Bear Flag Blog

Manitoba RCMP had no answers Thursday as to what prompted a man on a Greyhound bus to suddenly stand up and repeatedly stab his seatmate, behead him and carve up his body in front of horrified passengers.

That catches your eye, doesn't it? Bleah! Psycho killer! Watch your back!

Now, this happened in Canada, rather far from here. Yet it's news here in the San Francisco Bay Area, because of its shock value. "One person slain" is normally not something that leads to headlines more than a few dozens of miles away.

So I return to the question: is the world more dangerous on an individual, crime-based basis now than it was at some point before? Or do we just hear about it more often?

I tend rather strongly toward the second explanation. The world's population is a lot larger, leading to a higher overall number of violent psychotics; and their murderous actions are news. Whereas in the 19th century, a fellow who went around killing people was more frequently never caught, and if caught, rarely was announced more than a few counties over.

And yet, Jack the Ripper was big news in America and he only killed five or so people.

So I do have some doubt about that theory.