Watching the World
False Charge Retracted
◆ Last November, U.S. News & World Report magazine cited Robert Kerwick, tax assessor for Hardenburg, New York, as alleging that “an 8,000-acre farm owned by the Jehovah’s Witnesses is able to sell food it raises to state institutions at lower prices than ordinary farmers charge because of the [nonprofit organization] tax break.”
However, the magazine’s issue of April 23, 1979, under the heading “Correction,” acknowledges the untruthfulness of the published statement, noting that the “governing agency for Jehovah’s Witnesses in the U.S., says that, contrary to a statement in ‘For Many, There Are Big Profits in “Nonprofits”’ [Nov. 6, 1978], no food whatsoever is sold to anyone from a farm owned by the society in Ulster County, N.Y., and that the farm does not compete with ordinary farmers. Instead, the society says, the entire production of the 1,031-acre farm is used to feed the 1,800 voluntary workers who make up its headquarters staff.”—Page 6.
Sweden Defies Ancient Standards
◆ Instead of mothers’ tender care, new baby Swedes may now receive well-meant but perhaps rougher handling by their fathers for the first eight months. Sweden’s government has offered fathers the option of staying home to care for their infants at 90 percent salary while mother goes to work. Thousands of fathers have responded to the invitation.
Also, the Swedish Parliament recently voted overwhelmingly to prohibit parents from spanking their children or subjecting them to any other so-called “humiliating treatment.” The Ministry of Justice is said to be planning an information campaign that will include distributing videotapes that inform children about their rights. Then how are parents to discipline? Though warning against physical punishment, a government pamphlet for parents says: “Of course, you have the right as a parent to get angry and show it.”
The Hand in Spain’s Purse
◆ “Under an agreement between Spain and the Vatican signed in January,” reports Christianity Today, “state aid to the Roman Catholic church will be maintained at an annual level of $977 million through 1982.” The agreement also states that the Church intends to acquire “by its own efforts sufficient funds to meet its own requirements” after that year. Apparently, though, if these efforts fail to maintain the grandeur to which the church is accustomed, then, says the agreement, the government “may assign the Catholic church a portion of the revenue raised by income taxes.”
Disco Comment
◆ In an article on “The Seventies,” Maclean’s magazine of Canada observes: “If the Seventies had an anthem, it was the nihilistic 2/4 beat of the disco. The free-floating gyrators of the Sixties have been replaced by cool automatons who flaunt their desire under the strobes in a sexually charged choreography that reduces sensuality to its crudest, most mechanical form.”
The Toronto Star quotes Frank Zappa, described as “one of the wildest of rock’s wild men,” as saying the purpose of disco is “to provide a rhythmic accompaniment for the activities of people who wish to gain access to each other for potential future reproduction.”
Superstition in Naples
◆ In Naples, Italy, more than 70 infants recently died in an epidemic that newspapers called the “dark disease.” Some authorities thought it was caused by an unidentified virus, while others considered it the result of poverty and poor hygiene. But Naples’ Roman Catholic archbishop, Corrado Cardinal Ursi, believed the cure may lie with the local idol, the patron “saint” Januarius, known for its semiannual “miracle” of liquefying a phial of blood. “For hours the Cardinal and his priests prayed for a sign of divine grace,” reports the New York Times. “But the substance in the phial on the main altar remained dry and solid.” Thus an educated cardinal and priests took the lead in superstitious idolatry, much as years ago less educated church members used images in an effort to stop lava flowing from an erupting volcano—with similar results.
“Good Advice” for Youth
◆ In a letter to the New Castle News in Pennsylvania, the pastor of a Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (a branch of Mormonism) wrote: “It’s obvious to most of us that youth have many temptations and difficult decisions to face. Often parents are also very confused as to their role and lack a source of information to guide them. I’ve just read a book, ‘[Your] Youth, Getting the Best out of It,’ put out by the Jehovah[’s] Witnesses, that has much good advice for people of all religions. . . . I’m not ‘plugging’ that religion in its entirety, but when they have something good to offer, I believe it wisdom to take advantage of it.”
Sunspots Make Bad Tan
◆ Earth’s atmospheric ozone layer protects us from ultraviolet radiation, which is thought to trigger malignant melanoma, a deadly skin cancer. Dr. Michael Viola of the University of Connecticut warns that 1979 may be a dangerous year for sun lovers because the current cycle of increased sunspot activity reduces the ozone layer. “The kind of sun exposure you get matters,” he also says. “Working outdoors all year doesn’t seem to be as dangerous as staying indoors most of the time and frying yourself now and then.” His research indicates that skin cancer most often appears on the legs of women and torsos of men whose occupations enable them to afford extended periods at the beach.
Space Facts
◆ By early April, the Soviet Union had sent 48 cosmonauts, including a woman, into space, whereas 43 Americans had made the trip, some more than once.
The countries that have orbited unmanned space satellites are Britain, China, Italy, the Soviet Union and the United States, Canada, France, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany and the European Space Agency have also built satellites and paid the United States to launch them.
“Boning Up”
◆ Hundreds of pounds of bones have been spread daily in the hills about 100 miles from Johannesburg in South Africa. Wildlife officers haul the bones in an attempt to save the Cape vulture, one of the world’s rarest species. The homely birds are said to be dying out because hunters have put predatory animals to rout, leaving fewer carcasses for scavenger birds to feed on. Older vultures manage to survive by eating rock rabbits, but the little animals’ bones apparently do not contain enough calcium for growing baby birds. “Many young birds have died after breaking wings made brittle by the absence of calcium in their diet,” says the report in London’s Sunday Express, “and parent vultures began trying to feed their offspring with bits of broken glass and china,” often with fatal results.
Good Medical Advice
◆ The medical journal Family Practice News recently offered advice to surgeons caring for Jehovah’s Witnesses, based on comments by a professor of clinical surgery at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center: “Although Jehovah’s Witnesses will not accept blood or blood components, they can be offered considerable emergency and surgical care without violating their religious principles, Dr. Horace Herbsman said at a trauma seminar sponsored by the American College of Surgeons.”
“There is no point in trying to convince a Jehovah’s Witness that blood is needed to save his life because his spiritual salvation is more important to him, and the sect’s literal reading of the Bible simply forbids ‘ingestion’ of blood in any form, Dr. Herbsman said. Courts have upheld the right of adults to refuse treatment, and the American Medical Association has supported a patient’s right to not accept blood. To administer blood to a Jehovah’s Witness without telling him is unethical as well as illegal.”
Harboring Heretics
◆ For only the third time this century, Germany’s United Evangelical Lutheran Church unfrocked a minister for heresy. Since 1971, Paul Schulz has taught members of the St. Jacobi Church in Hamburg that a personal God is “a comforting invention of human beings.” His book Is God a Mathematical Formula? calls prayer “self-reflection.” Even so, “the church hardly rushed to judgment,” observes Time magazine. After years of discussion, formal proceedings did not begin until 1976, during which Schulz accused the church of upholding “old notions of God so you can uphold your own institutional power.” He was finally forbidden to preach or administer sacraments, but “is expected to receive a $12,000-a-year stipend if he shuns anti-church activities,” says Time.
Ghana’s New Money
◆ In a move to fight inflation, the government of Ghana recently issued new currency. Old cedis, the national currency, were exchanged for new bills at the rate of 10 old to 7 new cedis during a two-week changeover period. This caused some problems at first because few merchants wanted to honor old bills during the transition. Hence, many reportedly had to go without food for a few days until they could get new cedis. But church collection plates prospered with the old notes, causing a newspaper to remark: “To think that pious believers would actually unload their disgraced cedis on the Lord.”
Soviet Prices
◆ How do living costs in Moscow and New York compare? U.S. News & World Report offered these recent prices (those for Moscow are listed first); kilo (2.2 pounds) of butter—$5.76, $3.73; liter of milk—46c, 58c; dozen eggs, large—$2.37, 99c; kilo of potatoes—15c, 64c; kilo of coffee—$30.35, $5.05; large toothpaste—53c, $1.68; “apartment”-size refrigerator—$446, $285; semiautomatic washer—$250, $290 (automatic); B&W TV—$449, $159; subway fare—8c, 50c; nylon stockings—$2.58, $1.75. Some basic items, such as medical care and higher education, are free in the Soviet Union. Housing, vacations and some other costs are very low.
Keeping Cool in Japan
◆ To help conserve oil, Japan’s Natural Resources and Energy Agency proposed that the public not wear neckties and coats this summer. They believe that this will make the recommended increase in minimum air-conditioned room temperature to 28° C (82° F) as painless as possible. Though most office workers are happy with the idea, “the necktie industry has issued a strong protest against the government proposal,” says the Mainichi Daily News.
Transplanted Rabies
◆ A 37-year-old Boise, Idaho, woman was hospitalized with headaches and facial numbness about five weeks after having a forester’s cornea transplanted into her right eye. She suffered gradual paralysis and died within a short time despite the efforts of her bewildered doctors. In time scientists traced the malady to the donor of her transplanted cornea. He had died of a neurological disease unknown at the time. But new tests of his frozen eyes revealed rabies virus.