Watching the World
Morality or Fear?
● To justify their entry into the recent debate over nuclear weapons, many religious leaders contend that nuclear war is immoral because it supposedly has a “new quality.” But London columnist Gwynne Dyer, member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, disagrees: “That is utter nonsense, of course. The quality—the morality—of the act of killing in war is just the same as ever; what has changed is the quantity of death that will ensue. The churches, which have justified and blessed almost every war in history (on both sides), are simply reacting to the same circumstances that have stirred the rest of the population.” Their own skins are at stake.
Would You Want It?
● Medical authorities disagree over methods of screening donated blood for the dreaded AIDS, a new disease that is over 40-percent fatal. “In contrast to the U.S. National Hemophilia Foundation recommendation that high risk donors [such as homosexuals] be screened out by ‘direct questioning,’” reports Canada’s The Medical Post, the Canadian organization suggests checking “symptoms—rather than risk groups.” Dr. Hanna Strawczynski, chairman of the Canadian society’s medical and scientific advisory committee, asserts: “We really don’t have the right to intrude on people’s private lives. . . . We are not going to ask, ‘Are you a homosexual?’, and then, ‘Are you a fast-lane homosexual? Do you have more than 60 partners a year?’ We do not feel that this is justified at the moment.” Either way—would you want to take such a chance with your life?
Space Firsts
● On June 13, Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to leave the solar system, was scheduled to pass the orbit of the solar system’s outermost planet at more than 30,000 miles per hour (48,000 km/hr). Launched 11 years ago, the craft carries a plaque that, among other things, locates the position of earth and the solar system for the benefit of any “intelligent life” that may receive it. “We’re still getting irate phone calls from people angry that we’re telling the aliens where we are,” says a NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) spokesman.
● Last year’s record seven-month stay in space by Soviet cosmonauts recently bore literal fruit. “For the first time the cosmonauts managed to coax the plant arabidopsis, chosen for its brief life cycle of about 40 days, to produce seeds in space,” reports the British magazine New Scientist. Some of the seeds were returned to earth, where they sprouted and grew normally. “It is the first small step towards growing crops in space to make long spaceflights self-sufficient in food,” notes the article.
Jab at Religion Acclaimed
● The play “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You” was recently given the $25,000 Kenyon Festival Theater Award. Described by syndicated columnist Patrick J. Buchanan as “perhaps the most anti-Catholic and anti-Christian piece of bigotry to be presented in the American theater,” the play pokes derisive fun at much of church life and tradition. “Who is this audience that openly laughs at religion?” asked film producer John Prizer. His answer: “I looked closely at the theatergoers. They were white, affluent, upper-middle-class professional people between the ages of 30 and 50.” Grumbled Buchanan: “How far we have come in a generation!”
“World at War”
● Forty-five nations are currently involved in wars around the world, according to the U.S. Center for Defense Information report “World at War.” Thus one quarter of the world’s countries are engaged in 40 conflicts that have slaughtered millions in the past decade. Ten of the wars are in Asia, ten in the Mideast, ten in Africa, seven in Latin America and three in Europe.
Flee War, Flee Crime
● “Seven Cambodian families who fled war and starvation in their homeland . . . to take up new lives in New York have fled again,” reported The New York Times, “this time from robbers, muggers and young toughs on the streets of Brooklyn.” Over 40 members of the families left New York, hoping to find safer quarters in Pennsylvania. “I tried to make it better for them while they were here, but even with police assistance, I couldn’t make it tenable,” said a resettlement worker. “Every other day, it was something, a minor robbery to a major beating. . . . We’re talking about serious crimes, people breaking into apartments while they’re sleeping, beating up grandmothers and children. These people were afraid for their lives.”
Talk by Light
● On February 10 the first fiber-optic telephone transmission link between major metropolitan centers was opened between New York City and Washington, D.C., followed shortly by the initial part of a new system between major cities of California. Light pulses transmit tens of thousands of conversations at a time through glass fibers pure enough to carry the light long distances. The glass transmission lines are much smaller and lighter than the former metal ones.
Science: Always Objective?
● The classic science text Coming of Age in Samoa by the late anthropologist Margaret Mead has recently been attacked as misleading by Professor Derek Freeman of the Australian National University in Canberra. In his new book he asserts that she used faulty data in preparing her 1928 book, which is still read in anthropology courses. The dispute, observed the Los Angeles Times, “may tell more about anthropology than it does about adolescence in Samoa.” Anthropologist Vinson Sutlive of William and Mary College in Virginia asserted: “She went with a particular bias into the field. She sought data to corroborate what she was looking for, and as frequently happens—not in the social sciences alone but sometimes in the natural sciences—she found what she was looking for.” And anthropologist Paul Shankman of the University of Colorado agreed: “Mead was so eager to get her interpretations out that she didn’t want to let the facts get in the way.”
Video-Game Kids and Crime
● Some Japanese children addicted to video games have turned to crime to support their habit. The Daily Yomiuri reports: “In Tokyo, 36 boys aged 8 to 13 were apprehended for breaking into homes and shops and stealing cash, valuables or merchandise in order to ‘spend lavishly in video-game arcades,’ according to a police official.” In another case in the northern city of Sendai, police reportedly “discovered a gang of five boys aged 10-11 whose criminal patterns, they said, resembled adult, organized crime.” In 30 burglaries over four months, the little “professionals” managed to steal 9.57 million yen ($40,000, U.S.), which they squandered away on the 100-yen ($0.42, U.S.) arcade games.
What Is “Viable”?
● In its daily summary of events around the United States, a recent edition of The Oregonian newspaper published two seemingly unrelated items. The first told of a Kentucky Supreme Court ruling that a man charged with killing his wife’s unborn fetus cannot be charged with murder. The court said that the fetus was not a “viable” (capable of living) person under the law.
The other news item updated the story of a 17-ounce (482-g) baby girl who was born at just 22 weeks of development (compared to the normal nine months). Active and alert at 50 days, according to her doctor, she had gained 12 ounces (340 g) and was “doing well.” “By all standard criteria, she wasn’t viable,” marveled the doctor. Yet millions of babies who may be even more “viable” than this one continue to be aborted worldwide.
Sugar and Cancer
● “A striking correlation between dietary intake of sugar and mortality from breast cancer across 20 countries” was found by a study recently reported in Britain’s New Scientist magazine. The article notes that though “breast cancer is primarily a hormone dependent disease, . . . diet also appears to have a strong connection.” A statistical survey by British and Canadian researchers found that the highest number of deaths from breast cancer among older women (who are most likely to have the disease due to dietary factors), “in descending order, occurs in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark and Canada, and the lowest in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Yugoslavia and Japan.” In striking similarity, New Scientist reports that the researchers found “this geographical pattern [to be] best matched by that of sugar consumption”—in almost the precise order listed! Of course, statistics must be viewed with caution, but most doctors agree that people are better off with less sugar in their diet.
“Barbie’s Right-Hand Man”
● The Globe and Mail of Toronto, Canada, reports that Klaus Barbie, recently extradited to France as a war criminal, had a “right-hand man” in his collaboration with the Nazis, a French aristocrat named Count Jacques de Bernonville. As military governor of Lyons during World War II, the count was second in command to Barbie when many atrocities reportedly were committed. After the war, “de Bernonville slipped quietly into Quebec,” says the article. There (according to a former member of the French Resistance), as “the darling of the ultra-Catholic aristocracy,” he was helped to escape deportation for five years. The Globe and Mail account explains: “[Deportation] was stymied by the efforts of powerful Quebeckers . . . and the reluctance of federal authorities to offend the Quebec hierarchy. Newspaper accounts from the late 1940s show that Count de Bernonville’s staunchest supporters included . . . church officials and the St. Jean Baptiste Society of Montreal.” The count fled to Brazil after a second deportation order and later was murdered.
London Lost
● Almost half the students asked to locate London on a world map could not do so, reports Professor David Helgren of the University of Miami. “It’s the sort of thing one should learn in junior school,” he said. “But geography just isn’t taught anymore in our schools.” Some of the students placed London in Iceland, while others placed it on the European mainland. “If they got it somewhere in the South of England I gave them a mark,” said the professor. “But 42 per cent failed to place it even in the South.” London, however, was not the only place lost. Algeria was placed in Mexico, Capetown in South America, and 8 percent couldn’t even locate Miami where they were taking the test!