Telegraph ghost story writing competition

The ghost story is having a new lease of life. It was at its most popular in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, before being overtaken by the horror story, which began to thrive with the horror film. But think of coffin lids opened slowly by a skeleton hand and mummified corpses – and laugh. In piling it on so thick, horror quickly became comic.

A good ghost story is never funny. It is too near to us. Perhaps in order to find it convincing we must believe that it could possibly happen. I do not know of any “true” horror stories, but there are thousands of true ghost stories, beginning with those told by the flickering firelight in the caves of prehistoric man. Every region of the British Isles has its local ghost stories, and every country and culture has its repeated tales.

To be any good, a ghost story needs a structure, characters, a narrative line (dialogue is optional). Above all, the ghost must have a purpose. It may be revenge for harm suffered. It may be to explain some past incident. It may be to protest, to offer information – the whereabouts or contents of a will, a murdered body or the identity of a killer.

I have never written a ghost story merely to evoke a shudder. I cannot see the point in simply making people afraid. I want to do more. I want the reader to ask questions, to ponder, to be intrigued and to create an atmosphere from which the story will emerge.

Atmosphere is essential to a ghost story. How does it come about? By evocative description and a sense of place – perhaps the traditional empty, haunted house at night. Buildings are important. But a deserted office block at night in an empty city centre could be a place full of ghosts.

Resource: telegraph.co.uk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llLN8rrvT8M&feature=fvwrel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0fJ3Bv1HsM&NR=1

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Why the fuss about Dr Kermit Gosnell? Abortion is a human right, isn’t it?

In the past few days the worldwide media has reacted with shock regarding the ‘baby killer’ doctor Dr Kermit Gosnell. Dr Gosnell is a late term abortionist in the US whose clinic has been slammed for carrying out illegal late term abortions and putting women’s health at risk. He is accused of forcibly delivering and executing babies with scissors.

Abortion is carried out legally and routinely in many countries around the world. It always involves the death of the unborn child. Late abortions sometimes involve ‘forcibly delivering’ the baby although usually the baby is given a fatal injection beforehand to avoid a live birth. That is the only difference between Dr Gosnell’s practice and standard procedure.

Whether legal or illegal, many women suffer mental and physical risks as a result of the abortion process, occasionally including maternal death. They are not informed of the true facts about abortion, so that they often make the decision without knowing the enormity of what will happen to their babies.

The outrage felt by the media at the terrible scenes at Dr Gosnell’s clinic is fully justified. However why is the media not equally forthright when abortions are carried out as a standard procedure, using tax-payers’ money? Babies are still torn limb from limb, occasionally born alive and left to die, their organs used as ingredients in vaccines or for medical research.

Abortion is legal in the UK up to birth in cases of disability, which is a severe breach of human rights for the disabled. 200,000 abortions are carried out in the UK annually. The ProLife Alliance asks why is there no outcry? Why is this legal?

The only conclusion can be that the world prefers not to know what happens behind the doors of an abortion clinic. As long as the baby dies behind a hygenic façade and is disposed of out of sight, we can all pretend that abortion is a ‘human right’, not murder, legal or otherwise.

Resource: prolife.org.uk

Angry Husbands Don't Have To Be Tolerated

All too often, wives put themselves into a position where they will just simply tolerate the angry outbursts of their husbands, rather than rock the boat. It should be mentioned right from the first though, this is in respect to non violent husbands and their angry outbursts. Although these are abusive in nature, they are not physically abusive, nor do they create a fear for physical safety. The types of situations that are outside of this realm, should be handled on the advice of professionals who are trained in these matters.

The type of anger abuse that this article is referring to is the snappy hot head husband who flies off the handle, every time something doesn't suit him. This is the guy who can be in the middle of the supermarket, and has no difficulty raising his voice at you or others, and humiliating them. This type of angry husband simply does not have to be tolerated.

You will soon find that perhaps giving him a taste of his own medicine, may be enough for a wake-up call. Before going to these measures though, the first step is to try and discuss the anger issue with him. There is a chance that he doesn't realize that he is flying off the handle to the extent that he is. He may also not realize just how embarrassing and humiliating this is, when it takes place in a public setting.

The key to handling his angry outbursts, is not to tolerate them no matter where they occur. If you are going to allow him to go into a rage at home, when no one is around, then only get upset when this happens in public, you are sending mixed messages.

It also has to be kept in mind, that it doesn't matter whether the anger is directed at you, someone else, or self directed. It is not acceptable. Of course everyone has their moments where their temper gets the best of them, and this can be tolerated. It is when the occurrences of temper mismanagement are out of control, that it becomes an issue.

Often wives that are subjected to this type of behavior will start to turn down family and friend invitations to functions, for fear of having to deal with an anger outburst. Or when it does happen, they will make excuses for the behavior. This is just feeding into the problem. Your husband is simply not being held responsible for his actions. If you are a wife that is in this situation, you will find that your friends and family will tolerate the behavior for your sake, and not for the sake of your husband. People that are caught in this type of situation, would rather try to diffuse the matter, and try to prevent it from escalating to where it ruins the social event.

You as the wife must make your husband aware of his angry outbursts. Chances are he knows within himself that he has an anger management problem, but will not consider doing something about it, until he becomes aware that it is not going to be accepted by others, and mostly you as his wife.

Article Source: EzineArticles.Com

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Learning to Lie

Kids lie early, often, and for all sorts of reasons—to avoid punishment, to bond with friends, to gain a sense of control. But now there’s a singular theory for one way this habit develops: They are just copying their parents.

In the last few years, a handful of intrepid scholars have decided it’s time to try to understand why kids lie. For a study to assess the extent of teenage dissembling, Dr. Nancy Darling, then at Penn State University, recruited a special research team of a dozen undergraduate students, all under the age of 21. Using gift certificates for free CDs as bait, Darling’s Mod Squad persuaded high-school students to spend a few hours with them in the local pizzeria.

Each student was handed a deck of 36 cards, and each card in this deck listed a topic teens sometimes lie about to their parents. Over a slice and a Coke, the teen and two researchers worked through the deck, learning what things the kid was lying to his parents about, and why.

“They began the interviews saying that parents give you everything and yes, you should tell them everything,” Darling observes. By the end of the interview, the kids saw for the first time how much they were lying and how many of the family’s rules they had broken. Darling says 98 percent of the teens reported lying to their parents.

Out of the 36 topics, the average teen was lying to his parents about twelve of them. The teens lied about what they spent their allowances on, and whether they’d started dating, and what clothes they put on away from the house. They lied about what movie they went to, and whom they went with. They lied about alcohol and drug use, and they lied about whether they were hanging out with friends their parents disapproved of. They lied about how they spent their afternoons while their parents were at work. They lied about whether chaperones were in attendance at a party or whether they rode in cars driven by drunken teens.

Being an honors student didn’t change these numbers by much; nor did being an overscheduled kid. No kid, apparently, was too busy to break a few rules. And lest you wonder if these numbers apply only to teens in State College, Pennsylvania, the teens in Darling’s sample were compared to national averages on a bevy of statistics, from academics to extracurriculars. “We had a very normal, representative sample,” Darling says.

For two decades, parents have rated “honesty” as the trait they most wanted in their children. Other traits, such as confidence or good judgment, don’t even come close. On paper, the kids are getting this message. In surveys, 98 percent said that trust and honesty were essential in a personal relationship. Depending on their ages, 96 to 98 percent said lying is morally wrong.

So when do the 98 percent who think lying is wrong become the 98 percent who lie?

It starts very young. Indeed, bright kids—those who do better on other academic indicators—are able to start lying at 2 or 3. “Lying is related to intelligence,” explains Dr. Victoria Talwar, an assistant professor at Montreal’s McGill University and a leading expert on children’s lying behavior.

Although we think of truthfulness as a young child’s paramount virtue, it turns out that lying is the more advanced skill. A child who is going to lie must recognize the truth, intellectually conceive of an alternate reality, and be able to convincingly sell that new reality to someone else. Therefore, lying demands both advanced cognitive development and social skills that honesty simply doesn’t require. “It’s a developmental milestone,” Talwar has concluded.

This puts parents in the position of being either damned or blessed, depending on how they choose to look at it. If your 4-year-old is a good liar, it’s a strong sign she’s got brains. And it’s the smart, savvy kid who’s most at risk of becoming a habitual liar.

By their 4th birthday, almost all kids will start experimenting with lying in order to avoid punishment. Because of that, they lie indiscriminately—whenever punishment seems to be a possibility. A 3-year-old will say, “I didn’t hit my sister,” even if a parent witnessed the child’s hitting her sibling.

Most parents hear their child lie and assume he’s too young to understand what lies are or that lying’s wrong. They presume their child will stop when he gets older and learns those distinctions. Talwar has found the opposite to be true—kids who grasp early the nuances between lies and truth use this knowledge to their advantage, making them more prone to lie when given the chance.

Many parenting Websites and books advise parents to just let lies go—they’ll grow out of it. The truth, according to Talwar, is that kids grow into it. In studies where children are observed in their natural environment, a 4-year-old will lie once every two hours, while a 6-year-old will lie about once every hour and a half. Few kids are exceptions.

Resource: Nymag.Com

One in ten women regularly consumes organic food during pregnancy

The growth of the organic food and personal care product sectors over the past decade-or-so has been truly astounding, with reports indicating, for instance, that organic fruit and vegetable sales increased by almost 375 percent between 2000 and 2010 And now, a new report out of Norway has found that one in ten pregnant Norwegian women has gone organic.

Researchers from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health evaluated roughly 65,000 pregnant women from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study, assessing their organic buying habits in six categories: milk and dairy products, bread and cereals, eggs, vegetables, fruit, and meat.

"We know little about the consumption of organic food during pregnancy, and the goal of this study was to find out what is consumed and the characteristics of women who choose organic food," said Hanne Torjusen, a Ph.D. student who worked on the study.

They found that women who chose organic during their pregnancies had varying nutritional habits and lifestyle preferences. Some of the women were low income, others were students, and some even smoked or drank during their pregnancies, which are considered to be generally unhealthy behaviors. In other words, it was not simply the well-to-do, health-guru women that recognized the value of consuming organic food.

"We see that although there are several elements that are consistent with health recommendations, organic food consumption in pregnancy is not unambiguously associated with what is perceived as a healthy lifestyle -- those with the highest education and income," said Torjusen. "This shows that it is important to take into account other factors besides education and income in the further research of possible health effects of organic foods in the diet."

Research has indicated that organic food generally contains denser nutrient profiles and more vitamins and minerals than conventional food. This idea is supported by a study published in the Journal of Applied Nutrition that found that the nutritional value of food depends on how and in what conditions it is grown

Resource: naturalnews.com