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Watching the World

The “Global Crisis”

◆ Is the overall worldwide environment improving? Not according to an article in a recent issue of BioScience: “The impact of the environmental crisis . . . varies from culture to culture, nation to nation, place to place; but together these impacts sum to a global crisis. Symptoms, both ecological and social, are apparent in almost every country on earth: air and water pollution, chemical pollution of food chains, decay of cities, chronic food shortages and starvation, increasing drug abuses and alcoholism, rising rates of juvenile delinquency, crime and suicide, and a sense of hopelessness that transcends national borders and political systems. However, the enormous dimensions of the environmental crisis . . . make it difficult for us to perceive the nature of the problem and its causes, not to mention solutions.”

Clergy View of Abortion

◆ Some religious leaders have reacted favorably to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision legalizing abortion. Metropolitan Church News, published by the New York City Council of Churches, says: “The news of the Supreme Court’s decision favoring women’s rights to determine whether or not to have an abortion was received with deep appreciation by the officers and staff of the Council.” It also declared: “We do not hold with those who regard abortion as murder.” An article in the Baptist Bible Tribune observes: “Dr. W. A. Criswell . . . former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, expressed satisfaction with the ruling.”

Stolen Museum Art

◆ John D. Cooney, international authority and curator of ancient art at the Cleveland Museum, one of the world’s leading art institutions, confesses that “95 per cent of ancient art material in this country has been smuggled in.” He further reveals: “Unless you’re naïve or not very bright, you’d have to know that much ancient art here is stolen.” As for the illegal entry of art objects in the United States, he observed: “Even if I know it’s hot, I can’t be concerned about that. If the museums in this country began to send back all the smuggled material to their countries of origin, the museum walls would be bare.”

Guns in School

◆ Public school officials across the United States say they are worried about the increase in the number of students carrying guns in corridors, classrooms and school yards. Last year Los Angeles’ schools had sixty gun incidents. New York, Detroit, Atlanta, Kansas City and other cities report a rise in student gun episodes. “We have a problem and it is increasing,” said Everett Copeland, Kansas City schools’ security manager. “Kids carry guns for different reasons. Some say they have been threatened. Some involve extortion attempts. Some kids just say it’s a status symbol.” James Kelly, director of school security seminars for the International Association of Chiefs of Police, declared: “There is no question about the increase. There are thousands of cheap guns on the streets. The kids pick them up with ease. These kids have definitely moved out of the zip-gun stage.” As to where youths are getting the idea of carrying weapons, Van Turner, deputy administrator for school safety in New York city, answers: “You have kids who see guns at home, who see people carrying guns all the time, and those kids are going to carry guns too.”

French Clergy Crisis

◆ The Roman Catholic priesthood in France is in a critical state. According to a report presented to the annual assembly of the French Bishops’ Conference in Lourdes, the major seminaries had 5,729 students in 1963. By 1971 that number had dwindled 47 percent, to 2,840. During those eight years, seminary enrollments of new students fell 61 percent, to 354. The number of priests ordained yearly dropped from 573 to 237. Deaths exceeded ordinations by 465 in 1970, and, in addition, 200 priests quit. The bishop of Bordeaux, commenting on the clergy crisis, said: “It is the very concept of the priesthood that is in question.”

Responsibility for Bloodshed

◆ An article by writer John Wainwright in The Northern Echo, a newspaper published in England, accuses the clergy of the bloodshed in Ireland. He declares: “Let every clergyman in Northern Ireland understand one thing​—let him understand it finally and unequivocally—​that, in the final analysis, he (personally) is responsible for every last drop of innocent blood spilled in this disgusting, sectarian-triggered lash-up. Not the troops​—not the politicians—​not even the IRA or the UDA​—but . . . the guy sporting the dog-collar. Because, if he’d done his job well enough​—if he’d preached a little more love, a little more toleration and a lot less bigotry—​people might have listened . . . and this little lot might not have happened!”

High Food Cost

◆ Right now food prices are sky-rocketing all over the world. Numerous economic and agricultural factors are the primary reasons for the increase. But an Associated Press analysis of the subject reveals one more cause: “There is the consumer. He makes demands on the market his grandfather would have laughed at. But flaked mashed potatoes, pre-mixed brownies, glazed and colored cereals, frozen vegetables seasoned and buttered ready to cook, all sell, and sell well. Everytime the American consumer asks someone else to do what he could very well do for himself, it costs.”

Earth Is Man’s Home

◆ V. Sevastyanov, the Russian pilot-cosmonaut, recently commented in the magazine Yunost on his flight in Soyuz-9. He discusses the effects of weightlessness and then concludes: “Man really is a son of the earth! He keenly feels the absence of terrestrial ties. His memory always returns to them, and the longer the flight the more sharply he feels the need to reproduce them, at least mentally. The cosmonaut’s terrestrial ties become painfully precious to him . . . Our blue planet is amazingly beautiful but it is also strikingly small.” Says Sevastyanov: “I remember how enraptured I was by the singing of birds when I first heard them after the flight” in Soyuz-9.

Fibers in the Optic Nerve

◆ A team of medical researchers at the University of Chicago and the Argonne National Laboratory used a computerized image processor to count the number of fibers in a human optic nerve. They reported 1,200,000 individual nerve fibers. About 500 photo-micrographs of the nerve’s cross section were scanned. One doctor calls the section of the optic nerve carrying images from the middle of the retina the “busiest” part of the eye, having the most densely packed fibers.

Fire Threat

◆ University of California professor of forestry, Harold Biswell, warns that the hills east of San Francisco Bay may suddenly burst into one of the United States’ worst fire disasters. The area contains two million eucalyptus trees killed by a cold wave in December 1972. The trees’ bark, dead leaves and seed capsules burn even when wet. The trees have natural oils that, if ignited, burn furiously. Their trunks could turn into 200-foot torches and generate a hundred-mile-per-hour fire storm. Many persons could be killed. Compounding the problem is the fact that the trees’ wood gets very hard four months after death. It may take two or three changes of chain saw to cut one down. This makes it impractical to cut the trees for firewood, but they are good for pulp.

Crime Decreasing?

◆ Recently, certain government and police officials have claimed that crime is decreasing. However, The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial, commented about “cities where citizens, suffering from a siege mentality, are afraid to venture out even during the day.” It declared that “despite recent political oratory and beefed-up police forces, muggings, often brutal muggings, are everyday occurrences in large U.S. cities. And shootings of robbery victims are not all that unusual. The unhappy fact is that society has failed to convince criminals that crime does not pay. Indeed, several scholars . . . have come up with preliminary conclusions that much crime can be explained by the simple fact that crime does indeed pay. It pays because the average criminal no longer fears being punished even if he is caught. Overworked police forces, crowded court calendars, misplaced social concern and a penologist reaction against imprisonment on grounds that it fails to rehabilitate, have given criminals the edge​—and given society the short end of the stick.”

Pornography and Crime

◆ Sweden’s Premier Olof Palme has endorsed a campaign against pornography in his country. His government is losing money because pornographers evade taxes. And sexual vice has caused a sharp increase in violent crimes. Denmark, France, Great Britain, West Germany, Yugoslavia and Italy are cracking down on sex exploitation. Drug trafficking and crime are sweeping through every Western European nation at an alarming rate.

Crime Detection by Blood

◆ The blood of each person is so distinctive that it is now being used to identify lawbreakers. An officer at the laboratory in England where blood-detecting equipment is set up observed that it is “theoretically possible to reduce suspicion to one person on earth.” Bloodstains can be broken down from their major groups into subsystems, which, after careful analysis, can reveal the owner. Criminals who leave traces of their blood at the scene of a crime, as well as hit-and-run drivers with the blood of victims splattered on their cars, can be more easily apprehended. This technique is considered a big breakthrough in crime fighting.

Scientific Languages

◆ German was for a long time the language used in scientific communication. At the turn of the century it began to be replaced by English. German now is third. Russian is second.

Effect of College

◆ Some 25,000 students attending 217 U.S. colleges were sent questionnaires. Their answers revealed the effects of higher education on their thinking. College changed their behavior and self-concept. Most obvious were the changes in connection with increased drinking, smoking, irregular sleeping habits, political activity and a very notable drop in their commitment to religion.

Homosexuals Spread VD

◆ Venereal disease is soaring across Canada. In Hamilton and Wentworth counties in Ontario possibly one third of the infectious syphilis is spread by male homosexuals. A Toronto doctor in a VD testing program reported how quickly the disease spreads among promiscuous homosexuals: “Some of these men had seven or eight contacts in one night. There was some incredible promiscuity, and it wasn’t confined to people in one section of society. There were clergymen, accountants, lawyers, dentists, doctors, working men.”

Frozen Sperm Loses Fertility

◆ Storing frozen sperm for a long time can cause it to lose much of its fertility, according to two researchers at the University of Texas. The practice of freezing sperm was popularized by the increase in the number of men undergoing sterilization. Before being sterilized, many of these men had semen samples stored in a commercial sperm bank. Then if in the future they wanted children, their frozen sperm could be used to impregnate their wives by artificial insemination. This report reveals that there could be a loss of 50 to 60 percent of original motility (ability to move). Only motile sperm cells can reach the egg to fertilize it.