Watching the World
Drug Profits
● International profits from the sale of illegal drugs now exceed one trillion dollars, says a report in The Toronto Star, although a “worldwide recession leaves millions jobless, homeless and even starving.” Officials are at a loss to explain just where the money comes from. “The economy doesn’t account for it,” says Ted Swift of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington. “But one thing’s sure—there’s more of it all the time.”
According to the report, drug trafficking has “filtered through every layer of society in the past decade, and escalated in the 1980s.” Some deal in drugs to pay for their own supply, while others are lured in by the huge profits that can be made. There is also the “high society” trade by wealthy persons “protected by their names and connections.” The huge profits, says the Star, are “at the end rather than the beginning of the production chain.” Third World farmers, who grow the plants, still live at subsistence levels. It is in the cities, particularly of Western countries, that large markups are made in drugs that are cut, or diluted, many times. Heroin, for example, with a purity of from 2 to 10 percent, fetches “$200 a quarter-gram, and about $12,000 an ounce.”
Earth Heating Up
● The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued a report that “a global greenhouse warming” will begin in the 1990’s. According to The New York Times, “this report is the first warning by the Federal Government that the ‘greenhouse effect’ is not a theoretical problem but a threat whose first effects will be felt within a few years.” Estimates indicate that average global temperatures will increase 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, by the year 2040, and 5 degrees Celsius, or 9 degrees Fahrenheit, by the year 2100. Even higher temperature increases expected in the polar regions could result in rapid melting of the polar ice caps.
The warming trend is the result of the buildup in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide, which lets sunlight heat the earth but prevents the escape of heat. It is expected to bring “major changes in climate patterns, with disrupted food production and with significantly higher coastal waters.” This “threat,” says the EPA report, should be met with a “sense of urgency.”
Three days later, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report agreeing that the warming trend is inevitable and is “cause for concern.” But the academy’s statement asserts that there is sufficient time and there are ways to cope with it. “The tone of the academy’s warning is less urgent,” says the Times, “and the latest report stresses the need for more intensive research.”
Childhood Disappearing
● “The idea of childhood,” says Professor Neil Postman of New York University, “is disappearing at a dazzling speed. The dividing line between childhood and adulthood is rapidly eroding.” According to the American sociologist, the “charm, malleability, innocence and curiosity of children” are being degraded and transformed into the “lesser features of pseudo-adulthood.” Change has also been observed in children’s clothing. “Children are very materialistic now, and so much more interested in fashion,” says the headmistress at an English school. “They come in the most sophisticated outfits. Little girls of 12 are wearing makeup.” Whatever the reason, says the report in Toronto’s Sunday Star, “there is an undeniable physical fact that must be taken into account: Children are certainly reaching puberty earlier—on average four months per decade for the past 120 years.”
Oil Eater
● “Ordinarily,” says Claude Georges, spokesman for a French oil company, “it would take six to nine months for an average slick, say 60,000 tons, the contents of a middle-size tanker, to be absorbed by sea bacteria. We have isolated the oil eating bacteria, and devised a chemical which fortifies them, makes them reproduce faster—and makes them hungry.” The product, called Inipol Eap 22, is said to make 80 percent of any oil slick disappear in just four days. However, a quantity of up to 10 percent of the weight of the oil slick is needed, and at $2.40 a kilo ($1.10 a lb) the cost could easily run into the millions. What happens to the bacteria when the oil is gone? “That’s the beauty of it,” says Georges. “They eat each other and just disappear.”
Fortune Brings Grief
● Eric DeWild, a shy 16-year-old high school student, is now a millionaire—and scared. Six months ago, while playing hooky from school, he stumbled across a bag of jewels by the Florida East Coast Railway tracks. Estimated to be worth one million dollars (U.S.), the jewels were held by police pending claim by their owner. Meanwhile, the teenage orphan has been hounded by reporters and jewelers from around the world, plagued by strange phone calls, threatened, teased and taunted at school and knocked off his moped by a hit-and-run driver. Said police spokesman Tony Alderson: “We’re honestly concerned about the kid’s safety.” He and the aunt he lives with have gone into hiding.
Marriage Fattening
● Do you really gain weight after marriage? Yes, says a poll of 15,000 readers of Weight Watchers magazine. During 13 years of marriage, wives gained an average of 23 pounds (10 kg), while husbands gained 18 (8 kg). However, how one felt about the marriage made a difference. Wives who said they were unhappily married averaged 54 pounds (25 kg) overweight, while those who considered themselves happily married averaged only 24 pounds (11 kg) overweight.
Books Affect You
● “What book made the greatest difference in your life?” was a question put to 1,400 famous and not-so-famous Americans by professor of journalism Gordon Sabine and his wife, Patricia, an English instructor, both at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Which book came out on top? The Bible. It was mentioned most often—15 times—among the 165 books listed in Books That Made the Difference, by the Sabines. After conducting interviews throughout the United States, they discovered that books can profoundly influence the personal lives of people. The Sabines state that the reading experience is so personal that “it borders on the intimate,” and they add, “In a time when identity increasingly is lost, the reading of books may remain as one of the few truly personal acts left to us.”
Crime Clothes
● “Lightweight, comfortable and with an added feature—the inner lining is tough enough to stop a bullet. A bullet. Go with the fashions that can stop a bullet . . . fashions you can live with,” states the narrator of a TV commercial for bulletproof designer clothing. “Last year, we ran commercials in 12 American cities, and we got 10,000 calls in three weeks,” says the representative of the manufacturer who sponsored the TV commercial, Ruth Rom, in the New York Daily News. “We were very surprised. We didn’t expect to have such a response.” What does bulletproof garments for the average citizen indicate about the quality of life in many large cities? Lieutenant Thomas McTernan, of the N.Y. City Police Department, says: “It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when the public is so concerned about crime in the street that people are thinking of wearing bulletproof clothes.”
German-Americans
● Germans are the largest ethnic group in the United States. A Census Bureau study shows that 28.8 percent of Americans can trace at least part of their ancestry to Germany. For more than 300 years Germans have immigrated to the United States, seven million in all. This large influx of Germans has influenced American culture. “It was Germans . . . who brought the tradition of a festive Christmas to America and Germans who gave children the Easter egg hunt,” reports The New York Times. The 1683 arrival of 13 families from Krefeld in the Rhineland to the city of Philadelphia was recently celebrated in that American city’s section named Germantown.
Avoid Jet Lag
● Jet lag can be avoided, says Executive Fitness Newsletter, by changing your eating and sleeping pattern before the time of your flight. Called the feast/fast cycle, the plan calls for eating well on the third day before departure—plenty of protein foods at breakfast and lunch, and carbohydrates at dinner. Portions for the next day—the “fast” day—are to be cut down to a total of perhaps 700 or 800 calories. The last day before departure is another “feast” day, followed by fasting on the departure day. Beverages with caffeine should be taken only in the evenings on fasting days when eastbound and only in the mornings on the reverse. It is claimed that one’s internal body “clock” can be more easily adjusted on fasting days.
Computers Prefer Japanese
● “Computers find Japanese far easier to listen to than European languages,” states an article in South magazine. The reason? Unlike humans, whose ears are more effective and who can watch lips and detect meaning in the manner in which words are spoken, computers depend on microphones and recognize but few of the sounds that make up a word. The rest they have to guess. “Japanese,” says South, “has a simpler set of basic sounds and much less inflection than European languages, so computers have fewer choices of sounds to guess and are more likely to guess correctly.”
Raising Children Costly
● “Most people think the house is their most expensive outlay,” says manager Andy Small of the British insurance company Legal and General. “But even in purely financial terms, a child is the biggest commitment the average couple will ever have to make.” A Gallup survey commissioned by the company has shown that it costs British working parents almost £70,000 to raise their first child to the age of 16—almost three times the cost of the average house in Britain. The greatest part, £47,500, is based on the loss of the wife’s average net earnings. At the age of one year, a first child is said to cost its parents 8 percent of their income, increasing to 26 percent when the child reaches 16. Half of the parents surveyed said that children proved to be more expensive than expected.
Young Drinkers
● A report from Spain’s Central University Institute of Education shows that most children in Barcelona become regular drinkers by the age of 12. When groups of schoolchildren, aged 12 to 15, were interviewed, 91.5 percent admitted that they drank daily. As reported in London’s Daily Mail, “most of the youngsters said they acquired the taste after exam nerves drove them to drink and hearing parents talk about its relaxing effect.” A pint of wine is said to cost less than a bar of chocolate.