Watching the World
African Rights at Stake
The international Minority Rights Group recently released their report “Jehovah’s Witnesses in Central Africa.” After documenting the persecution and harassment of the Witnesses in that area because of their nonpolitical Christianity, it observes that “religious freedom is not all that is at stake. . . . suppression of the Jehovah’s Witnesses has been part and parcel of the attempts by various African rulers to consolidate one-party dictatorial regimes. Their persecution is therefore of importance not just to the Witnesses themselves but also to the mass of African people who have a stake in the defence and extension of democratic rights.”
TM and Stress
Nearly a million American advocates of TM (Transcendental Meditation) enthusiastically hail its seeming ability to relieve stress. But a recent study found little difference between TM and just plain rest. Doctors measured catecholamines (body chemicals associated with stress) in test subjects who either meditated or sat quietly with their eyes closed for twenty to thirty minutes. The report in Science magazine says that “essentially the same results were obtained for the two groups.” They concluded that, biochemically, TM “does not induce a unique” condition, but is seen only “as a resting state.” Hence, Christians who avoid TM because of its connection with Hinduism are not missing out on something they need.
More than the ‘Extra Mile’
An American soldier stationed in West Germany recently wrote to the army newspaper The Stars and Stripes about an experience when his car broke down on the autobahn, stranding him, his wife and her parents 125 kilometers (about 80 miles) from home. Since the car needed a new motor, he wrote: “Who in the world could we possibly call that would be willing to drive 80 miles, one way, to pick us up? . . . My wife, with some hesitation, called her boss [at a photo laboratory],” which would, he says, “be equivalent to me calling my lieutenant colonel at home at 6:20 p.m. and asking him to come pick us up. . . .
“[He] didn’t even try to get out of it,” marveled the soldier. After taking everyone home, he had driven “about 300 kilometers [186 miles] helping us that night, yet we had to argue with him to get him to accept just gas money for his trouble. [He] is a Jehovah[‘s] Witness and tries to put his faith to work both at home and on the job. . . . he went a lot further than that ‘extra mile’ and I owe him a big one.”
“Operation Noah II”
“The project is called Operation Noah II,” said John Walsh of the International Society for the Protection of Animals, “but the animals aren’t lined up two by two waiting for the Ark.” Instead, they are trapped in treetops by waters rising behind Panama’s new Bayano River Dam. Local Indians hired by the Society are rescuing the animals, including many rare jungle species. “It’s a struggle to get them into the boats,” says Walsh. “The big cats are dangerous and even the smallest monkey puts up a fight.” In addition to hundreds of rescued animals, innumerable insects, spiders and snakes rain down on the rescuers from the treetops as their canoes pass through. A few Indians have even been bitten by ungrateful tarantulas.
Daylight on Venus
Pictures of the Venusian landscape taken by instruments landed from the Soviet spacecraft Venera 9 and Venera 10 startled the world with their clarity. Some thought that the landers might have used their own light for the picture-taking, since the atmosphere was thought to be too dense for much sunlight to penetrate. But not so: “The Venus clouds turn out to be more tenuous than anybody had thought,” reports Science News. “They are actually more like a haze than heavy clouds.” The sunlight that illuminated the Soviet pictures was “brighter than anyone expected,” being about like earth’s “daytime with overcast clouds.”
Computer Capers
County officials in Santa Cruz, California, who installed a computer system for finding “impartial” jurors, received some surprising selections. Among them were a district attorney, a police chief, court workers and a public defender, whose professions are hardly impartial. Then it produced the name of an accused man—as a juror for his own trial!
The recent book Crime by Computer notes that the number of errors resulting from the use of computer systems is probably far smaller today than when everything was done manually. But the problems “seem to be more perverse, nonsensical, maddening . . . and difficult to overcome.” The author suggests that consumers caught in a computer-error maze write “directly to the president of the company . . . Don’t fool around with letters ‘to the computer’ or to lower-echelon people.”
Selling the Children’s Future
The U.S. Congress recently lifted the government debt ceiling to $700 billion—over $3,200 for every man, woman and child in the nation. Every American will owe an average of over $200 in interest alone on the government debt for the fiscal year 1977. This $45 billion in interest would have run the entire government in 1951.
Meanwhile, many state and local governments also are deeply in debt. Why? Citing one reason, The Wall Street Journal reports that state and local government payrolls have grown as of 1974 to over eight and a half times what they were in 1950, while the earnings of all American workers multiplied less than half as many times.
Cemetery Living
The Cairo housing shortage has moved some resourceful Egyptians to establish unique residences. “Cemeteries in Cairo are very popular places to live,” reports the New York Post. A mausoleum resident was interviewed who had lived there twenty years with his wife, four children and mother-in-law. “We live here because there are no apartments,” he said. As well as dwelling near the bodies in mausoleums, cemetery residents build fruit-crate or even stone homes among the graves. Rent is free. The recent U.N. Habitat conference in Canada revealed that as many as one fourth to two thirds of the people in large metropolises of developing nations are also squatters.
Holding Up Production
A devout Moslem in Nottingham, England, was fired for stopping his production line five times a day to wash his feet, face Mecca and pray. An industrial tribunal ruled that the firing was justified. However, “reading of the decision was delayed for 10 minutes while [the worker] prayed,” reports the Associated Press.
Satellite Charges
What does it cost to send information by way of the communication satellites now in orbit around the earth? Scientific American magazine reports that when the first Intelsat carried a color-television program across the Atlantic in 1965, the charge for an hour of prime-time transmission was $22,350. The charge has since dropped to $5,100. The monthly charge for complete voice circuits between the U.S. and Europe has decreased from $8,400 in 1965 to $5,700 now.
Too Honest
A security guard for a British auto manufacturer caught 100 workers stealing from their employer, he thereby saving the company about £100,000 ($180,000). How was he rewarded? The guard “caught too many thieves for his own good,” reports London’s Daily Express. “[Union] shop floor pressure that almost led to a strike forced the company to move him to an office job. Now a notice, signed by union joint works committee chairman Doug Laurence, has gone up warning that no one is allowed to have any contact with” the “over-zealous” worker.
An Antibiotic Society
Japan’s people consume far more antibiotic pills, on the average, than any other nation in the world, according to Professor Yoshitomo Fujii of Teikyo University’s medical department. They use about 2.5 times as many per person as the next largest users, the Americans, and more than the total amount consumed in Britain, West Germany, France, Italy and Spain put together. The professor says that, as a result, drug-resistant bacteria are developing at an alarming rate, posing a serious threat to treatment of patients.
Looking into “Awake!”
A recent article in Canada’s Winnipeg Free Press titled “An Anglican View” suggested that looking into “competitive brands” of religion can be revealing. “One active Christian group is the Jehovah’s Witnesses,” who are often seen “displaying their Awake magazine to the public,” notes writer Sidney Macbeth. “It’s amazing what one learns by reading one of the little Awake magazines which are not, as one might have thought, full of propaganda. It must take courage to stand and offer these magazines to passersby. Those Jehovah’s Witnesses doing so do not appear to be ashamed or self-conscious and are obviously proud of the publication.”
Curbing the Cats
While lions, tigers and leopards are often threatened with extinction in their natural habitats, the world’s zoos are brimming over with the big cats. There are only about 200 Siberian tigers left in the wilds, for example, but zoos list over 600. The director of the Brookfield Zoo in Illinois says that many of them are “reproducing beautifully, twice as fast as they do in nature.” In the wild, he said, it takes about two years, or until mothers have reared their litters, but “in the easier life of captivity . . . we’ve had female cats producing litters every nine months.” Consequently, a number of U.S. zoos are implanting time-release contraceptive capsules in their prolific mother cats.
“Gay Pride Week”
In Los Angeles, California, the week ending July 4 was officially labeled “Gay Pride Week.” The mayor proclaimed that “gays have played significant roles in the history of our country.” However, nationally syndicated news columnist Patrick J. Buchanan noted that “Los Angelenos are not being asked to celebrate individual achievements” of gays. But, instead, “are being invited to celebrate a common affliction: homosexuality.” He observed that individual alcoholics “have made great contributions” to society. “But what would we think of the city fathers of a community who officially proclaimed Alcoholism Appreciation Week?”
Unusual Trade Union
London’s Sunday Times reports that 700 rubbish pickers in Bogotá, Colombia, have formed “the world’s most unusual trade union” in an attempt to “raise the scavengers’ status and working conditions.” The article notes that garbage pickers “work in competition with thousands of vultures, buzzards and pigs, scuffling sometimes knee deep through the malodorous filth.” But “one achievement of the union in its six months’ life has been to reduce the fighting (sometimes fatal) over different kinds of waste, dividing saleable material between families and groups.” A union spokesman said that so far the government had not recognized the group as representing a valid occupation.
For Whom Do the Bells Toll?
When the new Greek government granted Jehovah’s Witnesses the right to assemble freely, it was over much opposition from the Greek Orthodox Church. Hence, when a large assembly was held in Agrinion, the report from there quoted in Athens’ daily Eleftherotypia was to be expected: “During the assembly sessions, the town’s [Greek Orthodox] churchbells were ringing mournfully.” However, the report then asked, “But for whom were the bells ringing? That is the question!” Was it a death knell for the Church?