Watching the World
Campaign Emphasizes Peace
◆ U.S. News & World Report noted that the Republican campaign theme for this autumn’s presidential election has already been picked. The central theme of Mr. Nixon will be: “Peace and prosperity,” with “considerable emphasis on international affairs.”
East-West Trade Increases
◆ United States trade with Russia and other east European Communist lands increases. Commerce Secretary P. G. Peterson sees “great promise” in possible joint ventures to exploit Russia’s vast natural resources. Russia considers that such moves would partially offset anticipated large imports from the United States. Rising consumer demand there and in other Iron Curtain countries is reportedly one of the reasons for increased trade with the West.
Arms Race Continues
◆ Though the United States and Russia have signed arms-control pacts, the nuclear race has not slowed. Both countries continue to press areas not affected by the agreements, such as underground testing. At the same time France carries on atomic tests in the Pacific and, like China, refuses to halt atmospheric explosions. Almost two dozen smaller nations are getting closer to developing atomic weapons.
Passport Oath
◆ United States passport applicants will be interested in the following statement from the August 3, 1972, Postal Bulletin: “On the basis of recent court action and until further notice, the requirement that an oath of allegiance be sworn to or affirmed is no longer a part of the passport application process. Accordingly . . . any applicant who desires may strike the oath of allegiance from the application. Postal officials should, of course, continue to administer the oath as to the truth of the statements in the application and that the photograph is a likeness of all persons to be included in the passport.”
Courts Uphold Request for No Blood
◆ Charles Osborn, a 34-year-old Hughesville, Maryland, man, was told, after an accident, that “he had only one in four chances of surviving without blood transfusions.” Physicians at Cafritz Memorial Hospital had been instructed on his hospital entry to use no blood. In an attempt to force transfusion on Osborn, hospital officials went to the home of Superior Court Judge Sylvia Bacon. Members of Osborn’s family, supporting his stand, went along. The judge denied the hospital’s request. The hospital carried the case to the Washington, D.C., Court of Appeals; another judge, J. Skelly Wright, had earlier ordered blood given to a woman. (Awake! May 8, 1964) Judge Bacon, asked to reconsider her decision, went to the hospital to interview the patient personally. Again the hospital’s motion was denied. In a final session the appellate court refused to overturn Judge Bacon’s decision. A Washington Post report says: “Most of the patients in Osborn’s situation would have died, according to Dr. Albert Rolle, Osborn’s attending physician. ‘But we can’t always predict what will happen,’ he said. ‘It varies with the patient.’” Doctors were amazed when he went home in a week.
Current Catholic Activities
◆ More than doctrine is changing in the Catholic Church. At St. Francis de Sales in New Orleans, Sunday’s 9:30 a.m. Mass includes Dixieland, jazz spirituals, rock and “old Baptist hymns” for music. The priest wears a long dashiki for vestments. The congregation claps, sways, gyrates and shouts. Recently, while singing “We Shall Overcome,” they raised fists in the black power salute. Meanwhile, in the Chicago area twenty Catholic churches and schools one night a year are converted into miniature nightclubs. Some reportedly make up to $43,000. At St. Jude the Apostle Catholic School’s “Port-O-Call” event, only persons over twenty-one are allowed. A burlesque performer admits some of the jokes are a “tiny bit off color.” But, she notes, “unless people are incredibly narrow minded, they had to accept this as good adult fun.”
‘Crime Woven into Society’
◆ In June, New York Police Commissioner P. Murphy noted: “The tremendous progress of the United States has been accompanied by an astonishing record of tragic, abysmal failure. Crime has been increasing for many years. And let us not delude ourselves, it will continue to rise. The criminal mind will not repent. Criminal activities will not abate. Crime is woven into the fabric of our society.” His accuracy was underscored on August 21 when the city totaled a record fourteen murders for one day. The next day 3,000 bystanders cheered their ‘favorite side’ as two robbers held hostages in a Brooklyn bank.
Danger in Crop Uniformity
◆ Blame for 1970’s corn blight, which wiped out 15 percent of the United States yield, has been fixed on uniformity of crops. Now, according to the National Academy of Sciences, similar crises could face fourteen major U.S. crops. Interestingly, consumers affect the situation. Faced by their demands for uniform, inexpensive produce, farmers consistently plant a few high-yield varieties, even buying machinery that efficiently handles a standard-size seed. Of course, once foreign parasites appear, the whole crop is jeopardized, a danger that is minimized by crop diversity.
Philippine Flooding
◆ July was the rainiest month since August 1919 in the Philippines. Several typhoons brought almost 62 inches of monsoon rains to Manila. The entire central Luzon area, including over 185,000 acres of farmland, was heavily flooded. North of Manila rivers overflowed and dikes broke, turning the central plains into a huge lake; to the south, coastal towns were inundated. Hundreds died. Thousands are homeless, facing food shortage and disease.
Evangelists’ Salaries
◆ How financially well off are well-known evangelists? A recent New York Times article says six years ago Billy Graham received a salary of $19,500 a year; he commented that it was “far less than what the poverty workers employed by the U.S. Government get or labor leaders.” Kathryn Kuhlman currently receives $25,000 annually. Rex Humbard of the Akron, Ohio, Cathedral of Tomorrow owns a Brooklyn girdle factory; he flies to appearances in a private turboprop airplane. A. A. Allen, before his death from acute alcoholism in 1970, took in millions of dollars from regular contributions and, the Times says, “huckstered ‘prosperity cloths’ made from pieces of his old revival tent for donations from $100 to $1000.” What a contrast with Jesus, who had “nowhere to lay down his head”!—Matt. 8:20.
Environment Report
◆ The 1972 report of the United States President’s Council on Environmental Quality estimates that it would cost about 287 billion dollars to clean the environment during the 1970’s. Simultaneously experts admit that man has learned little about the complexities of pollution. Any noticeable change for the better will contrast with the past. As Science News comments: “In spite of a decade of growing public awareness, political verbiage, and a few years of frenetic activity, the environmental quality is not much better, and in some cases, worse.”
Beef in America
◆ Beef continues to be a problem in the Americas. Prices in the United States are expected to rise again before year-end. The country has more than doubled its average-per-person beef consumption in twenty years. Now ranges will not support many more beef cattle. Meanwhile, limited supplies compel Argentina and parts of Peru to allow beef sales only half the month. On July 15, Uruguay began four months without beef, and in Chile and Colombia sales are allowed only on certain days.
Presidential Limousine
◆ The United States president has a new limousine. The car, which took three years to build, weighs five tons, twice the usual weight of a car its size. Added weight comes largely from quarter-inch armor plating on the bottom, roof and doors. Windows, metal-reinforced tires, and a hydraulically controlled plexiglass bubble are bulletproof. Estimated to cost a half million dollars, the government will lease the car for about five thousand dollars a year. The manufacturer, for prestige reasons, pays the difference.
Athletic Records
◆ Why are sports records of a few decades back now far surpassed? For instance, in the 1896 Olympics a toss of less than 96 feet won discus competition; it was over 212 feet in 1968. Medical World News lists a number of reasons: a larger pool of talent to draw from; more time and money for intense training of people thought to be physically stronger; extreme specialization of athletes; technological advances, like fiber-glass poles for vaulters. Too, the fact that records exist makes them something aimed at and usually topped. Will records continue to fall? No, says one expert, Dr. Ernst Jokl, who claims that man has neared his physiological limits.
Teen Fan Magazines
◆ Five teen fan magazines—Star, Fare, Flip, Tiger Beat and 16—have a combined circulation of about two million copies. How much truth do their articles about current teen-age idols really contain? “About half have a grain of truth in them somewhere,” according to Star editor Nancy Hardwick. “We just write what we think the girls will want to read, but we have to come up with new stuff every month and, let’s face it, these guys just aren’t all that interesting.”
Unnecessary Surgery
◆ H. S. Denenberg, Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, claims that American doctors perform two million unneeded operations a year. A West Coast surgeon, writing in How to Avoid Unnecessary Surgery, would make the figure even higher. Denenberg asserts “there is a tendency for surgeons to do their thing—which is operate.” He advises the public to consider operations “a last resort.”
Police Ordered to Shave
◆ The police chief in a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, suburb ordered his men to shave off beards, mustaches and sideburns to give the public “an impression of moderation, maturity and settled confidence.”
Driving and Marijuana
◆ Tests indicate those who drive after smoking marijuana are as dangerous as alcoholics. Twelve subjects, says a West German report, went through red lights, zigzagged down straight roads and sped around curves. According to another report, a subject experienced hallucinations while driving. Interestingly, a law officer who talked to the driver was unable to detect any impairment.
Forest Fire Damage
◆ Some 4.3 million acres of forest were ravaged by fire in the United States during 1971, about a million more acres than in 1970. Lightning accounted for over one third of the lost acreage. But man was responsible for most of the destruction. Almost every fire in the East was man-caused, many by trash being burned near wooded areas.
Anger Can Be Deadly
◆ Anger can kill. Sometimes enraged people purposely destroy others or themselves. But more often, because of being accident-prone when upset, they may kill or harm by their driving. Additionally, doctors know that anger triggers lethal heart attacks and strokes. American Dr. T. R. Van Dellen recently observed: “Anger rarely is listed on a death certificate, but the emotion is a more common cause of death than many people believe.”