Watching the World

Child Safety

◆ In the United States approximately 10,000 children under the age of four died in automobile accidents between 1960 and 1969. Others were severely injured, some experiencing paralyzing spine injuries. These accidents have shown that the most dangerous place for a child without a seat belt is the front seat in a car. It is reported that an infant’s seat and a mother’s lap are both dangerous locations in an automobile accident. The child can be thrown from the seat or, if on the mother’s lap, can be crushed by her body. Those who have analyzed accidents say that the best place for an infant in a car is in a bassinet that is placed in the rear seat with its rear supports fastened to a rear seat belt and the front supports secured to the floor. The child should lie with his feet forward. A net or webbing over the bassinet will protect the infant if the auto rolls in an accident. Children between eighteen months and four years can be restrained in the back seat by a harness attached to a restraining belt.

Fasten Seat Belts

◆ The wisdom of keeping one’s seat belt fastened throughout an airplane flight was well illustrated recently in a giant 747. Although the 334 passengers were warned to fasten seat belts, many did not. Suddenly the plane ran into what is called clear air turbulence. No clouds were in sight, and yet the plane dropped suddenly. Passengers, and food that was being served, were thrown against the ceiling. Thirteen passengers were taken to hospitals when the plane landed.

Gun Tragedy

◆ More and more people are buying guns for self-protection. A woman in Detroit bought a handgun from a friend to protect herself and her children from burglaries and muggings in her neighborhood. She kept the gun in her purse. One day she was looking for an address in her purse when the telephone rang. She set her purse on the floor and went to answer the phone. Her three children, ages four to eight, were playing in the room. While she was gone the youngest pulled the gun out of her purse, put it to his head and pulled the trigger. Tragedies resulting from having loaded guns in a home are not rare. In Detroit alone in 1971 there were 690 homicides involving people who knew one another.

Aspirin Causes Bleeding

◆ According to Dr. Vernon M. Smith, professor of medicine at the University of Maryland, aspirin can cause heavy intestinal bleeding. He believes that aspirin inhibits the actions of platelets in the blood to stop bleeding. He observed: “It is well documented in humans that aspirin in very small doses poisons the platelet’s ability to aggregate.” He views aspirin as a “dangerous drug.”

Dissolved Gallstones

◆ For years the common treatment for gallstones has been to have the gallbladder surgically removed. Now researchers at the Mayo Clinic claim that they have successfully dissolved gallstones in four women. The treatment involves the use of a chemical known as CDC, found naturally in human and animal bile. The treatment is still in the experimental stage.

Carbon Monoxide Poisoning from Cigarettes

◆ To the increasing list of bad side effects from cigarette smoking has now been added carbon monoxide poisoning. By experimenting with rooms filled with tobacco smoke, scientists have found that the level of carbon monoxide equaled and at times exceeded the legal limits for maximum air pollution. Their report stated: “The presence of such levels indicates that the effect of exposure to carbon monoxide may on occasion, depending upon the length of exposure, be sufficient to be harmful to the health of an exposed person.” This applies to smokers and nonsmokers in the room. It certainly is not showing neighbor love to harm the health of other persons by means of tobacco smoke.

British Juvenile Violence

◆ According to a report appearing in London’s Sunday Telegraph of December 5, 1971, violence among British school children is on the increase. The paper stated: “At some schools, gangs of schoolboy thugs roam the playgrounds, Blackboard Jungle style. Teachers are being mugged and victimised, some retiring from their jobs with nervous breakdowns.” It reported that the Teachers’ Association has compiled evidence over two years of dagger fights in playgrounds, gangs of children only six and seven years of age brandishing razor blades, and protection rackets among schoolchildren.

Suicide Pill

◆ British police are concerned over a tiny, purple pill the size of a pinhead. It contains a super-concentrated dose of LSD and creates fear, terror and suicidal tendencies in those who take it. One British teen-ager, after taking this pill called a microdot, threw himself under a bus.

Church Crisis in Quebec

◆ According to a report appearing in the New York Times of January 2, 1972, the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec, Canada, is in a state of crisis. It is losing young people, failing to recruit enough priests, and church attendance has been declining. Prominent lay organizations have either disappeared or are dying. The paper reports: “Most of the close links between the church and all levels of Quebec society have disappeared in the last decade.”

Franco Warns Priests

◆ Francisco Franco warned Spanish priests that he will not tolerate their political activities against his government. He said that the state “cannot cross its arms before the determined temporal attitudes of some clergymen.” There are Spanish priests and bishops who are seeking to bring an end to the close support that the Roman Catholic Church has given Franco.

Church Finances

◆ According to charges made by a Catholic organization known as The National Association of Laity, the financial statements of nearly every diocese in the United States are “misleading.” The purpose is to give the impression of poverty because of the campaign to get public funds for parochial schools. Reporting on the charge, The Wall Street Journal stated: “The key accusation by the five-year old group with chapters in 25 cities is that the bishops have failed consistently to report the income of individual parishes. Instead, the report asserts, they disclose only the finances of the chancery, which is essentially the diocesan business office.”

Pagan “Christians”

◆ In Brazil 90 percent of the population call themselves Catholics. But many of them make up the 20 million devotees of spiritism in this country, some of whom were on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro on New Year’s Eve to participate in pagan rites. They were there to worship the sea goddess Iemanja and to make offerings of lipstick, combs, jewelry, perfume and flowers to her. Despite the dominating influence the Catholic church has exercised over the people of Brazil for hundreds of years, paganism flourishes. Reporting on this, Time magazine of January 10, 1972, stated: “Today, many Brazilians practice two religions at once, going to Sunday Mass, then returning to the same church on Monday’s ‘night of the souls’ to burn candles invoking their favorite spirits.”

Protestant Churches Criticized

◆ A unit of the National Council of Churches criticized ten Protestant churches as well as the National Council of Churches itself for having invested almost 203 million dollars in companies manufacturing war material. Last year these companies, the unit claims, produced war material, from guns to missiles, worth more than 10 thousand million dollars.

Religious Conflict in Israel

◆ There is religious conflict in Israel between the ultra-Orthodox and the secular Jews. The head of the Rabbinical Council of America expressed concern about it, saying that it is “a greater danger to Israel’s survival than the Arab enemies who surround it.” After the end of the weekly sabbath, bus drivers and others who do not follow a strict interpretation of the sabbath laws are stoned if they drive near that section of Jerusalem where the ultra-Orthodox live. Also, pathologists are threatened with death for carrying out autopsies, which the Orthodox view as “abominations on the human body.” Police officials acknowledge their inability to stop the harassment.

Legal Rights of the Unborn

◆ The Victorian Full Court in Australia has ruled that a baby injured before birth has the right to sue for damages after it is born. The decision involved a child that was born with brain damage apparently resulting from an automobile accident involving her mother when she was pregnant. Since the decision gives legal rights to an unborn child, it could have wide legal implications with respect to abortion laws.

Filth in Spices

◆ Few people realize that the spices they use on their foods may contain a certain amount of filth such as insect parts, rat excreta, larvae, mold and dirt. The spice industry claims that it is impossible to get spices wholly clean. So from .5 percent to 2 percent “extraneous” material is considered acceptable. There are people, however, who do not agree that any filth is acceptable in a food.

Space Shuttle

◆ President Nixon recently endorsed the development of a space vehicle that would shuttle between the earth’s surface and an orbit around the earth. After taking off like a rocket, it would go into earth orbit and be capable of releasing a satellite. Then it would return to the earth like a jet plane. The plan is for it to be reused as many as one hundred times. It would be capable, it is claimed, of reducing the cost of launching a satellite payload from $700 to $100 a pound.

First in Nuclear Power Plants

◆ Construction on the first large, commercial, fast-breeder, nuclear reactor has been completed in the Soviet Union. It is located in the desert town of Shevchenko on the Caspian Sea. The 350,000 kilowatts of electricity that it will produce is to be used commercially as well as for operating equipment for daily converting 30 million gallons of saltwater into freshwater.

Laser Lighthouse

◆ The first laser lighthouse is a slim cylinder seven and a half feet tall on top of a sixty-foot memorial on Australia’s east coast. Its laser beam of light can be seen for twenty-two miles out at sea. The power to operate it is about the same as that for a television set. It is said to cost about one third what a conventional lighthouse costs.

Paper from Garbage

◆ A paper company has succeeded in making acceptable printing paper with fibers from reclaimed garbage. From 30 percent to 55 percent of such fibers were used to make three grades of printing papers. A spokesman for the company said that the use of such reclaimed fiber is “technically feasible in papermaking and can be made economically sound under the right conditions.”