Watching the World
Hong Kong’s Day of Disaster
◆ The worst deluge to hit Hong Kong in 83 years took place in mid-June. On Friday, June 16, heavy rain began falling. By Sunday morning when it stopped, 23 inches had soaked the hillsides. At 11 a.m. torrential rains began again. Soon disaster struck. At Kowloon’s Sau Mau Ping district, tons of earth slid down a hillside, burying dwellings and their occupants under 30 feet of mud. Hong Kong’s mid-level residential area saw a garage and retaining wall crash into the base of a 12-story residence. The entire building shuddered and then crashed down the steep hillside, carrying its occupants with it. As it fell it smashed five apartments on the back of another block of flats. Reports revealed 100 dead, about 150 missing, more than 3,000 homeless and damage to property amounting to millions of dollars.
Disaster on the Plate River
◆ In the early hours of May 11, an English refrigeration ship carrying Argentine beef back to England was nearing Montevideo, Uruguay. Suddenly there was a stunning jolt and the ship was enveloped in flames. All 74 persons on board were burned to death without even having time to send a radio message. A Liberian tanker had collided head on with the English ship in the narrow channel. A number of the crew on the tanker were also lost. It was the worst ship disaster of the century on the Rio de la Plata (Plate River).
Mexican Typhoid Epidemic
◆ Since the start of this year typhoid fever has struck four states in central Mexico. Public Health Service officials say that it is the worst in the world in several decades. Most disturbing is the fact that the strain of typhoid bacterium responsible for the outbreak has mysteriously become resistant to the drug generally used to treat this disease. It is estimated that at least 1,400 persons have contracted typhoid. Travelers to Puebla, Mexico, Hidalgo or Tlaxcala in Mexico are advised to drink only boiled water or carbonated mineral water or canned or bottled beverages that have been boiled or are carbonated.
Fuel Cells for the Home
◆ The demand for electricity is constantly growing, and power companies are finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with the demand. Recently the Brooklyn Union Gas Company experimented with the supplying of electricity for three houses by means of fuel cells on the roof of one of them. Inverters in the basement changed the direct current of the fuel cells to usable alternating current. By an electrochemical process the cells turn natural gas into electricity, with water vapor and carbon dioxide as by-products. However, such units are not yet available for general use on private homes.
Light-intensifying Goggles
◆ The U.S. Navy has tested underwater goggles capable of amplifying light up to 10,000 times. The light is intensified electronically, the power source being two small 1.35-volt batteries in the goggles. The report said: “The performance of the goggles is dramatic. In a 12-foot laboratory test tank surrounded by almost total darkness, the goggles sharply define objects that are invisible to the naked eye.”
“Leap Second”
◆ For the first time in history a “leap second” was added to the clocks of government timekeepers the world over on June 30, 1972, at midnight Greenwich time. At that time one minute was stretched to sixty-one seconds. This was said to be necessary to bring earth time into line with atomic clocks.
Revolutionary Motor
◆ An Australian engineer has invented an unusual orbital internal-combustion engine that is expected to revolutionize the engines of vehicles from cars to small aircraft. It is called the Sarich engine, being named after its inventor. Having only ten moving parts, it is less complicated than the famous Wankel engine, and it can be mass-produced for only 69 Australian dollars. The engine is only 16 inches in diameter and five inches thick and has an estimated output of 200 horsepower at 5,000 r.p.m. The prototype produces more than two horsepower for every pound of engine weight, a power-weight ratio far superior to other engines. When coupled with a compact transmission that was also invented by Mr. Sarich, only a little more than one foot of space is required to house the unit.
Legalizing Homosexuality
◆ Various state legislatures in the United States have repealed laws forbidding sexual perversion. Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Oregon and Hawaii now allow homosexual acts between consenting adults. The District of Columbia, where the Capitol of the nation is located, has agreed that consenting adults who engage in homosexuality will not be liable to criminal prosecution. And what is their definition of an “adult”? Persons who are sixteen years old and over. An amendment legalizing homosexual practices in Ohio moved Municipal Judge Wilbur L. Stull to comment that the legalization is evidence of “a breakdown of the morals of this nation.” The judge revealed in a letter that there were 5,000 homosexuals at the Ohio State University who have been assigned special quarters by the college officials. He pointed out that “what went on in Sodom and Gomorrah is kid stuff to what is going on at Ohio State.”
Fijians Criticize Churches
◆ Plays presented at the South Pacific Festival of Arts held in Suva, Fiji, during the month of May indicated how the churches of Christendom are being viewed by South Pacific Islanders. In one play a bishop was shown carrying a crosier that was surmounted by a dollar sign in place of a shepherd’s crook. A play called “Pritchard” referred to the time when the Fijians gave up cannibalism but then it showed the consul lamenting: “It is easier to make peace between cannibal chiefs than between the rival churches!”
Catholic Synod Highlights Church Problems
◆ From May 10 to 14 of this year 300 bishops, priests and theologians assembled in the city of Wuerzburg in Bavaria, West Germany, for the “First General Synod of German Dioceses.” The purpose of the synod was to try to improve the deteriorating conditions within the Catholic Church in Germany. A storm of protest broke out when the synod president Cardinal Doepfner announced that the bishops had decided not to permit a discussion as to whether married men should be allowed to become priests. When faced with a threat of a walkout by about 60 delegates, the bishops reversed their decision.
Nazi Puppet Protected
◆ In a report appearing in Time magazine of June 26, 1972, a Frenchman who was a Nazi puppet during the occupation of France has come out into the open. According to the report, he aided the Gestapo in hunting down French Resistance fighters and Jews and was personally responsible for the killing of many of them. He was twice sentenced to death in absentia by French courts. He hid until the statute of limitations on the charges against him ran out. Reporting on where he hid, the magazine states: “He took refuge in French monasteries and convents for 20 years, until the statute of limitations on his crimes expired in 1967. Touvier had a powerful protector in Monsignor Charles Duquaire, a French prelate with influence in both Paris and the Vatican.”
“Flock Without Shepherds”
◆ “The 633 million people of every race and nation who have been baptized into the Roman Catholic faith are increasingly becoming a flock without shepherds,” reported the Dallas Times Herald of June 8, 1972. The paper noted that “the ranks of the clergy are steadily thinning, while those of the recruits of would-be members of the priesthood have shrunk, in some cases to a mere trickle.” In Europe, about 27 percent of the 132,251 parishes are without a priest. And in Latin America, where a third of the global Catholic population lives, it is reported that there are only 5,000 priests. Spain, Italy, Ireland, France, Belgium, Holland, West Germany and other lands are all seeing annual declines in the number of priests.
Britain’s Churches for Sale
◆ Churches in Britain are closing at the rate of 150 a year. During the past few years more than 5,000 have been locked up. And what is happening to those already closed? The Elizabethan Theater Group took over one famous London church because it had a circular design that was the correct size for an authentic Shakespearean stage. Other church buildings have been converted into candy factories, gas stations, warehouses, antique shops, museums, artists’ studios, supermarkets, archives and weekend cottages. A large Indian community in one place turned a church into a Hindu temple!
Homosexual Ordained
◆ The United Church of Christ recently ordained a declared homosexual as a minister. Its Golden Gate Association, which consists of 31 congregations, approved the ordination by a vote of 62 to 34. The clerical and lay representatives voted with full knowledge that they were ordaining a homosexual. The fact that God condemns homosexuality in the strongest terms apparently does not interest them.
Self-repairing Brain
◆ It has been the accepted scientific belief that brain cells die when damaged and leave that area of the brain vacant. But, according to Carl W. Cotman, professor of psychobiology at the University at Irvine, California, the brain can repair the damage. He said: “The brain seems capable of tricks we were simply unaware of.” The results of his examination of damaged rat brains revealed that the “brain possesses an amazing and heretofore unsuspected capability for reorganization after brain damage.” It appears that nerve cells near the area of damaged brain cells move in and, in a sense, rewire the damaged area.
Beautiful but Deadly
◆ Many flowers and plants are beautiful to the eye but are deadly if eaten. Young children, with their tendency to taste what attracts them, can suffer severe internal harm or be killed if they eat some of these plants. Parents ought to be aware that there is danger in chewing on water hemlock, azaleas, oleanders, rosary peas, laurel, daphne and rhododendron. And daisies, lily of the valley, iris, larkspur and bleeding hearts can kill.
DDT Banned
◆ Almost all use of DDT has been banned in the United States. The ban, effective December 31, 1972, was imposed because of the danger to man’s health and the risk to the environment. Farmers, in the meantime, will be instructed on how to use a substitute pesticide.
Vitamin Treatment for Hyperactivity
◆ A New York psychiatrist has obtained successful results from treating hyperactive children with a megavitamin treatment involving large amounts of niacin, vitamin C, and vitamin B6. But the treatment requires from three to six months to bring significant changes. Dr. Allan Cott has also found that the megavitamin treatment can make a brain-injured child free of seizures even when anticonvulsive drugs have failed to control them. In one case a child suffering from multiple daily seizures for two years became seizure free 72 hours after the megavitamin treatment began.
Fish Food from Sewage
◆ A system has been designed and successfully tested that can produce fish food from sewage by-products. It involves the growth of cultures or natural marine phytoplankton from a secondary sewage treatment. The resultant algae can serve as food for such shellfish as oysters and mussels. Also the system is said to remove ammonia, phosphates and other objectionable inorganic products of sewage decomposition.