AJEWELOFA NEW MUSEUM Washington, D.C.'s great new landmark is the recently built east wing of the National Gallery of Art. A work by American sculptor Isamu Noguchi stands alongside the tapestry on the wall by Spanish painter Joan Miro specially commissioned for the new building (story on page 24).
A LEITER FROM THE PUBLISHER By any reckoning, the mostsignificant article in this issue is the account of the Middle East framework agreement reached by the State of Israel and the Republic of Egypt, with the assistance of President Jimmy Carter. For, this agreement offers the opportunity for the lifting of the constant threat of war, of violence and counterviolence, from the heads of millions of inhabitants of that longtroubled area, Jews and Arabs alike. Obviously, as all sides agree, Camp David does not rep~. '" '\ resent a final solution to the core issue that has embittered relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors for the past 30 years: the fate of the Palestinian refugees. But we believe that the Camp David outcome is a remarkably strong start toward the resolution of the "Palestinian problem." For even in this initial framework agreement, Israel has committed itself to allowing the Palestinian people a major measure of autonomy in controlling their own affairs and a major role in shaping their future. The agreement achieved Israeli recognition of the "legitimate rights of the Palestinians." This has long been a controversial point, and is now accepted by Israel. It is an important step forward. . A second Israeli change in position of major significance in the Camp David talks is its commitment to resolve in negotiations the final status of the West Bank of the Jordan River and the Gaza strip within five years. This Israeli commitment, combined with the role granted to the Palestinians in these negotiations and in the degree of autonomy granted to them, should provide the basis for strong confidence on the part of the Arabs and others in the further evolution of negotiations. Knotty questions still remain to be unraveled. But two important points are relevant: • The Israelis committed themselves to completing an agreement within five years. • The unprecedented involvement of the President of the United States at Camp David demonstrated that the United States is committed to moving the Arab-Israeli negotiations forward to a conclusion which can produce a just settlement and a secure peace. The agreements were not an end in themselves,but the beginning of an evolutionary process of negotiations in which the United States was fully committed to playing a continuing role to assure a final outcome that was fair and just to both sides. . Whatever the immediate future may hold, all men of good will can only be heartened by the Camp David frameworks for peace. To quote an official statement by a spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India: "Every effort at a peaceful solution which would lead to a comprehensive peace in this vital area cannot but be commended." -J.W.G.
~;1('
SPAN 2 5 10
No_~d978
Breakthrough at Camp David The Feminist Movement: Where Is It Going? Rami Chhabra Interviews Jerolyn Lyle
13 16 18 24 28
Not Ballet. Not Acrobatics, But Pilobolus! by Philip Holland
32 34 40 41
45 46 49
Should the Public Enact Laws? A Dialogue Between Michael J. Harrington and Peter Bachrach
Front cover: The seven-year-old Pilobolus Dance Theater of Vermont has created a sensation wherever it has performed_ Named whimsically after a fungus, the troupe consists of six mavericks-with "twelve legs, six imaginations and one sou!"-;who have developed a new form of gymnastic dance. See pages 18-23. Back cover: The thrill shows on their faces as visitors to the Great America park near San Francisco go up and down on a roller coaster. See page 49_ Correction: Our thanks to the many readers who wrote in to remind us that Bharatpur is in the state of Rajasthan, not of Uttar Pradesh, as erroneously reported in "Saving the World's Wildlife," by S.R. Madhu, in the October issue. -=-Ed.. -
JACOB SLOAN, Editor; JAY W. GILDNER, Publisber • Managing Editor: Chidananda Dasgupta. Assistant Managing Editor: S.R_ Madhu_ Editorial Staff: Krishan Gabrani, Aruna Dasgupta, Nirmal Sharma, Murari Saha, Rocque Fernandes. Art Director: Nand Katyal. Art Staff: Gopi Gajwani, B. Roy Choudhury, Kanti Roy. Chief of Production: Awtar S. Marwaha. Photo Editor: Avinash Pasricha. Photographic Services: ICA Photo ·Lab. Published by the International Communication Agency, American Center, 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001, on behalf of the American Embassy, New Delhi. The opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States Government. Printed byH.K. Mehta at Thomson Press (India) Limited, Faridabad, Haryana. Photographs: Front cover-Martha Swope. inside front cover-Joe Pinto. 5-Carl Fischer, Ms. magazine. 6-R.N. Khanna. 7-courtesy of J. Philip O'hara, Inc. 8-Avinash Pasricha. 10-11- Teresa zabala. 13 top-Mathew Brady, Library of Congress; 13 bottom. 14 top & center-courtesy Smithsonian Institution. 14 bottom left-courtesy ReA; right-courtesy Electronic Industries Association. 15 top-courtesy Seeburg Corporation; right-courtesy ReA; hottom-Avinash Pa'richa. 17-Stephanie Maze. 19,20,21 top left-courtesy Piloholus Dance Theater; 21 top right-Martha Swope; bottom-Jonathan Sa'adah. 22-23-top row-courtesy PiJobolusDance Theater; bottomHerb Migdoll. 24 left-Leon Dishman; top-Joe Pinto. 26-27-IOP left & ~ttom center-Joe Pinto. 32-Avinash Pasricha. 34-35-Dilip Sinha e<cept extreme right and hottom by Avinash Pasricha. 36, 38-39-Avinash Pasricha. 41-John G. Zimmerman. 45-courtesy U.S. Travel Service. 49 & backcover-Cbristopher Springmann.
MIDDLE EAST PEACE TALKS
BREAKTHROUGH AT CAMP DAVID "It has been more than 2,000 years since there was peace between Egypt and a free Jewish nation," said President Jimmy Carter, reporting to the U.S. Congress on the results of the historic September 5-17 Camp David summit meeting. "If our present expectations are realized, this year we shall see such peace again." The summit-set in an l43-acre retreat atop a 1,880foot-high hill in Maryland's Catoctin mountain, 120 kilometers northwest of America's capital-did not automatically end decades of Arab-Israeli strife, that has erupted in four wars and taken a toll of nearly 40,000 lives. But it revived the progress toward peace. President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel signed two significant agreements considered unthinkable a month earlier. The agreements were designed to lead to an Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty within three months, and to provide for the withdrawal of Israel's military government from the West Bank of Jordan and the Gaza strip. Soon after the summit, U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance flew to West Asia to obtain wider Arab support for the accords. "The long days at Camp David are over. But many months of difficult negotiations lie ahead," President Carter noted. President Carter relied on the "chemistry" of Camp David-which President Franklin D. Roosevelt described as Shangri-La and Premier Begin referred to as a "paradise on earth" - to bring about a rapport between Sadat and Begin. To work off tensions, the VIP delegates could play tennis, golf or chess, see movies (one of those available was How the West Bank Was Won) or stroll
through chestnut, oak and hickory woods. Expert chefs well-posted with the gastronomic favorites of Sadat and Begin were on 24-hour call to prepare any dish ordered. Discussions were held in strict secrecy. (One newsman described the press corps as "350 plumbers in search of a leak.") Premier Begin recalled: "We used to go to bed at Camp David between 3 :00 and 4 :00 in the morning, arise at 5 :00 or 6 :00 and continue working." Begin and Sadat left their wrist watches behind during the discussions, says one report, so that they would feel free of time pressure. There were times when the talks seemed to be breaking down. But, as President Carter put it, "Whenever there was a danger that human energy would fail, or patience would be exhausted, or goodwill would run out, these two leaders ... found the resources within them to keep the chances for peace alive." And speaking of Carter, Premier Begin averred that the U.S. President"'worked harder than our forefathers did in Egypt building the pyramids." Anthony Lewis of The New York T~mesmade perhaps the most perceptive comment about the outcome of the Camp David summit: "It is a process. That is what Camp David showed, and what Arabs and Israelis must both understand. Neither side can get all it wants. No compromise can settle all issues at once. But with the help of wise counsel from outside, and with faith in themselves, the parties can begin living the process of peace." In the pages that follow, we present excerpts from President Carter's address to the U.S. Congress on the Camp David summit and photographs taken after the 0 summit's successful conclusion.
.-. The signing of the framework for the comprehensive peace settlement has a significance far beyond the event. It signals the emergence of a new peace initiative with the American nation in the heart of the entire process. ~ -PRESIDENT
ANWAR SADAT
â&#x20AC;˘â&#x20AC;˘ We had some difficult moments .... But ultimately, the President of the United States won the day. And peace now celebrates a great victory for the nations of Egypt and Israel andfor all mankind.~ -PRIME
MINISTER
MENACHEM
BEGIN
~..â&#x20AC;˘...~) ~. ~~-~
.~
Excerpts from President Carter's September 18 address to the U.S. Congress on the Camp David summit,
'BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS' In few areas of the world is there a greater risk that a local conflict could spread among other nations adjacent to them and then erupt into confrontation between the superpowers ourselves. That is why we in the United States cannot afford to be idle bystanders, why we have been full partners in. the search for peace, and why it is so vital to our nation that these meetings have been a success. We all remember the hopes for peace that were inspired by President Sadat's initiative, that great visit to Jerusalem last November, by the warm response of Prime Minister Begin and the Israeli people, and by the mutual promise that there would be no more war. ... Progress continued, but at a slower and slower rate, through the early part of this year, but by early summer the negotiations had come to a standstill once again. It was this stalemate, , , that prompted me to invite both President Sadat and Prime Minister Begin to join me at Camp David. It is impossible to overstate the courage of these two men, or the foresight they have shown. . .. President Sadat and Prime Minister. Begin have overcome barriers, exceeded our fondest expectations, and signed two agreements that hold out the possibility of resolving issues that history had taught us could not be resolved. The agreement provides a basis for the resolution of issues involving the West Bank and Gaza during the next five years, while also respecting carefully Israel's vital security. It outlines a process of change which is in keeping with Arab hopes, while also respecting Israel's vital security interests, '". The ¡Israeli military government over those areas will be withdrawn and will be replaced with a self-government of the
Palestinians who live there, with full autonomy .... Israeli forces will also be withdrawn and redeployed into specified locations to protect Israel's security. The Palestinians will further participate in determining their own future through talks in which their own elected representatives ... will negotiate ... to determine the final status of the West Bank and Gaza. The Israelis have agreed .. , that the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people will be recognized .... The issue of future settlements will be decided among the negotiating parties .... The agreement on the final status of these areas will be submitted to a vote by the representatives of the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza, and they will have the right, for the first time in their history, the Palestinian people, to decide how they will govern themselves permanently.
The second document provides ... that Egypt will extend full diplomatic recognition to Israel at the time Israel completes the interim withdrawal from most of the Sinai, which will take place between three and nine months after the conclusion of the peace treaty. And the treaty is to be fully negotiated and signed no later than three months from last night. I think I should report that Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat have now challenged each other to conclude the treaty even earlier. ... This will be a wonderful Christmas present for the world. Complete withdrawal of all Israeli forces will take place no more than three years after the treaty has been signed .... There is one issue on which agreement has not been reached. Egypt states that agreement to remove Israeli settlements from Egyptian territory is a prerequisite to a peace treaty.
Israel states that the issue of the Israeli settlements should be resolved during the peace negotiations. This is the first time that an Arab and an Israeli leader have signed a comprehensive framework for peace. It contains the seeds of a time when the Middle East, with all its vast potential, may be a land of human richness and fulfillment, rather than a land of bitterness and conflict. No region of the world has greater natural and human resources than this one-and nowhere have they been more heavily weighed down by intensive hatred and frequent war. These agreements hold out the real possibility that this burden might be lifted. But we must also not forget the magnitude of the obstacles that still remain .... I have already invited the other leaders of the Arab world to help sustain progress toward a comprehensive peace. We must also join in an effort to bring to an end the conflict and terrible suffering in Lebanon. For many years, the Middle East has been a textbook for pessimism .... Today we are privileged to see the chance for one of the sometimes rare bright moments in human history .... The prayers at Camp David were the same as those of the shepherd King David who prayed in the 85th Psalm: "Wilt thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee? "I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and unto his saints: but let them not turn again unto folly." And I would like to say as a Christian to these two friends of mine, the words of Jesus: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they 0 shall be the children of God."
THEFEMINIST MOVEMENT: WHERE
IS IT GOINGii
RAMI CHHABRA INTERVIEWS JEROLYN LYLE
Women in nontraditional .obs (above), women at home and in the office (right), the problems of women in the areas of education, employment and marriage, the future of the feminist movement in India and the United States-aU are discussed in a dialogue between two articulate women-an American economist, and an Indian writer.
R.C.: Jerolyn, to what extent is the women's movement in the United States concerned with social, economic and political issues? I ask because American feminism does not inspire a uniform degree of enthusiasm here in India, perhaps because the objectives of the feminist movement have not been correctly interpreted by the media, either American or Indian. They have often distorted issues and projected the sensational, the ridiculous, so that one has a very unbalanced view of what's happening in the United States. J.L.: I would not be able to support the women's movement if I thought that it was not primarily dedicated to economic and social issues. The fact that it is sometimes misperceived abroad causes me sorrow and concern. This, I believe, is the fault of the women in my own country-perhaps including myself, who are not as vocal as some of our more visible sisters. We are projecting an image that evokes mixed reactions from women in other countries whose alliance is very important to us; I think American women need to reproject the image of the women's movement. There are so many outstanding women in India that your country could perhaps take the lead. R.C.: I don't think it is a question of who takes the lead in the movement. It is a question of how quickly we can get the whole movement going. But to go back to the American women's movement: it started off with the publication of Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique way back in 1963. Would you like to trace the issues that somersaulted into the front at that point, and how they have developed since? J.L.: I think Betty Friedan's book really grew out of a condition only applicable to highly industrialized countries with a great degree of technological innovation. She first wrote about the psychological and emotional problems that middle-class American women suffered as a result of having technological innovation brought to the home so that housework no longer consumed a large portion of a woman's time. This is not a problem in your country, and it isn't a problem for women in many other countries. So I would say that her book is very culture-bound and culture-specific, though it was very helpful to women in the United States in understanding themselves-particularly to married women who did not seek work outside the home, who suffered emotional disturbance and unrest during their adjustment to middle age. Betty Friedan just told American women: You have a lot of labor-saving devices at home; therefore, you have a lot of free time on your hand, and you have the feeling of being useless, unneeded. Certainly, in India, as hard as your women work in the agricultural sector, where most of them are employed, I am sure none of them feel unneeded; they certainly feel productive.
icant fact: In the United States women are a majority-51.3 per cent of the populationwhereas in India we are 48.3 per cent. Our common bond is that despite your beinga majority and our being a minority, women in both countries suffer from the same attributes of a minority community. In the United States your major battle as I understand it right now, isfor getting the equal rights amendment (E.R.A.) passed. I would like you to tell us a little more about that. In India, I might add, we have complete constitutional equality. Our problem is to implement this equality. J.L.: In the United States, proponents of an equal rights amendment believe that the existing constitutional amendments are inadequate to remove certain state and Federal laws which they object to. As you know, the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides equal protection of the law to all. This amendment has been used by women and other minorities to push their rights. However, it took 75 years for us to pass the 19th amendment, which gave suffrage to women, and since 1920 an equal rights amendment has been under consideration in the United States. If it passes soon, it will have passed much more quickly than the 19th amendment did. Arguments for the E.R.A. may be boiled down as follows: A new amendment will provide a kind of public support of equal rights for women. A constitutional amendment is not a cure-all; we know that it will still take years to strike down as illegal those state laws that discriminate against men or against women-because we will have to build test cases to go to court and use that amendment to reinterpret old laws in a new light. But the new amendment would serve as public recognition of the fact that the judicial branch of government must formally recognize the right. In particular, there are some tax laws and some income security laws which would be much easier to define as unconstitutional if we had an equal rights amendment.
R.C.: Well, Jerolyn, here in India, 1 think the women's movement is a very crucial human rights issue. There is this dismaying phenomenon of Indian women going down in numbera phenomenon that started way back at the end of the last century. We had a -ratio of 970 womenper thousandmen at the turn of the century, and this has come down to 930 womenper thousand men at the last census count. The question we need to ask is: why and how these increasing mortality rates? Women's mortality begins even before birth-because in some cases, when women. have been led to believe that a girl child was likely, they have gone in for an abortion, which they would not have done if they had believed they were carrying a male child. But that apart, right from birth till the age of nine, the mortality rates are higherfor girls than for boys, and then again through the prime R.C.: Women's problems in India are what I childbearingyears. This trend is contrary to that would call a looking-glass image of women's in the rest of the world-where women outnumber problems in the United States. Note a signij~ men, where more boys are born, but more girls
survive. To us, this is a major issue of .iuman rights,. we have linked it to the issue of economic rights because it is beginning to seem that much of this neglect of the woman in India stems from thefact that she is not recognized as a productive member of the family, and therefore not given the same care. Now I know that economics is a major issue in the United States too: We are really approaching the same thing from different angles. Let us talk about that a little. What is the role of women in the U.S. economy and what are the stakes? J.L.: Women have had an increasingly active role in the American economy since the early 1950s. Their rights as participants in the labor force have increased during the last decade; there has been a steady rise in the number of employed women. However, the relative incomes of women and men have remained unchanged. In 1959, for instance, a white woman earned 57 per cent as much as a white man of similar age and education doing the same work. In 1976, nearly 20 years later, the ratio remained the same. I would say that four trends characterize the role of women in the U.S. economy: • The average education levels are improving (73 per cent of American women above 16 have completed high school). • More women hold jobs. • Sex segregation in occupations has .been stable. In other words, women tend to cluster in certain occupations, where the wage levels happen to be low. • Finally, the relative earnings of women and men have remained practically unchanged over two decades. The inflation that has worried Americans since 1971 has tended to reduce purchasing power. This is perhaps one reason why more women are working. They need more money to enjoy the standard of living they want or are accustomed to.
Rami Chhabra talks with Jerolyn Lyle, who recently visited India. A leading activist in the U.S. women's movement, and an economist by profession, Dr. Lyle has been a consultant to several organizations. She now works with the U.S. Federal Preparedness Agency. Rami Chhabra is involved in projects for women and child welfare and the consumer movement in India. She also writes articles and conducts TV programs on these subjects.
R.C.: Well, it is very interesting to hear you give these facts and figures. In India, the participation of women in the economy has dwindled: the female work force has practically been halved in the last 50 years (from 34 per cent to 17 per cent). Today only 11 per cent of our total female population is working. So there is a higher rate of unemployment. J.L.: Let me ask this question. I have been overwhelmed by the quality of the achieving women I have met in India. Nowhere have I come across so many women of leadership potential. I would like to know how you can tap this reservoir of intellect and achievement to address these problems effectively.
R.C.: This is a major preoccupation for those who are concerned with women's issues today, but we have not yet got to any take-offpoint on it. The involvement of educated Indian women with the problems of the less fortunate is not significant right now. In terms of absolute numbers, many women are, as you say, excellent models of achievement. From time to time the Indian woman has been complimented for her serenity in handling jobs of tremendous challenge without losing her essentialfeminity-though women have come out in larger numbers to work in very competitive fields. But the achievements of these superior women tend~ to obscure the fact that the large mass of women is struggling to find even marginal employment. We must remember that educated women in this country are a microscopic minority: only 1.4 per cent of all women have had more than a high school education. Our total literacy figure is 18 per cent for women. Of these I would say about 11 per cent are people that you could call barely literate .... J.L.: I would just like to say this: It is very important when you are interested in changing history to secure the support of very important, usually not very visible, members of the group for whom you are fighting. I feel this very strongly in my own country. We have some very great American women; some of them are famous, others are not. It's very important that our women of achievement continue to support the women's rights effort. But they must be very careful to avoid taking on minority problems that affect very small numbers of women. These special problems become albatrosses around their necks.
R.C.: You are confronting an ideological split within the movement in the United States right now. At the Houston conference last year, 33,000 women gathered to discuss women's rights issues, but there was a counterconference of as many as 13,000 women going on in the same city at the same time. I must say that I envied you, the sheer numbers of people who were alive to an issue, coming together to support it or to fight it. But it brought the matter out into the open as a very hot emotional subject. J.L.: Yes, we Americans, because of our tradition of individualism, are very willing to decide what to believe and to fight for that belief to the end. For example, we disagree
No job is too strenuous fqr a smile-ask the millions of working women in America and India. violently for religious reasons on the subject of abortion. We have a deep religious disagreement over that in the United States.
R.C.: What is the position right now? Can a woman ask for an abortion on demand in the United States? J.L.: Well, the position varies with each of the 50 states. Each state has a law. There have been two cases in the United States in which the Supreme Court has had to decide on the right of a woman to have an abortion or the right of an unborn foetus to continue to grow. And in those two cases, the Supreme Court has supported the right of a woman to choose whether or not to sustain the life of an unborn foetus. We certainly do not have any requirement that the governments of the United States, at the state, local or Federal level, subsidize abortion. That's a totally different issue. We have a separation of Church and state in the United States; one is free to hold any religious view one wants, and technically one is free to believe that abortion is perfectly all right religiously. That is a decision between you and God, and the state will not interfere with that decision between you and God. But disagreement does exist on the subject, and President Jimmy Carter has done his own rethinking on whether government should subsidize abortion for poor women. Those two Supreme Court decisions would not necessarily immediately change the behavior of doctors in all the 50 states in America whose medical boards think that it's wrong to commit abortion. So the subject of abortion is a source of continuing controversy in the United States.
R.C.: Here in India,
we have received this right, as we have received so many other rights, really on a platter. There was absolutely no controversy. The bill went through without any problems in,1972, and Indian women can have an abortion on demand, and it is free of cost to them. Our problem, of course, is the question of extending the facilities to all. The question in India really is of providing health center facilities, where abortion can take place, in the rural areas, so that the right that has been given to
women by a bill of Parliament can be availed of Jin,actual practice. Coming back to our other issues, Jerolyn: Education is the panacea that's offered us as the instrument to win economic opportunities for women and eventual parity with men. Right now, we have two illiterate women in India to every illiterate man. So we think that a major thrust in women's education is very important. But you have just now pointed out that in America 73 per cent of women have completed high school education. To what extent has improved education helped women in their fight? J.L.: I think it has helped substantially. We still do not have appropriate vocational channeling of educational programs-not because of any deliberate antifemale policy but because the job structure in the United States changes very rapidly, and our educational institutions sometimes lag in preparing students for jobs that are actually available. For example, there has been a significant decline in the demand in the United States for physicists. There is an oversupply of lawyers, an undersupply of all health-care personnel, and an undersupply of economists and certain other professionals. So we need to do a better job of projecting those occupations which will be in continuing labor market demand, and of channeling girls into them. So I would say that women in the United States suffer far less than women elsewhere in terms of equal educational opportunity. Our girls do very well on all of the standardized tests. At the higher educational level the hurdles for women are cultural-that is, many girls in our country are afraid to succeed. They feel that they will become unfeminine and abnormal if they do very well; and particularly they are afraid of being thought of as unusual because they are in a male-dominated occupation. It takes a great deal of motivation for a woman to be willing to do that. She will not be protected from the scathing criticism that will be forthcoming when she fails. We have many women in my country who want to be protected from failure according to the old romantic notion. And you know you can't have it both ways. You can't be protected from the risk that comes with attempting to do well while at the same time hoping to make something of yourself. R.C.: This brings me to another area that I think we should explore a little more: the need for bringing more and more men into the feminist movement, of emphasizing that this is not a politics of confrontation between man and woman, but more a politics of consultation. J.L.: I agree with that 100 per cent. Certainly in my country it is very important for men not to be so afraid of achieving women, not to feel that women in positions of responsibility and power are a threat to men. We have a very lovely lady in the U.S. Government named Juanita Kreps. * I am very proud of her because she is the daughter of a coal miner from the state of Kentucky, which means that as a little girl
The feminist movement is not a politics of confrontation between men and women; it represents a need to understand developing social forces which demand a reassessment of the position of women.
she had none of the special advantages that girls from upper class families have. Her father could not introduce her to the most established professional people in the community, because he was a coal miner. She is our Secretary of Commerce. She is an economist. She does as much to protect the interests of the men in her department as any male Secretary of Commerce ever did. She is fair with them. So, I think that it is very very important to get the support and keepthe support of men. We have ajoint interest. R.C.: Yes, and on the personal level, too, I think men have a great deal to gain from the women's movement, because so far there has been a tendency to thrust much of the breadwinner's responsibility on men. It is not easy to go out into the world to earn a living, to be competitive, to constantly face challenges-which is why, perhaps, in a more industrialized society like yours men die earlier than women-because [hey are constantly up against all kinds of hazards, which women don't have to face. So that is one aspect. On the other hand, surely men are being deprived of something very beautiful in their lives when they do not get the opportunity to enjoy their children,lamily life. J.L.: I would like to view the whole issue of women's rights in terms of a fundamental point: that we need to broaden the range of choices for men and women in our countries, so that men can feel freer to be compassionate, to love their children, to be with their children, and women can feel freer to take some of the burden they bear off from them, to make this possible. So I feel that at the individual level men and women should make their own decisions about whether they should work full time or whether they shouldn't work at all. It is a matter of individual choice, so there isn't anyone pattern that's right for every family. What we need is a very broad range of acceptable approaches to life and an economy that will accommodate a broad range of choices about how to live your life. R.C.: Right.
The essence of feminism is in choice and accommodation. Choice, as you say, to live different lifestyles, and to accommodate different needs within one's personality, to be able tofulfill very varying needs. At one time you have been project director of a survey of affirmative action programs for womenfor the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission. Would you telf me a little about what you discovered during this survey? And what is affirmative action?
u.s.
Facing page: The many faces of the Indian working woman- white-collar worker (top left), construction laborer (top right), executive (left).
J.L.: Affirmative action grew out of the pas-
sage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the United States, which made racial discrimination, and later sex discrimination, illegal in all fields-education and employment in particular. So, affirmative action is an effort by the executive branch of our Federal Government to influence public sector and private sector employment, education, housing, public accommodations and social welfare policies. We ask institutions to develop plans to promote equal opportunity, including timetables to attain those goals. Affirmative action plans are filed with the office of Federal Contract Compliance in our Department of Labor and with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare by companies that employ more than 50 workers in the United States, and by educational institutions. R.C.: Do you have a system of quotas, of reservations? J.L.: We don't have a system of quotas. But
any institution that receives Federal money for part of its operation, and all private companies which have 50 or more employees, have to submit affirmative action plans every year. If women constitute 82 per cent of the population in a city, a company in that city would have to take that factor into account in estimating what its goal should be for employing women in managerial jobs, professional jobs or other job categories. American companies today have an exciting array of affirmative action programs. For example, some companies have started day-care programs for men and women who work there, so that for a very small charge, employees can bring their preschool children to work with them. One company has a day-care facility for children from birth to three years of age, and another one for preschoolers from three to six; the charges that the parents pay simply cover the salaries of the caretakers and food for the children. This has been a very very popular and very successful innovation. Then there is a program called "flexitime," which has been immensely popular, to the surprise of management personnel. In this program men and women employees can select the hours that they work each day, being required to report only for a set of four "core" hours-we call that core time. They can select the remaining four hours of the working day according to their personal convenience. At first there was great fear in private companies and in government agencies that the use of flexitime would reduce productivity, and that it would cause managers to become anxious and nervous about getting work done on time. But this has not happened. Where it has been
tried, managers report very insignificant problems and productivity has not fallen. So I think that's a very exciting, innovative component in an affirmative action plan. A third interesting component in some affirmative action plans for women are job rotation programs. These are used to help women bridge the gap between clerical and skilled jobs. Many of the 437 occupations in the United States involve skills that are transferable. The skills of a secretary can be applied to key-punch operating, to some aspects of computer operation, and so on. At our instance many companies now have programs that are a critical part of affirmative action planning, programs to develop bridge positions. The employee learns how to transfer skills from one occupational category to another. This helps relieve tedium in work. Americans have a 45-year working life, and prefer not to do the same thing for 45 years. "Bridging" provides variety, if not more money. R.C.: How does government ensure that affirmative action plans are actually put into practice? If a company defaults, what corrective mechanism is available? J.L.: The most significant mechanism, of
course, is to deny that company the right to purchase or sell goods imd services to the government. The government can remove a company from the list of companies that can sell goods and services to the government. That's the most severe penalty. Another thing government can do is initiate court suits against these compames and have the judge fine them if the government wins its suit. But the most typical approach is to try to pressure them. There are compliance reviews -government officials go out and investigate what companies are doing, and this process puts pressure on companies. R.C.: Finally, Jerolyn, how do you see the future for feminism in the United States right now? J.L.: I think we are at a turning point. We
are either going to see 15 or 20 years of unprecedented consensus formation and public support for restructuring the relationships between men and women in employment, and in education and in income security-or we are going to see a demise of this issue as one of the many issues that Americans worry about. I think it will be decided in the next 10 or 15 years, and the future of feminism in the United States at this point in history depends a great deal on the quality of its women leaders. That is my honest opinion. People can either make very very serious mistakes and not change things very much at all, or they can develop strategies 0 that work and change history.
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RISPONSIBlllTY Business in its pursuit of profit and government in its concern for the public need not regard themselves as adversaries. In the long run, argues u.s. Secretary of Commerce Juanita Kreps, behaving responsibly toward society is not a matter of choice for corporations; it is a requisite. nrecent years, a great deal has been written on the subject of corporate responsibility. Shrinking resource frontiers, disenchantment with pell-mell growth and the emergence of a host of quality-of-life concerns have focused attention on the question of what obligations a corporation has to society. We may applaud the concern that motivates this question. But there are some problems with the way it is conventionally phrased. To begin with, its phrasing nearly always suggests that this responsibility is moral or ethical. Secondly, the question nearly always implies that, by fulfilling this responsibility, a corporation is doing something it would not do if it were concerned only with maximizing profits. In fact, neither is true. Social responsibility is no longer a matter of voluntarily deciding to do what is moral or ethical. The only choice corporations have today is a choice between acting responsibly of their own free will or doing so because the U.S. Congress tells them they must and sets down exactly how they must act. Moreover, the implied suggestion that the corporation which acts in a socially responsible manner is necessarily doing something that it would not do if it were concerned solely with profits is also bothersome. For voluntary, responsible behavior is not antithetical to maximum profits. On the contrary, because irresponsible behavior leads to regulation, social responsibility and profit maximization more often than not dictate similar actions. Those who have crossed swords with U.S. Government agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or the Environmental Protection Agency or the Labor Department over the Employee Retirement Income Security Act are all too aware of how costly and burdensome regulations can be when they are drafted by someone who has never been inside a plant and cannot possibly tailor rules to peculiar needs and
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circumstances. It is easy, when in the clutches of the regulator, to say, "I could have done the same thing a lot cheaper." But by then, you don't have that choice. If corporate responsibility is a cost of doing business like any other cost of doing business, the next question is obvious- How does a corporation that wants to act responsibly figure out what it is supposed to do? It's not an easy question, because the social desirability of behavior must be measured in terms of public values, and public values are both relative and changeable. Today, it is considered unacceptable to besmirch the environment. That was not always so. When the first settlers landed in America, they didn't worry about the environment. If they were interested in environmental protection at all, it was in protection from it, not of it. And for a couple of hundred years thereafter,
there were few sights more welcome to the traveler than the sight of factory smoke curling above the treetops. Similarly, during the great depression of the 1930s, there was no great clamor for safety in the workplace. If a man was fortunate enough to find a job, he didn't worry about where the fire extinguishers were located or ask whether the rungs on the fire escape were 50 or 60 centimeters apart. He took the job and was happy to have it. I am not suggesting that the distance between the rungs on a fire escape is not a legitimate concern today, only that there is nothing absolute about the value we assign to it. Concern for safety was not discovered under a pile of debris in the public subconscious; it emerged as an important public value in response to changing circumstances. And circumstances continue to change. Income levels change,
leisure time expands, people move from the country to the city or from the city to the country, resource bottlenecks occur and are relieved by new technologies-all of these things alter society's values and, with them, its definition of responsibility. Anyone who doubts that need only look at what the energy crisis has done to mute the environmental movement in the past several years. So the question of how to define responsible behavior is indeed difficult. The cynical might say that minimum acceptable responsibility on any given issue is whatever level is just enough to placate the public and prevent it from going to the Congress. But that's not much help. It tells how to measure, but it doesn't tell what to measure. To know what to measure, a corporation somehow has to ascertain what the public's concerns are. And corporations simply aren't well set up to do that. They may be good at measur-
prompt behavior modification if that modification threatens serious competitive disadvantages to the firm. And this is often the case. Most reforms-cleaning up factory Corporations are better at measuring emissions or training the hardcore unemployed-entail high shifts in the demand for their products than start-up costs. Even the well-intentioned corporation cannot always afford to assume such costs if its competition is not those in public opinion. Government, on the prepared to do likewise. other hand, is an effective mail drop for the Take the case of two factories which dump effluents into the same river. Neither by itself produces enough pollution to be a problems of the public. Hence the need for a problem, but in the aggregate they dump enough into the river to continuing dialogue between government and raise the threat of government intervention. Either factory could industry to improve the quality of public avert intervention by cleaning up its act. But by doing so it would be buying salvation for a competitor. The irresponsible competipolicies as they affect business. tor, having gotten a free ride, would be able to use cost advantage to undersell the socially responsible firm-and virtue would be its own undoing. Obviously, where this or similar situations exist, a social conscience can be an expensive proposition. And the likelihood ing and forecasting shifts in demand for their products, but they is that both firms will simply sit back and wait for the other lack mechanisms for discovering shifts in public opinion with respect to so-called externals. to act first. This, it seems to me, is an area in which associations such as Government, on the other hand, is a lightning rod for complaints about externals. Government may be poor at allocating the National Association of Manufacturers can rescue their resources, which the private market does so well, but government members from the ever-rising costs. In fact, there are many trade is a very effective mail drop for the gripes and problems of the associations that already enforce codes of behavior for the express purpose of sparing their membership further Federal regulation. gen~ral public. For instance, under threat of Federal Trade Commission That being the case, it should not be necessary for the corpoaction, the National Advertising Review Board has set standards rate executive to climb to the roof of his factory and wet his finger to measure the shifting winds of public opinion. It wouldn't hurt of practice designed to insure that the public is not misled by to try it from time to time, but he needn't rely on it. Because most distortions. This action has in turn spawned a number of local of the information he needs to act responsibly is already available review boards dedicated to the same purpose. Such standards serve the public interest by offering free from people who will willingly share it with him. protection from abuse and by offering such protection before the Of course, it will not get shared if business and government insist on regarding one another as adversaries, if they meet only abuse becomes so acute that the public is moved to take matters in court and always with the attitude that the briefer the contact into its own hands. Still, it is a mistake to regard such standards as gratuitous and philanthropic, for they also serve the corporate the better. What is needed is recognition of the fact that there is a trian- interest. They represent self-interest accurately perceived-a gular community of interest between government, business and prophylactic against the high-cost alternative of government the public. We have already established that it is in business' regulation. Often, suggestions that self-regulation be more widely pracinterest to shape its behavior to prevailing public values and that it is more efficient to do so than not to. We have established, too, ticed by trade associations bring objections that this would somethat government is the high-cost alternative through which how create problems of antitrust liability. This fear is surely exaggerated. Antitrust laws expressly prohipublic values are imposed on corporations that do not accurately bit collusive pricing, tie-in arrangements, market segmentation perceive these values. Obviously, it would be much more efficient if a larger propor- and other anticompetitive practices. They say nothing that might tion of government's energies could be devoted to acquainting be construed as preventing a trade association from urging on its corporations with public expectations so the companies could members the collective assumption of responsibility toward the accommodate them voluntarily, and if a smaller proportion of society in which they operate. In dealing with this question of corporate social responsibility, government time were devoted to administering regulations. The country would get better results because corporations would I realize that I have emphasized only the pragmatic. I do so remain free to be innovative in addressing public needs, and intentionally, for corporate responsibility is too often discussed as though it were a matter of conscience alone. these results would come at lower cost because corporations Corporations well understand that, in the long run, behaving would not have to incur and pass on to the consumer the cost of all the unforeseen side effects which seem inevitably to accom- responsibly toward society is not a choice but a requisite. Corporate managers today must live with hundreds and hundreds of pany mandated solutions. A continuing dialogue between government and business will externally imposed rules and regulations. Many of these rules improve the quality of public policies as they affect business. The govern aspects of corporate behavior which managers in an earlier government needs the advice and constructive criticism of the time regarded as private and discretionary. Had they understood business community before making final decisions that affect it, what even the most absolute medieval nobles understood-that but joint efforts by business and government to identify public ultimately their authority to determine their behavior depended values and the course of responsible behavior will not always be on how the behavior accorded with the interests of their consti0 enough. Even the threat of government intervention will not tuents-many of these regulations would not exist today.
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hough Edison immortalized his moment of discovery by warbling a song, he really had little interest in recording music, perhaps because of his partial deafness. He saw his invention as becoming handy for dictation; recordings for the blind; teaching history, languages, elocution; for clocks that could "announce" the time; and for various other business and educational purposes. He was certainly farsighted: in various forms of increasing sophistication, Edison's invention is fulfilling most of these needs. But the phonograph has come to be associated with music and entertainment more than anything else. Despite his hearing disability, Edison saw the importance of music, and to publicize his invention sent his agent to Vienna; among the notables whose voice was "captured" was that of the great composer Johannes Brahms. From Brahms to the Beatles- they've all been immortalized thanks to an invention made a hundred years ago.
1893 Emile Berliner, a German immigrant who worked at the Bell Laboratory, developed a method of cutting lateral grooves into the surface of a wax-coated disc. He put the disc in a bath of chromic acid to form a mold, or master copy, that was used to make a negative by electrocopying. The negative was then pressed into heatsoftened "rubber biscuits" or records.
1940
1894
Electric radio-record player consoles first came on the market in 1926. By 1940 this table model (below) offered good sound reproduction from shellac discs that could play for as long asfive minutes.
Telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell directed the development of this machine (right). The listener wore eartubes (not shown here) that amplified the sound, which came from a wax-coated cardboard cylinder. He operated the machine by turning the hand crank visible at the right side.
1911 Compared to earlier models, this 1911 phonograph was streamlined. By turning the crank on the right, the listener wound a spring motor that spinned the turntable. Thefront cabinet doors opened to allow the.sound to come out from the speaker inside. The metal needles needed frequent changing.
1940 Manufacturers introduced the elfIetric coin-operated multiple-choice record player-the jukebox-in 1927. Gaudy and grand, it became the center of attraction in dance halls, bars and restaurants. This Seeburg Symphonola Commander (left) offerer. 20 musical selections at a nickel each.
1949 w t as Edison who gave the name "phonograph" to his invention: In Greek "phone" means sound or voice and "graphein" means to write. The name has remained (though the English prefer the wore' "gramophone"), but a lot else has changed. The original version had to be cranked by hand and emitted scratchy sound from a tinfoil surface that could be played only four or five times. Later models, powered by foot treadles, played sound from wax cylinders that could be shaved and used again. Inventors continued to discover new ways to power the machine- by dry cell batteries, through wind-up machinery and, finally, electric motors. Ingenious promoters also developed records of different shapes that produced sound acoustically, then electrically, and finally settled on today's familiar flat disc. Recording technicians have created so many delicate devices and playback subtleties for high fidelity of sound reproduction that a listener can easily imagine he is hearing a live performance.
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1978 Manufacturers all over the world, including India, continue to improve electronic record-playing equipment. Some of the new machines (right) are so perfect that a listener can experience the quality of the original performance without distortion and can even adjust the equipment to give emphasis to particular instruments.
Two giant recording companies battled over the standard size for long-playing records; eventually both won. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) developed this small,fast changer (abovl to play 45 r.p.m. (revolutions per minute), I78-millimeter records (still the standard for single tunes). The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) competed with 33t r.p.m., 305-millimeter records, the standard for longer works.
ll our fossil fuel originally came from green plants, transformed over hundreds of millions of years into oil, coal and gas,'; says Nobel laureate Melvin Calvin. "And here we are, burning it all up in a trifling 100 or 200 years. This means we are nearly out of our savings. It's about time to begin living on our income." The income Dr. Calvin is talking about is the solar energy being captured and stored daily by living green plants. Calvin won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1961 for his research that unraveled the complex chemistry of photosynthesis, the process by which plants absorb sunlight and convert it into stored chemical e.nergy and growing tissue. And now he is trying to create an energy-producing synthetic membrane that would duplicate a plant's photosynthetic process. Ifhe succeeds, the membrane could become a major breakthrough in the search for alternate sources of energy. But the energy-production project that is now attracting the most attention is Calvin's discovery of a plant that might be capable of producing crude oil more cheaply than conventional oil wells. In his office at the University of California at Berkeley sit several potted samples of the plants Calvin is researching. One is a spindly little "gopher bush" from California, another an angular seedling that in Ethiopia grows to tree size. They are both members of the genus of plants called Euphorbia, relatives of the rubber
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tree. Their thick white sap is latex, an emulsion containing as much as 30 to 40 per cent hydrocarbons, similar in many ways to crude oil. In that white fluid, Calvin believes, may be a partial solution to problems facing a world rapidly running out of fossil fuels. Somewhere among the more than 3,000 members Qf this widely distributed genus of plants-many of which are found in Africa-may be some that could become literally gasoline trees. "These plants will never supply all the world's fuel and oil," Calvin cautions, "but there can be no single solution to the fossil fuel problem. We need everything we can get." Since 1973, when he became interested in some plants' ability to produce hydrocarbons, Calvin's pursuit of Euphorbia has been a one-man show, although others are beginning to show interest in the plant's potential. So eager is Calvin to
obtain samples of Euphorbia latex from species in distant parts of the world that he almost always carries small glass bottles to give to any foreign visitors he may meet or to friends going abroad. "All I ask them to do is gather up anything milky they see coming out of a plant, and mail or bring it to me with a sample of the plant," he says. To gather samples, Calvin himself foraged through dozens of jungle and forest sites along Brazil's Amazon River in 1975. Sometimes a boat was needed to reach otherwise inaccessible shrubs and trees, which he examined carefully, occasionally plucking a leaf or a branch. Calvin paused only when a sticky white fluid oozed from the injured plants. Then he would collect small samples in his glass bottles, make a few notes and press the leaves in a book for later identification. And now, near Los Angeles, California, a 0.8-hectare plot of gopher plants is growing under Calvin's direction. The plot will soon be expanded to eight hectares, perhaps to 80. The latex it yields will permit small-scale refining tests to determine how practical the plants are as living oil fields. One estimate is that the plants may provide the equivalent of 50 barrels of crude oil per hectare annually. Of the more than 3,000 Euphorbia
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FARMERS GROW FUELS;'
species in the world, only 12 have had their latex analyzed in detail, .yet already some promis-
ing discoveries have been made. One is that while Euphorbia produces latex somewhat like its better known cousin, the rubber tree (genus Hevea), its molecules are usually much smaller and less complex, and that makes refining easier. "Hydrocarbon from the rubber tree has a molecular weight of 500,000 to two million," Calvin says. "The gopher plant has a weight on the order of 20,000. You take the water out of Hevea latex, you get rubber, like you'd expect. You do it to Euphorbia, and it feels like oil. It is oil." This molecular weight is still higher than that of crude oil, which runs from about 1,000 to 5,000, but oil industry experts Calvin has talked with expect no problems in turning Euphorbia latex into plastics, fuel and lubricants-if they can get it cheaply enough. "So far we have just studied the Euphorbia species that are easiest to get," Calvin said. "This idea is so young that virtually any good chemist could organize a productive research effort. One major need is a systematic survey of the world's Euphorbia species. We need to have analyses of their latex hydrocarbons, the percentage of latex in their dry weight and their growth rates. "The ones I'm particularly interested in," says Calvin, "are those that grow in hot, dry regions. They can use land that is no good for crops or grazing." Speculation that a hectare of meter-tall plants like the gopher bush could produce the equivalent of 50 barrels of crude oil annually is not just idle fancy. In the wild, a pure stand of the gopher bush would produce the equivalent of only about fivebarrels per hectare, but proper cultivation could greatly increase the yield. An encouraging historical precedent is the development of the rubber tree, which grows wild in the jungles of South America. Discovered for its commercial possibilities by Europeans in the early 19th century (American Indian tribes had used it for centuries), its latex was originally harvested at great expense in Brazil by crews of men going from tree to tree in the jungle, slitting the bark and collecting the latex as it dripped out. Brazil's monopoly was short-lived, however, ended by the dispatch of a few Hevea seeds to London's Kew Gardens in 1873. From there, seedlings were carried to Malaysia, where British planters established huge plantations whose labor efficiency virtually drove Brazilian rubber from the world markets by 1915. At that time, yields of natural rubber were typically about 225 kilograms per hectare, a figure that held steady until after World War II when the development of synthetic rubber from petroleum forced
Petroleum trees-a fantasy? Hardly. The thick white sap of the desertloving Euphorbia plant, found in many parts of the world, contains hydrocarbons similar to crude oil.
Dr. Melvin Calvin, Nobel Prize-winning chemist, displays a Euphorbia plant. It could one day become a major source of energy.
Indonesian and Malaysian planters either to increase their yields or to go bankrupt. The response was intensive cultivation of the trees and careful study of their growth characteristics. Today, yields of 2,250 kilos per hectare are common, and experimental hybrids have yielded as many as 5,500 kilos. Some forecasts are that yields may go as high as 9,000 kilos per hectare. Calvin does not make promises for Euphorbia. But he says, ''The point of the rubber tree experience is that improvement would not be surprising. With Euphorbia we are still working with a wild animal. Who knows how it will behave when tamed?" Exactly how Euphorbia might be harvested is still open to conjecture, especially since the "winning" species may still be undiscovered. But, Calvin notes, it would probably involve the harvesting of whole leaves and branches for shredding and latex extraction, rather than tapping, as is done with rubber trees. Since the latex carries stored solar energy, areas with the greatest sunshine provide the best prospects for hydrocarbon plantations. Measurements of average weather and length of daylight in various regions of the world show that the highest "insolation" -or sunshineoccurs in the deserts of northern and
southern Africa, northeastern Brazil and the southwestern United States. Calvin's first public description of the potential of Euphorbia came in 1976 at a meeting of the American Chemical Society. Then, he estimated that the "crude oil" from the plant could be produced at a price "somewhere between $ 3 and $10 per barrel," substantially less than the current world oil price, and that an area the size of Ghana and Togo combined could supply all of America's gasoline needs. The response was staggering. Inquiries poured in from all over the world, particularly from nations dependent on imports for their oil. Numerous large private companies, including oil firms, asked for details. His paper, long before it had even been published in a scientific journal, was requested by hundreds of persons who wrote or telephoned him. "It wa~ obviously an idea whose time had come." Calvin says. Calvin is not the first person to look beyond the Hevea rubber plant for sources of rubber. Right at the University of California, scientists working independently of Calvin are examining the tissues of the latex-producing guayule plantnative to California-under an electron microscope. They are trying to find out the exact role latex plays in the living plant and possibly learn how its production might be stimulated. Nor is Calvin the first to experiment with the idea of using plants to produce fuel. "Brazil produced almost a million liters of alcohol from sugarcane in 1975," he says, "to add to their regular gasoline because of fuel shortages." Although sugarcane is the champion terrestrial plant in its efficiency in storing solar energy, it requires specific soil and weather conditions to thrive. These drawbacks, Calvin has discovered, may not apply to some of the hardier varieties of Euphorbia. A recent summary of hydrocarbonand rubber-producing crops, assembled by scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, agreed with Calvin that hydrocarbon-producing plants often thrive on land unfit for other agricultural uses. Researchers in this new and fast-growing field are convinced that an entirely new type of agriculture may be created by the skyrocketing cost of fossil fuels. In nearly every area of the world, growing in rocky and substandard soil are plants whose combination of hardiness, hydrocarbons and efficient capture of sunlight could transform them from weeds to crops. And the crops, in these cases, would be gasoline. D About the Author: Charles Petit is a science writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. SPAN
NOVEMBER
1978
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NOTBALLE~ NOT ACROBATICS, BUT PIWBOLUS! It isn't gymnastics, acrobatics or mime. Some even say it isn't pure dance. Combining these elements, six young Americans, of whom only one is a professional dancer, have created dances that have caused a sensation and won enthusiastic admiration in America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Consider the fortunes at the Edinburgh Festival in 1973 of the Pilobolus dance troupe, from the state ofYermont. They arrived in Scotland with little more than a listing (along with 120 other events) in the official program of the Fringe Festival and an assurance that a performing space had been reserved for them (to rent at their own expense). They found themselves in a school gymnasium with no stage. They trucked a stage from Glasgow. Unknown but undaunted, they rehearsed in the public parks by day and posted bills by night. They printed their own tickets and took them at the door. When they opened, the house was only half full. Within a week, however, the press had discovered "one of the most unusual and promising dance groups to visit this country in some time" (Dai/y Telegraph), and more seats had to be shipped from Glasgow. Princess Margaret, on holiday nearby, made a surprise visit to town to see their show. She stayed to share a basket of refreshments with the dancers and to approve their projects. On the night of their final performance, their 18th in 20 days, Pilobolus was awarded The Scotsman's coveted Fringe First Prize. They had come as a sideshow from the boondocks and had almost stolen the circus at Europe's greatest arts festival.
Astounding. But for Pilobolus, not unusual. A dance with the curious but prophetic title Pilobo/us had its world premiere in New Hampshire seven winters ago on the stage of Hopkin Center during a series of student performances. The three seniors of Dartmouth College, Hanover, who choreographed and danced it, Moses (Robb) Pendleton, Jonathan Wolken, and Steve Johnson, had been studying dance at Dartmouth for only one term. In Alison Becker Chase's studio course in modern dance, students had to work from whatever movement backgrounds they brought to the class. "She made us use our bodies creatively right from the start, made the novices dance," says Pendleton. "There's a limit to how much technique can be taught to a group of muscle-bound beginners. But anyone can try his hand at choreography, right, boys '?" explains Chase with a glance at the former students whose troupe she joined in 1973. As their term project, Pendleton, an English major, Wolken, a philosophy major, and Johnson, bound for medical school, decided to create a dance together. Uncertain how to go about it, they began by leaning on each other, as if to support one another's inexperience. Then they locked arms.
Over the back of one went the feet of another. And another. Four legs unfolded in the air. Drawing on that they knew of yoga, mime, music, and dance, and what they soon discovered about building shapes with three linked bodies, the trio produced Pi/obo/us, 11 minutes long. Those who lingered over lunch instead of taking in "Choreographic Collections" missed out on history. Alison Chase chose Pi/obo/us to represent Dartmouth at a modern dance performance symposium at New York University in the spring. There New York choreographer Murray Louis saw the piece and was so taken with it that he arranged a special performance before his own company. Louis and his dancers encouraged the visitors to keep on dancing. Johnson went on to medical school, but Pendleton and Wolken persuaded two fellow Chase students, Robbie Barnett, a visual studies major, and Lee Harris, a math and computer science major, to join what was then little more than a dance and a name. What's in the name'? "At first, it was just sound, just bubbling syllables," says Wolken, who recalled the word from research he had done in photobiology. Pilobolus (in real life) is the name of a genus of vigorous, light-loving fungi (which thrives on horse manure)
known to mycologists for its ability to hurl its spores vast distances around the barnyard. "Later, we realized just how appropriate it was." One of Pilobolus' first professional appearances took place at Smith College. Both offbeat rock star Frank Zappa and the crowd of 3,000 that had turned out to hear him play were surprised to see, in place of a local warm-up band, three men clad head to toe in leotards and wearing aviation goggles walk out on stage. There were catcalls. Then, as three bodies unfolded their time-lapse flower, silence, save for the eerie electronic score created for the piece by Dartmouth composer Professor Jon Appleton. Eleven minutes later, wild applause. On the spot Zappa asked the dancers to warm up all his concerts, beginning with one the following evening at Carnegie Hall. With the cheers of 3,000 throats still sounding in their ears, and a prior engagement at Hampshire College the following night, Pilobolus turned Zappa down and elected to go its own way. The four Piloboli settled across the river from Hanover in Norwich. While Barnett and Harris led double lives as dancers and full-time students, Pendleton and Wolken devoted their energies to nursing an undergraduate enthusiasm into a
Intricate figures, like the above, shaped by the interlocking forms of the six members of the group are the hallmark of Pi/obolus' dances.
professional career. Dartmouth College provided after-hours rehearsal space. As the night watchman made his rounds, Spirogyra, Ocellus, Walklyndon, and Geode took form. When Pilobolus made its New York debut in December of 1971, at the Louis-Nikolais Dance Theater Lab, The New York Times was watching. A long review praised the group's physical fearlessness, humor, and inventiveness: "amazing,"
"astounding," "extraordinary." Those adjectives led to bookings throughout the East on week¡ ends and between school terms. Harris' senior Fellowship in dance enabled the group to tour more widely the following year, and success toured with it. In 1973, Pilobolus decided to increase its numbers and to admit women. Alison Chase left her faculty position to join her progeny. Martha Clarke, wife of sculptor Philip Grausman, Dartmouth artist-in-residence in 1972, was also asked to join. Both women had had previous experience dancing professionally. Soon Ciona, for six, was in
repertory, and Pilobo Ius was flying to Edinburgh. The dancers have since toured Europe five times, with several side trips to Africa and the Middle East. They have made only one change in personnel. When Lee Harris left to return to computer work, the company was fortunate in finding Mike Tracy, yet another Chase student and a senior Fellow in social psychology, to replace him. In 1974, the group made a film, Pilobolus and Joan, for PBS's experimental video series. In 1975, Pilobolus won the Berlin Critics' Prize. In 1976, they filled the Espace Cardin in Paris
for an entire month. One evening, as, they came out to take their bows before a standing, clapping crowd, they recognized ballet star Rudolph Nureyev in the front row. To the delight of the dancers and the audience, Nureyev returned their bows. In July of that year, Pilobolus was the rage of Italy's Spoleto Festival. In the program notes for the festival, Clive Barnes of The New York Times called them "the most original company of the decade," an opinion he confirmed in December when he listed Pilobolus among America's leading dance troupes for 1976. Dance companies do not normally spring up and flourish like mushrooms. But Pilobolus (in addition to being named for a mushroom) is an anomaly among dance companies. Ordinarily dancers spend years, not months, acquiring technique before going professional. It is unheard of for dancers to receive their training exclusively at a university. Almost never do they choreograph all their own material. New groups are usually born in New York, not in New Hampshire. Men rarely outnumber women. But Pilobolus has made its dances and its name by turning convention on its head. "In a way, we invented Pilobolus by accident, like the vulcanization of rubber. But we'd all been working toward it without About the Author: Philip Holland is a lecturer in English at Dartmouth College in Hanover. He also often' contributes articles to various American magazines.
Three of the men lock right arms and turn rapidly about an axis. Three others leap headlong for their elbows. As they latch on, they are swung off into orbit and kept whirling like propeller blades. Suddenly this pinwheel flies apart and one of the dancers is sent soaring up. knowing it," says Barnett, who had been an Outward Bound instructor and sculptor Grausman's assistant. Wolken was a fencer and had led community classes in folk dance. Pendleton had been a skier and a Dartmouth Player. Johnson was a pole vaulter, Harris a diver and a gymnast. Tracy could walk up stairs on his hands and juggle (though not at the same time). It was natural that, especially in its early stages, the Pilobolus style should draw on the dancers' muscular strength and athletic coordination. Even their relative ignorance of classical and modern dance worked in their favor. Pilobolus was able to be radically innovative in its approach to movement. "We were like an isolated population free to develop its own mutations, like Darwin's finches," comments Barnett. The particular strain of movement that Pilobolus has evolved is emphatically physical. In Ciona, for instance, three of the men lock right arms and turn rapidly about an axis. From the wings of the stage bound the three other dancers, who leap headlong for the free elbows of the spinning group at the center. As they latch on, they are swung off into orbit and are kept whirling like propeller blades by centrifugal force. -Suddenly the pinwheel flies apart to become a whip and a sling which sends Clarke soaring like a shuttlecock. The company is not always so hyperkinetic. The four men dance Ocellus as a frieze of flowing statuary. In some danceS they are content to grow like embryos or sprouting seeds or to root themselves like polyps on the ocean bottom. All dance is more or less physical, of course. What distinguishes the Pilobolus style from that of conventional dance is not just the degree of physical power involved, but the way in
which bodies are linked together to harness it. "A plane surface is convenient to stand on, but not always interesting to move from. So we try to work off each other instead offrom the floor," explains Wolken. "They are human tinkertoys," wrote a Boston reviewer. Centaurs, fountains, Grausman grasshoppers, catapults, airborne bicycles, colonial algae, giantesses (in full-length dresses), London Bridges (falling down), the Beast of Revelation: there is no end
to their tinkering. Classical ballet grants to the body a certain integrity. PiloboIus takes the body apart limb from limb, so that even a solo may give the impression of being danced by a group. Pendleton performs a remarkable section of Monkshood's Farewell while standing unshakably on one leg. His arms, his torso, and his other leg seem to move independently of the pedestal that supports them. Pilobolus undoes the traditional hierarchy of
bodily parts. In Barnett's Geode, for instance, the great toe (unpointed) and the belly (protruded) play leading roles. When its particular idiom is compared to the learned languages employed by ballet and by some contemporary companies, Pilobolus seems to speak in the vulgar tongue. However demanding in execution, the dancers' movement is always suggestive of universal human motions. They have brought to the often hermetic world of dance the discursive approach of the liberal arts: nothing human is alien to them. One college reviewer called them "demigods"; the critic for The New Yorker noted in them a certain "goatishness." Like the universal man of Pico's famous Renaissance oration, Pilobolus even appears able to express the brutal and angelic natures. Thus the sublime does not
Catapulting one another through the air (left) and creating sculpturesque formations by linking their bodies (facing page, bottom), the Pi/obolus dancers display amazing harmony andflexibility. Facing page, top: One moment the women appear normal, the next they're towering figures, dwarfing their suitors. Pi/obolus achieves this bizarre effect in Untitled by having the women perched, seemingly indifferemly, on the shoulders of two 'hidden' men. The women rise and fall in height as the men carrying them stoop or stand.
exclude the ridiculous. Walklyndon is a very funny dance based on the everyday encounters of passers-by-in a street where Keaton and Chaplin have also walked. Other dances seem to represent the movements of the breast or of the mind. In Pendleton and Chase's Alraune, the heart beats at arm's length. In Hedgemustard's Rhume, three dancers dream up enigmatic images mounted by the other three. For the imagination itself, that faculty of the mind which classically joins nnlike shapes together and causes dreams, Pilobolus' coupling techniques supply a precise metaphor. The dancers themselves sometimes seem to represent the animal spirits at play. It is hard to say at what point¡ dance becomes mime. In any case, Pilobolus has never bothered about the distinction. In Pilobolus, the dancers seem to explore an alien world, another planet or a drop of pond water. At moments they assume vaguely familiar shapes or poses, then retreat into the safety of geometric abstraction. As the company has matured, however, particularly thro.ugh the addition of the women, it has increasingly given play to free dramatic fantasy. Monkshood's Farewell, for example, is a carnival of medievalia. Knights joust with exaggerated ceremony. Queens are borne in on the backs of elephants. A¡ winged creature kills with its look, like the mythical basilisk. Pilobolus' plots and images are as elusive as they are suggestive. It is impossible to fix them without spoiling the riddling or figurative character they have in performance. "Dance metaphor, thy name must be Pilobolus," exclaimed Clive Barnes. Pilobolus has twelve legs but one soul. The intensity of their conceptions and the rapport the dancers exhibit among themselves in performance are directly attributable to their unorthodox methods of choreography. The group has no artistic director. They create their works collectively, relying on each
other's comments and on videotape to polish them. Decisions are made only by acclamation. Says Tracy: "Rehearsals are often emotionally trying. Six imaginations collide. At first, there's a chaos of selves, but it ends in interdependence within a group." Pilobolus is anything but a clone of identical individuals. "Like it .or not," says Tracy, "we always begin with human relations. We resolve our differences--and celebrate our affinities-in a group personality." "It's like parenthood," says Martha Clarke, mother of an eight-year-old son who is himself a seasoned bit performer with the group. The result is dances that are always emotionally plausible and dancers who appear perfectly cast for their parts. The excitement that Pilobolus' public performances generate is another matter. "In the late sixties," says Pendleton, "many theater ensembles left the proscenium in order to come into closer contact with the public. But audiences were not ¡always prepared for the assault, and art was often sacrificed to politics. We decided to remain on stage but to project our energy very consciously outward in the hope that audiences might feel the intensity of participation simply by being present." On stage or off, the Piloboli are natural showmen. So infectious is their enthusiasm for their art that virtually anyone who sees Pilobolus catches it. Their wit engages the intellect. Their contortionist's tricks involve the viscera. Their exuberance and festival good humor draw the audience to them, naive and sophisticated alike. Pilobolus includes everybody. One leaves a performance with a spring in one's step, an agreeable giddiness in one's head, and generosity in one's spirit. 0 The Pi/obolus dancers find it "more interesting to work off each other insteadoffrom thefloor." In doing that they sketch body patterns seemingly impossible to achieve.
EAST WING FOR NATIONAL GALLERY
A OFA
MUSEUM
"We have no official art in this country," said President immy Carter, opening the new $94 million east wing of the ational Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., "and I pray hat we never will." Indeed, the first step toward this huge ew repository of world art was taken with a contribution of $20 million by Paul Mellon and Alisa Mellon Bruce, hildren of business magnate Andrew Mellon, who is better emembered today for his generous patronage of art and for eing the driving force behind the foundation of the National Gallery. Designed by renowned architect I.M. Pei, the building onsists of two connected triangles of different size, the larger of which houses the museum. The smaller, due to open in 1979,will accommodate a center for advanced study in the isual arts, and offices for scholars, arranged around a sixstory art library of more than 300,000 books and a photographic archive of two million prints. The centerpiece of the opening display is an exhibit of 700 art objects loaned by the Dresden Museum in East Germany, which have traveled out of their age-old habitat for the first time. The architectural elegance and marvelous scope for display of the east wing have prompted art critics to call it "a jewel of a museum." Left: The triangular shapes and sharp edges of the new east wing in the foreground contrast sharply with the neoclassicism of the older building in this aerial view. The two sections are joined by a triangular, skylighted courtyard topped by 1,500 square meters of a glass- and -steel frame, 24 meters. jrom the ground at its highest point. The expanse below is decked with tapestries and live plants, ringed by exhibition floors and terraces. Right, above: A huge mobile by Alexander Calder hangs in the central courtyard. Right, below; Wil/em deKooning paintings occupy one of the galleries in the show on mid-century American art.
Above: Architect I.M. Pei gestures as he discusses the placement of a huge work by the English sculptor Henry Moore (left). With them are National Gallery Director J. Carter Brown and Mrs. Brown. The sculpture seen here is one of two sections of Moore's bronze "Knife Edge Mirror Two Piece," commissiQnedfor the East Building. Above, right: David Smith sculptures are on display in an amphitheater-type room-part of the mid-century American Art show made up of sixty-four paintings, drawings and sculptures by major artists of the abstract expressionist movement.
Far left: Another David Smith piece, "Circle I, Circle II, Circle IlI." Middle left: A life-size mock-up of a jousting knight is part of the show: "Splendor of Dresden," consisting of 700 objects from the East German city's museums assembled by National Gallery Director Brown, who had himself studied in Dresden and resolved to bring the collection for a show in the United States. The East Building will emphasize contemporary art, but will continue to show art of all ages from all over the world. Near leji: In a pool outside the central lobby , figures by the French sculptor Jean Dubuffet are seen through the lobby windows.
By patient research, scientists at the Industrial Toxicology Research Centre in Lucknow are gaining an insight into the baffling nature of occupational ailments.
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City of great charm and beauty, Lucknow has always been famous for its literary and artistic traditions. Today it is an important scientific research center as well. The metropolis has some half dozen national laboratories, probably the least known of which is the Industrial Toxicology Research Centre (ITRC). The only institution of its kind in India, it is engaged in pioneering research on occupational diseases: it studies the effects of industrial toxins on the health of workers and designs preventive and therapeutic remedies. In factories and mines around the world, hundreds of thousands of workers are daily exposed to a large variety of toxic substances, and are vulnerable to such deadly diseases as pneumoconiosis, silicosis, foetal disorders, paralysis and dermic allergies. To cite just one example: At a factory in Kanpur, about 80 kilometers south of Lucknow, dozens of workers beat and clean the hemp fiber; many more wind the twine hemp in cleats to make ropes. Still others fabricate nets by forming loops and knots with the help of wooden gauges to give the required size of mesh. The process releases fibrous dust into the atmosphere which hangs all over the factory like a miasma. As they go about their chores, workers unwittingly inhale the dust, even ingest it when they eat their food with soiled hands. Many thus become victims to the toxic effects of fibrous dust: They develop a cough, breathlessness, and congestion and pain in the chest. Unfortunately, most general practitioners of medicine don't know much about these work-related ailments; it's not a subject they spend a lot of time on in medical college. "That is where," Dr. C. R. Krishna Murti, director ofITRC, says, "an institute like ours steps in to help:' For instance, a team ofITRC scientists headed by Dr. S.H. Clerk has extracted an allergen to immunize the Kanpur workers against the hemp fiber diseases. "In India," notes Dr. Krishna Murti, "the major problem is not environmental degradation. Most of our land surfacealmost 90 per cent-is still free from pollution, though we must take timely steps to repair and arrest further damage. The serious problem is the health hazard to the worker as he is exposed to various toxins like chemicals, dyes, plastics, pesticides, and mineral and metal dusts. This is the problem we address ourselves to at this center-how to assure the worker's health." An industrial toxin is an insidious poison. When it enters the body, either through inhalation or ingestion, it goes on secretly doing its damage to various organs without the host being aware of it. Many years may elapse before the disease, which is often irreversible in its advanced stage, manifests itself clinically. Facing page: Far left: Scientific assistant Dr. Krishna Gopal studies the effects of pesticides on catfish at the Industrial Toxicology Research Centre. Experiments have revealed a rise in blood glucose andfall in red blood cells in the fish. Left, top: Dr. G.B. SinKh tests samples of eatables for color adulteration with such impermissible pigments as metani! yellow, which causes liver and kidney disorders. Left: At aflour mill, an ITRC research worker measures concentrations of flour dust, suspected of producing dermatitis and tuberculosis. Left, bottom: Dr. Qamar Rahman tests toxicity of asbestos dust, which causes significant biochemical lesion in the lung.
A very important aspect of ITRC research, therefore, is to design tests for early detection of the disease syndrome. One tangible success in this area has been the development of two diagnostic tests for manganese toxicity, whose early symptoms are tremors, incoherent speech and stiffness in the limbs. However, the disease in its advanced stage manifests itself in the form of a nervous disorder resembling Parkinsonism, a chronic disabling condition. "In the course of our studies on the laboratory animals," notes Dr. S.V. Chandra, who heads this project and who recently visited the United States under a World Health Organization (W.H.O.) fellowship to share her expertise with her counterparts in America, "we observed that in mild cases of manganese toxicity, the calcium level of the blood was raised, while in chronic cases, the level of adenosine-triphosphatase, an enzyme in the blood serum, was appreciably high." "With these tests," according to her, "there is no reason why a single person should suffer from the debilitating effects ofmanganese poisoning. If the blood test is positive, the worker can be removed from the site till such time as the blood calcium level becomes normal." Two other startling discoveries were that manganese toxicity mostly affects persons with iron deficiency, and that it can be passed on from one generation to another. Experiments on young rat weanlings, exposed to manganese via the milk of nursing mothers, showed significant concentrations of the metal in the brain, kidneys and gonads (sexual glands). Another ITRC project nearing successful completion is Dr. Qamar Rahman's work on asbestos toxicity, which has earned her international fame. Some 250 requests around the world-ISO from the United States alone-have been received by the institute for copies of her paper, "Some Perspectives on the Biological Effects of Asbestos Toxicity," which she coauthored with her senior colleague, Dr. P.N. Viswanathan, and the former director of ITRC, Dr. S.H. Zaidi. Dr. Rahman is a "visible" scientist. She is often on Lucknow television and radio, espousing causes dear to her-the dangers of environmen.tal pollution to man, how to avoid the health hazards of industrial toxins. She also carries on this crusade through magazine articles. An important aspect of Dr. Rahman's work is her discovery that membranes-one of the body's defense mechanisms-are the target of asbestos toxicity. On the basis of this discovery, she has designed an RBC (red blood corpuscles) membrane model system through which scientists can study directly in the test tube the mechanism of asbestos toxicity. Using this improved technique, which has also eliminated the need for experiments on laboratory animals, Dr. Rahman has been able to establish the fact that people with blood groups A and B are not susceptible to asbestos poisoning. "This was discovered by a team of Egyptian epidemiologists some time back," she says. "But they could not clarify or explain why this was so. The usefulness of this test is that we can screen the workers before employing them. If they have a blood group other than A or B, that is, 0 or M, they should not be employed." One important offshoot of Dr. Rahman's work may be a collaborative project with the United States. A team of American experts, who participated in an Indo-U.S. workshop on environment in Madras in February 1978 and who later visited tIre'institute, were so impressed by the RBC model that they want to initiate a joint program to study through this technique the mode of action of "fugitive" dusts-dusts emanating from quarryingwhich is a serious problem in the United States. Another area for possible collaboration between the two countries is the role of trees in monitoring and containing noise SPAN NOVEMBER 1978
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One of the few centers of its kind in the world, ITRC is doing pioneering work in the field of industrial toxicology which will be of immense benefit to the well-being of the worker everywhere. and dust pollution. "In Los Angeles, where I stayed for almost 20 months," says Dr. Krishna Murti, "they have planted a belt of trees at the airport to absorb jet noise. Some species of trees are also very good containers of dust. Planted near the cement factories, for example, trees can absorb the dust originating from them. We want to study the characteristics of these trees for possible plantation in India." These are only two of fifteen projects singled out by the Madras workshop for collaboration between the two countries. "Most of them," notes the director, "are literally on the anvil. Besides, we will be hosting another Indo-U.S. workshop in Lucknow on biodegradable pesticides coming February." This is only one aspect of international cooperation, which is an integral part of ITRC activities. The Centre acts as a reference lab to W.H.O. for studying the harmful effects of pesticides in Southeast Asia. Under another W.H.O. program, each year two of ITRC's scientists visit toxicological research institutes in such countries as the United States and England for advanced training and to exchange expertise in and experiences with industrial toxins. The institute also receives grants totalling $10,000 annually from W.H.O. for buying lab equipment. ITRC has been recognized as a national correspondent by the International Register of Potentially Toxic Chemicals (IRPTC), which forms a part of the Earthwatch of the U.N. Environmental Program. Under this arrangement, the Centre supplies all the documented data on chemicals it has to IRPTC. Besides, ITRC is collaborating with France on noise pollution.
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he history of ITRC is largely a history of dedicated men and women who have labored to serve the sick in the factory and the mine. Outstanding among them is its founder-director, Dr. S.H. Zaidi, to whose vision the Industrial Toxicology Research Centre owes its existence. "When 1 first proposed the setting up of this institute in 1962 to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)," reminisces Dr. Zaidi, who retired last May, "even the West hadjust then begun realizing the implications of potential health hazards of industrial toxins and environmental pollution. And in India in those days, these problems hardly existed. But I saw industrialization coming. There was no escape from it." Setting up the institute was not easy, though. Most ofIndia's scientific community at that time, Dr. Zaidi muses, was not ready to entertain the idea. It was too far-fetched, they thought. However, Dr. Zaidi persisted-"the man who works in the factory, the mine and on the farm for the community should not go uncared for" -and ITRC came into being in 1965. ITRC had a very modest beginning-a budget of Rs. 50,000 from the CSIR, a number of PL-480 grants from the U.S. A.l.D. and a staff of about 10 scientists. Steadily growing over the years, the Centre now comprises a sleek six-story building, a total staff of about 250 including 200 scientists and researchers, and a budget that will soon be touching one crore rupees. "This dramatic expansion," notes the former director, "vindicates my faith in the Centre." A pioneer in the field of industrial toxicology, Dr. Zaidi has been honored by a number of countries. He was awarded the S.S. Bhatnagar Award in 1963, the Sir Ardeshir Dalal Memorial Gold Medal in 1975, and the Padma Shri in 1977. He is a Fellow
of Royal College of Pathologists. The latest honor is the Yant Memorial Award in 1977. Given each year by the American Industrial Hygiene Association to persons outside the United States, the award honors individuals who most effectively exemplify the ideals of the industrial hygiene profession-to promote and advance the health and well-being of people everywhere. However, the finest tribute to Dr. Zaidi's talents and humanism is the institute itself. Though Dr. Zaidi has retired from ITRC, he is still very much a part of it. He has a lab on the top floor of the Centre where he pursues his research on the synergetic effects of infections and industrial dusts on the worker under a PL-480 grant.
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ne feature that characterizes modern society is the use of chemicals in everyday life. Selectively toxic chemicals such as medicines have largely eradicated infectious diseases. Pesticides have contributed to abundant agricultural yields. And industrial cll<::micalshave given us synthetic fibers, plastics, electronics, new metal technologies, and all kinds of domestic conveniences, from detergents and refrigerants to deodorants and cosmetics. Yet, notes Dr. Krishna Murti, many of these chemicals are highly toxic-they produce tumors, skin allergies, neurological disorders, liver and kidney damage. A few of them are suspected of being carcinogenic-that is, they produce cancer-and mutagenic, which means that they may change the very makeup of chromosomes or genes. How chemicals induce these lethal ailments the scientist does not as yet understand. One of the vital areas of ITRC research, therefore, is the study of the toxicity of chemicals. However, as it is beyond the capability of one institute to investigate the molecular mechanisms of all the man-made chemicals-in India alone some 10,000 chemicals are in use-the ITRC research is built around some of the most widely used chemicals like plastics, pesticides and dyes. Pesticides and insecticides, along with the new improved highyielding wheat strains, have been mostly responsible for India's Green Revolution. A common sight in the countryside, besides the ubiquitous tractor, is the man spraying pesticides on the fields with his hand-operated contraption, or the tiny aircraft, flying at tree heights, jetting out thick white clouds of the chemical. "But," says Dr. Krishna Murti, who directs research in pesticides, "they are not without their ill effects. In fact, pesticides may cause harm not only to the workers who manufacture them, but also to the many others whose food or environment may become contaminated by them. For example, our studies on rats, whose chambers were sprayed with endosulfan, an insecticide, revealed a temporary but significant rise in their blood glucose and blood glutathione; the compound was found to reach the brain where it accumulated in cerebral cortex and cerebellum." "Similarly," he adds, "we observed in our experiments on plants that the insecticide inhibited seed germination, thus stunting their growth." The institute is also conducting investigations of pesticides' harmful effects on fish and other aquatic organisms. Until recently toxicologists thought that the health hazards of plastics were confined to the factory only, and that finished goods like PVC bags, containers and pipes were harmless. But if you ask Dr. P.K. Seth, it may not be so. "A few years ago," he
turmeric, they are neither cheap nor plentiful-hence, people adulterate foodstuffs with cheap impermissible colors that are highly poisonous. In the course of an examination of some 13,000 colored food samples collected from all over Uttar Pradesh, Dr. Khanna and his colleagues at ITRC observed that 70 per cent were dyed with impermissible colorants. The most used such pigment was metanil yellow, which can result in the malfunctioning of kidneys and testes. The team decided to try to develop a dye from tea leaf wastes. There are tons and tons of this waste in India, especially in the north. They have in fact already developed a small sample of this natural pigment, and are now studying its acidity, stability, toxicity (though most natural dyes are nontoxic) and other characteristics.
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ne project of monumental patience at ITRC is the study of the toxicity of single-cell proteins, which is of great significance to India, where a great majority of people suffer from malnutrition. Sponsored by the Petroleum Institute of India at Dehra Dun, which has prepared these proteins from a constituent of petroleum, the yeasts will provide the country with a plentiful source of cheap proteins. "In our year's investigations on rats," says Dr. K.P. Pandya, who heads the project, "we have not noticed any ill effects. But it will be at least another four Top, left: Dr. C.R. Krishna Murti, ITRC's director. Top, right: to five years before we can say with any certainty whether these Dr. S.H. Zaidi, founder-director. Above: A research assistant injects a chemical in a laboratory rabbit to study the chemical's toxicity. proteins are toxic or not. As these are for human consumption, we have to be very, very careful in our work. We must investigate points out, "Drs. Jagger and Reuben in the United States their toxicity not only in one generation of rats, but in the succeeddiscovered traces of di-2-ethylhexyle-phthalate (DEHP) in the ing generations as well to be sure that they are not carcinogenic, blood kept in PVC bags. On examination, they found that DEHP, or mutagenic, or do not produce any other serious ailment. Once which is a plasticizer used in the making of plastics, had leached this is done, we will repeat the experiments on higher animals out of the bags." like rabbits and guinea pigs and dogs and their offspring." "This was a startling discovery," continues Dr. Seth, who did Another project, which Indian Oil Corporation sponsored, his postdoctoral research in the United States, "for the plasticizer was to study the effects of petrel vapors on the health of attendants could be toxic. To investigate this, Dr. Reuben fed rats with very at gasoline stations. During the course of the day, petrol pump small quantities of DEHP and found that it produced the shock- workers inhale large quantities of benzine-a constituent of lung phenomenon-complete hemorrhagic changes in the lungs." gasoline-as they handle petrol. A survey of some two dozen ITRC studies have also shown that the plasticizer inhibits the petrol filling stations in Lucknow showed that many attendants functioning of two important energy-linked enzymes in the liver. suffered from headache, giddiness, fatigue and sleeplessness. Though in its early stages, the institute's research assumes a Investigations at the Centre revealed a very high content of phenol great significance in view of the proliferating use of plastics in (benzine is metabolized in the body to phenol) in the workers' urine. "Though we have not found any cure for this," says Dr. everyday life. One of the earliest projects in chemicals, where the institute Pandya, "we have developed a tablet for the detection of phenol has had only partial success as yet, was the study of the toxicity in the urine." The pill, which the workers can themselves use, of benzanthrone on a request by the Indian Dyestuff Industries when dropped in the urine changes its color to blue within Limited in Kalyan, Maharashtra. The company reported that 15-20minutes if the concentration of phenol is high. The practical many of its workers who came in contact with the chemical benefit of this test, according to Dr. Pandya, is that workers who during its manufacture developed various dermic disorders have a high percentage of phenol can be granted leave of absence like erythema, dryness, itching, Toughness and skin pigmentation. till their urine returns to normal. Benzanthrone is the starting substance used in the synthesis of The work described here forms just a small segment ofITRC's a number of dyes. program. There are a number of other projects-some completed, Through its research, ITRC has found that vitamin C effect- some currently in progress and some earmarked for the future. ively cures all the disease syndromes except skin pigmentation, In the context of the overall problem, the contribution of any for which it is now developing a vaccine. "My hunch is," says one individual or institution engaged in biomedical research is Dr. G.B. Singh, in charge of this study, "that the chemical comes by its nature very small-in fact infinitesimal. ITRC is aware in contact with the proteins, which are antigens, to produce local of this, as Dr. Krishna Murti says: "Ours is a very large canvas, antibodies that cause pigmentation. Once we know what antigen and we have just touched a fringe of it." But it is through these is formed, we can develop antibodies-a vaccine-against the small increments that man over the centuries has been able to conquer many diseases and make life more meaningful. However disease. " While research to develop a vaccine is still in a relatively small its contribution, the IndustrialToxicology Research Centre is early stage, Dr. Singh talks excitedly about another project: to working toward its ideal, inscribed on a marble slab in its lobby: prepare a cheap natural pigment, a colorant, in large quantities. "Cripples and helpless wrecks who were once strong men Though there are a number of natural pigments, like saffron and shall no longer be a by-product of industry." D
AN INDIAN INTULSA A young writer recalls a city in the United States where he lived for years, its atmosphere, its vigor and eccentricity. Tulsa, Oklahoma, is not a city whose name is on every lip in India. Or for that matter in the United States either. Its chief characteristic appears to be its extreme ordinariness. It is the sort of place many Americans come from when they sally forth into the world in search of fame and fortune. It is rarely the kind of place they go to. Tulsa is, in short, a good specimen of what it is-a medium-sized American city. Tulsa has a population of 350,000 within the city and another 150,000 in the bedroom suburbs from where people commute to work in Tulsa. It is a relatively recent city, rich even by the prosperous standards of the United States. Its chief business interests are in oil and cattle. These are the sketchy, skeletal outlines of the city that the casual visitor sees. What he misses is the subtle and varied diversity-the still very visible strains of different cultures, the proud individuality of little homes hidden in the shadows of the impersonal, inevitable skyscrapers, the singularity of the individuals who comprise the anonymous, colorless street throngs. I was fortunate in spending three years in Tulsa watch'lng and being a part of this diversity. My first insight into Tulsa, and by extension probably into America, came with the realization that diversity in America is so much less vivid than it is in India. Here we flaunt our separateness. India is like a rainbow, each band of color part of a whole, yet strikingly, immediately and uniquely different from it's brothers. In the United States on the other hand, the melting pot, to use the creaking metaphor, appears to be remarkably homogeneous indeed. But put a spoonful of it under a microscope and you see it crawling with startlingly original forms. Even in the melting pot there are still hard clumps of stubbornly assertive little groups who refuse to be diluted and to
merge with the common broth. One of these are the American Indians, who are plentiful in Tulsa and are familiar to us in India, as the Red Indian villains of so many gruesome Western books and movies. Contrary to the bizarre notions Hollywood continues to bequeath to the world, the American Indians are now reasonably reconciled to the presence of some 200 million consequent additions to what was originally exclusively their preserve. Today they survive as an authentic minority and a revered legend, proud of their heritage, conscious of their distinctiveness, and religiouli in the observance of their rituals and traditions. In fact in Oklahoma it is today something of a status symbol to be able to claim a dash of American Indian blood. The genuine "full blood" Indians are easily identifiable on the streets of Tulsa, not because of any ostentatious war whoops or scalps-in-the-belt they might affect, but because their features and the color of their skin is so strikingly different from that of other Americans. They bear in fact a somewhat uncanny resemblance to people in Northeast India. Many of them work in Tulsa, engaging in various, chiefly blue-collar, occupations. Others stay in "reservations" -land set aside by the government exclusively for themleading a simple life, growing crops and practicing their traditional crafts. There is one other minority in Tulsa that is as easily identifiable as the others, but unlike them is in danger of becoming extinct. These are the cowboys. Yes, they actually exist, but not quite in the Wild West image any more, if ever they did live up to that legend. True, they still wear cowboy hats and riding boots and still herd longhorn cattle, but the average cowboy of today would probably break his neck if you put him on a horse. He is more likely to be found driving a pick-up truck in which he chases after
errant cows while being guided through a walkie-talkie by a spotter in a helicopter above. However much his profession may have altered, the cowboy's brawling lifestyle has changed little. On payday he still swaggers into town looking if not for redeye whisky then at least for bourbon, and most assuredly, if all the tales be true, for a fight. As a matter of principle, other Oklahomans, particularly American Indians, deny him neither. The Battle of the Little Big Horn is inconclusively refought every Friday night in Oklahoman towns with names like Stillwater, Wewoka, Wetumka and even, unlikely though it sounds, Bugtussle. Obviously Tulsa isn't all, or even substantially, cowboys and Indians. Most of it, even more so than in most of America, is chrome-plated, glass-walled, exhaustfuming modernity. But even this very modernity is a reminder of the amazing and unparalleled event that opened up what was once the forbidding area called Indian territory: This was the Oklahoma Land Race that flagged off the state of Oklahoma as well as a small army of hopeful settlers on horses and covered wagons who raced after the starting gun at sunrise to the spot they wanted as their home; if they reached it before other rivals and before sunset, it was granted to them free as their home. The romance of this race is always in the background as one observes the continuing expansion of Tulsa. In Tulsa this explosion has not been merely industrial or financial, but also cultural. The city recently gave itself a multimillion-dollar Performing Arts Center, where entertainment of every sort is featured almost nightly. Within a span of two months I saw the Panovs, emigres from the Soviet Union, dance, Ella Fitzgerald sing, an opera, a Latin American dance group, the Electric Light Orchestra, and the New York Theater Group's version of Macbeth, besides other distinguished performances. Much of the impetus of the cultural thrust emanates from the University of Tulsa or from individuals or groups associated with it. The university, where I studied, is certainly the intellectual center of the city and is best known for its petroleum engineering department, that is quite familiar to many engineers in our own Indian Oil and Natural Gas Commission. At one time the only industry of any size in Tulsa was oil, and many fortunes were generated from it. J. Paul Getty, for instance, once regarded as the richest man in the world, earned his first paltry million speculating in oil leases
in the lobbies of Tulsa hotels. But today diverse businesses are flowing to Tulsa, attracted by its civic amenities, its low tax rate, its docile labor and general probusiness bias. The much traveled executives of these corporations bring a cosmopolitan glamor to the city, which the native Oklahoman sometimes lacks. The traditional Oklahoman comes in two distinct characterizations-the delightfully friendly and the downright dangerous. One is the best friend in the world and the other the worst enemy. I don't think I am being simplistic,' at least not about their attitude to foreigners, since the two categories did not, in my experience, ever overlap. From the friendly group one gets accustomed to such occurrences as a chance encounter at a supermarket leading to an invitation to dinner and the establishment of a genuinely warm and abiding friendship. From the other group tomes the support and organiz.ational base of violently racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. However, all Tulsans, whether indigenous or imported, share in common an abiding mania for two activitieswatching American football and drinking beer by a lake. American football is uniquely American with its mixture of organized mayhem, pageantry, cruelty, instant heroes, violence, and underclad females whom everybody, except riveted visiting foreigners, characteristically ignores. These scantily garbed figures are known as cheerleaders, and their amazing gyrations would in many countries result in their arrest on morals charges. Astonishingly, spectators choose to ignore the women, preferring the game. Perhaps this is where the common global belief in the intrinsic eccentricity of Yankees springs from. I never found any evidence that the cheerleaders stimulated either the team or the audience, but they certainly captured the hearts, minds and hypnotized gazes of the foreign students. The other Tulsan hobby of drinking beer by a lake is equally improbably odd. Oklahomans rouse themselves on their holidays at a bizarrely early hour, prepare a picnic lunch, drive for scores of miles through appallingly congested highways infested with similar fanatics, arrive at a lake that has the cool, serene tranquillity of a major riot, then battle their way through the swarming mob, stepping on and being stepped on democratically by everybody, till they squeeze into a few vacant inches of grass or sand. There they sit with looks of great bliss on their face, sipping beer as though it had suddenly ripened into nectar, and chasing, with uncharacteristic intolerance, ants, flies and marauding frisbees. Toward
the evening they surge back to their automobiles and return home, leaving numerous wrecked cars on the highways. And thus after a holiday that is far more tiring and nerve-racking than the worst of their working days, they go contentedly to sleep. In short, Tulsa and Tulsans seem to delight in presenting a wholly convincing facade, and not just to foreigners but to Americans as well, of a town that is predictable to an appalling degree. That is-until one is allowed close enough to peep through the chinks in the great, gray wall into the colorful circus that functions within, so silently, stealthily, yet to those who are in it, so raucously. It's a city doubly serendipitous because it's so utterly, unexpectedly so. And Tulsa is as much an unexpected delight to Americans as it is to foreigners. American images of Oklahoma tend to be formed from Wild West movies, the musical Oklahoma, and from more serious but outdated books like John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. This book dealt with the migration of Oklahomans to California during the Great Depression, when Oklahoma had become what was called a "dust bowl." However, since then American ingenuity, Oklahoman determination, and the U.S. Corps of Engineers' skills have literally transformed Oklahoma into one of the greenest states in America. The state's painful memories of the dust bowl days have caused it to build a system of lakes and dams whose total cubic water content exceeds that of the state of Minnesota, the fabled land of 10,000 lakes. Some of my happiest memories are of the days I spent by the lakes with American friends, grilling and eating hamburgers, playing frisbee, going for long, exhilarating boatrides and, at night, listening and joining in usually off-key, but nonetheless heartwarming, singing.
In the venerable sport of developing fleeting, if intimate, friendships with young ladies who frequent bars, I was incompetent. I developed a habit, much to the consternation of all present, of initiating long and, I now recall, one-sided conversations on the question of the trade deficit of Third World countries and the likelihood of a debt moratorium. This did not seem to instantly endear me to the sort of ladies who frequent bars. Being an Indian, however, did have its advantages. After word spread of my culinary prowess-which consisted of a chicken curry I wouldn't dare try in India-numerous American families invited me to their homes and enthusiastically consumed the concoctions, many of them extemporaneous, that I dished out as Indian food. Initially I was a little appalled at what I might be doing to the insides of my American friends, but they seemed to thrive on it. My reputation soared as I prepared new and exotic delicacies, never repeating a dish. It was assumed this was due to my vast expertise, whereas the fact was that I knew so little cooking that I couldn't repeat a dish even when I wanted to. The climax of my career was at a banquet given by the foreign students where I lent my talents as a chef, and where my luck finally failed me, since my permutations were responsible for 200 peopleincluding the Mayor and much of the business, banking and educational elite of Tulsa-being afflicted with embarrassing intestinal problems. Tulsa may forget that event, but I'll never forget Tulsa. 0' About the Author: Anurag Mathur is afree-lance writer based in New Delhi. Until recently he was in the United States where he studied creative writing at the graduate school of the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He also worked there as a reporter with the Tulsa Tribune.
an has lived on the planet earth for over one million years (some â&#x20AC;˘ say two million but let us be modest). It seems likely that the permanent village of over 500 persons (l00 families) was invented during the last 10,000 years. The city of 50,000 persons seems to have evolved only during the last 5,000 years. The metropolis of over five million almost certainly first appeared in the final onehundredth of one per cent of our time on earth (after 1875). Most of the metropolises of over five million have appeared during the last 25 years 'and fully half of them are in the developing countries. Isn't it unrealistic to expect mankind to manage this new social phenomenon as well as it manages villages and towns? For the first 90 per cent of our sojourn on earth we lived in ecological balance with the environment, killing animals and picking "wild" fruits and vegetables for food. Beginning perhaps 100,000 years ago we domesticated animals and supervised their grazing, thus slightly modifying earth's environment or taming nature. With the invention of agriculture during the next 50,000 years man began to change the face of the earth by cutting forests, leveling fields, diverting rivers and building permanent settlements. Today, about one-quarter of the surface of the earth has been modified by agriculture and mining, whereas less than one per cent is being used by cities and towns. Despite the major changes in the ecology wrought by cultivation, the farmer is at the mercy of mother nature. Rain, wind, temperature, insects and plant and animal diseases make all the difference between surplus and famine. With the building of cities we have created a man-made environment. Water, energy and street systems combined with permanent buildings for work, leisure and home life shape an environment that protects us from the elements and disease. Trees that provide shade and moisture are replanted in cities, after having been displaced by farmland. Modern cities are closer to ecological balance than is a field of cotton or rice. Jerusalem and Cairo can trace their histories back 5,000 years. Mohenjo-Daro near the Indus and Nineveh on the Euphrates existed 4,000 years ago. These four seem to have been members of a group of perhaps 20 major cities of over 50,000 persons corresponding to about 20 of over five million today. The greatest of these cities may have been Angkor
(in Cambodia), which covered 30 square miles in 1000 A.D. and was probably more populous than Rome in 100A.D. During the thousand years prior to the industrial revolution of the late 18th and early 19th century, cities in many parts of the world became highly refined in their functions, design and maintenance. Some were like works of art. Siena, Italy, is my own favorite, though Venice, Italy, has the larger reputation. Machu Picchu, Peru; Pagan, Burma; Bruges, Belgium; Peking, China; Nara, Japan; Amsterdam, Holland; and Isfahan, Persia, were known-and some are still knownfor their beauty and civic order. These cities took centuries to build, rebuild, refine and polish. Each had a wall to contain and define it. Each continued for hundreds of years to fulfill mUdythe same functions of trade, administration and religious leadership. For some 10,000 years certain settlements have specialized in the manufacture of certain products. The pottery and weaving villages are well-known examples. Dresden china, Dacca muslin, and Sheffield steel are historic hallmarks. The industrial revolution combined new machinery harnessed to water and fossil fuel power with the organizational might of the assembly line. A new kind of city was created, "the industrial city." Cities without administrative or trade functions and without an agricultural hinterland grew in a few decades to be as large as any in history. They grew up around the
mills rather than the port, the government headquarters or the cathedral. They grew with hundreds of thousands of semiskilled and unskilled workers and thousands of millowners and merchants. The writings of Marx and Engels about Manchester and Birmingham are the c1assics_of the era. They could as well have been written about Pittsburgh and Detroit. Today's writings about industrial cities in the developing countries say the same things, perhaps less well. In the year 1850 all the 15 cities in the world over 500,000 were in the developing world. except Paris and London. Ten were in China. The other three were port cities-Istanbul, Bombay and Calcutta. The last two are archetypes of the colonial coastal city functioning as a trade and administrative center. The most dynamic period of urbanization the earth has ever known has occurred since 1950 in the developing countries. Led by giants like Bombay, Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo, former colonial administrative and trade centers changed their major function to manufacturing to serve the vast hinterlands formerly served by the colonial powers.' Coming at a time of worldwide prosperity and relative peace, cities grew as cities had never grown before. The change from sleepy colonial city to boisterous mill town¡ was more dramatic in the second tier of cities, whose population began at between half and one million persons at the end of World War II. These cities
included Seoul, Taipei, Karachi, Lagos, and Caracas. The problems they faced in the fifties and sixties are a replay of those faced by Manchester and Detroit in the developed world. At the root of the urbanization crises in the Third World is a lack o'f understanding about the role of cities. Despite such urban ills as breakdown of utilities and social services, reflected in shanty towns, infectious diseases and transportation congestion, Third World cities have been more successful than have -cities in any other area or at any other time in generating products and business to lift the economies of their countries. Let me comment on eight of the most common misunderstandings about cities. • Large cities are parasites on their hinterlands. This economic slogan is based on economic studies of colonial cities in the 19th century. It could be argued until 1950 that their wealth was,.drawn from the hinterland, although they provided "middleman" services. Today, as large manufacturing centers they uplift the economy of the entire country. Their productivity leads the country and does not feed on it. • Country life is healthy and good. City lifeis unhealthy and evil. This myth goes back to Roman times and their nostalgia for the "good old days" of the Republic. Rousseau reintroduced it in the 19th century and Chairman Mao in the 20th. Health statistics in Egypt for the past 50 years show that men, women and children are healthier in cities than in villages. The same applies in many developing countries. Cities are also the centers of religion, education and culture. The medieval saying "city air makes you free" is still substantially true today in feudal societies. • In Europe urbanization and urbanism grew up together. In the developing countries people aren't ready for urban life, and cities are a mess because the ignorant peasants who come to live in cities don't know how to behave properly there. Dickens, Engels, Walt Whitman and many other writers have chronicled the difficulties of European and American farm boys in the process of adjustment to city life. Although in some developing countries there is a sharp break from the tribal and nomadic life to urban life, in all Asia, from East to West, and in all of South America an urban tradition was
well established at the time of independence. This is particularly true for China and India. Two-thirds of the world's urbanization from 1975 to the year 2000 will occur in China and South Asia. • Industry is urban, agriculture is rural. The Paleolithic hunter needed 2,500 acres to support himself (four square miles). The Neolithic herdsman needed only 25 acres. The subsistence farmer using the rotation system, as in many of the developing countries today, requires 2.5 acres. Single crop rice farmers in India and Pakistan can subsist on one acre. And traditional irrigated farming in Japan and Egypt using only hand tools can support an adult on only 0.25 acres. Today rural agricultural densities in persons per square mile of developed land are similar to urban densities at the edge of large cities. Thus, the Nile Delta rural areas have 3,000 persons per square mile, whereas Los Angeles suburban densities are 2,500 per square mile. The technology of agriculture has intersected the technology of urbanization in the number of persons per acre. The "industrial city" is a phenomenon of only the last 150 years, a blip in the history of human settlement. For 98 per cent of the history of cities on this earth (possibly 99 per cent), industry and city were not synonymous. During the past 25 years in the developed world there has been a selective march of industry away from cities into the countryside. Such a trend is not established in the developing countries. By and large industry cannot thrive without a skilled labor force, and rural areas in the developing countries can provide neither a labor force nor essential business services. Two potentials exist in the foreseeable (plannable) future: to bring high intensity agriculture (vegetables, chickens, fish) into the city; or to move some smaller industries to the larger villages (or perhaps a new type of hybrid settlement, which is half village and half town). • Lack of opportunities and poverty in the countryside is pushing people into the cities, although there are no jobs waiting for them. From 1961 to 1971 the Calcutta Metropolitan Area grew at the rate of 2.1 per cent a year, while West Bengal grew at 2.3 per cent. During this decade there was acute food scarcity from 1966 to 1968 and conditions were suitable for a push toward cities. From 1966 to 1976 the annual growth rate of Cairo slowed down
to below four per cent for the first time since World War II. Although poverty and overcrowding increased in the countryside during this decade (due to the war with Israel), job opportunities in Cairo were few and rural folk stayed in the villages. Similar statistics are available for other cities. It is clear that cities grow because they produce, not because people languish in villages. • Epidemics can destroy the health of a city's population (and its economy), and such diseases can spread to the countryside. Therefore, all cities must have waterborne sanitary sewerage in all residential areas. This myth has deep roots. Until the end of the 19th century bubonic plague, smallpox, cholera, typhoid and other infectious diseases periodically decimated the populations of large cities. Since then the discovery of antitoxin immunization, the purification of water with chlorine and filtration, and antibiotic drugs have drastically reduced the value of waterborne sanitation. Basically it is now desirable rather than essential to survival. In 1959 the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) rated Calcutta "the dirtiest city in the world" and defined it as a world center of cholera. Plans were prepared in the early sixties for "cleaning up" Calcutta and after that for its economic resurgence. In 1964 chlorine was added to Calcutta's unfiltered water supply system (used by the poorer half of its population from street stand pipes). WIthin a year cholera was down to the levels of other Asian cities. This was achieved without any improvement to the sanitary sewer system and without any effective inoculation program. Singapore and Tokyo are amongst the cleanest and healthiest cities in the world. In each city over one-third of the population is not served by sanitary sewers. Cities existed for 10,000 years (and perhaps 20,000) without waterborne sanitary sewers and could again with alternative sanitary systems. THe principle advantage of alternative systems to date seems to be that they can be provided at a fraction of the cost and time. • Overcrowding increases mental and physical illness. Man must have roots in the earth to be well. People living at densities of more than one or two persons per room, or more, tpan 10 P,lfrsonsp,er acre, will somehow lose their mental balance and physical well-being. For at least the first 90
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Two promising possibilities of the future are highintensity agriculture moving into the city, and small industries moving to a few of the larger villages. per cent of his sojourn on earth, man lived as a nomad. Only in the last 50,000 years has man had roots in a permanent settlement. Today in the developed countries two-thirds to four-fifths of the population has given up those roots and lives in cities. Most of those urbanites move their home at least once every 10 years. It is quite clear that within this century most of the people on this earth will not "live on the land." Many studies during the past I0 years have examined the effects of high density on land and within rooms. In New York, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong study after study finds that density or crowding alone never causes mental disorders or social misbehavior. In Hong Kong and New York, as many as 3,000 people live on a single acre, and have no more social or mental problems than do those who live at 30 per acre. Most of those people were farmers a generation or two ago. Cities like Cairo with an average of two persons per room have one-third the crime rate of cities like Detroit that have only one person per room. It seems that unlike animals (on which density studies were done in the sixties) we humans can reorganize our personal and social behavior to cope with new relationships to our environment. A hunter with 2,500 acres, a herder with 25, a farmer with 2.5 and an office worker with .0025, all can still live "the good life." High density in cities has been proven to be neutral in terms of its environmental effects on man; but the overcrowding of agricultural land can have strongly negative social and economic effects. Firstly, if there are more people living on farmland than the crops can support, malnutrition and famine can ensue, with increases in sickness and death. Secondly, adult males migrate away from the village for seasonal work, and the social environp:1ent decays. In many villages in Egypt in 1976 (a good year) 30 to 50 per cent of working age men were not living with their families. â&#x20AC;˘ The plans are good but their implementation is inadequate.
Throughout
the developing countries
many planners and leaders mistakenly separate planning froll) implementation. Repeatedly they defend attractive but inappropriate plans, and berate hardworking administrators who find such plans to be irrelevant or impossible. A plan for the future of a city or rural area cannot be prepared in isolation from proposals for its administrative and financial implementation. The physical and investment portions of such plans must be flexible enough to be implementable with several levels of administrative and financial commitment. It might be good discipline not to refer to the planner's drawings or reports as "plans" until they are formally adopted by a responsible government agency. Until then they might better be referred to as "proposals." We would not refer to a friend's proposal of going on a trip around the world as being "well planned" if he or she didn't have an itinerary, a schedule, a ticket and a budget. We should not refer to a drawing or a description of the future condition of a city or region as a "plan" unless a means (or alternative means) of getting from here to there are included and we have some assurance (political or other) that such means are practical.
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We have looked briefly at the longshort history of cities as an expression of our civilization. Unlike the village, the city is an institution we are not yet comfortable with. Just when we had developed it into a pleasant form 200 to 400 years ago, our scientists and capitalists created the so-called industrial revolution and forced the city to change. How can we shape the cities of the future to serve mankind better? Before we can begin to invent cities for the future we must decide "cities for what?" This question must be answered by the national government. Since countries, and regions within countries, are at different steps in the ladder from primitive to advanced economies, different functions of a city will have different priorities. Even within steps on the ladder countries can and should choose the role of cities in their future. Burma, for instance, seems to have chosen to emphasize villagebased development. Egypt, on the other hand, has set a firm national policy to become an urban industrial nation by the year 2000. A modern nation with a population that truly participates in governance, an economy that is not tied to mineral and agricultural market and weather varia-
tions, and good health, education and welfare services for all, according to the lessons of history, must be a highly urbanized nation. However, a nation that is still close to the subsistence level may wish to have the fewest and largest cities possible to introduce new economic activities, whereas one further along may wish to stimulate more smaller cities to disperse the benefits of the modern economy; and a highly developed nation may wish to guide urbanization to depressed regions and to "new towns" with a higher level of amenities. The least developed nations cannot at all afford the luxury of promoting the development of their depressed regions nor can they afford to build high-amenity "new towns." After we know what we want from our cities in the future we must be sure that we invent truly new cities to serve those functions and do not reproduce old cities. To a far too great an extent today the developing countries hire foreign consultants and send their bright young men to study in foreign schools to learn how to design European or American cities. Too often their designs are inappropriate culturally, environmentally and economically. The cities of "the west" are obsolete. The developing countries
cannot afford to copy them, nor would copying them fulfill well the functions set out in the national plan for cities. Some concepts of what future cities in the developing countries might be are under consideration and study. Agrovilles or rural service centers are being studied in several countries. In essence this is an urban unit half-way between the village and the metropolis. Metrovilles-a "new town" within a metropolis-essentially integrate economic activities and social classes in a planned way so as to avoid the sprawl and segregation typical of the Western metropolis. As we' begin to recognize that the world is running out of resources and that Western- style cities are profligate with energy and water; the concept of resource-conserving cities is finally getting some attention. These would use only a fraction per capita of water and fossil fuel energy of the obsolete cities of Europe and America. At t~e same time most food other than grain would be produced within the city. The megalopolis or supercity of the future that overarches today's metropolises is just beginning to be considered as a viable form of human settlement in the foreseeable future. Already the megalopolis on the east coast of America reaches
tion. It is the "Master Plan Studies for the Suez Canal Zone." Under this project, three town (and hinterland) master plans were prepared simultaneously with a socio-eco-physical regional plan. This regional plan specifically deals with the problems of rural-to-urban migration and the financing of development. Feasibility studies for the project were started before the completion of the regional plan and dealt with air quality, soils, agriculture, ecology, utilities, housing, industry, ports, tourism, and much more. The studies of water, sewerage, electrical services and port improvements are being funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development; agricultural feasibility, by the Dutch Government; and "action plans," by the British Government. This large ($50 million) project may presage future urban planning that combines the efforts of many international agencies. In Calcutta, Madras, Lahore and a dozen other locations in the world the World Bank (IBRD) is studying and funding low-income housing and associated infrastructure (in Lahore and Madras the studies are just being organized). By and large, the World Bank is convinced that low-income people can build their own houses and that government should for 450 miles and houses 40 million help them to do so by providing, ahead tenants. The Tokaido of Japan stretches of time, but against fees or taxes, water, from Chiba to Kobe through Tokyo and electricity, streets with lights, bus service, Osaka and has a similar population within schools, clinics and playgrounds. The 400 miles. The potential for such super- World Bank also supports, through studies cities exists in the larger developing counand loans, basic municipal services such tries including Brazil, Egypt, India and as transportation, water supply, garbage Pakistan. Such large urban complexes removal and sewerage. seem to offer particular environmental These projects are only a few of the and economic advantages: minimum large ones currently under way. There environmental impact and maximum are one hundred more on a similar regional economies. scale. Less known but equally significant Thus, new kinds of cities must be are hundreds of smaller projects typical invented to fulfill national and regional of aid given by voluntary agencies. goals. These new cities may range from These smaller efforts too are shaping an agroville or supervillage to megalo- the cities of the future. In all of them the polis or the supercity. The developing future must be shaped by the local countries have been more successful in leadership. Foreign advisers can help inmanaging urbanization during the second sofar as they are development experts in half of the 20th century than Europe and the .developing countries and remain America were a century earlier. There technical advisers and not proposers or is no reason to be pessimistic about their planners. 0 ability to create more successful new cities in the 21st century. About the Author: Jac Smit, who obtained his What is being done today in the field? master's degree in city and regional planning The decade of the 1960s saw a high level from Harvard in 1962, worked as the principal of interest in urbanization in the develop- planning adviser to the Calcutta Metropolitan ing countries. The largest single project Planning Organization for the Ford Foundation in urbanization today is supported by in 1ndia between 1967-1969. He has also worked the United Nations Development Pro- in Pakistan as senior U.N. expert on the master gram through its Office of Project Execu- planfor the Karachi metropolitan region.
ON THE
liGHTER SIDE
rUTUII DIUIS TBATWILLBI LIDSlDIS Scientists in the United States have penetrated the ultimate stronghold of pathology, the cell. Their discoveries are yielding a new generation of natural wonder drugs like interferon, the body's own antiviral 'drug,' which, unlike. man-made vaccines, attack almost all vimses with equal zest and success.
A new generation of drugs is the product of the great revolution in biology now in progress. By unraveling the secrets of cellular and molecular structures and activity, drug designers are able to mount a successful assault on pathology's ultimate stronghold, the cell. They are learning to interrupt disease processes selectively at their most basic pathways, thus realizing the century-old dream of Paul Ehrlich, the conqueror of syphilis and father of medicinal chemistry, who foresaw the day of "magic bullets" -drugs so specific that they would kill only invading disease agents or sick cells while leaving the rest of the body untouched. This new approach utilizes such disciplines-novel to chemists-as computational quantum mechanics to help pick the best of an almost infinite number of possible arrangements of electrons in drug molecules. "It's rather frightening to realize," says Dr. Corwin A. Hansch, a top chemist who is a professor at Pomona College, Claremont, California, "that there may be some billion changes you could make in a molecule during development of a drug. A complex strategy is involved in deciding which changes you do make." Computer programs are used to design a molecule that will precisely fit its intended target in the human body. Beyond loom all kinds of exciting possibilities, from an effective antiobesity pill that stops production of fat at the level of the cell, to "immunopotentiators" that treat specific defects of the immune system much as antibiotics are used to treat infections. Many of these new drugs are being extracted from what is turning out to be the richest treasure trove of drugs there is-the human body. Interferon, the body's own potent antiviral "drug," is but one example. Dr. Christian de Duve, a Nobel Prize winner in Medicine at Rockefeller University, New York, is using DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) as bait, to . The human body manufactures its own "drugs," safer and more potent than synthetic medications. Left: Dr. Thomas C. Merigan of the Stanford University School of Medicine uses one such druginterferon-to treat victims of serum hepatitis. SPAN NOVEMBER 1978
41
which he attaches a cancer-killing drug. Among other interesting possibilities is a nonaddictive analgesic, based on the brain's built-in painkiller, only recently discovered and more powerful than morphine. A whole range of other agents that mimic the braindirected controls of many bodily functions are also being tested. To understand the dimensions of this scientific advance, it is helpful to recall the haphazard way that drugs were discovered in the past. They were hit upon by sheer 'luck-the most famous accident of all being the descent of an airborne penicillin mold on a petri dish in Alexander Fleming's laboratory-or were derived by refining natural substances already in use in cruder form. Aspirin, for instance, is a form of salicylic acid, whose constituents are found in plants and had been used as painkillers for centuries in such forms as oil of wintergreen. It was Paul Ehrlich who made the first great effort to construct drugs in a logical way. And in 1909, on his 606th try, he succeeded in altering a molecule of an arsenic compound so that it destroyed the syphilis spirochete without killing the patient. In a conceptual sense? however, drug design cannot be said to have made much progress in the first half-century after that epochal event. The starting point of drug development was randomness. First, a natural or synthetic substance would be tested for its biological effects. If the product showed some medicinal value, its active ingredients woulq be isolated and their chemical structure established. Next, this structure would be systematically modified, in the hope, as one scientist puts it, "that a lucky strike would yield a more active, less toxic drug." Frequently, even when successful, scientists had only a hazy idea of how the new drug functioned at the cellular level. Sin..ce1955, in keeping with the traditional ~tho_ds, the U.S. National Institutes of Health have spent well over $1 billion screening 250,000 compounds in a search for potential anticancer drugs. And the U.S. Army has screened about the same number of substances since 1963 in a hunt for new antimalarial drugs. While both programs have turned up a few promising drug candidates, the batting average, as -inalI such programs; has been extremely low. Now, scientists are becoming convinced that we can no longer afford to rely on the traditional lucky draw in the drug-design game. For one thing, the more or less blind screening of chemical compounds and their subsequent remolding into potential drugs
are becoming prohibitively expensive. For another, serious chronic diseases, which have come to the fore with the defeat of simpler infections, can be attacked most effectively only at the level of their origins in the intricate machinery of the cell. Planned design of drugs, therefore, becomes a necessity for both medical and economic reasons. The starting point for this precise kind of design is the new knowledge about the nature of the target-one or another of various complexes of cellular molecules. Among the most important of these are the "receptors," so named by the imaginative Ehrlich, who postulated that drugs interacted with chemical groupings on the cell-without, however, having much idea about just how the process worked. Receptors, we are finding out, are large molecules that float about on the dynamic, changing surface of the cell. Substances produced by the body, such as hormones, home in on the receptor structures and fit onto them
A startling discovery has been the presence of hormones in the brain that possess morphine's painkilling qualities without its addictive and other dangerous side effects. like keys into locks. Man-made drugs can open the lock just as well. When that happens, a chemical signal from the receptor races into the interior of the cell, usually carried by two kindred substances, the cyclic nucleotides. One of these is cyclic AMP, and the other, activated by a different type of receptor on the same cell, is known as cyclic GMP. Each acts to stimulate or inhibit specific enzymes that engineer reactions typical of that cell. If the action is taking place in the cells of the heart, for instance, the result might be a change in heartbeat. Now that they understand this cellular mechanism, scientists have learned that they can intervene at several different stages. One fascinating and important finding is that, by altering the ratio of the two nucleotides, drug designers can alter the function of a cell at will. This dualism in biological control has inspired them to propose a "yin-yang" hypothesis for such alterations, patterned on the ancient Chinese idea that alternating light and darkness are the determinants oflife.
Some new drugs act on the receptors to alter nucleotide levels, while others apparently penetrate the cell membrane to work on the nucleotides directly. Upjohn has already come to market with a prostaglandin, which induces labor by altering cyclic AMP levels in the cells of the uterus. Scientists in several laboratories are investigating compounds that increase the force of heart contraction, or heartbeat, without any significant rise in the heartbeat rate. Pfizer has brought out an antihypertensive drug and is working on another for treatment of chronic heart failure. Scientists think that the control of c;yclic nucleotide levels also offers an approach to therapy for bronchial asthma, ulcers, thrombosis, and a number of other diseases. One scientist lists no fewer than 14 classes of drugs-from antianxiety agents to medicines for disorders of the lower bowel-that might come out of this research. An equally promising approach is to counterfeit nature's signals to the receptorand let nature take it from there. Like the hormones they resemble, the drugs that act in this way fall into two broad classes. One that interacts with a receptor to produce a response is known as an agonist, while its chemical cousin, which blocks or reduces such a response, is called an antagonist. Some of these agonists and antagonists are familiar staples in the family medicine chest; they were developed by sheer chance before the scientists understood exactly how they worked. Antihistamin'es are one example. These antagonists lock onto receptors in various parts of the body and prevent the receptors from binding with the hormone histamine, which triggers such processes as the secretion of nasal fluid. Histamine is also known to be the potent stimulant of the gastric secretions that can lead to peptic ulcers. Yet the familiar antihistamines have no effect on gastric secretions, and the older drugs that are used to treat peptic ulcers are aimed either at neutralizing the secretions after the fact or at easing the ulcer pain. Spurred on by this suggestion that another type of histamine receptor must be present in the gastrointestinal tract, scientists at SmithKline's research institute in Welwyn Garden City, England, began a search in 1963 for a drug that would inhibit the action of a second histamine receptor. It quickly became apparent that they had taken on a major chemical challenge. They had to modify the histamine molecule so that it would no longer signal the, cells, yet would still lock
onto the receptor sites to block out the natural hormone. Only after the synthesis of more, than 700 compounds did the SmithKline scientists reach their goal-a compound that gives impressive symptomatic relief and has healed peptic ulcers in a high proportion of patients. In an unusual laudatory editorial, the British medical journal Lancet declared that pepticulcer care "may well be revolutionized" by SmithKline's Tagamet. Diabetics and weight watchers also stand to benefit from receptor research. In 1971, Dr. Pedro Cuatrecasas, who was then at Johns Hopkins University, isolated the receptor that binds with the hormone insulin and orders the cells to burn up sugar from the blood. In 1975 this noted scientist became director of research for Burroughs Wellcome Co., where he has brought his knowledge to bear on the basic problems of the diabetic. In this chronic illness, the pancreas generally produces subnormal amounts of insulin, and the cells often use the available insulin inefficiently. Cuatrecasas has attached insulin to a polymer (a large inert molecule), much as fingers are attached to a hand, so that the insulin binds to many receptor sites at once, dramatically increasing efficiency. Scientists assert that they have barely begun to tap the possibilities of intracellular research. The tools and techniques at their disposal are constantly improving. They have learned, for example, how to split off receptors from mammalian cells and study directly in the test tube the interaction of receptor and drug. This means that they can greatly reduce expensive and time-consumingexperiments on laboratory animals. Not far in the future, people will be tested for the presence of a special type of receptor. Such receptors are genetically determined "blind spots" that make particular people prone to cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and many other diseases. The disease-proneness markers are called human leukocyte antigens (HLA). One scientist says he would hate to "speculate as to what an extremely accurate HLA test-when one is developed-might do to insurance rates for a person with a tendency toward a fatal disease. On the more positive side, testing for HLA markers could become an integral part of preventive medicine. Receptor research, specifically the hunt for a morphine receptor in the brain, also led recently to the discovery of a remarkable new class of brain hormones. Scientists wondered all along' why there should be receptors in the brain for morphine, a plant
substance that would not get into the body by natural means. Some scientists reasoned that the receptors were there to bind a natural painkiller made by the brain itself. Possibly, such a painkiller filled an evolutionary needa wounded caveman could escape from enemies without being disabled by suffering. The existence of such a substance would also help explain the brief pain-free period commonly experienced by soldiers just after they are wounded. Not until 1973 did Dr. Solomon Snyder and his associates at Johns Hopkins pinpoint the location of opiate receptors in the brain. As might be expected, they found them concentrated in parts of the brain associated with the pathways of pain. Dr. Snyder and his colleagues showed in labora-
did find a fragment of it-a shorter peptide of 31 amino acids that was structurally identical to the last one-third of the lipotropin molecule. The function of this substance remained a mystery until 1975, when British scientist John Hughes and his associates reported in the journal Nature that they had discovered an even smaller peptide with morphinelike properties in the brain of a pig. They called it "enkephalin" (from the brain). To Li and his colleagues, enkephalin looked like a word straight from the chemical sentence they had fished out of those Iraqi camels-for Hughes's enkephalin was chemically identical to a small segment of the camel materiaL Now enlightened about the nature of his find, Li named his camel material beta-endorphin-for endogenous morphine. He has since shown that it has about 30 times the potency of morphine when injected directly into the brains of mice and No fewer than 14 classes rats. The high concentration of beta-endorof drugs-from antianxiety phin in the camel's brain explains, he says, agents to medicines for why the camel is such a hardy animal. "You can kick it," marvels Li, "even stick a knife disorders of the lower bowel in its side, and it won't feel the pain." -may soon be manufactured Few biological substances have generated from the richest treasure of as much feverish activity as the brain's own opiates. Scientists are churning out papers all-the human body. in the journals as they keep learning more about the manifold activities of the endorphins, which appear to mediate a large tory experiments that material of unknown number of brain functions. "Our excitement structure from the brains of calves bound about this molecule lies in the fact that we itself to the morphine receptors, competing may have uncovered a whole new vocabulary of chemical signals," says Dr. Floyd Bloom, with exogenous morphine. At this point, the search took one of those a biochemist at the Salk Institute. "Nothing odd turns that make science an adventure. has so excited neuroscientists for a long Back in 1964, Dr. Choh Hao Li, a pioneer time." The biggest surprise about the endorphins in hormone research at the University of California's San Francisco Medical Center, is that they may hold the key to schizophrenia had discovered a new hormone. It consisted and other mental illnesses. "What we obof 91 amino acids and seemed to mobilize serve with beta-endorphins," says Bloom, fat, or lipids, in the body. Li accordingly "suggests that if the human pituitary excreted these substances in slightly higher than called it lipotropin. Searching for a more specific function of normal amounts, you'd have something very the substance, Li decided to look at its much like catatonic schizophrenia." In huoperation in the ~amel. Since the camel is a mans, endorphins occur in such minute very skinny animal, he figured he might get quantities that they are hard to detect. But some scientists have located what they some interesting insights into how lipotropin worked. Li happened to have an Iraqi think is endorphinlike material in the spinal scientist working in the lab, and he asked fluid of schizophrenics. him to bring back some dried camel pituiPursuing that lead, researchers have begun taries the next time he went home. The man to treat schizophrenics with antiopiate comreturned with 500 of them-and, presumably, pounds. One Swedish scientist recently. a convincing story to tell the U.S. customs treated six patients, four of whom had auditory hallucinations. All four stopped "hearing inspector. Li and his colleagues found no complete voices" within minutes-of treatment. So many and varied are the actions of lipotropin in the camel material but they
Signal to nucleus that virus has invaded the cell Viral signal stimulates interferon gene
Interferon leaves to signal other cells
Signal stimulates antiviral protein gene
Viral reproduction is blocked
these brain hormones that there is even a suspicion that endorphins turn sleep on and off; for within the large precursor lipotropin molecule discovered by Li there are not only activators but also antagonists of all sorts of physiological activities. A fragment called gamma endorphin, for example, makes animals irritable and hypersensitive, while the alpha portion has a most soothing effect. One scientist, Dr. Irving S. Johnson, vice president of the Eli Lilly research laboratories, explains why the liR;Otropin. molecule is so rich in content. "Nature is rather like a plumber," says Dr. Johnson, "who takes all his tools along with him on a job and then uses a few specific ones when he gets there." Out of this plumber's toolbox, scientists plan to extract a whole range of new drugs, including nonaddictive painkillers that could also be used to wean addicts away from dangerous narcotics. Another important new drug from the body that is nearing wide use is the cell's own virus killer, interferon. It was discovered in 1957 and iri early tests proved highly
One of the human body's best built-in defenses against viral diseases is interferon, whose subtle yet powerful activity is illustrated in this diagram. The first cell to be attacked by a virus serves as the body's interferon factory,. a feedback signal from the interferon starts the manufacture of antiviral protein. The virus may succeed in overwhelming the first cell and using the celf s genetic material to make new virusesbut not before the cell has released interferon into the intercellular fluid. There, it is suspected, as little as one molecule of interferon can signal a neighboring cell to start making antiviral protein, which gwns up the virus' molecular assembly line. Interferon attacks all viruses, and thus promises to be a splendid weapon against the flu.
promising against the common cold. But interferon has been very hard to extract from the body and until recently its development as a drug has been slow. Furthermore, unlike other biological substances, which can be used interchangeably between species, interferon from lower mammals doesn't work in man-only that obtained from the higher primates does. That, of course, further restricted the availability of the body's own wonder drug. Because it attacks almost any virus with zest, interferon has a big edge over vaccines, which are effective only against the specific virus from which they are derived. This versatility is a wonderful attribute when it comes to fighting, say, the cold viruses, which mutate constantly, come in l00-odd varieties, and are notoriously difficult to tackle with a single vaccine, or even a combination of them. Interferon, in short, acts as a "panvaccine." Chemicals have so far been less useful than vaccines in the battle against virusesalthough some successes have been recorded. Parke-Davis, for instance, has developed
a drug against a herpes infection of the eye. The drug was designed to interfere specifically with structural buildup of the viral particle during its replication, without affecting body cells too much. In most cases, however, it's hard to target specifically on the viral particles since they become "living" only after they enter a living cell and utilize some of the cell machinery. A chemical attack on the virus, therefore, is likely to damage the cell as well. There is no such danger with interferon since it acts specifically on the viral mechanism. What's more, interferon appears to have a potential for combating infections caused by protozoans, as well as similar organisms, that are closer to human cells in their organizational complexity than bacteria, and consequently are harder to treat with chemicals without damaging the cells. This is particularly good news because these parasites remain among the most troublesome undefeated causes of disease. Interferon can be administered directly, or the body can be induced to start.making its own supply. In 1975, Dr. Thomas C. Merigan and his associates at Stanford University School of Medicine reported what appeared to be the successful treatment of chronic serum hepatitis through daily injections of interferon. To treat the common cold and influenza, Merigan suggests, interferon might be applied in tiny porous reservoirs that would fit under the eyelid and diffuse the drug through the nasal-lachrymal ducts into the upper respiratory tract. Scientists at Pfizer, on the other hand, are working on a broad-scale testing program against the common cold without using even a milligram of interferon. In this approach, synthetic substances are applied as a nasal spray and fool the cells intobelieving that a virus has invaded the body. The cells then start producing interferon. At least two other companies are working on interferon inducers. The scientists involved in these programs say the inducers may provide protection against colds for as long as a week or two, and speculate that they also might be of great benefit to people in the path of a flu epidemic. The future seems to hold an unparalleled promise of new lifesaving and pain-alleviating medicines. The future looks bright, too, for the drug designers in the labs, who are continuing to demonstrate that molecular biology is the hottest science around. 0 About die Author: Gene Bylinsky editor of Fortune magazine ..
is an associate
LIIDB. or 'WIL.IISIOI IBI' lOBI 10 COLLBIB Normal life does not come to a standstill for the American prisoner today. The latest reforms allow him to pursue studies in his chosen field in a university near the prison. Ben Chavis, a young black minister undergoing a 23-year sentence for his involvement in a fire-bombing in North Carolina which killed two people, is among the latest prisoners to benefit from rulings that open the doors of universities to American convicts. Chavis began his studies toward a Master of Divinity degree at Duke University's Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina, in September this year after the North Carolina Department of Corrections granted him "privileges of minimum custody for the purpose of attending school." The study-release program, as it is called, means that Chavis is at the university from 8 :00 a.m. to 5 :00 p.m. Monday through Friday. He spends the nights and weekends at the Orange County correctional facility located approximately 24 kilometers from the university. One of the latest reforms in the field of education for prisoners, the study program is now being increasingly put to practice by American prison authorities. The idea of allowing a prisoner to study outside his "cell" -outside the prison, in fact-and among free citizens is a further step in the recognition of the prisoners' rights and is in keeping with the concept of the prison as a correctional facility. The first step was the realization long ago that executions, disfigurement and other corporal punishments did nQt reform the offender. These measures were replaced by "educative" ones. Beginning with primary and high school teaching, education moved to the college level: imparted through correspondence courses, instructional television, classes within the institution-and now, study-release programs. The inmate attends classes at a nearby academic institute where he is, for all practical purposes, just one among the many students. Ben Chavis, for example, is unescorted on the campus. The Orange County Unit provides for his transportation to and from the university daily. Chavis has attracted attention all over America because of his position as a preacher and the fact that his is a civil rights case. He is the leader of the Wilmington Ten, the name given by the American media to the nine black men and one white woman who were convicted for their involvement in a fire-bombing at a. grocery store in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1971, during eight days of fierce race riots. The sentences handed to the 10 ranged from 23 to 34 years. However, in January 1978 after a series of appeals and testimonies, the Governor of North Carolina, James Hunt, announced a reduction in the original sentences. It was that decision that provides an opportunity for early parole and the study-release program. While the other nine are now free on parole, Chaviswho will be eligible for full parole on January 1, 1980-has another kind of freedom - that of pursuing studies toward a higher education in his chosen profession. Earlier Chavis had studied at Howard University's School of Religion in Washington, D.C. He was ordained a Minister in the
A glimpse of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where Ben Chavis, convicted leaderof the" Wilmington Ten," is studyingfor his Master of Divinity degree. Chavis attends chapel sessions at the majestic Duke Chapel (shown above) on the university's west campus.
United Church of Christ, whose Commission for Racial Justice is meeting his costs at Duke University-including tuition, books and food. Chavis will be taking four courses during the fall semester which began on September 5-two in Christian theology, one in religion and one in preaching. When not attending classes, Chavis is free to study in the library. He also has time to socialize with his fellow students between classes and the study sessions at the library. And thrice a week he attends regularly scheduled chapel sessions, which are a part of the Divinity School schedule. . Chavis is expected to complete studies for his Master of Divinity degree by June 1980-a few months after the date of his 0 eligibility for full parole.
TWO. VIEWS
SBOULD!BI PUBLICBIIC! LIWS' liS "People would have a more direct voice in government." MICHAEL J. HARRINGTON Member, U.S. House of Representatives
Q Representative Harrington, the U.S. Congress is considering a constitutional amendment that would enable voters to enact Federal laws directly, through the use of national initiatives. How would that work? A In the proposal that I am supporting, 8 per cent of voters, in three quarters of the states, could sign a petition suggesting that they have significant interest in a particular piece of legislation. Then the proposal would go on the ballot, and if it were passed by a prescribed majority, it would become law. The formula, I think, is the most flexible of tools. The basic referendum concept is far more important to defend than whether 8 or 6 or 10 per cent of the voters should sign the necessary papers-or whether it ought to be two-thirds or threequarters of the states that are involved in getting this sort of thing done. Q What is the value of enacting laws by initiative? A The value has to be appreciated in the context of a pro.found alienation of people in the United States from government. The public has been' telling us in Congress for years that we're not effective. The initiative would signal to people that Congress isn't totally isolated and insensitive, but is willing to try to make the institution of government more responsive and effective. Q Could any type of law be enacted this way? A Yes. There is no reason in the world why people should not be given the broadest leeway. I rely on the fundamental assumption that government operates on a contract between people and their elected representatives. I don't see any reason . why there. ought to be an effort to impose our views of what's sensitive and what isn't. Q Suppose the law turned out to be a bad law? A It would be the price paid for the system. Congress could change a really bad law. I don't see any reason to narrowly define initiatives. I think this process stays healthiest by taking that risk in people's judgment - by trusting them. Q If Congress can change bad laws enacted by initiatives, what's the value of the initiative procedure in the first place? A Because of the fact that people would have had a more direct voice in government on issues that are of critical concern to them. Looking at the track record of initiatives that I am familiar with in Massachusetts and in other states, there has been a great deal of selectivity. A relatively modest percentage passed .. The fact that you might have to change something that was
"It would endanger democracy and create cynicism among voters." PETER BACHRACH , Professor of Political Science, Temple University, Philadelphia'
Q Professor Bachrach, since 23 states and the District of Columbia already use some form of the initiative method of making law, what is wrong with trying it at the Federal level? A It would stimulate the rise of hate and fear issues. Issues that were more liberal would be resoundingly defeated. It would help vested interests more than lower income groups. So, on the one hand, it would endanger democracy; and, on the other hand, it would create cynicism among a group of voters who thought they could have a role in enacting new programs. Q Why do you say that it would "endanger democracy" instead of strengthening it? A Sponsors of this idea misconceive the nature and magnitude of the problem that confronts the American democratic system. They detect an increasing separation between the people and its leaders. They believe that the solution to the problem of democracy is more democracy. On this point, I wholeheartedly agree. But I don't believe that the national initiative would strengthen democracy. Q Why not? Don't you think that the voters can make wise decisions? A This is the heart of the controversy. I don't inherently distrust the people; in a healthy democracy, the voters can make wise decisions. But we're not now living in a healthy democracy. We live in a mass society in which a significantly large number of people are politically isolated, apathetic, powerless and lacking in political experieRce-not being involved with their peers in formulating and defining community issues. Too many citizens have little basis upon which to form intellectual opinions, to articulate their interests, to gain insights. In the last national election, for example, 46.4 per cent of the people who were eligible to vote did not vote. Would these nonparticipants become politically active because of issues raised through the initiative? With the exception of hate and fear issues, I think not. Q But wouldn't a Federal initiative give people a greater sense of participation in the government? A For people who vote, that is probably right. But the large number of nonparticipants would not take much interest in most issues. However, on emotional issues, it's likely that they would come into the political arena. But I doubt that they would look at these issues in a rational way.
passed doesn't bother me. Q Opponents contend that direct democracy was considered and thrown out back at the time of the Founding Fathers. Why change the system now? A 1 don't find myself looking at a system that is immutable. People like Jefferson suggested at the time that our government should be able to withstand the rigors of re-examination periodically; he suggested that it be done every generation. We've come a long way from a rural, agrarian, underpopulated country of a couple of centuries ago. We ought to re-examine things. I don't have any particular enthusiasm for defending the status quo of this year or any other era. Q Another argument is that people en masse don't make wise decisions on new laws. How do you respond to that? A I think there is latent monarchism or something worse at work in that argument. I'm nalve enough to believe that people will behave sensibly and rationally, and respond articulately, when appealed to properly. The fundamental question here is whether or not we're 'prepared to delegate some responsibility through direct participation. The initiative process would reflect a substantial degree of trust in people by giving them the opportunity to participate personally in the legislative process. We've got a real leadership problem today. You look around and you say, "Where are the leaders?" We're doing a lousy job developing and soliciting and making available the nation's best leadership talent. We ought to try anything we can to reverse this generation-old facet of the American experience. I think that the initiative process would help ordinary citizens to begin thinking in terms of assuming leadership roles themselves. Q Could the initiative be used as an excuse for Congress to sidestep touchy issues-putting them off for popular vote? A I think just the opposite. The knowledge that something could be put up as an initiative would force Congress to deal with it.
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Q Some of those who are in favor of the national initiative argue that it would offset what they see as the great power of big lobbying interestsA Actually, the power of the big vested interests would be magnified rather than reduced. In the last election, antinuclear-power-plants proposals were on the ballot in 16 states. In every single case, the environmentalists were outspent by their opponents by approximately three to one. They also lost in each of these states by a wide margin. These kinds of results on liberal issues, expanded to the national level, will deepen the cynicism of those who suspect that the democratic process is permanently tilted in favor of vested interests. Advocates of the initiative like to refer to it as "the people's initiative." Viewed more realistically, it should be called "the special-interest initiative." Q How would the initiative be used most frequently-to create new programs or to repeal old ones? A It depends on what Congress has done. For instance, on the busing issue, I think initiatives would attempt to turn back what the courts have done. On welfare, there would be a move to modify Congressional statutes. On Federal aid to education, it's likely that there would be a tax revolt against the generosity of the President or Congress. There would probably be a move for an antiunion measure that argued for the right to work, against the closed shop. There would be measures along the lines of requiring the Federal budget to be balanced by 1980. Q Just how well has the initiative worked in states that use it? A During the first two decades of this century, I think it worked as intended. But recently it has been exploited by publicrelations firms with expertise in the techniques of mass per-. suasion. Furthermore, recent experience is that people have not
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Q Since the initiative would be decided on a simple "Yes" or generally voted in accordance with what we would consider "No" vote, there would be no way to make compromises as is to be their economic interests or their social interests.¡ In Maine, for instance, people in poor school districts voted done in CongressA I don't think that's good, but it may be the best we could against a system for redistributing school funds on an equal do. I'm prepared to take all of the "what ifs" and all of the basis among poor and rich districts. Q Proponents point out that Congress could repeal a bad "maybes" and still go ahead-rather than to let the situation continue to disintegrate. You're going to have sharp divisions; initiative. Does this remove some of the dangers? A The proposed resolution would require a two-thirds I see nothing wrong with the collective experience that can come majority of Congress to overturn an initiative within the first from that kind of a battle. Q You don't worry when opponents say that initiatives will two years. As a practical matter, most members of Congress probably won't vote for repeal of a law that has just been aplead to emotional types of legislation? A We need it. It might make the managers less managerial. proved by the voters. Q You see the initiative used mostly as a reaction against libIt might shake things up. eral measures. Is that necessarily bad if that's what people want? We need to do some fundamentally different thingsA Of course not-if that is what they really want. But do break through, take the bold steps and the associated risks. You can fall right on your face, but I'.d rather take that chance they have an opportunity to find out what it is-that they really want? My major contention is that they don't. It is a difficult than to let this leukemia ofleadership continue to envelop us. Q Besides Massachusetts, 22 other states use some form of and arduous process for anyone to become rationally aware of one's values and social expectations. It is even more difficult to the initiative. How do voters like it? A It varies. I think that, on the whole, a strong majority translate these intangibles in terms of the political issues of the would support continuation of the initiative. The criticism day. In the absence of regular dialogue with one's peers on these that I've heard most often in Massachusetts is that the questions questions, irrational conclusion as to what one politically wants is should be posed more clearly. The initiative has been used bound to result. Today the overwhelming majority of people are deprived of an opportunity to engage in such a dialogue. increasingly in my state. Q You stated that more, not less, democracy was needed. Q What do you think of the complaint that initiatives actually would work to the advantage of big lobbying interests that have More specifically, what would this entail ? A What America badly needs is not another mass-voting money to conduct national ad campaigns? as a national initiative-but the creation of A Do you want to go into a Congressional committee structure-such room now and see the advantages for businesses with money? participatory structures in neighborhoods and in the workTake a look at the energy bill, or the consideration given con- place to provide people with the opportunity to make decisions that affect their lives. By engaging in this process, they will sumer-protection laws. The initiative process may very well give people a chance gain a deeper understanding of their values and what it is they demand within the national arena of politics. 0 to believe that they have a voice. 0 Copyright Š 1978. U.S. News & World Report, Inc.
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