Merry Christmas

Amen to that

Some pople want power no matter what.

Thank you Angeliki ...and the name is Amir...Prince...remember ..

really !! i got this smiliy that comes every time i talk about smilies... see what i mean... well see ya

means NO!

Is it really that hard to understand?

Does anyone have any ideas as to how we can put an end to this madness?

Rape and violent crime is so common here in South Africa that it hardly even makes it into the headlines anymore.

rapes, dowry charges and violence, these topics are the headlines of news channels here, as it increases their TRP. does it mean that ppl want to see more of such news?

There is an old adage that says, "no news is good news."
The implication being that news is always bad news.

Often when, journalists receive awards, we are told of an old chinese curse that, translated into english, reads, "may you live in interesting times!"
It seems that our history books are filled with stories of war. But there are very few stories of peace to be found there.
Can good news ever be headline news? What would be defined as good news there days?

You raise an interesting point on rape. Male rape has only just been recognised last month (dec 2007) in South Africa. People dealing with rape victims often point out that men are less likely to report rape than women due to the stigma. A man is also less likely to report been raped by a woman than been raped by a man. Given that between 50% to 75% of women do not report rape, I shudder to think how many unreported male rape cases there are.

if u talk of male rape in india, ppl will laugh at u. no policemen will register ur complaint, rather he would suggest u to go to a asylum. and for me news means political news, business news, sports news. there are some channels which focus on such issues. some focus on rape, forgery, communal riots, superstitions etc, such news are called masala (spicy) news here.

i.e. tabloids

@pradeepmunoth .....i like your avatar ....its funny i have one like this too ...in my phone
this is nice topic by the way .....

It is the same with children, they do something wrong but instead of getting explained they get punished in addition to the bad experience.

Thanks for the informative post, Angeliki. Rapists should be removed from society for good, just like murderers. The mentality of the two are identical.

what solution u suggest 4 the offenders?? like the punishment given in arabian countries? or a bit humanly? like life long imprisonment?

Luike something I read about is that in countries were internet exists, rape is lower due to the xxx pages. Something weird I think.

yeah, sexual desire is natural in any person, should not be suppressed. otherwise it will explode like lava someday. whole society should think this way. there should be more openness about sex. secondly our mind should not be set free to think about sex all the time. always keep ourselves busy in work or some useful activities. despite great efforts of indian government we are not able to implement sex education in schools till date due to social pressures. think about the soldiers, they have to remain away from their wives.what happens in their camps? how they satisfy their urge?

there is a common misconception that rape has something to do with sex.
It's about control and overpowering the victim.
Is there any adult who has been raped who would not have enjoyed sex had it been due to mutual consent?
Sex is not the crime. the crime is the forced act against the victims will.
That is why it is so important that victims must report crimes and why no must always mean no.

The justice system does not need more more money, they need to quit spending it on useless projects. Example, California has spent tens of millions of dollars, on a project to record a picture of fireing pins in our guns to know who's bullet casing is possibly at a murder scene. It truely is imposible. I own a lot of guns, all I have to do is file my firing pin. Diffrent gun! Even better use a long wirey rod down the barel of the gun, I changed the ballestics.
Easy, 5-10 minutes beat the system where money could have ben spent else where, such as youre dna.Even the nra litearly proved it to them, but there still wasting money from our pockets which could be spent better somewhere else.

Youre deffinetly right about how to get rid of them though, you don't slap them on the rist you get rid of them, same with murders, and don't wait so long that they die of old age before the sentince is carried out, I say we put in an express lane. Sorry if it sounds extreme but
In reality it would free up jail space, and free up tax dollars for dna, and projects, hopefully not lost cause ones like there ballistics one, because it truely IS a lost cause. Also wether most people like it or not if more people caried guns there would be less rapes and other crimes, after all if you were the bad guy who's house would you break in to. the gun control activest's house, who dosen't have gun's or mine, which chances are you will not walk out of. No one want's to get shot. That's why rapist's rape people, they want to show you, youre beneth them.
If you had a gun, he,or she would run away like a child.
There like the short mouthy guy at the bar, when his friends are there he thinks he's the man. Strangely though when his friends leave him at the bar, he's a big baby.

That's terrible when you see that on the news. It does make you happy to know you live in a good country though. The only thing you can do is hope they get what's coming to them.

To world hunter.
Statistics in South Africa show a different picture. Owning a firearm increases the likelyhood that you will be targeted in crime.
.
More general though.
As a correctional officer, I work with rapists, thieves and even murderers.
One common thread that I have noticed is alcohol.
More than half of all convicted prisoners were drunk at the time they committed there crime. Out of those that remain, most chose victims that were drunk.
Clearly, there is a corolation between alcohol and crime.
I believe that two thirds of crime would be eliminated if alcohol was more strictly controlled.

To qlue Statistics have also shown that in country's where firearm ristrictions are much tighter oreven not allowed the crime right before the guns are taken are much less. One of our friends of the family, his son is the youngest inspector in canada he's told us the crime rate went up in canada.Personaly id trust him over a number puncher any day. Ben Franklin said it best, To give up a little freedom in order to gain a little security you deserve neither and will loose both. I do agree with you on alcohol. The biggest problem you'd face the possibility of creating new al capon's. To a thief, rapest or murder if there's money to be made, they will make it. For fun look and see if you can see how much he made off boo's during the deperision. I will see if I can find it, i'd bet it's up there with bill gates. I would deffinetly see boo's in the city's as a bigger problem than around my area though. Every one at the bars here has to sober up. You don't drive drunk in Pa drunk, they will find you! But in the city you can walk I think those ones are the big problem.

One thing they have to do is either get new judges or start punishing them for being stupid. Theres a town 30 minutes from where I live, it's known for being one of the most corupt in Pa. It is because they stay in a little click with there lawer buddies and decide who's turn it is to win! Thats what our lawer told us to. Our other buddys is a doctor for allen town i think, he told us wayne county is in there books for malpractice as the most corupt.He said they wont allow a law suit to go through. so when so unlucky victom of any crime wether it be rape or something else there chance of justice is but a flip of the coin, or a chunk of change. I have no idea how they haven't got in trouble in all the years they've been there.

I am NOT in favour of gun controll.
When last did you hear about legal gun owners using there registered weapons for crime.
It just doesn't happen that way.
I personally would not own a private firearm although I carry one at times in the course of my duties. But people do have a right to own firearms for various uses, including self defence.
In South Africa owning a legally registered firearm is legal suicide. The law says you may not fire unless fired upon. To get a firearm licence you must complete a competency certificate. This means that, amongst other things, you must know the law. Your best chance is to have an illegal unlicenced firearm. The penalty is about two years max whereas he you shoot someone with a licenced firearm you'd most likely be convicted of murder or attempted murder as the case may be. Minimum sentence is fifteen years. Clearly this stupid law favours the criminally inclined psychopath and not you average law abiding person.
.
I feel that the legal drinking age should be raised to twenty one.
It should be a crime to sell/give alcohol to anyone underage.
It should be against the law for any person to be allowed onto the streets whilst intoxicated.
.
Once people get used to those restrictions, the law could them be tightened further making it I crime to keep alcohol at good without a licence etc.
.
Any one committing a crime when drunk should be given twice the sentence.
If the victim is drunk them the guilty criminal should receive double sentence as well.
So if the sentence for rare is 15 years and the victim is drunk then the rapist must get 30 years.
If rapist is drunk = 30 years
If rapist and victim is drunk = 60 years

If you thought I meant you were in favor of gun control im sorry, I didnt mean for it to sound that way. I just love my guns. I definetly like the 21 year old drinking age though.Teen's act way to imature when they drink. All they want to do is fight. I tried to find how much capone made, to much stuff to look through.

They do have back up checks when you buy a gun, it's part of all the paper work when you buy a gun here, then they scan it and send it to(lets just say the backround people I forgot there name) them, and they aprove it. in most of those shootings you see on tv a friend filled out the paper work. It is illegal, but they dont care. For example new york, most of the wepons used illegaly there come from my state in Pa. They have someone with no rap sheet buy them here and sell them there. There are many other ways to get them illeagly to. So like you said it is very complex.

You guy's have to look at www.innocenceproject.org/ I hope I spelt it right. Just in case they change the story a 52 year old con. just got exonerated on a rape charge.They caught a man for rape who's dna matched the victom he was acused of raping.The guy spent 25 years in jail and didn't do it.That suck's, convicted at 26, freed at 52 for something he didn't do.ouch!

Media shouldn't report on rape and communal violence? Media is like a mirrior which reflects the vices of the society it exists in so that the society can correct itself.

its a lot here in philippines like that ...

yes i was here before

Very good post Angeliki... missed it somehow.

Months ago, I wrote this post. I read this post from a fellow blogger, a Brasilian woman. And what she wrote really made my blood boil, not at her, but about what she was saying. I have read a few posts over the years from various different women, some who tried to commit suicide, because of violence inflicted upon them from some evil man, being isolated from the people who love her and her escape and a bunch of here at Opera spent a lot of time building up her self esteem again. We don't know what became of her as she no longer writes and no one has any of her other contacts. But she is in my thoughts. The abuse upon women world wide is appalling. According to statistics just in Portugal it's 3 out of 5 women are abused! And those are the public statistics, the ones who had the courage to step forward and expose it, in the hopes of putting the perpetuator of the crime behind bars or in an insane aslyum where they belong. But alas, justice is not always just, a lot of times, the victims are made to look like they are at fault. I could go on and on about the various forms of abuse upon women by these control freaks... What really needs to be done is women taking care of each other... no matter what their backgrounds are. I met an amazing woman in the U.K. - she too went through the worst abuse by different partners, she lost the plot and ended up abusing drugs and alcohol. She ended up trying to commit suicide and was put into 3 mental institutions. Her experiences there and today, you look at her, she is amazing! I would NEVER thought she went through what she did. The therapists said she was a walking miracle! She simply woke up and said I will NOT live my life like this! She checked herself out, a family helped her get back on her feet. She is in love now with a really nice guy, has set up her business, she is a super positive person and a load of fun to be around and she plans to write a book about it. We heal from the inside!


http://my.opera.com/wickedlizard/blog/i-ve-been-meaning-to-write-this-for-a-very-long-time

I have more posts on this sort of thing... in my blog... don't know where they all are right now.

I too am spiritual. What pains me the most is the women and the children who have no one to turn to, isolated in pain and abuse. It's so wrong.