Watching the World
“Peace” Is Expensive
◆ Military demands for a $4-billion higher budget when the world is declared to be entering a “generation of peace” dismayed members of the U.S. Congress. Among the causes are duplication of weapons among the military branches and the phenomenal cost of sophisticated new weapons. Also, though today’s military has less than one fifth the World War II uniformed personnel, there are more high-paid three- or four-star generals and admirals than there were then, nearly seven times as many per million men! One frustrated congressman asked: “Why does peace cost more than war?” Reported yearly increases in Soviet military spending could prompt the same question there.
World Inflation Takes New Trend
◆ “It took more than a decade for the world to move on from an inflation rate of 2 to 3 per cent to one of 5 per cent,” says the London Financial Times, but “it accomplished the change from 5 per cent to the present level [nearly 10 percent] within a year or two.” The current pace of inflation is “fast enough to render a currency all but worthless in little more than a decade.” ‘Learning to live with’ the current rate is doubtful because “as the annual pace moves up into double figures, inflation’s tendency to feed on itself is apt to become [unmanageable]. . . . the world tide is running so strongly in an inflationary direction that it is hard not to feel a sense of despair.”
Gold Facts
◆ Since 1886, 40 percent of all the gold ever found, about 70 million pounds, has come from the Witwatersrand Reef in South Africa. The total gold that man has found “would fit quite easily as a cube inside a baseball diamond,” says a Wall Street Journal report. An ironic result of the recent steep rise in gold prices has been lower production. Lower grade ore from existing mines yields less gold, but is now very profitable, so “nobody is rushing to open new mines.”
Does He ‘Practice What He Preaches’?
◆ After nearly eight years of work, the Vatican recently issued a 150-page worldwide directive to all Roman Catholic bishops. Its guidelines for the daily life and work of each bishop include: “He never indulges in favoritism because of wealth or social status . . . his house is likewise modest in furnishing . . . he keeps away from himself even the mere appearance of authoritarianism or of a worldly style of government.” Yet, a few days before, the abbot of St. Paul’s Basilica in Rome issued a pastoral letter criticizing the church as “one of the powers of this world in close communication with its powerful ones” that “has compromised with the capitalistic exploitation to the spiritual, economic, juridical, political and idealogical level.”
Religion “Markets” Sex
◆ New York city’s Judson Memorial Church regularly stages carnally themed musical shows composed and directed by its associate rector. Among the subjects treated openly by the shows have been bestiality and homosexuality. “In nearly every one of his productions, sex rears a good deal more than its head,” says The Wall Street Journal. Not to be outdone, a Cleveland, Ohio, Unitarian “minister at large” conducts explicit radio interviews that bring obscenity charges from disgusted listeners. He said, “I’m not sure I understand the term ‘unnatural sex practices.’ Anything that two people find mutually attractive can’t be unnatural.”
Tomorrow’s Parents
◆ Few are aware of the 500-percent increase in known cases of child abuse in the past decade, says a report to the American Medical Association. Called a “national disgrace,” abuse is America’s leading killer of children under five. The report estimates 50,000 deaths and 300,000 permanent physical or emotional injuries this year. Far-reaching effects were noted: “It is a disease of violence that breeds more violence, for the abused children of today, if they survive, will grow up to be the abusing parents of tomorrow.” This destructive spiral produces more anger, hate and criminality until “some day very few of us will be able to go out on the streets.”
Anger’s Wage
◆ A man angered by a noisy late-night street crowd in Chino, California, went to protest with his revolver. A scuffle ensued in which his revolver fired and a bystander was killed. The bystander was his son.
Child Alcoholics
◆ An Alcoholics Anonymous meeting honored an 11-year-old member for being sober a year; another, 10, a month. 450,000 U.S. children and teenagers are alcoholics, estimates an authority on alcohol abuse. “It is a far more serious problem than we ever imagined, . . . It is not uncommon to see severe alcoholism problems in kids 9, 10, 11, 12 years old.” Parental unconcern and easy availability compared to drugs encourage the trend. The U.S. is not alone. Says another authority: “In France there are tens of thousands of 6-year-old alcoholics.” And Hungary reports: “Our biggest concern is that alcoholism is spreading rapidly among young people.”
“Cinderella” Bean
◆ “The soybean was always treated as a stepchild,” declared an agricultural economist. But with world demand for protein far exceeding supplies, this 40-percent protein bean has come to be viewed by U.S. farmers as a prodigal son. Prices tripled and quadrupled within a year. Even U.S. consumers who traditionally view the beans as animal feed are now eating them as filler in hamburger, bacon bits, frozen desserts and other ways. The U.S. produces three fourths of the world supply. They are a staple item of protein food in Japan, which has relied on the U.S. for 92 percent of its supply until recent trade restrictions.
Another Sports “God”
◆ “The stock-car driver is like a god in his own little kingdom. What is danger next to that?” So explains a driver as to why he faces the dangers of this popular sport. Last year 45 million people watched races between these modified, commercially produced cars, making it the second-largest audience-drawing professional sport. A Wall Street Journal report notes that “stock-car crowds are among the most unruly and boisterous of sporting crowds.” Says an ardent fan: “Racing gets into your blood and it gnaws away at you. Some people get high on drugs. Me, I get high on the stock cars.”
Dead Lake Being Revived
◆ Five-mile-long Lake Palic in Yugoslavia was killed by pollution from nearby Subotica about two and a half years ago. The people of the town decided to take on the unprecedented job of reviving the lake to its former fine repute as a resort. They completely drained the lake and are bulldozing noxious muck up to five feet thick from the bottom. When the cleansed lake bed is filled again, its shores will house facilities to revive the victims of still another evidence of our times: “managerial diseases” such as tension and heart ailments.
Religious Fatalities
◆ Seventy-eight persons died in floodwaters when they refused to share the same rope to pull themselves from their trapped bus to safety. The reason? They “belonged to two different high-caste communities,” says a Reuters report from New Delhi, India.
Church School Setback
◆ U.S. Catholic school closings, currently averaging about one a day, are expected to increase as a result of the recent Supreme Court ruling that outlaws state aid to parochial schools. The accelerating trend of “consolidations,” as Catholic officials prefer to call them, is laid in part to the higher pay of lay teachers. They now form well over half the U.S. teaching staff in parochial schools, and, as one official said, “Lay teachers take no vows of poverty.”
Waning Confessional
◆ “Numerous surveys indicate that confessional lines have shrunk 40 to 80 per cent in parishes across the country,” notes a writer for the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times. “The traditional practice of private confession is in deep trouble,” adds Notre Dame’s director of liturgical research. Among the reasons cited were “dissatisfaction over the routine, monotonous, mechanical type of confession . . . receiving the same penance for a few ‘Hail Mary’ and ‘Our Fathers’ and leaving the church without being deeply touched by any part of the process.”
Girls Join Crime Ranks
◆ Modern girls are engaging in acts of crime and violence that ‘would have been virtually unthinkable’ five years ago. London youth officials, as reported in The Observer, are deeply disturbed by the trend. A basic cause is considered to be “adult acceptance of violence almost as part of the normal existence, and a debasement of genuine human values in the race for affluence.” One girl thief said: ‘My parents don’t love me, they just bribe me to behave myself. I get what I want.’ She kept raising the price until they could no longer pay.
Drug “Cure” Backfiring
◆ A special medical committee reports that methadone-related deaths have tripled in New York city from 1971 to 1972. The federal government’s Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs says the drug is rapidly becoming one of its biggest problems. The synthetic, addictive narcotic is being used in government-sponsored drug programs as a substitute for heroin. It is said to block the addict’s craving for a heroin “high” if taken orally. However, injected methadone produces its own “high” and the addicts are now taking advantage of its easy availability. One study showed that a third of patients on methadone were cheating by using heroin as well.
IUD Causes Alarm
◆ A U.S. government panel is investigating claims that the popular intrauterine device (IUD) is “the most dangerous method of contraception today.” An Army gynecologist says it has been “proven to cause death, sterility, unwanted pregnancy, miscarriage, ruptured tubal pregnancy, thousands of major surgical procedures, massive infection,” etc. However, supporters of the device argue that the “risk of death from pregnancy far exceeds” risk from the IUD. Newsweek magazine says: “Just how the IUD’s work isn’t known, but according to one theory, the device produces a mild inflammatory reaction that kills sperm or prevents implantation of the fertilized egg.”
Absentees
◆ “Absenteeism is costing industry millions of dollars every year—and the problem is getting worse,” says Industry Week magazine. A survey indicates that just 10 to 15 percent of U.S. workers account for 80 percent of absenteeism. The highest rate is among the younger workers, 20 to 25. Poland has absentee problems, too, according to Premier Piotr Jaroszewicz. He reports that 700,000 of the 11 million labor force are daily absent. Recently granted 85-percent pay during illnesses like a cold may account in part for the growing problem.
Business Problem
◆ “We feel that employees represent the biggest problem in business today,” says the vice-president of the largest “shopping service” company in the U.S. Its business is to find and report employee dishonesty to store owners. In a Boston Globe interview, the official noted that it is the result of “giving in” to the uncontrollable, taunting urge to “have just a little more. . . . Nobody ever has enough money, especially these days. The opportunity to steal is there, and it’s pretty easy. So it happens.”