Watching the World
Churches as Slave Owners
◆ Many people have been shocked by recent revelations about the treatment of black slaves. But “one of the most startling bits of information about the role of the church in slavery,” writes clergyman A. C. Forrest in the Toronto Star, “appeared 19 years ago in the fourth volume of Winston Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking People. Churchill wrote:
“‘. . . over 650,000 slaves were held by ministers of the gospel and members of the different Protestant churches. Five thousand Methodist ministers owned 219,000 slaves; six thousand five hundred Baptists owned 125,000; one thousand four hundred Episcopalians held 88,000; and so on. Thus the institution of slavery was not only defended by every argument of self-interest, but many a Southern pulpit championed it as a system ordained by the Creator and sanctified by the Gospel of Christ.’”
Japan’s Floating Factories
◆ Mounted on two huge floating platforms, a completely assembled kraft paper mill and its power plant will soon sail to Brazil for permanent anchoring on a riverbank. This imaginative system provides work for Japan’s faltering shipbuilding industry, offers one to two years’ earlier delivery and is 15 to 20 percent cheaper, as well as being higher in quality, than sending men to remote areas for plant construction. A huge floating desalinization plant and a floating apartment complex to house 3,000 oil workers are now in the works for Saudi Arabia.
Defending Criminals
◆ “Many of my clients are monsters who have done monstrous things,” declares a criminal lawyer in the New York Times. How can lawyers conscientiously defend people whom they know to be guilty? He says that “to deal with shocking behavior, the mind creates a separating distance” from reality, such as thinking of helpless victims as “it” instead of as persons.
“Fighting as vigorously and resourcefully as possible to win for one’s client is in the highest tradition of the profession,” he asserts. “The less worthy the client, the more noble the effort.” Does he feel responsibility for future crimes committed by evildoers whom he defends? “Very little,” he answers.
“But sometimes, late at night, when I’m alone, I think back several hundred criminals ago when I entered law school filled with high expectations and principles,” he writes. “And I wonder about what I have done and whether this was how one should be spending his time.”
Virus Protection
◆ During a recent epidemic of virus-caused upper respiratory infections in Newcastle, England, reports Good Housekeeping magazine, “only seven percent of breast-fed babies had to be hospitalized . . . compared to 27 percent who had not been breast-fed?” The report notes that the so-called RS virus often attacks infants, but “samples of mother’s milk tested in the laboratory were found to neutralize RS virus activity.”
Blood Bungles Birth
◆ A damaged child may sue for negligent acts toward its mother, even if they occurred prior to conception, says the Illinois Supreme Court. In this case, incompatible blood was accidentally transfused into a thirteen-year-old girl in 1965, sensitizing her blood. As a result, when her own baby was born nine years later, in 1974, it suffered permanent damage to the brain, to various organs and to the nervous system. The hospital and doctors who administered the 1965 transfusion had failed to notify the family of their blood error.
Aborigines Want Australia
◆ Australia’s 150,000 Aborigines have begun proceedings in Sydney High Court to regain the country taken from them in 1770 by Captain Cook for Great Britain. They also are suing for £15,000,000,000 ($26,000,000,000) in damages. According to London’s Daily Mail, Captain Cook observed that the Aborigines were far “happier than we Europeans. They seemed to set no value upon anything we gave them, nor would they ever part with any thing of their own for any one article we could offer them.”
Mugged 83 Times!
◆ One resident of Passaic, New Jersey, has been mugged 83 times. City police say the muggings over the past five years are “all on the record.” He “has been hospitalized more than 20 times,” reports the New York Post. “He has been stabbed, shot at twice and hit on the head with a pipe. Part of his ear was cut off, his nose broken, his ribs kicked in, his teeth knocked out and his skull fractured. . . . His car has been stolen four times.” The fifty-six-year-old man is small and walks with a cane.
Sabbath Storm
◆ Orthodox Jews of Bnei Braq, Israel, want to close their town’s main avenue to auto traffic on the Sabbath, while secular Jews feel that they, especially those who live on the street, should be free to travel there. As a result, “many Orthodox men engaged in violent clashes with the police and with secular Jews who were enraged at the closing of a main thoroughfare,” reports the New York Times. “At the most recent of the violent encounters five policemen were injured, two seriously, by rocks and bottles thrown by Orthodox Jews.” The Times notes that “violence between Orthodox Jews and secular Israelis over methods of observing the Sabbath has been on the increase.”
Worm Recycling System
◆ “Earthworms are now consuming 1,000 tons a month of sludge from Okayama paper mills,” says Japan’s Daily Yomiuri. The sludge is dumped on earthworm beds “operated by local farmers who lease the worms in return for access to the fertilizer” created by the worms’ excrement. Later the worms are sold for fishing bait. An American company has obtained the rights to build a similar facility in Eugene, Oregon.
Churches Compromise with Communism
◆ Many wonder why some churches are free to operate in Communist countries and others are not. A recent issue of the Romanian Bulletin helps one to understand. “Full freedom of conscience is one of the civic rights guaranteed by the Constitution of Romania,” it proudly proclaims. It then lists just fourteen religions legally authorized to carry on activity in Romania, including Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Seventh-day Adventist and Baptist. The Bulletin notes that “all fourteen denominations belong to the Socialist Unity Front,” a Communist political organization.