Watching the World
Rome Rehabilitates Galileo
◆ After more than 300 years, Pope John Paul II “asked Catholic scholars, historians and theologians to work for the rehabilitation of Galileo,” reports The Guardian of London. The pope told a group of cardinals and scientists that “Galileo was made to suffer much—and we cannot hide it—by the men and the organizations of the Church.” After Galileo had ignored a Vatican order in 1616, forbidding him to teach that the earth revolves around the sun, he was brought to Rome and forced to recant or be tortured.
Dismal “Year of the Child”
◆ The United Nations’ Children’s Fund (UNICEF) indicated that children in developing nations did not fare well during 1979, the “Year of the Child.” The agency’s report says that 200 million youngsters in those countries are malnourished, and of 15 million annual deaths under age five, half could be attributed to malnutrition. Fifteen of the 100 children born each minute in these countries die before the end of their first year. Fewer than 40 percent finish elementary school. Commenting on the UNICEF report, an Indian Express newspaper editorial complained that the year had turned out to be a “cruel joke.” The paper noted that during the next year in India, “some two and a half million children will become blind due to malnutrition. At least 12 million children are known to be beggars.”
“New Hospital Thinking”
◆ Flinders Medical Center of Adelaide, South Australia, has drastically cut its use of blood transfusions in a move to save money and patients. “The change in transfusion procedures reflects new hospital thinking on the need for transfusions,” reports the Adelaide News. A hospital spokesman explained: “In the past there was a tendency for doctors to use blood just because it was there waiting. But many people don’t realize there is a risk involved in every transfusion. We make it as safe as possible, but a transfusion introduces a foreign substance into the body and there is always the risk of an allergic reaction or an infection in the blood.”
The doctor also pointed out another advantage of the new policy: “New surgical techniques have also helped because patients lose less blood during some operations than before. Even so, patients themselves must realise the risks involved in transfusions. Many of them still believe they need a transfusion to make them feel good and strong after an operation. That just is not true.”
Life Without Photosynthesis
◆ The research submersible Alvin has discovered numerous geyserlike vents deep down on the ocean floor. According to a report in Science News, the “chimneys” are “spewing blackened, mineral-laden, hot (350° to 400° C [660° to 750° F]) water onto the sea floor.” Unexpectedly, such creatures as giant tube worms, blind crabs and large clams were found two miles (3.2 km) below the surface thriving around the vents, where light does not reach. The researchers believe that this is the first community of animals to be discovered whose food is not based on plant photosynthesis. “An analysis of the sulfurous vent water and the stomachs of some of the animals reveals the secret—sulfur-oxidizing bacteria,” explains Science News.
Discipline Disarmed
◆ On January 1, the Federal Republic of Germany joined Sweden in restricting parents’ authority to discipline their children. (See Awake!, 6/22/79, p. 29.) Parents are forbidden to use “degrading upbringing measures,” such as spanking, when children disobey. The little ones can take parents to Family Court if they should violate the new law. The government argues that children lose their “human dignity” when they are spanked. However, under the new law, “human dignity” may well be replaced with childish arrogance.
Firecracker Fatalities
◆ The People’s Republic of China had a rash of explosions on its railroads early this year—six before the end of January. According to the New China News Agency the sixth explosion occurred in a passenger car, killing or injuring 20 people and destroying the car. A previous explosion of 44,000 firecrackers in a Shandong Province railroad waiting room was said to be the most spectacular. In response, officials have forbidden passengers to carry combustibles or firecrackers.
Heroin Hurting Europe
◆ Heroin from the Mideast is reportedly inundating Europe at a wholesale price one seventh of that in the United States. Yet the lower-priced heroin is much more pure—an average of 20 percent, compared to 3.5 percent in the U.S. As a result, says a narcotics official for the Federal Republic of Germany, “heroin in Germany is so plentiful and so potent that we’ve had 595 overdose deaths, almost twice the American total, in 1979, although we have only one-fourth the population.”
Courts Undermine Parents
◆ When a California mother found marijuana in her 17-year-old son’s bedroom, she gave it to Los Angeles police, who came to the house. The boy’s father gave them permission to search his son’s room, and they found nine more bags of the drug. But the California Supreme Court, later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, ruled that the warrantless search was illegal, and the evidence could not be used against the apparent dope dealer. California’s Attorney General commented that “parents will in many cases be legally precluded from preventing their children from engaging in criminal activity within the family home.”
Fund-raising Fervor
◆ When their mothers failed to sell enough $3 tickets for a parochial school fund-raiser, two cousins in Kansas City, Kansas, were expelled from Our Lady and St. Rose School. According to the National Catholic Reporter, school authorities said that, by failing to sell a full 10 tickets each, the mothers violated a signed agreement to participate in two fund-raising events. One sold five and the other six. The school principal “told me either to send money for the rest of the tickets or come pick him [her son] up,” said one of the mothers. A county judge ordered the school to take the children back.
‘Clear-cut Bible Answers’ Wanted
◆ A Protestant church paper published in Germany, the Evangelisches Gemeindeblatt für Württemberg, said in an article about Jehovah’s Witnesses: “The Watchtower teaching has an answer for every question; it points out how a real Witness of Jehovah should think and act. This is exactly what many people in our pluralistic society are looking for; especially the common man who wants clear-cut answers. Does our Church dare to give clear answers in matters of faith? Or does her questioning and searching lead to declarations all too sophisticated and therefore unclear?” Evidently Jehovah’s Witnesses are getting something that the Lutheran Church in Germany is not giving its members: clear Biblical answers to their questions so as to build strong faith.
“Black Day for Swedes”
◆ Late last year, the Swedish government stiffly increased taxes on liquor and cigarettes, prompting the Stockholm news headline above. Officials reportedly hope that this will help stem the tide of public drunkenness, which resulted in over 60,000 arrests in six months. Encouragingly, after the tax increase, police in Göteborg said that, instead of the usual daily 25, they “only picked up four drunks.”
Wine Enhances Absorption
◆ Scientists at the Human Nutrition Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley, recently made a study of wine’s effect on absorption of minerals. For 75 days six men were served either wine, dealcoholized wine, alcohol solution in water or plain deionized water during meals. The study revealed that the absorption of the minerals calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, zinc and iron was improved when wine was taken with a meal. Was alcohol the key ingredient that improved absorption of minerals? Apparently not, because both regular wine and dealcoholized wine had the same good effect, but the alcohol solution did not. The researchers believe that it must be one of the other hundreds of components in a glass of wine that enhances absorption.
Cancer Discovery
◆ According to a report in The Daily Yomiuri, researchers in Japan have isolated the structure of the carcinogenic gene in a group of viruses that cause cancer in rats. “Although [these] viruses do not cause cancer in humans it is believed the discovery may eventually lead researchers to a similar discovery about the mechanism of cancer in humans,” said the report. This is termed a major break-through in the war against cancer. To what extent it will really prove helpful only time will tell.
Alligator on the Menu?
◆ The alligator population in the state of Louisiana is the largest in the United States, there being about 250,000 in the main coastal areas of that state. Because of its growing numbers, the alligator has been removed from the endangered category in these places and hunting these giant reptiles became legal. The legislature of that state recently passed a law legalizing the sale of alligator meat in stores. To enlighten people as to various ways of preparing the meat, the Festival of Alligator Cuisine was held. During this festival, it was pointed out that the meat is nutritious, has a low fat content and can be used in quite a number of tasty dishes.
Herbal Treatment for Cirrhosis
◆ A report from the New Chinese News Agency asserts that Chinese herbal medicine has cured or decidedly improved patients with cirrhosis of the liver. During a seven-year experiment, 105 patients were treated with herbs. Complete recovery was claimed in 67 patients, marked improvement in 14, improvement in 17 and no change in seven. China’s herbal preparation was developed from another medicine that is being used for treating patients with chronic hepatitis.
Smokers’ Odds
◆ The State Mutual Life Assurance Company of America released a study of 105,000 policy holders, comparing smokers with nonsmokers. The study revealed that smokers have 2.6 times as many fatal accidents as nonsmokers. Generally, smokers are more than twice as likely to have an accident or to become ill. The study further disclosed that smokers are nine times more apt to commit suicide.
Samaritans and the Law
◆ Harvard University professor of Semitic languages Frank M. Cross has reconstructed and translated fragments of papyrus rolls found in a cave north of Jericho. They are said to date from the fourth century B.C.E. Samaritan nobleman took the scrolls into the cave as they were fleeing from Alexander the Great’s soldiers after rebelling against his rule. The rolls were legal business documents containing contracts for loans and sales of slaves and property.
Cross notes that “there is no reference in these slave contracts to the biblical orders that Hebrew slaves should be freed after the seventh year, which is in the Pentateuch, which the Samaritans used as their basic religious text.” The professor speculates that this failure to honor God’s law “is evidence that the rich noblemen felt they were above the law and ignored it. They didn’t want to give away their slaves; they wanted to keep them forever.”