September 22

Page Two

Will life on earth be ended in a nuclear holocaust? That question is of increasing concern to informed persons. Pressure mounts for a freeze on nuclear weapons production, but the superpowers bicker over terms and fear increases. Will the madness stop? And if so, who will stop it and save the earth and life on it?

Will the World End In a Nuclear Holocaust? 3

The Way It Was At Hiroshima 4

Is There No Way to Avoid Nuclear War? 6

What Can Be Done to Save the Earth? 8

“He Created It Not In Vain” 9

Will the World End in a Nuclear Holocaust?

Will Earth Be Ruined in Nuclear War?

BY THIS year 1982 “nuclear powered” nations are said to have stockpiled at least 50,000 nuclear warheads. The combined power of these weapons would rival an explosion of 1,600,000 bombs of the kind the United States dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945.

A mere 300 superbombs out of that grisly arsenal, if dropped in a concerted assault on key population centers in the United States, could annihilate 60 percent of the population and turn vast areas into a wasteland. Americans suspect that 300 megabombs amount to no more than 3 percent of the Soviet arsenal. In turn, Americans are prepared to destroy the Russians in a similar manner.

Political leaders, while racing to stockpile armaments, keep warning solemnly that one day world powers will have to “meet at the conference table with the understanding that the era of armaments has ended, and the human race must conform its actions to this truth or die,” to quote President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. A quarter century later President Jimmy Carter, in his farewell address, echoed the fear that should there be any survivors from a nuclear holocaust, they “would live in despair amid the poisoned ruins of a civilization that had committed suicide.” Soviet leaders agree that nuclear war means “universal disaster.”

Albert Einstein was a “pure” scientist who sought knowledge for the sake of truth. That pursuit led him to figure out a formula to unlock the latent energy inside the atom: E=mc² (energy equals mass times the speed of light squared). In splitting an atom (fission) or combining atoms (fusion) there is a release of energy of horrendous proportions. How much energy? Well, the amount of fissionable mass expended in the destruction of Hiroshima amounted to about one gram​—one thirtieth of an ounce.

In 1950, two years before the testing of the first hydrogen, or thermonuclear, bomb, Einstein warned that “radioactive poisoning of the atmosphere and hence annihilation of any life on earth has been brought within the range of technical possibilities.”

World leaders agree that in 6,000 years of “civilization” there has been no precedent for this peril. Man has finally laid hold on a power that can bring about his own extinction. In an all-out interchange of nuclear bombs, all life could be ruined.

Planet Earth could die: In a millionth of a second whole cities are vaporized. Craters deeper than skyscrapers pockmark the point where a megaton bomb exploded in a ground blast. Day turns to night as mushroom clouds bulge into one another, covering a continent to pour down a “black rain” of lethal radiation. Fire storms envelop ruins. Charred shapes of dogs and horses and humans drape the rubble. If there are survivors, radiation kills them. If there still are survivors, they stagger in shock into a world void of every familiar thing​—food, clothing, light, power, sanitation, communication, medication, family, friends, police, government—​civilization.

Is there no way to head it off?

The Way It Was at Hiroshima

Will Earth Be Ruined in Nuclear War?

ON AUGUST 6, 1945, at 8:16 that morning, the people of Hiroshima were up and starting about their day. It was a warm, peaceful morning.

A fraction of a second later tens of thousands of people were charred, blasted and crushed to death. The center of a city of 340,000 inhabitants was simply flattened.

Victims not yet dead stirred in an unreal state. “I found myself lying on the ground covered with pieces of wood,” Mrs. Hanuko Ogasawara, a young girl at the time, recalls. “When I stood up in a frantic effort to look around, there was darkness. Terribly frightened, I thought I was alone in a world of death, and groped for any light. . . . Suddenly, I wondered what had happened to my mother and sister . . . When the darkness began to fade, I found that there was nothing around me. My house, the next door neighbor’s house, and the next had all vanished. . . . It was quiet, very quiet​—an eerie moment. I discovered my mother in a water tank. She had fainted. Crying out, ‘Mama, Mama,’ I shook her to bring her back to her senses. After coming to, my mother began to shout madly for my sister, ‘Eiko! Eiko!’”

Her cries were joined by others. These scenes, from a volume of recollections called Unforgettable Fire, include this account by Kikuna Segawa:

A woman who looked like an expectant mother was dead. At her side was a girl about three years of age who had brought some water in an empty can she had found. She was trying to let her mother drink from it.

Within half an hour, as some of the darkness lifted from the pall in the sky, the fire storm broke out. Professor Takenaka tried to rescue his wife from under a roof beam. The flames drove him back while she pleaded, “Run away, dear!” It was a scene multiplied endlessly as husbands and wives and children and friends and strangers had to abandon the dying in the fires.

An hour after the blast a “black rain” started to fall on the downwind portions of the city. The radioactive fallout kept sifting until late afternoon. The whole conflagration of fumes and fire was churned by a strange, violent whirlwind that lasted for hours. Ragged processions of the burned and injured began to emerge from the fire storm. A grocer is quoted by Robert Jay Lifton in his book Death in Life: “They held their arms bent . . . and their skin​—not only on their hands but on their faces and bodies too—​hung down. . . . Many of them died along the road. I can still picture them in my mind​—like walking ghosts. They didn’t look like people of this world.”

Some of them were vomiting​—an early symptom of radioactive sickness. Physical collapse accompanied emotional and spiritual collapse. People suffered and died, stupefied and listless, without uttering a sound. “Those who were able walked silently toward the suburbs in the distant hills, their spirits broken, their initiative gone,” wrote Dr. Nichikhito Hachiya in his Hiroshima Diary.

Within three months the number of dead from the Hiroshima bomb mounted to an estimated 130,000. But the final toll continues to drag on. Weeks after the bombing countless survivors began to break out with skin hemorrhages. These first signals, accompanied by vomiting and fever and thirst, might be followed by a deceptively hopeful period of remission. But sooner or later the radiation attacked the reproductive cells, especially the bone marrow. The final stages​—the loss of hair, diarrhea and bleeding from the intestines, mouth or other parts of the body—​brought death.

A wide range of illnesses developed from exposure to radiation. Reproductive processes were altered. Birth defects, cataracts, leukemia and other forms of cancer characterized the lot of those exposed to the Hiroshima bomb.

Yet it was only a minor one, this bomb. Its twelve and a half kilotons of kill power (equal to 12 1/2 thousand tons of TNT) is considered a mere tactical weapon today. By comparison a hydrogen bomb may yield as much as 1,600 times its power. What happened at Hiroshima is not even one millionth part of a holocaust at present levels of world nuclear preparedness! “The Hiroshima people’s experience,” wrote Jonathan Schell, “ . . . is a picture of what our whole world is always poised to become, a backdrop of scarcely imaginable horror lying just behind the surface of our normal life, and capable of breaking through into that normal life at any second.”​—The New Yorker, February 1, 1982.

Is this the way the world will end?

[Blurb on page 5]

Within three months the number of dead from the Hiroshima bomb mounted to an estimated 130,000. But the final toll continues to drag on

Is There No Way to Avoid Nuclear War?

Will Earth Be Ruined in Nuclear War?

WHAT is set down here is not doomsday talk by some fundamentalist religious sect. It is the sober conclusions of men who have spent years compiling authoritative studies and governmental reports on the catastrophic effects of nuclear war on all life on earth.

To recall Hiroshima as a backdrop against which to magnify in quantum terms the global concussion of 1,000 megaton bombs falling on nations​—that is what is meant by a nuclear holocaust.

It is so shocking, so benumbing to the senses, that most people try to block it out of mind, to pretend the peril is not there, to live on in an ‘eat, drink, for tomorrow we die’ state of make-believe. They become insensitive to ordinary disasters. There seems to be no turning back. It is as though some superhuman force drives man toward self-destruction.

Scientists can cling to no glimmer of doubt that man has laid hold on the power to self-destruct. But with humankind would go the animal life and the fowl life. The most likely survivors might be some forms of insects that would then swarm in uncontrolled plagues to hasten their own demise. Vegetation, including plant crops, grains and vegetables, would be devastated. Trees first, grass last. Land erosion would feed minerals into waterways where overgrowths of algae and microscopic organisms would deplete the oxygen content and starve the surviving marine life. Along with all man-made things​—shelter, factories, utilities, governments—​the natural environment would be altered tremendously.

A full-scale holocaust would add up to more than its local parts. For instance, what if the seventy-six nuclear power plants in the United States were among the 10,000 targets the Russians were bombing? According to Scientific American, the vaporizing of a single gigawatt (gigas means “giant”) atomic energy plant would add a species of long-lived radiation that would prevent habitation over a vast area of land for decades. It would become part of the fallout ascending into the stratosphere to circulate around the earth until after months and years it falls to contaminate the whole surface of the globe. Long before this, the immediate radiation would have poisoned land, air and sea, and penetrated tissues, bones, roots, stems and leaves of living things.

From ground bursts there would emerge lofting clouds of dust into the stratosphere to becloud the planet and possibly cool the earth’s surface. At the same time a related casualty could be the layer of ozone that envelops the earth and filters lethal levels of ultraviolet radiation from the sunlight. The National Academy of Sciences in 1975 estimated that a detonating of 10,000 megatons of nuclear bombs in the northern hemisphere would deplete 70 percent of the ozone layer here, and as much as 40 percent in the southern hemisphere. “If it were not for the absorption of much of the solar ultraviolet radiation by the ozone,” the US Department of Defense and the Energy Research and Development Administration jointly concluded, “life as currently known could not exist except possibly in the ocean.”

Living organisms and their nonliving surroundings, scientists are realizing, have a strong interdependence on one another. While soil, water and air have been the environment for life, it appears that life has been the environment for soil, water and air. Dr. Michael McElroy, a physicist at Harvard’s Center for Earth and Planetary Physics, believes that the life processes of birth, metabolism and decay are chiefly responsible for keeping the balance of such important atmospheric elements as oxygen, carbon and nitrogen, even the amount of ozone in the stratosphere.

So the very “metabolism” of the earth depends on the quality of life upon it.

The ecosphere is a global system in which a whole constellation of species form a balanced, self-reproducing whole. The ecosphere of planet Earth is carefully regulated. It is balanced and self-perpetuating. The one disturbing influence in its midst is man. At present he is decimating life forms off it on an average of three species a day. He will pollute or disrupt any fraction of it for greedy gain. But now he threatens not a fraction but all of it.

He can utterly ruin the earth.

[Box on page 6]

NO END OF WAYS TO DIE

● Incineration by the fireball or thermal pulse

● Perish in the initial radiation

● Crushed or hurled to death by the blast wave or its debris

● Lethal radiation by the local fallout

● Perish in an epidemic

● Ultraviolet ray poisoning from the sun after the ozone layer is depleted

● Delayed radiation poisoning [End Box]

[Picture on page 7]

Helpless victims of man’s greed

What Can Be Done to Save the Earth?

Will Earth Be Ruined in Nuclear War?

THE enormity of the peril should be driving men to dismantle their nuclear arms. What, then, drives them on in an opposite course? Do you hope and trust that world leaders will yet sit down in council and outlaw nuclear arms?

What prospects are there that they will ever do such a thing? When in history did men ever outlaw the more horrifying weapons of war? Permanently? This generation learned how to split and fuse the atom. Can man any sooner outlaw this knowledge from himself than he can disarm matter? Can he keep such knowledge from the next generation?

The sons of Adam have reached out, like their father, to take to themselves the determination of what shall be good, what shall be bad. The knowledge of how to split the atom spreads. It crosses boundaries, dividing society into hostile factions, boundaries involving sovereignties. What then?

In all-out nuclear warfare there simply is no place to hide. Shelters are futile. To evacuate is to flee from one mushroom cloud to another. The two nuclear superpowers suspect that nuclear missiles, cocked and aimed on submarines, can reach each other’s coastal targets within ten minutes. Intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from within each country can arrive fifteen or twenty minutes later. Long-range bombers can follow through in hours. Yet the earliest warning possible to be given either of the two populations will be fifteen minutes after missiles have been launched. That is five minutes after the bombs start falling.

Why do men accept the idea that to practice violence is innate in human nature? That is not how we were meant to be. “God made mankind upright, but they themselves have sought out many plans.”​—Ecclesiastes 7:29.

Does it appear to you that a force beyond what is human is driving men toward disaster? The Bible identifies such an influence.

That force emanates from an unseen spirit person. That is the same unseen one who engineered the rebellion in Eden. He is identified in Scripture as “the great dragon,” or devourer; “the original serpent,” or deceiver; the slanderer and adversary of God called “Devil and Satan.” And the Bible says he “is misleading the entire inhabited earth.”​—Revelation 12:9.

Believe it, Satan is no mere figure of speech, no allegory. He is a person. He is the grand master of liars. He is the original murderer. (John 8:44) He is joined by other rebel spirits, demons. They constitute “the world rulers of this darkness,” “the wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places.”​—Ephesians 6:12.

Have you wondered why agelong empires of oppressive political rule have dominated mankind? They are the workings of Satan, “the god of this system of things,” who “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers.” (2 Corinthians 4:4) These governmental systems are pictured in Scripture as beastly monstrosities. Demons, the Bible says, speak “unclean inspired expressions” through them.​—Revelation 16:13, 14, 16; Daniel 8:20-22; Revelation 13.

Satan has also established over the kingdoms of the earth a whorish paramour of false religion, “Babylon the Great.” She too “has become a dwelling place of demons.”​—Revelation 17:5, 18; 18:2.

At the time of the end of the world great woe is caused to mankind, “because the Devil has come down to you, having great anger, knowing he has a short period of time.”​—Revelation 12:12.

Do you have a better explanation for the times we’re living in? If so, how will men bring a halt to this dead-set course of doom? Let’s say they appeared to break up this scenario in some momentary hiatus of “peace and security.” Would their proclaiming “peace and security” usher in tranquillity or destruction?​—1 Thessalonians 5:3.

If earth is to abide for the meek to inherit, then it must be rescued from ruin by help from outside​—outside any force operating in men or demons. No political parliament, no religious council, no school of philosophy, no science, no technology holds out a single ray of hope. These human forces too are deadly missiles, misguided, backfiring on the ones that launch them as well as blasting any hope of survival wherever they land.

To whom can we turn to save the earth? We will have to turn to the One who created it.

[Blurb on page 8]

Does it appear to you that a force beyond what is human is driving men toward disaster?

“He Created It Not in Vain”

Will Earth Be Ruined in Nuclear War?

ONE reason Jehovah’s Witnesses publish this journal is to assure its readers that the world is not going to end in a nuclear holocaust. Whether one or more nations may try out their nuclear bombs, we do not know. But a nuclear holocaust​—we do not look for that. That would ruin the earth. God’s work of creation would then be ruined. His Word tells us positively: “He created it not in vain.”​—Isaiah 45:18, Authorized Version.

We believe that the Son of God meant it when he declared that the meek shall inherit the earth.

We believe that the Father, God the Creator, formed it to be inhabited​—in righteousness.

Matthew 5:5 and Isaiah 45:18 state these assurances so emphatically that Jehovah’s Witnesses spent almost 1,000,000 hours every single day last year in personal calls on people in more than 200 lands, relieving the fears of millions of people with those Bible guarantees.

When thinking persons today realize how man has subdued the earth, they shudder. “Nature” is no longer an unquestioned master over man. Man now holds the destiny of life in his hand. Earth needs protection from man.

The present ruining of the earth is not the way man was meant to subdue it. To get man off to a perfect start, to demonstrate how man was to subdue it, “Jehovah God proceeded to take the man and settle him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to take care of it.”​—Genesis 2:15.

It is rewarding to look more closely at that marvelous beginning in paradise: First, “Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul.”​—Genesis 2:7.

There man stood before his Creator, physiologically adult and mature but lacking in experience and education. God also made the woman, fully developed.

Here were the ultimate life forms on earth, divinely destined to carry out a grand purpose: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the domestic animals and all the earth and every moving animal that is moving upon the earth.”​—Genesis 1:26.

Logically, education began with Lesson Number One: ‘The way of life depends on responding to what I teach you. I have made everything for a purpose and according to fixed principles. Everything you need to know I will teach you. Do not determine within yourselves to direct your course. The way that may seem right in your own determination leads to death.’ (Psalm 36:9; Jeremiah 10:23; Proverbs 3:5, 6) The whole tenor of the Bible bears out that this was the essence of what the man and woman should have discerned from the simple mandate: “As for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.”​—Genesis 2:17.

No matter how many billions of years the earth might have whirled in space; no matter how many aeons of time God spent in preparing its life processes, the time came when he turned over its keeping to man. He knew this sentient creature of thought and will was capable, sooner or later, of attaining the ultimate power over the earthly creation. But now man has laid hold on such a power with destructive intent.

If you were earth’s creator, what would you do? Would you abandon it to a world of men who imagine that one form of political sovereignty is more important than the well-being of God’s handiwork?

The decision to drop atom bombs does not have to be made by the deliberate and determinate council of well-meaning men. It can be started by a deranged dictator. Or a handful of terrorists. Or even by accident. Three times in recent years American forces have been alerted to an attack threat. Twice it happened because of a faulty chip in a computer. Once somebody mistakenly inserted a test tape depicting a missile attack into the sound system​—it scared the North American Air Defense Command into thinking it was for real!

Yes, if you were earth’s creator would you abandon it to caretakers who hang its fate on blind, precarious, frivolous chance?

Men and nations stand guilty before earth’s Owner. They willfully and with violent intent hang the peril of nuclear destruction over the planet. Not one of them is freed of guilt by claiming intent to drop nuclear bombs only in ‘defensive retaliation.’ “It is another nonsensical feature of the nuclear predicament that while each side regards the population of the other side as the innocent victims of unjust government,” observed magazine writer Jonathan Schell, “each proposes to punish the other government by annihilating that already suffering and oppressed population.”​—The New Yorker, February 8, 1982.

God will not allow earth’s ruination. He will interfere. He will do so even though that angers every nation on the planet: “The nations became wrathful, and your own wrath came, and the appointed time . . . to bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”​—Revelation 11:18.

You may hear some scoff at the application of Revelation prophecies to modern times. Well, let them challenge the application. Let them put matters to the test. But just as men cannot survive an all-out nuclear war touched off by themselves, neither can they survive “the war of the great day of God the Almighty.”​—Revelation 16:13, 14, 16.

That war rids the earth forever of beastly political systems along with “the kings of the earth and their armies.” When it is over even Satan the Devil will be abyssed. It is a discriminate war. It preserves the meek of the earth. They inherit a cleansed earth, not a polluted, irradiated cinder of an earth. Yes, an earth to beautify under a righteous new order ruled from heaven.​—Revelation 19:19–20:3; 7:9, 10, 13-17.

Why are Jehovah’s Witnesses confident that the earth will not be ruined by a nuclear holocaust, or by any other means at man’s disposal? Because, even though Adam’s children have on the whole subdued the earth in a disapproved way, there are those who are meek and teachable and amenable to the Creator’s way. They are willing to carry out his purpose to inhabit the earth and take care of it in the way he purposed.​—Psalm 37:34.

[Blurb on page 10]

We believe that the Son of God meant it when he declared that the meek shall inherit the earth

[Blurb on page 11]

The present ruining of the earth is not the way man was meant to subdue it

Su-Lin, the First Live Panda in America

As told by Quentin Young

I caught the first live panda that was seen in the Western world. After that I found something of far greater value

‘SOMEDAY,’ I thought, ‘I will do something like that, or even better than that.’ My brother had just returned from a giant panda hunt into the interior of China. He joined an expedition led by President Theodore Roosevelt’s two sons, Theodore, Jr., and Kermit. I was fourteen years old at the time and in high school in China​—my brother and I are of Chinese descent, but he was born in the United States. Later, when I was twenty years old and in college in Shanghai, my brother came again to China. “I’m going into Tibet to do some hunting,” he said. “Do you want to come with me?” Did I! This was in 1934.

Because of his having been with the Roosevelt expedition, he was now able to organize his own expedition to collect rare animals for zoos and museums. The expedition was very successful. In 1935 we went on another expedition and collected many live animals and tried to shoot a giant panda, without success.

My already fulfilled boyhood dream to “do something like that, or even better than that” was to have an even greater fulfillment: A first in specimen collecting!

The key to its accomplishment was the arrival in China of Mrs. Ruth Harkness. She was a fashion designer from New York City and had been the wife of a well-known animal collector. He was the first person to bring back the giant Komodo dragon from Dutch East Indies in the South Pacific. (Dutch East Indies is now called Indonesia.) And he was confident that he would be the first to bring back the first live giant panda from China to the Western world. Instead, he caught a disease in China and died there.

Now his widow, Ruth Harkness, arrived in China to finish what her husband started​—to bring a live panda back to the Western world. Everyone ridiculed her. “You can’t go. You don’t know where the pandas are. Others have tried to bring out a live panda; none of them succeeded. What makes you think you can? Lady, you’re crazy!”

But she was determined. She talked to the United States consulate. They told her, “If you want to go to the panda country you’d better look for the Young brothers.”

The next day I met with Ruth Harkness. We talked, we came to an agreement, and we began our preparations. I’d met her in the beginning of September 1936, and we left on the 26th of that month.

So we started on our trip up the Yangtze. We changed boats several times, from the 2,000- to 3,000-ton riverboat at the start to a 150-ton flat-bottom boat, and finally we even used rafts. At times, about 1,000 miles inland, coolies on the banks pulled the boat. The most spectacular part of the river trip was the famous gorges of the Yangtze. Cliffs rise straight up for over 1,000 feet.a

At Chungking we leave the Yangtze and go by car to Chengtu. But from there to Kwanhsien everyone walks except Ruth. I insisted that she ride in a sedan chair, called a wha-gar, carried by coolies. Kwanhsien is the last outpost. From there we start climbing. We no longer have the carriers. Everyone walks. Two days north to Wenchuan​—the last place to get food—​then a turn west into panda country.

The second day out from Wenchuan we came to Tsaopo, a small village reached only by a very difficult foot trail. Yet what is so phenomenal about these tiny villages tucked away in the mountains is that you find a junior high school and elementary schools. Some of the villagers of Tsaopo even claimed that pandas sometimes walk right into the classrooms!

We established our field headquarters in Tsaopo, in an old castle. From Tsaopo, another day’s trip farther west, I set up our base camp and set some panda traps. I left Ruth there and moved farther in and higher up, to what I called Camp 2, my camp, and set more traps. Ruth and I communicated by runners between the two camps.

But Ruth wanted more excitement. She wanted to visit my camp. It wasn’t a good place for her, but she insisted, and I went down to get her. It’s a good thing I did​—she would have missed The Big Moment of the trip if I hadn’t!

The hunters were going ahead of us because it was a very difficult trail and Ruth couldn’t keep up. I was behind helping her, pushing her up. I had given orders not to shoot any pandas. First thing is to catch one alive. Only after that do we start hunting for a panda to present to the Chinese government. However, this eighty-two-year-old hunter up ahead of us saw a panda and got excited. He started shooting. A panda was wounded. It was a she. She ran away, with the hunters after her.

I came into an opening of the forest and heard whimperings, like a little puppy. I followed the source to a big hollow tree. And there, on a bed of bamboo leaves, I found it. A BABY PANDA! It was the wounded panda’s den, and the baby she had left behind. I’d never thought of catching a baby. As I picked it up I thought, ‘What’s it good for? Only a pound or so. So young its eyes aren’t open yet and its black markings are still not quite distinguishable. We have no way to feed it. It won’t live!’

Ruth Harkness came up, puffing hard, and wanted to know what the shooting was about. “Did they kill a panda?” I didn’t answer, only held out in my cupped hands the tiny ball of fur. “Here’s what you came to China for.”

She couldn’t absorb it at first. Finally, hesitantly, unbelievingly, “A baby panda?” She was breathless. She took it from me, cuddling it, cooing softly to it: “Oh, Baby, Baby.” She held it close. She was so happy. But I thought it was silly. The way she held it, the way she talked to it. “What’s it good for?” I demanded. “It’s gonna die. It’s of no use. Let’s go!”

I wanted to find out about the mother panda that had been wounded. But Ruth was totally preoccupied with the little one. “Oh, forget about that,” she said. “Let’s go back to camp.” And off she started down the trail. I could only follow, with the little panda inside my shirt.

Back at base camp she rummaged through her things, and finally pulled out a bottle with a nipple on it. I was dumbfounded. I didn’t know she had brought along that! But Ruth had heard me talking to someone back in Shanghai about the problem of transporting a 300-poundb giant panda out of the interior of China, so she came prepared to care for a baby. She mixed the milk, put it into the bottle, snapped on the nipple, poked it into the baby’s mouth and it drank, greedily!

It was a dramatic moment, high up in those mountains near the Tibetan border. A historic moment, as it turned out. Ruth cuddled the baby and watched it feed. She named it Su-Lin, “auspicious and elegant.” That’s what Su-Lin means.

Shortly thereafter Ruth Harkness and Su-Lin started on their journey to the United States. They arrived in December 1936. Su-Lin was an immediate celebrity. Everywhere she went cameras flashed, reporters wrote stories, broadcasters were busy spreading her fame. Her picture graced the packages of Quaker Oats. Su-Lin, the first live giant panda ever to come into the Western world.

Unfortunately, her stay was not a long one. She remained with Ruth for several months before being presented to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. But, alas, she died at the age of one and a half years. Rather sadly, she may now be seen at the Field Museum there in Chicago, stuffed.

The following year, 1937, Ruth returned to China and I went with her again to catch another live panda. Su-Lin was still living then, and Ruth wanted a mate for her. I did get a second one​—this one weighed forty pounds. It was named Diana, after the girl who later became my first wife. Later Ruth renamed the baby panda Mei Mei.

Years pass. War with Japan. I join the Chinese army, move my family to Indonesia and am jailed by the Japanese. After the Japanese surrender I reorganize the Overseas-Chinese in Indonesia and work at the Chinese consulate. But when Indonesia recognizes Communist China in 1949, we have to close down the consulate. I join the Nationalist Party and lead an Overseas-Chinese branch there and keep them loyal to Nationalist China. Because of this service I am called back to the party headquarters in 1953, now in Taiwan. I am given special academic training, sent back to Indonesia, end up in jail once more in 1958 during their leftist regime.

Not long after I was released from prison my first wife died of cancer. I raised up my two children until both of them were married and established, and by this time I had married my second wife, Swan, a Chinese born in Indonesia. Together we returned to Taiwan. That was in 1968.

Well, after all my services, sacrifice and suffering for the cause, I thought I would have a good job in Taiwan. Instead, what I heard was, “You are getting old, we need young people.”

Swan wanted to go to church to pray. “All right,” I said. “I’ll take you to church. But I know how they are.” The Protestant movement had been strong in China. I’d been with the missionaries, had been an Anglican, a Baptist, a Lutheran​—I’d tried them all. I didn’t want any more of it.

The next day when we were to go, somebody knocked at our door. It was an English lady from the Taipei branch office of Jehovah’s Witnesses. She started speaking Chinese to my Chinese wife, who understood no Chinese​—only Indonesian, Dutch and English. So they talked in English. A Bible study was started in our home. When she started going to the Chinese-language meetings at the Kingdom Hall I had to go with her to translate for her.

Gradually I saw that this religion was different. They didn’t ask us for money. And even when it was raining hard, the lady came for the study. She came for a long time and never asked for anything. I was beginning to learn many things about the Bible. While my wife was studying, I got involved in a study of my own. It came about in an unusual way.

Jim Good, one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, was president of RCA Taiwan. He was in charge of more than seven thousand employees, president of the second-largest single foreign industry in Taiwan and naturally was well acquainted with many high government officials and ministers. His wife, Hazel, was also a Witness, and she wanted to learn Chinese. I was now working at RCA in the personnel department and editing their in-house publication. So I taught her Chinese. And she taught me what? The truths of the Bible.

I didn’t make it easy for her. I raised many difficult questions. If she couldn’t answer them she would say, “I’ll give you an answer when I come next time.” She answered all the tough questions. Some of them had to be strange ones for her. “Why doesn’t the Bible mention the Chinese?” “Why weren’t the Chinese the chosen people instead of the Jews?” “And why is the dragon so bad in Revelation?” To the Chinese it’s a sign of prosperity. Well, you can see that I made it tough for her.

After a year of studying, my wife was baptized. This was in 1970. Thereafter my aging brother, now retired from US armed forces, wanted us to come to the United States to spend our remaining years with him. I was baptized there in 1974. Differences in belief made it difficult for us to live with my brother. My wife and I moved to southern California, and we are now happily associated with a congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses there.

When I was fourteen years of age and in high school, and my brother had been on his expedition with the Roosevelt brothers, I had thought, ‘Someday I will do something like that, or even better than that.’ I’m glad that I fulfilled that boyhood hope. But I rejoice far more now in another hope: The hope of living forever in a paradise earth, caring for all its plants and animals, and living with people who show love for one another and who are united in their worship of Jehovah God, the Creator of heaven and earth.

I pray that by Jehovah’s undeserved kindness I will also realize this most marvelous hope of all!

[Footnotes]

[Blurb on page 13]

“Others have tried to bring out a live panda; none of them succeeded. What makes you think you can?”

[Blurb on page 14]

I didn’t answer, only held out in my cupped hands the tiny ball of fur. “Here’s what you came to China for”

[Blurb on page 15]

Instead, what I heard was, “You are getting old, we need young people”

[Blurb on page 16]

I raised many difficult questions. “Why weren’t the Chinese the chosen people instead of the Jews?” “And why is the dragon so bad in Revelation?” To the Chinese it’s a sign of prosperity

[Maps on page 13]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

Chengtu

Kwanhsien

Wenchuan

Weiku

Mowchow

Lifanting

Scout Camp No.1

Tsapai

Valley of Tsaopo-go

Quentin’s Camp

Base Camp

[Map]

China

Shanghai

Nanking

Yangtze

Hankow

Kingchow

Ichang

Yangtze

Wanksien

Chungking

Chengtu

Mowchow

[Picture on page 14]

Su-Lin in China

[Picture on page 15]

At the zoo in Chicago

Young People Ask . . .

Should I Be Afraid of What Others Think?

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IN THE FOLLOWING SITUATIONS?

● One of your friends smokes and he offers you a cigarette in front of your other friends. You feel it is wrong to smoke. They are all waiting to see what you will do.

● Some of your schoolmates begin to talk about making love with their boyfriends. You want to stay morally chaste. One of these girls says to you: “I know just the boy for you. In fact, he’s been wanting to meet you. Come over to my home after school today, he’ll be there. My parents are gone so you can be alone.”

● You are in a car with four other boys. One pulls out a bottle of little red pills, pops one into his mouth and hands it to the fellow next to him. This one laughs, takes a pill and passes the bottle to the next boy. All four have taken the pills and you are the last one to be handed the bottle. You hesitate, and one shouts, “Come on, sissy. What’s the matter, you scared?”

● The kids tease you about being friendly with a new girl in school because she’s from the “wrong side of town.” They all seem to be giving you the silent treatment whenever you are around the new girl.

PERHAPS you have been faced with similar group pressure. You may say, “I’m not afraid of what others think,” but situations like these make it extremely difficult not to give in to the thinking or action of your peer group.

No one likes to be made fun of for being different. Being different and being ridiculed because of it is worse than death to some young persons. For instance, one fourteen-year-old boy committed suicide and left this note: “I love you, father, but I just can’t go on through life. I can’t take the ridicule . . . at school.” How sad! But it illustrates the power of ridicule and the inner pain it brings. Have you ever been distressed because of what your peers would think? Have you compromised your own standards because of such pressure? Maybe you feel caught in the middle between your parents and your peers.

By now you must realize: You cannot please everyone. If you are afraid to say “no” to your peers you end up saying “no” to someone else. It may be to yourself​—to your own standards—​or to your parents. So the questions you have to answer are: To whom will I say “no”? Whose opinion and feelings should I view as more important? In other words, you have to set some priorities. To do this requires . . .

“Thinking Ability”

Many young persons let others do their thinking for them. Rather than deciding for themselves the best course, they follow the crowd. For instance, fifteen-year-old Robin admitted that she started smoking because everyone else did. But she added, “Later on I began to think, ‘I don’t like it. Why am I doing it?’ So I don’t anymore.” By doing her own thinking she developed the courage to stand up to her peers. Of course, some young persons have doubts about their own thinking ability. You may even feel somewhat unsure as to what are the proper standards.

A source of help is the Bible book of Proverbs. It can “give to the inexperienced ones shrewdness, to a young man knowledge and thinking ability.” Anyone who heeds its advice will acquire “skillful direction” in his life. How?​—Proverbs 1:1-5.

Well, for one thing the inspired advice in Proverbs can help you to make your own decisions. You will not have to lean on your peers for directions. It can help you to recognize whose opinion you should be concerned about, for it will show you what principles are right and worth standing up for. Here is some practical advice from the book of Proverbs:

“The wise one fears and is turning away from badness, but the stupid is becoming furious and self-confident.” (Proverbs 14:16) The wise person with thinking ability does not become “self-confident” and ignore every opinion. He or she does not say, ‘No one tells me what to do!’ “Listen to counsel and accept discipline, in order that you may become wise in your future.” (Proverbs 19:20) Yes, heeding the advice of those who give you the “counsel of Jehovah” as found in the Bible will be in your best interests. But reason on the counsel. Try to see the basis for it and thereby make it a part of your own thinking.​—Proverbs 19:21.

Thinking ability, according to Proverbs 2:11-19, will safeguard you from doing the wrong thing and will keep you away from people who stir up trouble or who are immoral. But when your peers see that you will do your own thinking and stand up for right principles, expect some problems. Why?

Hated Because of Thinking Ability

“The man [or, woman] of thinking abilities is hated.” (Proverbs 14:17) A young person who exercises his thinking faculties and refuses to conform to improper peer pressure is often disliked and ridiculed. But should such ridicule really bother you? Should it make you feel worthless?

Think: Who has more strength, those who have no control over their passions and emotions or those who can say “no” to improper desires? (Compare Proverbs 16:32.) Where are such ridiculers headed in life? Is that where you want your life to end up also? Could it be that such ones are jealous of your ability to have accurate knowledge and thinking ability? “The ridiculer has sought to find wisdom, and there is none; but to the understanding one [with thinking ability] knowledge is an easy thing.” (Proverbs 14:6) Do they envy you and cover up their own insecurity by ridicule?

Flee From the Subtle Snare

“Trembling at men is what lays a snare, but he that is trusting in Jehovah will be protected.” (Proverbs 29:25) In Bible times a snare could be a baited trap that would quickly snap closed on an unsuspecting animal that grabbed the bait. Do not let the bait of wanting to be accepted cause you to walk into a trap or snare and violate your own good standards. You can avoid the snare of the fear of men. Other youths have done it.

For example, Debbie had been a follower of the crowd for some time. When she was eighteen she engaged in wild, unrestrained conduct, including heavy drinking and drug abuse. But then Debbie began a serious study of the Bible with the help of Jehovah’s Witnesses. She began to learn to trust in Jehovah by developing a relationship with him. What she learned affected her thinking.

“I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to do the same things as that little group of kids,” said Debbie. This eighteen-year-old told her peer group: “You go your way and I’ll go mine. If you want my friendship you will have to respect the same standards I do. I’m sorry but I just don’t care what you think. This is what I’m going to do.”

She found that some in the group began to respect her even more, especially one young girl who inquired about Debbie’s religious convictions and even came to her for advice. “Even though not all responded,” said Debbie, “I sure liked myself better after I made my decision.”

What about you? Would you find that your self-esteem would improve by your developing thinking ability and firmly resisting the fear of men? Why not ask one of Jehovah’s Witnesses for help?

[Picture on page 18]

Being attracted by the bait of wanting to be accepted, you can walk into a trap and violate your own good standards

[Picture on page 19]

As a bird escapes from a trap, so you can avoid being ensnared by fear of men

“According to Your Faith”

1 Samuel 14:1-23

The nation of Israel was under Philistine domination. King Saul raised an army to free Israel, but the Philistines prevailed and the Israelites took cover. At this point Jonathan, Saul’s son, said to his armor-bearer, ‘Let us cross over to the outpost of the Philistines. Perhaps Jehovah will work for us.’

‘We will show ourselves. If they say, “Come up against us!” we will, for that will be a sign that Jehovah is with us.’

They came out into the open, and the Philistines cried out, ‘The Hebrews are coming out of their holes!’ They shouted down to Jonathan and his armor-bearer, “Come on up to us, and we will let you know a thing!” It was the sign from Jehovah! “Come up after me,” Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, “because Jehovah will certainly give them into the hand of Israel.”

The two began to climb up to the Philistine outpost.

Heavily outnumbered, Jonathan and his armor-bearer stood back to back and fought the Philistines, until twenty of them lay scattered about, dead. At the crucial moment, Jehovah did ‘work for them.’

Earthquake! Confusion! In the turmoil Philistine fought Philistine.

Israel poured out of their hiding places to join in the battle, and their enemies were routed.

LESSON FOR US: Ponder the words, “Perhaps Jehovah will work for us.” Faith that he would moved Jonathan to act. Jehovah did work. Israel came out of hiding, the Philistines were routed, and “Jehovah proceeded on that day to save Israel.” (1 Samuel 14:23) All because of Jonathan’s faith. Today Christians do not engage in carnal warfare as Jehovah’s servants did in ancient times. We do, however, need his backing in our present Christian activities, and when we move forward in faith we give God cause to work for us. Jesus says, “According to your faith let it happen to you.” (Matthew 9:29) Jehovah invites, “Test me out, please.” (Malachi 3:10) So let’s be like Jonathan and act according to our strong faith. “Perhaps Jehovah will work for us” also.

Are We Losing the Art of Learning?

Can you read? And write? And calculate figures? If you can, you can do what one person in five CANNOT do.

Worldwide, one in three adults cannot read the simple words on this page in any language. But that may not be the worst of it. Younger groups in many societies are forming a growing percentage of illiterates. In 1977 Joe Fobes, deputy director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), estimated that, if the present trend continues, by 1985 the number of children six to twelve years old who do not go to school in Third World countries will reach about 134 million.

Even in countries where more young people are going to school they seem to be learning less. In the United States parents have been known to sue school systems for graduating students who cannot read or fill out an ordinary job application form.

What Is Happening to Education?

In trying to account for what is happening to teaching and learning, the magazine U.S. News & World Report reviewed two decades of experimentation, during which billions of dollars were poured into improving one of the world’s biggest educational systems, that of the United States. Old-fashioned methods of teaching reading, writing and arithmetic were largely abandoned in favor of “picture word” methods of learning. “New math” replaced the multiplication tables.

In classrooms at Westport, Connecticut, students read Mad Magazine, listened to Beatles records and watched television. They made up their own courses: “Vampires Unlimited,” a study of horror stories meant to terrorize; “Whittle Your Way to a Bikini,” a dieting course; and a host of way-out subjects that only unguided teenagers could dream up.

What was produced from this sort of “advanced” education? In a generation of twenty-six- to thirty-five-year-olds many are so uneducated they cannot compare prices in a grocery store, decipher a recipe in a cookbook or balance their checking account.

Stung by criticisms, some schools and colleges have begun to discard “innovations” and swing back toward traditional goals and techniques. Educators are caught in a “chaotic swirl of pressures and trends” in a “tormented field where armies of theorists clash.”

But part of the crop of illiterates produced are some of the teachers themselves. It is estimated that one in five teachers has not mastered the basic skills in reading, writing and arithmetic well enough to teach. According to Reader’s Digest, a teacher given A’s and B’s at Portland State University in Oregon was too illiterate to teach kindergarten.

With forty-two million pupils enrolled in public schools, where one in twenty teachers is assaulted by students, in an environment of racial strife, parental indifference, broken marriages, is it any wonder so many students turn to drunkenness, drugs, violence and crime?

If you are a student, do you wonder if the prospects of getting an education are lost to you? They need not be. Consider these questions: Do you look upon school as business, not recreation? Do you appreciate that to learn well, school cannot be all fun? Will you be able to master at least one earning skill before you leave school? Has it been impressed upon you that the basics in education include reading (through phonetic drills), mathematics (without total dependence on a pocket calculator), history, geography, spelling, penmanship, composition, character, citizenship, courtesy and good manners? Do you appreciate that education that begins in school should continue on as a lifelong process beyond the classroom and the grades?

To the extent that you answer Yes to questions like these, to that extent your prospects of getting a valuable education are not altogether lost. What counts most is your own attitude, determination and goals.

Begin Teaching Your Baby to Read

The writer of this article is a professional teacher of many years’ experience, in both public schools and private instruction.

AS YOUR eyes scan these words you are employing a skill that is the very foundation of education: the ability to read. Through the use of this basic skill, the gathering of thoughts from the printed page, you are able to learn of events of the distant past, the present, and, as if from a blueprint, the future. Ask yourself, “What would life be like had I never learned to read?”

And yet research tells us of large numbers of high school and college students who are unable to read at a level essential to success in their assignments. It follows, then, that a skill so basic in our lives should be mastered as early in life as possible. It follows, furthermore, that teaching our own young children to read should be of prime importance.

Many parents have the mistaken idea that a child’s education begins when he enters kindergarten or the first grade. The fact is, from the moment of birth that little computerlike brain is switched to ON, just waiting to have information fed into it to be stored for later use. So begin “programming” at birth. Discard the mistaken idea that only ‘certified personnel’ can teach someone to read. Extensive research has shown that how well a child performs on tasks, such as learning to talk and learning to read, is “thought to be closely related to the nature of the child’s early interaction with his parents, the amount of responsiveness they show to the infant, and their ability to encourage him to independent exploration.” (New York Times, Education Section, page 6, January 10, 1982)

The parents, therefore, must appreciate the role that they play in helping the young child to master the reading skill that will help to prevent many frustrating problems in school later on. By beginning with simple procedures and making them a routine part of a young child’s life, he will be learning to master the skills that will enable him to read before he enters school.

Therefore, the ideal situation is to begin as early as possible. Begin at birth by constantly talking to your baby. Remember, he is trying to learn a “foreign language” and will need all the help you can give. Your endearing comments and all vocal communication will not only assure him of your love but also constantly expose him to that foreign language he is so desperately trying to learn.

At first his learning process will be chiefly from oral sounds. As he becomes aware of things around him, visual aids will play an important part. Your selection of toys will be an aid, since his interest span will be longer if he is being entertained. In the early months bright objects will capture his attention. The shape of the toy will matter little to him, whether it is the shape of an animal or a letter of the alphabet. It will be the fact that he is being entertained that matters, so why not acquaint him early with the tools he will need for reading while he is being entertained by them?

Start with one or two bright-colored letters of the alphabet. These are available in many stores as teething toys. Use these just as other toys, but with perhaps a little more emphasis, referring to them by name. As he grows, add to them.

By the time he is toddling he will be able to identify many of the letters even though he may be unable to talk. He has been exposed to them for a year through his senses. He saw them, he heard you repeatedly call them by name, he played with them and he chewed on them. Soon he will be ready to start using these tools that are now familiar toys.

After the child knows all the letters of the alphabet, the next step is to present the letters in the order that they will appear in print in the child’s language. Since English is read from left to right, it will be necessary to orient the child to this. When reading to him, be aware of this by frequently pointing to words as you read so that his eye movement is in a left-to-right direction. When he is able to talk, place a few letters in sequence and have him name them in a left-to-right order. Show pictures of objects moving in a left-to-right direction on the page. These should be simple and obvious . . . a dog walking toward his food to the right, a boy ready to kick a football toward the right.

When complete letter recognition and left-to-right order have been mastered begin to build familiar words. A good beginning is his name. You might use a picture of a child calling his friend out to play. The picture is obvious. The child outside has his hands cupped to his mouth, looking up at the house, and even a small child understands that he is calling someone. You may tell your child that since we can’t hear what he is saying it is necessary to use letters to tell us what sound he is making.

“These are the letters we would use if he were calling your name.” Then spell out the letters of his name and talk about it. Work with that word only, until he is able to identify that particular combination of letters with his name and can recognize his name when he sees it. Be patient! Let him progress at his level. Make a game of it and remember always to commend him for his endeavors. At this point you are simply trying to instill the idea that printed letters equal sounds spoken (letters = sounds).

When he is able to recognize his name on sight, then gradually add other words. For example: On a file card print in large capital letters the word CHAIR. Put this card on a chair and explain: “These letters give us the sound CHAIR.” Talk about the letters that form the word and allow him to name each letter in the left-to-right order. Leave it on the chair for several days. Gradually add other cards to familiar objects.

Keep in mind that he is not reading at this point but simply learning that printed letters represent sounds to be spoken. When several words have been introduced, make a game of seeing how many of the cards he can place with the correct object. When he is able to accomplish this, he will have mastered . . .

The First Three Steps:

1. Recognize and name each letter of the alphabet.

2. Call letters by name in left-to-right order.

3. Understand that printed letters represent sounds spoken.

He is now ready to be introduced to the small or lowercase letters. Many alphabet books illustrate this with adult animals and their babies, and this will be a useful aid. It may be mentioned also that a simple booklet on manuscript printing will be very helpful for the parents, so that they will be printing the letters as the child will be seeing them in school. Do not attempt to teach the child to print the letters at this point. Remember, your goal is to teach him to read. Do not burden him with an even more difficult task at the same time. He will naturally be attempting to write, just as he sees you doing it, and he may need a little guidance from time to time, but do not make a project of his writing. That will come later.

“My Book of Bible Stories”

No age limit can be set for the steps presented, but achievement will depend upon the amount of time and effort expended. It is assumed that by now the child has been exposed to much educational material, has been read to extensively, has picture books of his own, and is familiar with many of the nursery rhymes. Also, My Book of Bible Stories,a with its many pictures, has been found by many parents to be invaluable. All of this will be helpful as he now begins his mastery of the printed page.

His first lesson is with rhyming words. Review nursery rhymes that he knows and let him supply the rhyming words. For example:

Little Bo-Peep has lost her ‐‐‐‐‐‐.

Jack and Jill went up the ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐.

Little Jack Horner sat in the ‐‐‐‐.

Help him to understand that rhyming words are words that have endings that sound alike but begin with a different sound. Play a game with him, giving him a word and letting him try to supply a rhyming word, for example, CAT​—HAT. You may have to give several examples before he understands the rhyming pattern. Print the word CAN on a card and have the child name each letter. Tell him: “We have named the letters, now let’s read the word. The word is CAN. Now you read it to me​—CAN.”

When he understands that the combination of letters makes the sound CAN, then print another rhyming word on the card​—FAN—​and go through the same procedure. Point out the similarity in appearance and sound except for the first letter. Help him to distinguish between the two. Use the term READ often. “Read this word” (point to CAN). “Now read this word” (point to FAN). “Now I will read a word and you point to the one I read.” These lessons should not be very long as they now demand a severe intellectual effort on his part. However, now that he thinks in terms of reading, keep the program going on a daily basis if possible.

In the second lesson, review the two words CAN, FAN and add two more of the same group (man, pan, ran, etc.). Do not add words until he is able to read with ease each of the ones already introduced. This will take several sessions, but this basic presentation is essential for a good foundation. This method is effective because of its simplicity. The child is familiar with rhyme, and he has to watch only the beginning consonant for change of sound. Refer to these words as having the “AN” sound, and work only with this sound group until he can read any word in the “AN” group singly or in a sentence. For example: A MAN CAN FAN. DAN RAN. Do not extend the lesson beyond the child’s interest span. If it becomes a chore to him, he will quickly lose interest in learning to read.

When he has thoroughly mastered the words in the AN sound, proceed to the three-letter group using the AT sound (cat, rat, fat, sat, etc.). Follow the same procedure as with the previous group, but constantly review the AN group. Present the two groups in pairs for new sounds:

BAT CAT FAT MAT PAT RAT

BAN CAN FAN MAN PAN RAN

Have him read them across for ending sounds that are the same, read them down for same beginning sounds. Next, form short sentences, using words from both groups. Have him watch for words from both groups.

A TAN CAT RAN AT A FAT MAN.

At first, he will read each word for sound, without giving thought to the idea presented. Have him read it several times and then ask him:

“What did that sentence say?”

“Do you think the tan cat will catch the fat man?”

“Will the fat man run at the cat?”

“Is this a game they are playing?”

This helps him to realize that printed words express ideas, and that learning to read has potential pleasure. Remember always to commend him for his efforts, regardless of his rate of progress.

A large notebook would be useful, putting each sound group on a separate page. This will also be an aid in reviewing. A sample of page 1 and page 2:

AN

can Dan fan man Nan pan ran tan van

a can a fan a man a pan

Dan ran. A man ran. A tan van.

Nan can fan.

Can a man fan?

A man ran a tan van.

AT

bat cat fat hat mat pat rat sat

a bat a hat a mat

a fat rat a fat cat

a cat sat at a mat.

(Introduce AT and AN sounds)

bat cat fat mat pat rat

ban can fan man pan ran

a fat cat ran.

a tan rat sat at a van.

a tan cat ran at a fat man.

Continue for several pages with vowel A words, using different consonant endings, before proceeding to vowel E (bed, fed, led, etc.). Since the reading program was begun with the vowel A, it is necessary that much more time be spent with this group of words, inasmuch as the whole reading concept is new to the child. However, as you progress to vowel E you will find that it is easier for him to master, and less time will need to be spent, allowing you to continue the program with the other vowels I, O, U. You may begin to build four- and five-letter words, using three-letter words that he has already learned (led, sled, sleds).

By this time you will be pleased to hear him read words from other sources. Some of the simple stories that you once read to him, he should now be able to read to you, with perhaps a little help.

Even though the details of this program have been abbreviated here, due to space, this method has proved to be very successful with many small children. Many have been able to read very difficult material, even scriptures from the Bible, at four years of age.

Soon, all your efforts, and his, will be rewarded. What a thrill to hear your own child actually reading! What a joy to see him being entertained by a book, rather than always by television! But wait until you are on a long trip and he is curled up on the back seat with a book. When he does not say, “How much longer before we are there?” but instead says, “Are we here already!” then you will know that you have really “arrived.”

[Footnotes]

From Our Readers

Burn Victim

Thank you for the article you published in the March 22, 1980, Awake! entitled “I Was a Burn Victim.” Two years ago when I first read the article, I had two young children who were often caught playing with matches. So I read them the article, and that was more effective than any of the punishments I’d tried to get them to stop. I was recently reminded of this article and I decided to write and let you know how much my family benefited from it.

M. J., California

Violence In Sports

Whilst reading through your May 22, 1982, Awake!, I noticed the article “Why the Violence in Sports?” and it stated “People in downtown Barcelona, Spain, shudder when they think of the Scottish Celtic fans that sowed panic in their streets a few years ago.” I feel quite sure that the incident you are referring to was the European Cup Winners cup final held in 1972. The Glasgow Rangers being the only Scottish participant in the final, there were four occasions before and during the match when a section of Rangers supporters invaded the field of play, and on the fifth and final invasion (at the end of the match) came the infamous battle between a number of Rangers supporters and the baton-wielding Spanish police. The Glasgow Celtics have done much to weed out the hooligan element among their support and have been complimented on their friendliness.

A. A., Scotland

Awake! erred. It was the Glasgow Rangers fans. Our apologies to the Scottish Celtic fans. The error was corrected in all our foreign language editions.​—ED.

I’m a ten-year-old boy. I am very athletic and I enjoyed the issue on sports. There really is a lot of aggression in the world. Keep on publishing good articles.

K. W., Kentucky

I really did appreciate your article on the violence of sports and the effects it can have both on participants and on spectators. Regretfully, some of our brothers today seem to have lost sight of the dangers, physical and especially spiritual, in becoming involved in sporting events, especially those with violence. I hope that this new article will reawaken some to the dangers.

W. G., Maryland

“Dallas” on TV

Thank you for the item in “Watching the World” (April 22, 1982) on the TV show “Dallas.” A few months ago I was shocked to hear that a number of brothers and sisters from my own congregation watch this show. Perhaps reading the item “Dallas Turns Lounge Into Brothel,” from the South African newspaper will jar them to their senses.

C. M., Canada

For over a year I have declined to watch the television series “Dallas,” leaving the room whilst the transmission is received at my lodgings. Your comment greatly encouraged my stand.

D. L., England

Watching the World

Problems With Priests

● “The shortage of priests in the Roman Catholic Church, a growing problem worldwide for a decade, will soon reach crisis proportions in the United States,” reports The New York Times. According to the latest Official Catholic Directory, enrollment in Catholic seminaries in the US has dropped 50 percent in the last ten years, from 22,963 in 1972 to 11,500 now. And the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago predicts that the number of priests will drop from the present 58,085 to fewer than 25,000 in twenty years. According to the Chicago research group mandatory celibacy is one of the major causes of the decline, and so is the reluctance of modern Catholic parents to let their sons become priests.

Anticancer Diet

● The National Academy of Sciences recently released a 500-page report entitled “Diet, Nutrition and Cancer,” giving tentative dietary guidelines that “are likely to reduce the risk of cancer.” The report recommends reduced intake of both saturated fat (in meat and whole milk products) and unsaturated fat (in vegetable oils), and smoked, pickled and salt-cured foods, such as sausages, bacon and smoked fish. It also recommends eating more fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin C (citrus fruits, tomatoes and broccoli) and beta-carotene, found in squash, carrots and other yellow and green vegetables, along with moderate use of alcohol. The report, which reverses the Academy’s former position on diet and cancer, is the result of a two-year review of some 10,000 nutritional studies.

Wages of Wars

● Aside from the destruction of life and property, the wars in Lebanon and the Falkland Islands have increased the economic problems of the countries involved. Israel’s defense bill now stands at 18 percent of its gross national product, three times the percentage that the US spends on defense. To pay for it, the government is imposing a 12- to 19-percent rise in food and fuel costs, and a 12- to 15-percent increase in sales taxes. All of this is expected to push Israel’s inflation rate up to 150 percent a year. Similarly, inflation in Argentina, as a result of the recent war, could hit 200 percent by the end of the year, and there is a $34-billion (US) foreign debt to be met. Even Britain is a loser when it comes to expenses. Using the luxury liner Queen Elizabeth 2 as troop carrier cost the government $225,000 a day, and the bill for keeping 3,000 troops in the Falklands would be about $37 million a month. So a tax increase appears unavoidable in Britain.

Superstition Amid Marxism

● After almost thirty years of Marxist indoctrination, folk superstition is still very much alive in China. A dispatch from Beijing, appearing in Canada’s Globe and Mail, relates that an exemplary couple who are party members decided that their deceased son needed a mate. They found a suitable dead partner and arranged a wedding. “The two bodies were exhumed,” says the dispatch, “the ritual marriage rites were performed and then the bride and groom were reburied side by side.” Wedding pictures were proudly displayed in the parents’ homes. Marriage of the dead and other rituals are remnants of Chinese folk religion, which is a mixture of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucian ancestor worship. Constant denunciation of such practices in the press only attests to their popularity.

More Gore and Horror

● Success at the box office has led Hollywood to turning out ever more gory and bloody horror movies. According to film critic Larry Cohen, about fifty such films were produced each year in the mid-1970’s, but “it is now possible to release two new horror flicks every week.” Book publishers are also cashing in on spine-chilling novels. “It is one of the hotter genres working right now,” says the editor in chief of Pocket Books. But why are such films and novels so attractive? Psychoanalyst Morton Kissen believes their popularity is a reflection of the times we live in. “We live in a very escapist time,” he says. “People don’t want to deal with the real serious problems of the age.” Others, perhaps, feel the way psychologist Joyce Brothers does: “When your own life gets very complex and scary, . . . it is easier to escape into a fearful story. . . . Then you can go back to your own frightening or threatening situation better able to handle it.”

An Eye on the Sky

● The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), with its powerful radars, telescopes and cameras, is keeping an eye not only on all the roughly 1,200 satellites of various national origins in outer space but also on nearly three times that many pieces of orbiting ‘space junk’​—spent rockets, disabled satellites, scraps of metal, ceramic tiles and sundry nuts and bolts. All of these are carefully monitored and catalogued by NORAD. Why? Because an unidentified object in space can easily be mistaken for an attacking enemy missile and thus trigger a retaliatory holocaust. NORAD’s powerful cameras can pick up an object the size of a basketball 20,000 miles (32,000 km) away, and recently an orbiting glove was sighted.

Centenarians’ Advice

● A research group in California called the Committee for an Extended Lifespan conducted a study of 1,000 Americans who are 100 years old or older in an attempt to learn the secret of their longevity. Among the most important advice the centenarians gave was “to do nothing in excess,” reports the Seattle Times. Moderation in food and drink, rising and retiring early, working hard, avoiding stress and living a spiritual life are cited as important factors contributing to their success. Though exercise, diet, heredity and numerous other factors have been looked to as important by specialists, the centenarians’ experience seems to bear out that “more mental self-control” and “a more positive and relaxed attitude” are the key to long life, says the report.

Problem Drivers

● Who are the accident-prone drivers? Contrary to what most people think, “the largest part of the traffic-accident problem has been shown to involve lapses by normal drivers rather than errors by a few problem cases,” according to highway-safety expert Theodore Forbes. An Indiana University study reveals that the leading cause of accidents is not speeding, tailgating or drinking but carelessness when pulling into traffic, changing lanes or passing. While other studies show that 90 percent of those involved in accidents considered themselves above average drivers, analysts say that 90 percent of all traffic accidents are caused by “the nut behind the wheel.”

Transfusions and Malaria

● With the increasing use of blood transfusions in ‘improved’ hospital facilities, “transfusion transmitted” malaria has become “a problem of increasing importance in tropical areas,” reports the South African Chamber of Mines publication The Reef. The report points out that “donors living in, or coming from tropical malarial regions, are without exception liable to be infected with parasites capable of being transmitted by blood transfusion to the recipients who may suffer a severe, and unless promptly treated, sometimes fatal attack of malaria.” Some types of malarial parasites can remain dormant in the bloodstream for as long as forty years and are difficult to detect. The usual practice, however, is to give the patient the infected blood anyway and worry about malaria later.

Falkland Oddities

● In reply to a British press inquiry as to whether or not the Argentines believed that a British bomber forced down in Brazil was headed for Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, the Argentine press officer, Captain Enrique de Leon, answered: “The islands in question were called the Malvinas [Argentina’s name for the islands] and, since April 2, the capital had been called Puerto Argentino. So the bomber could not have been on its way to either the Falklands or Stanley since these places did not exist,” reports the London Guardian.

Another irony of the Falklands conflict is recorded by Canada’s The Moncton Transcript. Last September a family of four left their home in Mission, Canada, looking for a haven from a third world war. Where did they settle to start a peaceful new life? You guessed it​—Port Stanley, Falkland Islands.

Britons’ Cup of Tea

● Do the British still stop at teatime for their cuppa? Apparently so, for according to the Tea Council, caterers use 20,000 tons of tea leaf and brew 10,000 million cups of tea a year. That is an average of more than four cups per person per day. By far, tea is still the most popular drink in Britain, accounting for 75 percent of all beverages consumed, and it is still one of the cheapest. Figures published by the Council show that it costs 2.23 pence (4c, US) to serve a cup of instant coffee with milk and sugar, 6.15 pence (11c, US) for a cup of ground coffee, but only 1.47 pence (2.7c, US) for a cup of tea.

Surfers’ Turf

● “There’re too many people on the waves,” says a resident surfer in Malibu, California. According to the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches, there are 100,000 surfers in California, and as the number grows, territorial disputes break out at the state’s favorite surfing spots such as Malibu. “There are occasional fights in the ocean over somebody taking somebody’s wave,” reports a local police sergeant. But there are also fights out of the water, usually at the isolated spots favored by the surfing elite. “You’ve got your basic surf rat down here, the blond-haired, bleached-out, radicaled dude,” said one surfer at Zuma Beach. “They’re just geared toward drugs and surfing and girls and not going to school.” Then he added soberly, “A surfer doesn’t have much purpose in life​—not the hard-core ones.”

Modern Greek Games

● The Greek penchant for athletics is still very much alive today. Enthusiasm for the games is seen in the elaborate preparations made for the XIII European Athletic Championships, held in Athens September 6-12, which the Press Bulletin of Athens called “the great sporting festival of the European new generation.” For the occasion, a one-million-square-meter (250-acre) sports complex was constructed in Kalogreza, Athens, at a cost of 4,000 million drachmas ($62 million, US). The main structure is an 80,000-seat stadium, appropriately called Olympic Stadium, in honor of the ancient games. Great aspirations were placed on the meet, from which, said the Secretary General for Athletics, Kimon Koulouris, “we expect a better future, not only for our own Continent but for the whole world.”

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