Watching the World

Jazz on Vatican Radio

◆ Things have changed at the Vatican’s radio station, inaugurated in 1931 by Pope Pius XI. Today one can tune in the program “Studio A” and hear jazz music in stereo. John St. George, the priest who originated this English-language program, reasons: “If you really want to talk to listeners, then you have to meet them where they are. A radio program without an audience is just an exercise in piety.” Another innovation is a breakfast-time show in several languages. Aimed at current Holy Year visitors and called “Hello Pilgrim,” it features music, news, interviews and information for tourists.

Communist Gains in Italy

◆ Italy’s municipal, regional and provincial elections during June resulted in surprising gains for the country’s Communist Party. With a membership of 1.7 million, it got 10.1 million votes, compared with 10.7 million for the ruling Christian Democrats. The rest of the votes went to the Socialists and other parties. During Italy’s last parliamentary elections, in 1972, the Christian Democrats won 38.8 percent of the votes and the Communists 27.2 percent. This time, the Christian Democrats received 35.3 percent and the Communists 33.4 percent. Thus the Communist Party won a third of the votes in a traditionally Catholic land.

Effects of Inflation

◆ Recently, Spencer Trask & Co., a United States brokerage firm, composed a list of everyday things and their rate of price rise during the past two years. Note the percentages of increase in just a few cases: Development of a roll of film, 22; laundering a shirt, 25; postage stamp, 25; a dog license, 33; one slice of pizza, 36; a shoeshine, 80; a panhandler or beggar’s typical request, 150.

Endangered Rhino

◆ Only an estimated thirty to fifty Sumatran rhinoceroses still survive. Also, it appears that the animal’s only hope for continued existence is in northern Sumatra’s Gunung Leuser reserve. Why is this an endangered species? For one thing, settlement by man has resulted in the Sumatran rhino’s loss of habitat. But the World Wildlife Fund reports that hunters have virtually wiped out the animal to obtain its horn, which, supposedly, is an aphrodisiac.

Home Canning Peril

◆ Rare that it is, the type of food poisoning known as botulism may exist when a person does home canning. Particularly is this so in the canning of low-acid vegetables, fish and meat. High-acid foods, which include most fruits, can safely be prepared for canning in open kettles at high temperatures. But botulism is a danger even when canning tomatoes, usually thought of as a high-acid food. Why? Because their acidity can vary greatly, depending on the variety, the soil in which they were grown and just how ripe they are when canned. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, a pressure cooker should be used when canning low-acid foods. Also, Redbook Magazine cautions: “Always prepare and process food exactly according to the method, time and temperature recommended for that specific food by a reliable source of canning information.”

Britain’s Historic Houses

◆ Inflation is taking its toll of historic homes in Britain. Even for a country house of medium size, yearly maintenance costs have risen from $6,400 in 1951 to over $50,000 at present, according to U.S. News & World Report. “More owners of historic homes are opening them to the public for a fee,” the magazine comments. “Others simply level them. Since 1930, about 1,400 of the buildings the British Government listed as of historical importance have been destroyed. In 1975, there are already applications to tear down another 279 in England alone.”

Window Thieves

◆ Deftly, perhaps in less than a minute, and equipped with no more than a heavy screwdriver, a thief can steal a window. But why steal windows? Stained glass, prepared with old materials and in styles of the past, has become very popular. In fact, a single art glass window may sell for hundreds of dollars. Yet, how common is this form of theft? In Chicago, Illinois, a dealer in architectural antiques remarked: “Fully half the old glass changing hands in this city is stolen.” Since stained glass is viewed as art, common homeowners insurance policies do not cover the loss fully unless there are very expensive policy riders that apply to paintings and the like.

Painters Beware

◆ Are you planning to paint your house? If so, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission has a warning to offer. Guard against skin and tissue damage, if you intend to use an airless paint spray gun. Since such guns eject paint with great velocity and pressure, the skin can be penetrated, with paint going into the tissues underneath. Is that dangerous? Yes, for it can cause permanent injury and the need for amputation may even arise. So, if you buy or rent a spray gun of this type, make sure you comply with instructions for operating it, says the Commission. Also, do not try cleaning the nozzle while the machine is plugged into an electrical outlet; and always stay away from the spray.

Increasing Alcohol Hazard

◆ There has been a sharp rise in the excessive use of alcohol and in alcohol-related deaths during recent years. These are the findings of the committee of the World Health Organization on drug dependence. In a survey of twenty-five lands, excessive drinkers were most numerous in France, Italy, Spain, Luxembourg, West Germany, Portugal, Switzerland and the Soviet Union, in that order. Though the United States and Canada ranked fifteenth and eighteenth, in these countries alcohol was involved in about half the auto-accident deaths, and some 10 to 15 percent of the hospital patients have alcohol-related illnesses. Furthermore, in the United States, problems linked with alcohol account for 26 percent of all admissions to county and state mental hospitals.

Threat to the Taverns

◆ According to the Wisconsin Tavern Keeper Association, taverns of that state are threatened by a competitor. A UPI dispatch from Milwaukee indicated that by June 1, ten Catholic churches already had applied for year-round beer licenses there. These religious applications for licenses to serve beer seemed to be linked with church-sponsored bingo operations.

Convicted Assassin Beheaded

◆ Garbed in a white robe and wearing a blindfold, with his hands bound behind his back, kneeling Prince Faisal ibn Musad Abdel Aziz was executed publicly on June 18 in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. The twenty-seven-year-old convicted assassin of King Faisal had been declared sane by legal and medical authorities, though the government originally had announced that he was mentally deranged. Thousands watched as capital punishment was inflicted with one stroke of a broad sword. This was the first time the death penalty had been imposed on a member of that country’s royal family.

Manatees vs. Lilies

◆ In what is hoped to be a successful experiment, four manatees (two males and two females) have been placed in canals at Xochimilco, Mexico. With its productive truck gardens, this village just south of Mexico City supplies the capital with fruit, vegetables and the like. But a superabundant growth of water lilies has been choking the canals, along which produce is grown. It has taken crews of 300 men to clear the canal waters daily. Now it is hoped that the herbivorous mammals will accomplish the job alone. It is said that manatees can eat their weight in plants every day. If these four animals dine on the water lilies, each could consume some 550 pounds a day.

Destructive “Culprit”

◆ In 1974, about a 300-foot-long section of Varberg Castle’s stone ramparts collapsed and the age of the seventeenth-century Swedish structure was not the prime factor. Rather, a report from Stockholm indicates that a twentieth-century “culprit” is to blame. Geologist Rolf Soderblom has discovered that detergent-laden water from a street drainage system constantly seeped through the clay foundation. Phosphates, chiefly from detergents, brought about a chemical reaction. In time, the clay turned to mud and the ramparts came tumbling down.

Ultrasonic Camera

◆ Heart specialists can now observe a cross section of a beating heart. How? By means of a newly devised ultrasonic motion-picture camera having a resolution reportedly five to ten times better than earlier equipment. This new hand-held probing device, designed by Tony Whittingham of Newcastle General Hospital in Newcastle, England, is capable of picking up twenty frames per second.

Useful Tongues”

◆ Besides English, scientists find Russian to be very useful. So indicates the magazine Changing Times. Citing the Occupational Outlook Quarterly of the United States Department of Labor, the journal points out that next to the English language, Russian is most often used in “sophisticated research materials” dealing with the biological sciences, chemistry, geology, mathematics, meteorology and physics.

Mozambique Now Independent

◆ For 470 years Mozambique has been under Portuguese colonial rule. But on June 25 this East African land of nine million inhabitants became independent. This occurred under a government controlled by what is known among Africans as “Frelimo,” the National Front for the Liberation of Mozambique. Some concern has been expressed regarding independent Mozambique’s relationship with the white minority governments of neighboring South Africa and Rhodesia.

Effects of Sleep Loss

◆ Not long ago, a seventeen-year-old boy went without sleep for eleven days. His 264-hour marathon broke the previous world’s record by four hours. T. R. Van Dellen, M.D., reports that the youngster “went through a brief period of psychosis, but he recovered.” What are common effects of prolonged sleep loss? Dr. Van Dellen, writing in the New York Daily News, says some individuals “seem to go berserk, others scream in terror, and others sob or mutter incoherently.” Among other things, he pointed out that after thirty hours of sleeplessness, the eyes play tricks, and after ninety hours one generally has hallucinations, or hears voices. “The longer a person goes without sleep,” remarks Dr. Van Dellen, “the more likely he or she is to commit errors in judgment.” Certainly, there is no denying the need for adequate sleep, though individual requirements vary.

Is There Life on Mars?

◆ It has long been suggested that life exists on the planet Mars, though such thoughts were highly speculative. However, photographs transmitted from the red planet by the Mariner 9 spacecraft in recent years have led some scientists to believe that bacterial organisms could live in the planet’s warmer areas, where temperatures range from 130 degrees below zero Fahrenheit during the night to a high of 40 degrees above zero at midday. Moreover, Mars seems to have sufficient water vapor for bacterial existence. The United States plans to launch its Viking spacecraft in August, and then such suppositions may be tested. How? The magazine Newsweek explains: “After its ‘soft’ landing on Mars, Viking will drop food samples onto the soil; any organisms present will presumably eat the food, producing carbon dioxide, whose presence will be detected electronically and sent back to earth.” Meanwhile, proof of life there is lacking.