Watching the World
Growing Insecurity
◆ Henry Kissinger, says U.S. News & World Report, “is the first Secretary of State to use an armored car on trips within” his own country.
Blood Kills Again
◆ In Seoul, Korea, at least three persons recently died and five suffered severe side effects as the result of being transfused with contaminated blood. “This means,” says the Korea Times, “that patients were given poison in the guise of blood.” Its editorial adds: “Since it happened at the Red Cross blood bank with most advanced facilities, we fear that such incidents can occur in some 100 other smaller blood banks. Moreover, these smaller places mostly buy blood from people who are in need of money.”
Humanity in “Dire Danger”
◆ Recent events have forced most nations at least to acknowledge their interdependence. Any who fail to see this, says the Egyptian Gazette, face deadly consequences. It adds: “Clearly a new outlook is needed: one that sees beyond . . . mere ethno-national interests and conflicting ideologies which are placing world human interests in dire danger. The very tools that have so far been the main history-formers—the sword, the gun and the bomb, the implements of imposition—must be abandoned for those of discussion and cooperation if Armageddon is to be avoided.” But the Armageddon of which the Bible speaks cannot be avoided by mere discussion and cooperation among men.
Canada’s Crime
◆ Toronto, Canada, like many other major cities of the world, is afflicted with rising crime—up 12 percent in 1974 over 1973. The Toronto Star recently said this about the problem: “The fundamental cause, almost certainly, lies in the tremendous social changes which have been taking place in Canada, and indeed all over the western world. A few decades ago, this was still a predominantly rural country. People’s lives were controlled, not only by the ordinary law of the land, but by a web of unwritten rules proceeding from family discipline, religious teaching and community pressures. But the changes of the last generation—rapid industrialization, the mushrooming growth of the big cities, increasing family breakdowns, the declining influence of religion—have weakened these controls.”
Entertainment Thrives
◆ With inflation and recession rampant, “escape” seems to be the order of the day. Last year, Britons spent the equivalent of over four billion dollars for the theater, movies, and such things as sporting and hi-fi equipment; another eight billion went for liquor. In Italy, movies prosper, and soccer is considered one of the country’s ten best industries. The recording industry in Brazil last year grossed $65 million in sales, a 35-percent increase in one year. Concludes the New York Times: “Entertainment may vary throughout the world . . . but there is little doubt that it is a growth industry.’’
More Food Needed
◆ Grim predictions of even greater famine disasters continue to be heard. Neal Stoskopf, a professor at the Ontario Agricultural College of Guelph University, says: “There is a desperate need to awaken people, especially farmers, to the crisis.” But the Denver Post and Washington Post report that a panel of experts sees “no great scientific breakthroughs” imminent in American food production. And the Wayne (Nebraska) Herald claims that farmers are already selling ‘everything but the pig’s squeal’: “Every 250-pound hog that goes to market produces about 180 pounds of carcass, but also yields 70 pounds of by-products such as gelatin and pharmaceuticals.”
Death in Bangladesh
◆ Deep anguish is currently afflicting Bangladesh, says Julio Scherer in Mexico’s Excelsior, adding: “Cholera roams the streets as free as the crows. . . . Health officials have given up their efforts to control it. They have confessed, matter of factly, with neither sadness nor resignation, ‘the epidemic is beyond our control.’ . . . The victims are so countless, and the scene is so repetitious, that man’s sensitivity toward his fellow man begins to dissipate, and he becomes afraid for himself. So threatened, he begins to slip into a dangerous fatalism, whose ultimate expression is impotence.”
Costly Divorce
◆ Divorce now costs more, says Business Week. In the U.S. each separating partner can expect to pay $1,500 in legal fees. Emotional costs are still higher. Heavy eating, drinking, compulsive working often follow divorce. Can one run from problems that come with divorce? Says a Menninger Foundation doctor: “You have to work it out where you are. A leave of absence or long vacation is an escape that simply won’t do it.”
Science of Honesty?
◆ Recently some widely publicized medical and scientific experiments were found to be frauds. A Canton, Ohio, man observes in a letter to Science News: “If any one need becomes more apparent in the complex world of modern man, it seems it surely must be the need of integrity. Why then is there no science of honesty? Why do we have an I.Q. scale, but no integrity quotient? Who offers a course in honesty, or a degree in integrity?”
What Must Change?
◆ Mammoth-size problems confront the world. What basic change, among others, must be made if man could even dimly hope to solve these? Detroit magazine interviewed University of Michigan’s G. E. Mendenhall and got his answer: “From Amos to Jesus the prophetic tradition understood what modern civilization cannot conceive: that serious problems cannot be solved by the monopoly of force represented in the nation state. The people themselves must change.”
Military Crime Up
◆ An article in the Christian Science Monitor says that crime is growing in the U.S. armed forces. Officially, the army, for instance, says that crime is down. “Army crime figures, however, tell a different story,” says the article. In the second quarter of 1973 there were 20.76 crimes per 1,000 persons in the army; the second quarter of 1974 showed a rate of 22.12. The newspaper adds: “Racial conflict has become a greater challenge as the volunteer Army and the other services attract more blacks from the ranks of the young, unskilled, and unemployed.”
Prayer Breakfasts
◆ In industry and politics “prayer breakfasts” have become popular. Of course, a preacher or priest of some kind must be on hand. Syndicated columnist Harriet Van Horne describes these events: “For Americans who like to eat and pray with hordes of strangers, prayer breakfasts may be a rich, spiritual experience. I incline to the view that all prayers should be private. If they can’t be private, they should at least be beautiful. Most clergymen pray in Rotary Club English. Their throats may be golden, but their syntax is usually leaden. The notion of brevity offends their actor-size egoes.”
“At Odds” with Jesus
◆ If Jesus Christ should come back in the flesh, asks U.S. columnist Sydney Harris, “would there not be soon a second crucifixion?” The militarists would say he is a coward. The rich would label him as a radical. Preachers would call Jesus a heretic for denouncing ritual. Sentimental people would say that only a cynic would claim that there is just one way to salvation. The sensual would scorn because of Jesus’ fasts and his putting spiritual matters ahead of the needs of his body. Writer Harris asks: “Would not each of us in his own way find some part of this man’s saying and doing to be so threatening to our ways of life, so much at odds with our rooted beliefs, that we could not tolerate Him for long?”
Girl Altar “Boys”
◆ “Girl altar servers are proliferating around the country in a quiet grassroots movement,” says the U.S. National Catholic Reporter. But is it just religious faith that is moving girls to take such positions? Says the Newport (Rhode Island) Daily News: “While most girls would probably want to serve out of devotion, there is a money factor involved in the controversy. An altar server, especially at weddings, can make, in less than an hour, what it would take a newsboy all week to make.”
Children and Church
◆ Currently both Protestant and Catholic clergymen are debating whether children should be compelled to go to church. But, even if they go, what will they hear? When a panel of U.S. youngsters commented on the subject recently, one observed: “All they talk about at our church is money. Christ was born in a stable but nothing is too good for His ministers, evidently.”
Clergy Belittle Bible’s Miracles
◆ The Chicago Daily News reports that “a major segment of Christian Bible scholars” consider the miracles recorded in Bible accounts as an “open question.” It interviewed Dr. Norman Perrin, professor of New Testament at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and reports: “New Testament miracle stories were ‘nothing special, just a conventional means of expressing belief in Jesus,’ he said. Religious literature of that day abounded in such accounts, of ‘Greek heroes, Jewish wise men, Babylonian astrologists, Egyptian wonderworkers.’” Adds the Catholic clergyman John Burke: ‘The story about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead may be a parable in action and not historically accurate.’ Bible believers, of course, disagree with these men. So does God, who inspired the writing of his Word.
Expensive Race
◆ Major U.S. oil companies are racing to find new sources of oil. Many of their expectations are concentrated on the North Sea, between Britain and the west European mainland. Currently there are forty-five rigs in the area. In the last five years, ten oil finds have been made, each of which promises to deliver more than one billion barrels of oil. But drilling costs are sometimes seven million dollars each week; a workboat to supply crews may cost $3,500 daily. Progress must be made in the face of ninety-foot-high waves and 120-mile-per-hour winds. At the other extreme, it takes two months to get supplies to crews in the Amazon jungle.
Why Baptists Quit
◆ An article in the Newport News (Virginia) Daily Press says that it is estimated that 1,000 pastors quit the Southern Baptist Church yearly. Why? One minister says: “One of the things that’s wrong with our Southern Baptist Church, I think, is that the minister has to win a popularity contest with his congregation. If he tries to be prophetic and say some things that ruffle them, he may not be liked. Once he ceases to be popular, they want to get rid of him. . . . So often, in a church squabble, the worst people in a church, using the worst methods, are the ones who win out.”
Unusual Design
◆ The highly venomous sea snake is safe from both sharks and the “bends.” A marine biologist recently painted sea-snake-like stripes around his wet suit and then donned a black raincoat while in the water. When “sharks drew in for an easy ‘kill,’” reports New Zealand’s Auckland Star, “he took off the coat” and the sharks “veered off.” Most deep-diving creatures experience painful “bends” as nitrogen dissolved in their blood bubbles out when they ascend to the surface. But an Australian zoologist recently discovered that a hole in sea snakes’ hearts allows blood to bypass their lungs when diving and that their skin is very permeable to the gas. The two actions combine to keep blood nitrogen buildup slow and to disperse it quickly during ascent.