L’Amérique ne doit plus être un pays où tout est permis, où il n’y a pas de limites et où les valeurs morales se plient aux considérations financières et à l’influence politique. Haily Jordan, une lycéenne américaine, a défendu le libre accès aux armes à feu aux États-Unis. Son principal argument est que, […]
Crime
American Gun Problem Is Cultural
All the other stuff, the love, the democracy, the floundering into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. – D.H. Lawrence (1923) High school student Haily Jordan wrote an essay defending the free access to guns in the […]
Auschwitz – Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives
No one wanted to know. No one wanted to listen to what I had to say. But I made a commitment that people don’t want to hear but I’m going to make sure that they will. Not in the history of mankind has there been industrial killing on this scale. If something happened once, there […]
- Psychology
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Femicide In Europe – A Question Of Manhood
The victims all had a Christian name – Suzanne, Ingrid, Florence, Catherine… Most had a job – schoolteacher, bank employee, secretary… They all had parents, friends, neighbours, and many had children. Their Christian names are our names and their jobs are our jobs. We too, have parents, friends, and for many of us, children. For […]
The Unknown Little Girl On The A10 Motorway
On 11th August 1987, the mutilated body of a young girl was found on the side of the A10 motorway, in the Loir-et-Cher region, south of Paris. A few weeks ago, DNA analysis finally enabled to put a name to the victim. Her parents, who never reported the missing child, are now being investigated in connection […]
- Psychology
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Left In The Cold – The Freeze Response And Rape Victims
You are probably aware of the so-called “fight-flight response”, also known as the “acute stress response”. It is a biological reaction to a stimulus perceived as an imminent threat to survival. The response is carried out by the autonomic nervous system – a control system that acts largely unconsciously and regulates heart rate, digestion, respiratory rate, pupillary response, urination, and sexual […]
Sexism And The City – Nature Or Nurture?
Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. – Margaret Atwood The last time I said anything remotely qualified as sexist, was in 1980, in a Chinese restaurant in the West-End of London. The chopsticks were hygienically wrapped in a beautiful red paper sleeve, decorated with Chinese […]
Pardon Me, Your Honour – I’m a Sexy Lady With Talent
In May this year, Lavinia Woodward, an Oxford medical student, was found guilty of stabbing, and seriously injuring, her boyfriend. An exceptional delay in the verdict was pronounced, the court having heard of her ‘extraordinary talent’, as sufficient reason for this strange decision. The judge had made it clear that he did not favour a […]
- retrospect
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Cold Justice: “The Red Pullover” – Part II: The Trial
On 6th November 1975, Christian Ranucci was officially charged with the abduction and murder of 8-year-old Marie-Dolorès Rembla, in June 1974. The official investigation was characterised by numerous “potential” irregularities, including the “rejection” of a last-minute testimony from a witness favouring Ranucci’s innocence. The two major controversies related to the investigation were Ranucci’s sudden U-turn on […]
- retrospect
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Cold Justice: “The Red Pullover” – Part I: The Crime
In March 1976, Christian Ranucci was tried and condemned to death, for the murder of 8-year-old Marie-Dolorès Rembla, in June 1974. He had his request for pardon rejected by president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, and was executed on July 28th 1976, at 4.13 am. The death penalty was abolished by François Mittérand, in September 1981. Ranucci […]