder (out of 18,124 total homicides); 789 accidentally shot and killed themselves with them (out of a total of 117,809 accidental deaths); 143 were used by private citizens in justifiable homicides (which would include shooting a burglar in your home - out of a total of 192 justifiable homicides in 2005). Given that the FBI reported the average dollar loss per burglary offense in 2005 was $1,725 - keeping a gun in the house to protect your assets seems a little like overkill. Sphere: Related Content