104 – Making Sense of The Boston Bombing – A Tribute to Martin Richard

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David pays tribute and dedicates the show to 8 year old Martin Richard who lost his life in the Boston Bombing. This show is about hope, in a world that can appear very violent through the media outlets yet the statistics show clearly that world is less violent and is becoming less every year. David shares work by Steven Pinker that show that violence is in decline. David also shares his experience with the wars in Ireland and Israel that he experienced personally and he shares his experience with the youth guerillas in Guatemala. David talks about how education can help end the cycles of violence and hatred that separate people from each other and shares how education can free young girls in third world countries from child marriages, mutilation through circumcision, teenage pregnancy and more He asks you the listener to listen to your own judgments of others and challenges you to build bridges of understanding between and those that you are in conflict with or in judgment of. As Kickass Life practitioners we can build a better world one person at a time, one less judgment at a time. His call to action is one of hope. Some notes from a Stephen Pinker article that David shared on the show:  WASHINGTON POST — It seems as if violence is everywhere, but it’s really on the run. Yes, thousands of people have died in bloody unrest from Africa to Pakistan, while terrorists plot bombings and kidnappings. Wars drag on in Iraq and Afghanistan. In peaceful Norway, a man massacred 69 youths in July. In Mexico, headless bodies turn up, victims of drug cartels. This month eight people died in a shooting in a California hair salon. Yet, historically, we’ve never had it this peaceful. That’s the thesis of three new books, including one by prominent Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker. Statistics reveal dramatic reductions in war deaths, family violence, racism, rape, murder and all sorts of mayhem. In his book, Pinker writes: “The decline of violence may be the most significant and least appreciated development in the history of our species.” And it runs counter to what the mass media is reporting and essentially what we feel in our guts. Pinker and other experts say the reality is not painted in bloody anecdotes, but demonstrated in the black and white of spreadsheets and historical documents. They tell a story of a world moving away from violence. In his new book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined,” Pinker makes the case that a smarter, more educated world is becoming more peaceful in several statistically significant ways. ...