Watching the World
Pope Sets Holy Year
◆ Pope Paul has chosen 1975 as a holy year. The last holy year was 1950. Although it was hoped to be “the harbinger of a new year of peace, prosperity and progress,” it proved to be the year when the Korean War began. The holy year previous to it was in 1933, the year that Hitler became chancellor of Germany, beginning a period of horror and catastrophe for the world.
Church Criticism
◆ In a scathing editorial the Glasgow newspaper The Mercury and Advertiser criticized the leaders of the Church of Scotland for unchristian actions. Referring to the church as “the Kirk,” it said: “In almost every sphere of life in recent years, the Kirk has been conspicuous in shirking the real issues. . . . With supreme irony, the Kirk’s Welfare Committee voted in favour of granting the Pill to unmarried women, thus encouraging wholesale amateur prostitution. . . . Its greatest misfortune, we believe, is the infiltration into its ranks of men of little faith, and of no convictions,—careerists who regard it as a job, and a safe screen from which to propagate their own particular views. . . . Like some of the members of the British Council of Churches, they try to preach Christianity without Christ, and at times cast the Bible aside to follow modern fashion.”
Stamp Advertising
◆ An enterprising advertising agency has suggested that the United States Postal Service try featuring various advertisements on postage stamps instead of pictures of presidents. The agency believes that the revenues from the ads could bring in $100 million a year in additional revenues and help to ease the rising cost of mail service.
Oil-eating Microorganisms
◆ Scientists are working with some microorganisms that are capable of consuming oil. They hope that these organisms will become a valuable tool in fighting oil spills that have, in recent years, caused a great amount of damage to coastal areas. By means of enzymes the organisms draw nutrients from the oil and change it into harmless substances. When enough are put on an oil slick, they can reduce it to droplets in thirty minutes.
Earthquake Detector
◆ A way to forecast an earthquake has been noted in Western Australia. It was found that the level of water in wells at Gnangara rose more than a foot just prior to the big earthquake that occurred at Meckering. It appears that the level of underground water fluctuates prior to an earthquake because of the pressures that have been built up in the water-bearing strata.
Corrosive Rain
◆ Increasing air pollution is causing a sharp increase in the acidity of rain and snow. This acidity in Sweden has increased to 200 times what it was in 1956. It is attributed there to air pollution from England and Germany. In the northeastern United States it was many times greater than had been anticipated. While this acidity is not considered dangerous to human health, it can have a corrosive effect on man-made structures and equipment. In Sweden the damage from this structural corrosion amounts to 1 percent of the country’s gross national product.
Burial at Sea
◆ It is becoming increasingly popular in the state of California for people to be cremated and have their ashes scattered on the Pacific Ocean. Cost is one factor. A funeral that includes a burial plot and a marker can be several times as costly as cremation and disposal of ashes at sea.
Schizophrenia Treatment
◆ By instituting a different treatment the Long Island Hospital was able to reduce by 90 percent the cost of treating people who have schizophrenia. The treatment combined biochemical, nutritional and psychological techniques. These involved the use of large doses of niacin and vitamin C as well as low-carbohydrate diets. The treatment has been so successful that the average number of patient visits could be reduced from 150 per year to 15.
Blood Money
◆ A leading story appearing on the front page of The National Observer indicted commercial blood banks for selling “blood that kills.” It charged that these blood banks buy blood from skid-row donors for $3 to $5 per pint and sell it to hospitals for $40 to $50 per pint. It stated: “One industry source says they net 100 per cent profit after processing and other costs.” Blood is also bought from prisoners and some is imported from impoverished countries. Poor people in Haiti are selling their blood plasma for $3 a liter. From 5,000 to 6,000 liters of their blood is exported from Haiti to the United States every month. Blood from commercial blood banks has proved to be one of the major sources of serum hepatitis, which causes the deaths of at least 3,500 Americans each year and the injuring of another 50,000. One agency says that the real rate could be from two to ten times that high, because physicians often fail to report such cases.
Asthma Relief in Salt Mine
◆ The Polish government is expanding an unusual sanatorium that is located on the fifth level of a salt mine, seven hundred feet below the surface of the ground. For a reason unknown to the doctors the salt air in the mine evidently cures asthma sufferers. It seems to have a regenerative effect on the lungs. This underground sanatorium is about ten miles southwest of Krakow in Poland.
Fewer Birds in Japan
◆ Of the 424 species of birds in Japan 76 percent are migratory. Because of pollution many of these birds are no longer migrating to Japan. In 1971 the number of geese sighted there was only one tenth of those sighted in 1953. Concerned over it, the Director General of the Government’s Environment Agency wants to declare all of Japan, except for a few limited preserves, to be off limits to bird hunting.
Serum Hepatitis in Korea
◆ According to Dr. Chong Hwan-guk, 40 percent of the patients receiving blood transfusions in one Korean hospital were infected with serum hepatitis from the blood. He said that this is the highest rate of liver infections in the world. Reporting on his findings, The Korea Herald of January 14, 1972, said: “The report further showed that the liver troubles occurred in 15 per cent of those who received one bottle of blood transfused and 80 per cent of those who had more than 10 bottles of blood transfused into their body systems.”
Climate Shift Affects Health
◆ Elderly people and persons with heart trouble need to exercise care when changing climates rapidly such as when flying from north to south or vice versa. Such rapid changes in temperature can bring on heart attacks, medical investigators claim. Dr. E. Sotaniemi of Finland stated: “Deviations from the mean temperature toward either colder or warmer conditions increase the number of hospital admissions” for heart attack. Dr. George E. Burch, who is associated with the Heart Journal, observed: “Climate is an important but neglected area of medical research.” He also stated: “Acclimatization takes a minimum of a week and up to two weeks.”
Indian Suicides
◆ According to The Times of India in its edition for January 3, 1972, more than 21,000 men and women committed suicide in India during 1969. This is according to official police data. However, the newspaper observes: “The figure is deceptive because suicides in villages, like much else happening there, are seldom reported to the police. The actual number of those who kill themselves must be at least three times as large.” One of the reasons for suicide is, as the paper states, “mother-in-law’s tyranny.” One out of every seven suicides, involving over three thousand young women, is said to be for this reason.
Europe’s Trains
◆ In European countries the train is still an important means of travel. In France speedy, intercity trains carry more than 80 million passengers a year, far more than the domestic airlines are able to handle. For distances up to 300 miles trains are considerably cheaper. Almost every European country is improving train service by installing new equipment. Germany has a system of intercity trains that provide transportation to 33 cities on first-rate trains at an average of one every two hours. Experimental trains are being built by three European countries that will go 315 miles an hour.
Steam Bus
◆ A steam-operated bus went into operation on a trial basis in California as part of the effort to reduce air pollution. It is said to be the first bus of this type that has operated commercially in the United States in many years. It is a conventional, 51-passenger bus that has a steam engine where the diesel engine used to be.
Crime Threatens Democracy
◆ Commenting on growing crime in Canada, a Canadian judge observed that the breakdown in law and order is threatening the Canadian democratic way of life. He believes there is danger that the nation might blindly accept a man or men who would promise an end to lawlessness, and that could mark the rise of a dictatorship. The judge said: “Promising law and order, if he succeeds he will give law and order—but it will be his law, his own kind of repressive law. As to order, well, he will give the orders. He will have a cure, but better even the disease than his cure.”
Commissioner Blasts Clergy
◆ In Nigeria, Midwest Commissioner for Education E. K. Clark severely criticized Anglican clergymen for abandoning themselves unashamedly to the pursuit of material things. He pointed out that if the church has impressed the public in any notable way, it is in its open alliance with wealth and political success. He observed: “The result is that some of our worst criminals are professed Christians while the brothels are full of women who invoke the name of the Lord Jesus.”
Massive Bombing
◆ In the Indochina war American aircraft have dropped more than three times the tonnage of bombs that they did during all of World War II. According to a study by Cornell scholars, about 6,200,000 tons had been dropped by the end of 1971.
Skyscraper Cemetery
◆ The city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, with 4.5 million people crowded on a narrow strip of land running between mountains and the sea, has not only a population problem but also a problem in finding space to bury the dead. In an effort to solve this problem, a 39-story skyscraper is to be built with room for 21,000 tombs, each tomb having two shelves for bodies. Its capacity is to be 147,000 bodies. There are to be five ossuaries for holding bones of bodies that have decomposed. A space is to be rented at $80 for five years, at which time someone else can use it after the bones have been removed. Permanent tenancy can be bought for $1,800.