March 1991

A Park for Sculpture

SPAN As I think is true with many publications, we at SPAN always seem to face a minor crisis near deadline time-a late-arriving manuscript, a missing illustration, immediate need for reprint rights to a copyrighted article. Or the absence of any caption information, as was the case thi's month when we discovered just a week before press time that we could not identify the pictures that accompany our short feature on wildflower painter Maryrose Wampler. Senior editor Aruna Dasgupta made a quick call to the person who produced the article for us, Raj Kishore in Faizabad, only to learn that he had not received any caption information when he got the photos of flower paintings from Wampler.

Aruna, SPAN's resident problem solver, immediately made copies of the photographs and sent them via express-mail to Wampler's home in the American Midwest. She requested that Wampler call our home office, the U.S. Information Agency in Washington, D.e., with the captions so that they could be transmitted to us by facsimile, or fax, machine. Five days later a fax message arrived with the names of the flowers.

This anecdote is remarkable only to the extent that faxing messages has become so common. The fax today is an essential communications tool for just about any organization.

But just how new is this technological marvel? A Scottish clockmaker, Alexander Bain, who transmitted an image over a short distance in 1842, is credited with developing the concept of the fax. Eight years later, British inventor F.e. Bakewell demonstrated a "copying telegraph" that traced an image with a pen dipped in varnish against a rotating cylinder wrapped in tinfoil. The rest, as they say, is history.

Some three quarters of a century after Bain and Bakewell did their pioneering work on the fax, Philo T. Farnsworth, whom we profile on page 38, figured out how to convert light into electronic signals and to shoot those signals against the photoelectric surface of a vacuum tube, thus giving us television as we know it today.

The spread and impact of television has been, of course, even faster and more profound than that of the fax.

In the United States, television has been first and foremost an entertainment and news medium, though its role in education has become increasingly important. A good example is the growth of telecourses, which we report beginning on page 36. This phenomenon is particularly useful to part-time students who work during the day and to students who live a far distance from their university. When it is time for class, they simply turn on the TV at the office or at home to catch the latest lecture.

If they have a VCR, which more than 60 percent of American households possess, they can simply record the lecture and "attend" class any time they want, repeatedly.

The late Marshall McLuhan, the media guru who coined the term global village, spoke of all media as being extensions of the human nervous system. The speed and versatility by which messages are sent and received, recorded and repeated, bears him out. When we reflect on it all, it is useful to remember the relatively unknown Bains, Bakewells, and Farnsworths of this world who had the vision and the genius to make it all possible.

-L.J.B.

2

Caring and Curing

by Richard J. Margolis

9 Understanding the American Economy

13 14 22

On the Lighter Side

28 32 34 36

Water-Managing

38

Remembering the Father of Television

40

Focus On ....

Searching for the Secrets of Gravity

by John Boslough

A Park for Sculpture the Flow

by Connie Howard

Rent an ~Executive by Dyan Machan Wampler's Wildflowers

by Raj Kishore

Turning On To Teleclasses

42 "To Fashion a' Peace"

by Daniel B. Wood

by James A. Baker III

44

by H.H. Anniah Gowda

48 The Joy Luck Club

A Review by Anna Sujatha Mathai

Front cover: Alexander Calder's 5.05-meter-high stabile, Cheval Rouge, is one of 130giant sculptures by great masters that dot the Storm King Center, America's largest outdoor sculpture park in the picturesque Hudson River Valley. Story on pages 22-27.

Back cover: Cades Cove Meadows in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a favorite of visitors. More than nine million people visit the park each year to enjoy its spectacular and awe-inspiring beauty. See also inside back cover.

Publisher, Leonard J. Baldyga; Editor, Guy E. Olson Managing Editor, Himadri Dhanda; Associate Managing Editor, Krishan Gabrani; Senior Editor, Aruna Dasgupta; Copy Editors, A. Venkata Narayana, Snigdha Goswami; Editorial Assistants, Rocque Fernandes, Rashmi Goel; Photo Editor, Avinash Pasricha; Art Director, Nand Katyal; Associate Art Director, Kanti Roy; Artist, Hemant Bhatnagar; Production Assistant, Sanjay Pokhriyal; Circulation Manager, Y.P. Pandhi; Photographic Services: USIS Photographic Services Unit; Research Services: USIS Documentation Services; American Center Library, New Delhi.

Photographs: Front cover--eourtesy Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York.

Inside front cover-James A. Sugar, Š National Geographic Society. 14-21-Š National Geographic Society. 22-27--eourtesy Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York.

29left-Avinash Pasricha; right--eourtesy HaTza Engineering. 36--<:ourtesy KLCSJTV, Los Angeles. 4Q--Avinash Pasricha. 41-Joe Pineiro, Columbia University.

Published by the United States Information Service, American Center, 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001 (phone: 3316841). on behalf of the American Embassy, New Delhi. Prinred or Thomson Press (India) Limited.

Faridabad, Haryana. The opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U,S, yovernmenl. Use of SPAN articles in other publications is encouraged, except when copyrighted, For permission write to the Editor. Price of magazine. one year's subscription (12 issues) Rs. 30; single copy. Rs, 5.

thappened one August night without warning, while our family was vacationing on an island off the coast of Maine. One moment Philip, our 12year-old, was on a porch rocker joking with us; the next he was on the bare floor writhing in pain.

In a panic I carried Phil to his bed-he couldn't walk-while my wife, Diane, ran to get Alex, a Boston internist who happened to be summering at the cottage next door. "Torsion of the right spermatic cord," Alex pronounced, gazing down on our stricken son. Somehow a vital connection in Phil's groin had gotten twisted.

The warp was choking off his blood supply. "I have only read about such cases," Alex confessed. "Never actually saw one before."

Very tentatively he reached down and touched the tender area. Phil jerked and let out a howl. "Sorry," Alex muttered.

He took Diane and me aside. "I think we better get your boy to St. Andrews right away. For something like this you don't want to wait too long."

St. Andrews Hospital lay an hour across the water in the little town of Boothbay Harbor. Could people who worked in such an out-of-the-way place be expected to possess the skills our son so urgently needed? We had our doubts, but there was no time to speculate. With another neighbor's help, we managed to get Phil down to the dock and onto a borrowed boat equipped with an outboard motor. In smooth, dark water we sped off, following a streak of moonlight that seemed headed toward Mill Cove and the hospital dock. Not another soul was on the bay.

Alex had telephoned ahead. A nurse with a wheelchair and a blanket awaited us at the pier. Within minutes Phil was lying on a bed in the emergency room and being examined by a man who introduced himself as Dr. Gregory, a large man with lots of gray hair and a reassuring voice.

"Let's see what we have here," he said to Phil. We held our breath and watched as the doctor's long fingers searched for the offending knot. Phil's body stiffened but he made no sound. "Just relax," Gregory

I

To"bYRICHA!!!:lng Photographs by GAIL MOONEY

an

murmured. "Maybe I can unravel this thing for you."

Between his thumb and middle finger the doctor was delicately kneading the invisible rope. Suddenly Phil's muscles went slack; he emitted a deep sigh. So did we-for it was plain that Gregory's educated fingers had untwisted the cord.

He patted Phil on the shoulder and stood up. "We'll want to keep you here overnight," he said, "just in case that thing decides to get troublesome again.

You don't mind spending the night with us, do you?"

"Nope," Phil said. And for the first time in five hours, he smiled.

All of the above occurred two decades ago. Through the intervening years, until very recently, I held to the idea that our family's luck that scary night had been extraordinary, that in St. Andrews we had happened upon a rare rural gem. Now I think otherwise. One of the many things I have learned from a recent round of visits to American rural hospitals in several states (including an eye-opening return to Boothbay Harbor) is that our good fortune was just a routine entry in the annals of small-town medicine.

The knowledge has taken some getting used to. We live in an American city that boasts two major hospitals, one with 491 licensed beds, the other with 875. Each in its way typifies the sort of high-powered, university-affiliated complex that most city dwellers in the United States equate One of the bigger small-toll'/1 hospitals is the 59-bed Grant Memorial in Petersburg. West Virginia. Left: Physical therapist Tammy Evans It'orks Il'ith a stroke patient. BelOlI'.' To cut dOlI'l1on expenses. Grant Memorial has {/II arrangemelll Il'ith radiologist L.R, Lillletolllt'!lO regularly visits The hospiTal ro read X rays.

urIng Rural hospitals in America combine excellent medical treatment with one-on-one graciousness, a caring attitude, and small-town hospitality.

with first-rate health care. By contrast, an urbanite's mental picture of a rural hospital is likely to resemble a faped turn-ofthe-century etching, featuring ornate Victorian architecture, generally shabby upholstery, and hopelessly primitive equipment.

Such hospitals did in fact once dot the American rural landscape.

Writing a half-century ago, here is how Arthur E. Hertzler, a Kansas country physician, reminisced about those early institutions in his autobiography, The Horse and Buggy Doctor. In his youth, Hertzler recalled, the typical small-town hospital was "in a private residence .... Sometimes the doctor and his family lived downstairs and the wife did the cooking ....

"Usually half a dozen or fewer hospital beds found available space in these houses. The operating room was usually the bedroom of the former cook .... The kitchen stove usually supplied the heat for the sterilization of the instruments and dressings. This made it necessary for the doctor to eat an early breakfast, so that the stove could be available as a sterilizer when it came time to prepare for the operation .... It is enough to make one weep," Hertzler mourned, "to think back on those early beginnings."

These days (he good doctor would not have to weep. The hospitals 1visited were indeed small in comparison with their bigcity cousins-they ranged downward from 73 beds to a mere eight-yet they gleamed with modernity. Even the most Lilliputian of them all-the one in Comfrey, Minnesota, with its eight bedsboasted an outpatient clinic, operating and recovery rooms, a blood bank, a pharmacy, a 24-hour emergency room, delivery and nursery facilities with two bassinets, and social services. Many of them maintained intensive-care rooms equipped with monitors that could flash About the Author: Richard J. Margolis, afreelance writer, is the author of Rural America, Why Bother? Risking Old Age in America and Secrets of a Small Brother.

the jagged trajectory of a patient's heartbeat.

But rural hospitals in the United States do not compete with their urban counterparts-at least not in cases requiring the more exotic skills and technologies.

"Don't come here if you need open-heart surgery or a kidney transplant," says Dr. Matthew J. Rimas, Comfrey Hospital's only full-time physician. "But for most illnesses you can get as good medical care here as you can anywhere." Even as 1 sketch this picture, however, 1 have an uneasy sense of having left out its most remarkable feature. Call it one-on-one graciousness; call it sympathy; call it, for lack of a better pun, small-town hospitality. Whatever the label, it is a force that operates at the very center of most rural hospitals in America. Yet it is so universally taken for granted that hardly any of the doctors and nurses 1 talked with seemed conscious of its presence.

"Do you do anything special for bereaved families?" I asked a nurse at Grant Memorial Hospital, a 59-bed facility tucked into the mountains surrounding Petersburg, West Virginia.

The nurse gave the question considerable thought. "No," she finally answered, "I don't recall our ever doing anything out of the ordinary for the oereaved. Oh, sure, we cry with them and we sing with them and we pray with them.

But no, nothing you could call special."

A rural American hospital, then, may be a place where nothing "special" ever happens. Where no one is a number; where everyone knows your name, tolerates your quirks and shares your griefs; where the nurses celebrate your birthday.

Where, when you telephone to say you feel sick and wish to be admitted, they turn down your bed and have the florist deliver a half-dozen pink carnations to your room. Where visiting hours do not matter even if they are posted-relatives and friends come and go as they please; where a turned-on light over your door instantly brings a nurse to your bedside.

Where the ki tchen staff makes bread and pies from scratch, and real mashed potatoes, and if you don't like the evening menu, someone will run to the corner and

bring you a pizza. Where your tattered pajamas may be mysteriously replaced one evening by a brand-new pair, with the price tag removed. ("For what us nurses make around here," one of them at Grant Memorial marveled, "we sure are free with our money.")

Such everyday dispensations are all duly recorded in my notebooks.

They have become part of my education. From them 1 conclude that small-town hospitals in America draw energy from secrets all their own: Within the national health care system, they emerge as unique institutions where the curing and the caring are one and indivisible.

At Grant Memorial 1 was introduced to a patient whose lengthy sojourn there perfectly illustrates the bond between caring and curing. The patient's name is Shane. He is a dimpled, brown-eyed in~ fant born about three months prematurely on January 14, 1988, at West Virginia University Medical Center in Morgantown.

Shane had two-and-a-half strikes against him. Within weeks after birth he went into heart failure and barely sur~ vived. Among other things, he was suffering from a malady doctors have dubbed "stiff lung"-the technical term is bronchopulmonary dysplasia-meaning that his lungs were unable to absorb

Above: Nurses at Grant Memoria/not only work long, hard hours, but a/so go out of their way to make patients feel at home with such gestures as buying a gift for them. Says one nurse, "We cry with them and we sing with them and we pray with them." Left: Volunteer student nurse Becky Calhoun comforEs a sick baby.

oxygen. There is no known cure for it.

For five months the doctors and nurses in Morgantown kept Shane alive. They gave him oxygen through tubes in his nose; they fed him nourishment through tubes to his stomach. Then, with little hope for Shane's future, they sent him to Moorefield, where his mother worked in a chicken-processing plant.

Shane still required around-the-clock medical care. He ended up in Grant Memorial. "You should have seen him when we got him," says Linda Davis, director of nursing there. "It was pathetic. He just lay in his little crib without moving or making a sound. A baby at six months is supposed to laugh and cry, but Shane couldn't do either. Absolutely no facial expression: He didn't smile, he didn't frown. Then we discovered he couldn't suck, which meant we needed to feed him very often, and in very small amounts.

Believe me, Shane was one sad baby."

What happened next seemed entirely spontaneous and unrehearsed.

"We sort of adopted him," Davis recalls.

"We treated Shane like our own." The nurses gave him toys to play with; they clothed him in new, colorful nightgowns; they kept talking to him, cooing over him, picking him up, and carrying him around.

As Cathy Crites, another nurse at

the hospital, notes with severe approval, "That baby was spoiled rotten.

When we had to do our charting at the desk, we took Shane with us, and let him sit on our laps while we wrote out our reports. I don't think we hardly ever set him down."

In time Shane began to respond to all the attention. He learned how to laugh and cry. His new talents only increased the pampering.

"Whenever he cried,"¡ says Crites, "one of us would pick him up right away. We were in terror he would choke to death. Of course he caught on right away, and he cried all the time. It was a kind of blackmail."

Shane also learned how to eat from a spoon, but only when the spoon was proffered by one of the full-time nurses familiar to him. "The part-timers never had much luck feeding him," Crites says.

"But when one of us full-timers offers the spoon-Wow!" On Shane's first birthday there was plenty to celebrate. He was six times his birth weight-he now weighed slightly more than six kilograms-and most days he was able to breathe without benefit of oxygen tubes. At his birthday party, says Mary Beth Barr, assistant director of nursing, "Shane giggled, and ate cake with a spoon. We were so proud of him.

He's such a good boy."

I had set out to learn about small hospitals because I had heard they were an endangered species. I wanted to see what we as a nation stood to lose if we allowed these modest facilities, largely hidden from metropolitan eyes, to vanish.

From a rural perspective, of course, such a loss would be catastrophic, not only in terms of the local residents' health (and the local economy) but also in terms of their pooled pride. For there is something about a small-town hospital in America that can inspire an altogether refreshing awareness of civic consequence.

As a housewife who has lived all her life in Independence, Iowa (population: 6, I50), reminded me, "It's simply a matter of our self-respect. A town that loses its hospital has one less thing to be proud of."

Many small communities in America nowadays are having to face the indignities of subtraction. Of the 2,599 rural hospitals still extant-most with fewer than 100 beds-quite a few are verging on bankruptcy, and each year some 40 are going belly-up.

Nobody knows for sure how to diagnose this disorder, much less what remedies to prescribe. Wpile depressed rural economies are often a factor, the villain rural partisans most frequently single out, surprisingly, is none other than Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly. In part, that is because Medicare reimburses rural hospitals at a substantially lower rate than it does urban hospitals. The difference has amounted to about 20 percent. In addition, Medicare's system of payments inadvertently penalizes small-town hospitality.

In the past, Medicare and hospitals had maintained a kind of gentleman's agreement whereby hospitals were trusted not to levy unreasonable charges for elderlypatient care. It was Medicare's custom to pay hospitals whatever amounts they requested, with little scrutiny.

The U.S. Congress. changed all that in 1983. Nowadays, instead of presenting a blank check, Medicare hazards a prediction of how long each patient is likely to be hospitalized, and then bases its pay-

ment strictly on that forecast. The new system may have saved American taxpayers some dollars, but it has posed cruel dilemmas where patients require lengthier hospital stays than Medicare is prepared to compensate.

Such cases can be costly, which is why city hospitals rarely hesitate to discharge a patient who is no longer covered by Medicare. Quite a few rural hospitals, on the other hand, prefer to keep the patient and damn the expense.

The Henryetta Medical Center, a 52bed facility in Henryetta, Oklahoma (population: 6,290), is one of those.

An 80-year-old man dying of cancer was admitted to the hospital. His legs were paralyzed; he was in severe pain and required a morphine injection every four hours. As James L. Clough, the former administrator of the hospital, tells it, "Attempts were made by the hospital and physician to place the patient in a skilled nursing facility located in Tulsa [75 kilometers away], but there were no beds available." The possibility of home care, with nursing visits, was also discussed.

But it turned out that the man's wife couldn't provide, by herself, the care he needed throughout the day.

Finally, Clough continues, "it was decided that the patient would have to stay at the hospital." He died there 68 days later. The hospital sent Medicare a bill for $26,660. Medicare sent back a check for $2,477, and marked it "Paid in Full."

Medicare rules aside, the simple dictates of neighborliness can play havoc with a small-town hospital's tight budget.

In many such American communities it is taken for granted that the poor no less than the affluent are entitled to medical care. To rewrite poet Robert Frost's famous dictum about home, a rural hospital is a place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. That is why village hospitals tend to donate more than their share of wha t health care commentators like to call "unreimbursed se rvices. " At Grant Memorial I met an 88-yearold patient-the nurses called her "Miss Judy"-who had been there 48 days following gall bladder surgery. So far she

had run up a bill of more than $55,000, while Medicare's IS-day limit called for reimbursement of only $9,742. "She's got a daughter who works," explained Linda Davis. "How can we send her home when there's nobody to take care of her?"

"We don't turn anybody away," says Robert L. Harman, Grant Memorial's friendly, low-key administrator.

"One way or another, we'll cover it."

Dr. John L. Hahn, the hospital's only obstetrician, told me that he delivers about 300 babies a year, and two-thirds of his patients are on Medicaid, the combined federal and state health insurance program for poor people. But Medicaid pays only about a third of Hahn's actual bill. "When somebody's down and out," he said, "I don't go after the rest of the

money. I know what it's like to be poor."

Then he added with a smile, "Don't advertise that."

People's Memorial Hospital in Independence, Iowa, nicely exemplifies this form of economic hospitality, so different from what patients experience in city hos~ pitals. "When the farm crisis hit us a few years ago," recalls Robert J. Richard, the hospital's administrator, "we tried to make things easier for the families who were hurting most. Lots of them had no health insurance-the farmers could no longer afford it, and quite a few of the workers in plants around here got laid off, so they were unprotected, too. We made it a point to accept every patient who needed care. It cost us a bundle, maybe a quarter of a million dollars, but that was

Left: The tiny hospital in Comfrey.

Minnesota, has only eight beds. Below left: In this otherwise modern facility, the beds are still raised and lowered by a hand crank. Below: Dr. Matthew J. Rimas. the hospital's only full-time physician, examines a patient.

O.K. We did it because it was right. We are very much a part of this farm community.

Our social mission is paramount."

But, perhaps because this was Iowa, some proud patients inevitably objected to the hospital's generosity. "I don't mean to be disrespectful," an impoverished farmhand wrote to Richard after the hospital had written off a $380 charge for his daughter's stay there, "but I just can't understand how you could do what you did to me. I intend to pay you back every cent." And he did.

Administrators and board members entrusted with the fate of their town's only hospital can be understandably pessimistic these days. On the other hand, hope in rural America really does spring eternal-the citizens there have no

everyone expressed an interest in "keepchoice-and where there is hope, there ing the Comfrey Hospital going"; more may also be energy and imagination. surprising, a majority ofresidents favored Consider the case of the Cen tral Valley Medical Center, a 30-bed hospital in the levying of a special hospital tax.

Nephi, Utah. The dietitian there, along Rural Americans are not generally with her kitchen staff, had to be on hand known for their spendthrift ways. When a group of small-town citizens eagerly even when there were only two or three patients to feed. So the hospital adminvolunteers to pay more taxes, they are istrator, Mark Stoddard, put them to sending a singular message about their work baking birthday and wedding cakes, beleaguered hospital: From where they Christmas cookies and Valentine cupsit, it is indispensable. cakes, and selling them to local customers. The profits, about $3,000 a year, help to defray the hospital's food bill.

I learned more about the fierce local "We're trying to do everything we can loyalties a hospital can engender when I to make ends meet," Stoddard says. To returned to St. Andrews, thereby comcut down on expenses, Nephi has taken a pleting my rural round robin. Much step that many independent-minded rural hospitals nowadays find distasteful but had happened since our fortuitous visit necessary. It has teamed up admintwo decades ago. The old building, where istratively with the hospital in Gunnison, Dr. Gregory had so deftly unraveled our son's distress, had become a 30-bed nurs65 kilometers down the road. The two ing home. Attached to it was a new, 22institutions buy supplies together, rely on some of the same specialists, and use some bed acute-care wing, built at a cost of$2.3 million and opened in August 1987. of the same mobile equipment. Stoddard At first glance, all seemed well at St. administers both.

Andrews Hospital. A second look, howComfrey Hospital in southwestern ever, tended to darken the rosy picture. A Minnesota, which serves a farm community of some 1,800 people, has taken a few years back, I was told, the hospital similar step. The state's smallest hospital, began to be troubled by some familiar rural ailments.

Its occupancy rate it has joined with four others in the area to form a portion of Health Network of . dropped to 28 percent. At one point the pinch was so bad that St. Andrews' staff, Minnesota, a coalition of hospitals in and around the southwestern part of the state. ever the cheerful givers, had consented to But in Comfrey's case the collaborative accepting a 20-percent cut in their pay. spirit may be turning sour.

Each year brought with it another "We're the underdog," discouraging deficit, and St. Andrews was says Gary driven to the very brink of ceding its Richter, the young editor-publisher of the cherished independence to a slightly Comfrey Times, "but we're going to fight larger hospital (27 beds) in Damariscotta, the odds." The odds, according to an areawide study conducted by a Denver a town 30 kilometers to the north. consulting firm, are not favorable.

But the merger plan was scuttled by "There needs to be a reduction in the aroused townspeople, and the harbor air has been calmer and brighter ever since. number of inpatient beds," the consulContributions from the residents, includtants concluded. They singled out Coming a fair proportion of affluent summer frey and nearby Mountain Lake as prime people, had covered the new construction subtraction prospects.

But as Richter says, reflecting the pe- costs, so the hospital was free of debt. In culiar cussedness of rural logic, "Those 1988, moreover, its 14-member unsalaried board of trustees had taken steps to are just facts. You don't necessarily have firm up the hospital's administrative to go with them."

A few days after the Denver report was arrangements.

They had signed a manmade public, the townspeople decided not agerial contract with the Hospital Corporation of America, an international chain to go with the facts. At a meeting, nearly

that owned 79 hospitals and managed 225 more. St. Andrews is doing better now; it has recruited several more doctors to its ranks; and its occupancy rate has risen a notch. One trustee remarked recently, "For the crisis we went through, we're coming out of it not too badly."

I had been hoping on this visit to shake the talented hand of Dr. Gregory and to thank him once more for his ministrations to our son that strange summer night long ago. But T was told that Dr. Philip O. Gregory had died in 1983 at the age of 73. He was the son of St. Andrews' founder, Dr. George Gregory, a Nova Scotian who had migrated south in search ofa viable practice. "Dr. George" opened St. Andrews on August 1, 1908, naming it for the patron saint of commercial fishermen. Portraits of both father and son gaze down on the hospital's main corridor.

I spent the night at St. Andrews, not certain what T was waiting for. Nothing spectacular occurred-there were no emergencies-but in a rural hospital, every night produces its own kind of quiet

drama. Call it a theater of compassion.

The night's protagonist was Marilyn, a gaunt, middle-aged woman who had recently been op~rated on for gallstones. It was her third operation in ten months, so the nurses were not surprised when Marilyn started to hallucinate. "It's the anesthetic," explained Irene Fowle, one of the evening nurses. "It can cause a chemical imbalance. You have to take her seriously. She's really scared."

First Marilyn complained that the corridor was full of water, and the water was rising. "I can't swim," she confided to a nurse. Later she called for help because she had discovered "a stranger" under her bed. "What does he want with me?" she wanted to know.

As it happened, all beds were occupied that night, and the nurses were kept busy.

But to Marilyn they betrayed no sign of impatience. They answered her calls instantly, comforting her as best they could and pretending to look beneath her bed for hidden marauders.

When all else failed, a nurse's aide

BelolL [n addition to routine duties, nurses at Comfrey Hospital, as at Grant Memorial, perform myriad other chores such as giving a shave to an elderly patient.

Recently, lrhen the hospital had an extra patient, a nurse said, "Give her my dinner. ,.

Above: A patient. partially paralFed by an accident. is given physical therapy for his hand at Comfrey.

"You get as good medical care here as you can anywhere," says Dr. Rimas.

named Krista Greenleaf helped Marilyn don leather slippers and a flowered robe, and then walked her up and down th.e corridor, cooing to her as sweetly and soothingly as the nurses in Petersburg had cooed to Shane. Eventually they made her comfortable at the nurses' station, tucking her into an enormous leather chair, with two pillows behind her head and a woolen blanket draped over her wispy figure. She sat there much of the night, scowling at me and th'e nurses. ''I'm frightened to death," she said to no one in particular. "I don't want to stay here and ha ve everyone get hurt."

Krista Greenleaf spoon-fed Marilyn some medicine and hot tea from a plastic cup. "H ush," she said. "You stay right here with us. We need the company."

In the morning I had an appointment with Peggy Pinkham, the hospital's community relations director. "Would you like to see your son's records?" I. was asked. The question surprised me. "Do you keep those things?" I asked in return.

Within minutes I was handed a stapled sheaf of papers. At the top of the first sheet someone had typed: "Name: Margolis, Master Philip E. Age: 12. Admitted: 8-29-70. Discharged: 8-3.0-70. Admission Diagnosis: Torsion (twisted) spermatic cord on the righ t."

Fascinated, I began turning pages.

There were laboratory blood tests, temperature readings, blood pressure readings, three separate pulse notations, and a ('"norcomment on Phil's respiration mal"). At 10: 15 that night Phil had "taken well" some soup, a sandwich, and a glass of milk. About an hour later he "appeared to be sleeping." At midnight he was still "sleeping quietly." At eight the next morning he seemed just fine.

"Asymptomatic," someone had written on the chart."

0 swelling."

What came over me as I read those precise notations was a good deal of ex post facto gratitude. While Diane and I had slept in our vacation-cottage bed. there had been people five kilometers across the bay keeping wide awake. All night they paid strict attention to our son's health and comfort. It seemed to me he had been in the best of hands.

0

T

he most important thing to know about the American economy is that it is very rich. The best measure of that is the gross national product (GNP). The U.S. GNP is now running at $5,500,000 million a year. This is a staggering figure. In 1940, when the GNP was first estimated, the figure was about $1 oq,ooo million. It had been about the same in 1929.

Of course, most of this increase was due to inflation. But in real terms after allowing for inflation, the GNP now is six times as high as it was in 1929 and three times as high per capita.

Consider that in 1929 the United States was already the richest country in the world, and Americans were congratulating themselves on how well-off they were.

Comparisons with other countries are difficult and not very revealing. But by the best estimates, the GNP of the United

States is probably two-and-a-half times that of Japan and five times that of Germany. On a per capita basis, GNP in America is probably one-third higher than in either of those countries.

Interestingly, Americans do not seem tofeel rich today, and economic policy is dominated to a degree by an acceptance of the feeling that the country is poor. The main reason for that is the "twin deficits"-the deficit in the U.S. budget and the trade and payments. People think deficit in its international that the country must be poor if it cannot afford to pay for its expenditures outright or if the country cannot prod uce as much as it consumes, and has to import the rest from other countries.

But the deficits are not a sign of poverty. Any government, however rich the country, can have a deficit if it chooses to spend more than it chooses to collect in taxes. The United Sta tes

Understanding the American Economv

byHERBERTSTEfN

Notwithstanding a huge U.S. budget deficit, the American economy remains the strongest and the most dynamic in the world says noted economist Herbert Stein (above).

has budget deficits because Americans prefer them. They prefer to have the deficit rather than do the things that would eliminate the deficit. These things are easy to list and would not be very painful. For example, the United States is not a very heavily taxed country. Americans pay a smaller proportion of their GNP in taxes than any other industrial country except Japan, but they prefer to have the deficit rather than pay another two or three percent of the GNP in taxes.

Similarly, the deficit in international trade or payments does not deny that the country is rich. In 1989, for example, Americans used about one percent more goods and services than they produced. That was the whole "deficit." Americans could have done without that extra one percent of goods and services easily. It was only about half of the increase in production over the previous year. They used the extra output because on the one hand they preferred to consume and invest a great deal, while on the other hand, savers in the rest of the world were willing and eager to invest in the United States rather than elsewhere, including their own countries.

Some people think that the United States is becoming poorer because Americans and their government borrow a good deal abroad. But actually, Americans are becoming richer; productive assets owned by Americans-at home and abroad-are increasing faster than liabilities to foreigners.

Another reason for the common feeling that America is not rich is the belief that the United States is falling behind other countries, notably Japan. But the fact of Japan's becoming richer--even if that were to happen-would not make the United States less rich in the relevant sense of its ability to meet the needs and desires of the American people. Anyway, the margin of the Japanese growth rate over the American rate is presently diminishing.

The rate of economic growth slowed worldwide after 1973 [as a result of a steep rise in oil prices]. The U.S. rate recovered somewhat during the 1980s, but it is difficult to evaluate the magnitude because we cannot yet distinguish between cyclical and longer-run changes. America does not seem to be back to the growth rates of the best 15 or 20 years before 1973 and may not yet be back to the lower longer-run rate.

There is an interesting stability in America's economic growth rate over very long periods. We now have estimates of per capita GNP for the 120 years from 1869 to 1989; for this whole period, the annual rate of growth was 1.78 percent. The year 1929 divides the 120 years in half and is also a historical year during which many things changed radically. [It was the year the Great Depression started.] But the average growth rate of per capita GNP was 1.80 before and 1.77 after 1929, which, given the difficulties of measurement, cannot be regarded as a significant difference. This neither indicates an iron law of growth for the American economy nor suggests that the growth is accelerating or decelerating.

About the Author: Herbert Stein is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.

Implications of Being Wealthy The basic reason for our prosperity is that 120 million Americans get up in the morning and go to work to do the best they can for themselves and their families-and previous millions did the same thing for more than two centuries.

America has always had a legal system that assures its people that they will enjoy the fruits of their efforts-their labor, their saving, their education, and their initiatives. America's culture encourages people to benefit themselves economically, and values their doing so. The country was populated by immigrants who wanted to live and work in such a legal system and culture. Moreover, the government has always been devoted to assisting and protecting people in these efforts. For example, the government has made available large amounts of capital in the form of land and education.

Events in America have to be understood in the perspective of the size of the economy. Almost everything we see happening turns out to be small relative to the size of the economy. Also, because of its size and diversity, the system seems to be stable and immovable in the aggregate while flexible in detail.

In earlier times, an event like the change of automobile models at the Ford Motor Company or a shortage of rain in Kansas could cause a national recession. The country is much more resistant to such things now. Even the loss of about $500,000 million in the value of assets when the stock market crashed in 1987 was absorbed without much effect on the economy as a whole.

Actual, or proposed policy changes also have to be seen in this perspective. For example, the Reagan defense buildup, which looked so huge at the time and was expected to be so disruptive economically, made hardly a ripple in the American economy.

For a country as rich as America is, getting richer faster is not a very important goal-or at least it is less important than it used to be and less important than it is in other countries.

America's most important problems are not problems of the inadequacy of total national income but rather of inappropriate use of the national income the economy produces.

America's problems must also be seen in the perspective of American history. What appear to be the most critical problems now will be listed later but, first, it is useful to review some of the problems that have existed or have been alleged to exist in the past 60 years that no longer worry us. Looking back reminds uS that American society has the capacity to face its problems, and deal with them.

The Stabilization

Problem

The Great Depression gave rise to the fear that such catastrophes would recur or even that the American economy would live in a state of permanent depression unless radical changes were made in the economic system. This fear is now gone, partly because that analysis was judged faulty; it underestimated the equilibrating features of the system. Changes in institutions and policies that stabilized the economy without weakening its free and efficient features dispelled those fears. Worry about the

A

merica's most important problems are not problems of the inadequacy of total national income but rather problems of inappropriate use of the national income.

possibility of less severe, but still debilitating, recessions persisted, however. But the experience of the years since World War II has provided two lessons: First, the only serious recessions, those of 1975 and 1982, in which U.S. unemployment rose to highs of nine percent and 11 percent, respectively, came after fairly high inflation.

Second, even recessions of that depth turned out to be less painful than had been expected because they were short. This was because the average American worker had substantial assets, and was likely to be in a family with more than one worker, so that a period of unemployment was not disastrous.

What remains as the chief uncertainty about the stability of the U.S. economy is the possibility of inflation. This is seen as a political problem-whether the temptation of the short-term political advantages of inflationary policy can be resisted. The inflation rate in the United States [in mid-1990] was about 4.5 percent. The economy is much better adapted to such a rate now than it was, for example, in 1971 when that rate caused the imposition of price controls. It is nevertheless a cause for concern.

Unemployment in America [as ofmid-1990] was running near 5.25 percent. That is somewhat higher than used to be considered full employment, but it is not a serious figure in the aggregate. Half of the unemployed are out of work for periods of five weeks or less, and the average duration of unemployment is about 12 weeks. The unemployment problem today is serious in that it most affects black youths, who are not being brought into the work force.

The Mythical Freedom Problem Around the end of World War II, there was a great deal of worry in America that although the threat of Nazism had been withstood, the threat to freedom remained serious. The threat-best described in Friedrich Hayek's book, The Road to Selfdom-was seen to lie in the expansion of the role of government that had been going on in the United States under the New Deal, and in England and elsewhere even longer.

Although the argument was mainly about England, the author made it applicable to the United States, and the book was a best-seller in America.

This worry has not since been as acute as it was in the first years after World War II, but it remains a standard part of political rhetoric and rises in pitch from time to time.

The threat to American freedoms has never been real.

Americans are more free now than they have ever been.

Individual options have been increased enormously by the growth of incomes; the improvement of education, information, and mobility; the expansion of competition, including the increased exposure to the world market; and the reduction of legal and cultural discriminations of all kinds, based on race, religion, ethnicity, and gender.

The government sector in the United States has expanded in the past 60 years, but it is still small by international standards.

Relative to GNP, government expenditures and receipts in the United States are at about the same level as they are in Japan and lower than in any other large industrial country.

As a fraction of GNP, government expenditures in the United States rose from ten percent in 1929 to 34 percent in 1989. By other measures the government share is smaller, and has risen less. Receipts have risen from 10.9 percent to 32 percent; government purchases of goods and services from 8.6 percent to 19.8 percent; and government output, measured by payrolls, from 4.3 percent to 10.3 percent.

But the private sector has also expanded enormously. Even if the government share is estimated to have risen from one-tenth to one-third of GNP, the nongovernment GNP is four times as large today as it was in 1929 and twice as large per capita.

The total of government expenditures, however, is a poor measure of government's power to coerce individuals and limit their freedom, for several reasons. Forty percent of all government expenditures are for interest payments or transfers made according to objective formulas that do not enable the government to discriminate among individuals. Government in America is decentralized: The federal government makes only about 40 percent of government purchases of goods and services (less than eight percent of GNP, three-fourths of which is for defense), the rest is made by states and localities. Moreover, the U.S. government's ability to exercise its influence in a coercive way is limited by the division of powers among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, by the party system, and by public opinion.

In one way or another, the government does regulate many U.S. industries-it regulates some of them quite a lot-but this is in fact a trivial impairment of freedom. There may be people who feel inhibited because they cannot practice brain surgery without a government license or because they cannot operate a commercial bank and an investment bank simultaneously.

They are a minority. Many regulations are probably a source of economic inefficiency. It is difficult, probably impossible, to calculate the size of this effect. About ten years ago, one study concluded that the regulatory system reduced GNP by about three percent. That is about one year's normal growth of GNP. Other Worries From time to time in American history, great concern has been expressed that the economy would be dominated by giant monopolies that would smother efficiency, prevent the achievement of full employment, and concentrate excessive power in a few private hands. Such concerns were heard in the 1930s and,

to a lesser extent, in the 1950s. They are hardly heard anymore.

The American economy is seen to be highly competitive, more competitive than ever before. Government policy has helped avert a trend to monopoly. But the main lesson is that unless government positively enforces monopoly, there are strong natural tendencies for competition to emerge. Moreover, reduced costs of transportation and communication, and lowered governmental barriers to international trade have greatly widened the markets within which enterprises must compete.

Given the common notion of the United States as the country of big business, it is significant to note that most American workers are employed in fairly small enterprises. In 1985, 55 percent were employed in establishments of 99 or fewer workers, and only 13 percent in establishments of over 1,000

T

he American system has performed well. And it continues to do so, not because it is finished, perfect, and free of pro blems but because it adapts to its problems and solves or ameliorates them.

workers. There seems to be no trend for the proportion in large establishments to increase.

Parallel to this worry about monopoly but on the other side of the political spectrum, there has been concern about the power of labor unions. This was especially notable just after World War II. Membership in American unions was increasing, and so, apparently, was their economic and political power.

Some thought stronger unions would stifle productivity and generate inflation. But this fear also passed. The proportion of nonfarm employees enrolled in unions peaked at about 30 percent in 1955, and has declined since to about 20 percent.

Even where unions exist, they are less powerful than they were.

Again, public policy, expressed in the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947,* had something to do with limiting the trend to unionization. But the primary force was competition: Unionized enterprises could not compete with the nonunionized---even-in the benefits they provided their workers.

A third worry that has arisen from time to time is that the economy was chaotic and erratic, and would stagnate because the United States had no "economic plan." This worry naturally arose when difficulties appeared, most notably in the 1930s. It recurred around the end of the 1950s, when the launching of Sputnik raised the fear that the Soviets might be outdoing the United States, and when many Americans were *The act contains provisions permitting 80-day injunctions against strikes imperiling national health or safety. It also contains provisions barring certain labor union activities as "unfair labor practices."

fascinated by comprehensive British and French economic plans. There was another wave of talk in favor of planning in 1975 and 1976 after the oil shock.

But the idea that the United States should have a national economic plan never had much popular appeal. Any push to develop one has now disappeared entirely, and given recent events in Eastern Europe, none is likely to re-emerge soon.

The Adaptive Society The American system has performed well. And it continues to do so, not because it is finished, perfect, and free of problems, on a model laid down by Adam Smith, but because it adapts to its problems and solves or at least ameliorates them. The American economic system today is a long way from the capitalism of 1929. The government has assumed responsibility for maintaining economic stability. America has become a substantial welfare state, and about 15 percent of all personal income consists of transfers from the government. The government greatly affects national saving by its fiscal policy. It regulates almost every industry a little. But still, the free market remains at the heart of the economic system.

What makes the American society so adaptable is that we have an economic system interacting with a political system, each independent and each competitive within itself. Each system disciplines the other, limits its excesses, and acts to correct its deficiencies.

America's

Problems Today

There is no consensus in America today about what our problems are. Three general viewpoints may be discerned: • There are those who, despite what has been said above, give great weight to traditional aggregate economic problems: The rate of growth, competitiveness with other countries, the budget deficit, and the trade deficit.

• There are those who think that because the threat of imperial communism has diminished there are no national problems except deciding how to leave the American people alone, cut their taxes, and reduce government regulation.

• There are others who believe that the United States tolerates conditions that might be bearable in a less-rich society but that ought not to be acceptable in the country itself. These include the existence of a miserable underclass; the failure for" over a decade to lower the percent of the population living in poverty, after earlier years of progress; the sad state of Ameri·· can education; and the spread of dangerous drugs and violent crime. Moreover, the United States, as the richest, most capitalist, and most democratic country, has a role to play and obligations to assume in assisting other countries to achieve democracy, free markets, and economic development.

These viewpoints are not being explicitly debated in the United States today, but they underlie many of the specific issues that are continually being faced. Some decision about the relative weight to be given to these views of the American condition will emerge from the political process.

[J

"If you want me to take them alier meals, you'd better give me some of my $40 back. "

Reprinted with permission

from The Saturday

Evening Post Society.

a division of 8FL and MS. Inc. -D 1990.

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

"Do you knoll' ll'hat this reminds Daddy of?

It reminds him of the stock market." :D

1989 Tribune Media Services.

All Rights Reserved.

Inc.

"I knew all the right people, but, remarkably, all of them wanted me jailed. "

The curvature of space-time produces its grea test effects Exploding stars and other violent

around objects with

cosmic events are thought tl) flood

the most mass, such

the universe with gravity wav~s.

as the sun or other

Rippling through space-time at the

stars.

speed of light, they briefly disturb everything in their path. Too weak to detect so far, these waves create

Roll a billiard ball along the sheet

distortions smaller than the

in the general direction of a dimple,

diameter of a single particle inside

and it will dip toward the dimple

When a star runs out of nuclear

and roll away at a different angle.

fuel, it can collapse under its own

In the same way, the path of any

weight. As if stretching

form of matter or energy-including light-will

bend as it passes

through the gravitational

the sheet

to infinity, gravity intensifies unimaginably,

field of a

massive object.

crushing atoms and

trapping any matter or energy that enters. From such a black hole, not even light can escape.

Just as a ball circles endlessly within a dimple on the frictionless sheet, a planet or satellite orbits a massive object.

an atomic nucleus.

Searching for the Secrets of

GRAVITY E 4 Within Earth's gravitational

field

(D) you feel the effect of gravity by just standing still on a fixed surface (F). To experience weightlessness,

you would have to

free fall like a skydiver, who feels only air resistance (E).

With this equivalence principle and his generalized transformed

theory, Einstein

our understanding

of

the universe and its origins. Yet his

phraim Fischbach's problem was snakewood. It was late 1985, and Fischbach was on to something. If right, it would be one of the biggest discoveries in science since Isaac Newton saw an apple fall, then explained why~ Fischbach, a theoretical physicist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, believed he had found a natural force counteracting gravity. He knew it was preposterousonly fantasy or science fiction. But if it existed, it could force us to reevaluate our view of the universe.

To help prove his discovery, Fischbach had to know how gravity affected snakewood. But he had no idea what it was or where to find it.

Fischbach was treading dangerously.

Gravity, in a sense discovered by Newton three centuries ago, is a cornerstone of modern science. Newton's Principia. often called the greatest scientific book of all time, laid out the mechanics of gravity and, consequently, of the entire known universe.

As the force that attracts conglomerates of matter to one another, gravity has a limitless pull. It keeps the moon orbiting the Earth, the Earth in place around the sun, and our solar system within the galaxy, orchestrating the

theory has not been integrated with quantum mechanics, the mathematical

language for theories

of the other fundamental

Below right: With an unfettered old chair at Cambridge

for a still elusive unified theory.

for the holy grail of physics-a

blindfolded subject buckles up in the rotation room at Brandeis University near Boston. The may avoid motion sickness in space by

gradually increasing revolutions per minute over time.

mind in a body shackled by

Lou Gehrig's disease, Stephen W. Hawking,

nature, and Einstein died searching

Right: Out for a spin, a

research suggests that astronauts

forces of

who holds Newton's

University in England, leads the search unified theory of the universe.

The new theory of the fifth force has generated universe in a cosmic life-and-death dance.

Of the four known natural forces, gravity was the first seen but is the least understood. The others are electromagnetism, which we know as electricity, magnetism, and light; the strong force binding atomic nuclei; and the weak force causing radioactive decay.

Though gravity rules the universe, the other forces are trillions of times stronger. Take any kitchen magnet, for instance. Its electromagnetic field is stronger-over a space of a few centimeters-than the Earth's entire gravitational field.

Earth's gravity field is so weak that when you pick up a rock, your muscles are easily overcoming the pull of the planet's entire 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms.

Gravity, too, is the only force man cannot control. We can increase, decrease, and sometimes even reverse the others. But not gravity. It cannot be reflected, stopped, or slowed. It always attracts, never repels.

At least until Ephraim Fischbach.

The idea of antigravity first crept-maddeningly-into Fischbach's mind in 1979. He and another physicist, Samuel Aronson, were studying findings from an atomic acceleratoror atom smasher-when they came upon a set of results they could not explain.

In seeming defiance of gravity, particles called kaons were behaving strangely in the accelerator. Says Fischbach, "We thought of every possible explanation. Nothing worked. Finally on Halloween night [October 31] we decided it could only be a new force-a fifth force."

If true, it was a Nobel Prize finding. Yet they were so cautious that they put the fifth force on hold for six years. Meanwhile, they reexamined gravity experiments of the past.

Gravity has always occupied the best minds, including Galileo Gali'lei, the extraordinary 17th-century Italian who wa~ the first modern scientist. Before Galileo, it had been assumed-largely from a dictate of Aristotle-that gravity causes a heavy object to fall faster than a light one. Aristotle had confused the effects of gravity's pull with the distance something could be propelled: You can throw a small rock farther than a big one, so the big one must fall faster. Galileo decided to see what actually happens. In Pisa, where he was born, I climbed the worn steps of the tower that has been leaning southward almost from the day it was built in the 13th century.

Nicolo Beverini, a University of Pisa physicist whose specialty is gravity, climbed with me.

"Galileo probably never dropped cannon balls or anything else from this tower," said Beverini, standing uneasily on one of the precarious, slanting balconies. "He may have thought about it, but he did not write about it."

Instead, he rolled balls of different weights down and up inclined planes. "These ramps slowed them, making gravity's effect directly observable," said Beverini.

Galileo found that all objects, no matter what they are made of, fall at the same ever increasing rate. Thus, if air resistance is ignored, a cannonball and a wooden ball dropped simulta-

neously will strike the ground at the same time.

This conclusion seemed to be reinforced by experiments conducted early this century by Baron Roland von Eotvos, a Hungarian who measured the effect of gravity on various test materials and found virtually no differences. Three-quarters of a century later Ephraim Fischbach and Samuel Aronson took another look at the baron's findings.

What they saw was startling. Said Fischbach, "The Eotvos tests actually showed that objects fall at slightly different rates according to their atomic makeup-the more tightly packed the atomic nucleus, the slower the fall. Eotvos's colleagues published the results after he died. They ignored the differences as statistically insignificant."

Fischbach's group analyzed the test materials of the original Eotvos experiments-asbestos, tallow, copper, water, and platinum. But they could not find one material: snakewood.

"We needed complete results," said Fischbach, a personable native of Brooklyn, New York. "But what was snakewood? We knew it was a dense, tropical wood-nothing more."

Fischbach sent inquiries to chemists and lumberyards, to South America and to Hungary. No luck. One day he read that 19th-century violin makers used snakewood for bows. He started contacting musicians.

At last, in Seattle, Washington, he found his man: Alexander Illitch Eppler, a balalaika player of Russian descent. By luck, Eppler had a supply of aged snakewood for making his instruments. "He even had a piece he could trace to Budapest in the 1890s," said Fischbach. "We analyzed its composition. It fit just right."

About the same time, data from an Australian mine were adding credence to the notion of a fifth force. Geophysicist Frank Stacey and colleagues at the University of Queensland had used a sensitive meter to measure gravity at different depths. The deeper Stacey went, the stronger the pull of gravity became, simply because they were getting nearer to the Earth's center of mass. Stacey expected this. But he detected something else-a force opposing gravity, with about one percent of its strength and a range of a few hundred meters.

Other measurements in boreholes and mines elsewhere have substantiated the Queensland result. "This has to be taken seriously," says Stacey, who has emerged from his mine shaft as something of a fifth-force guru.

Some physicists are calling the new discovery the "hypercharge force." Hypercharge is the number of protons and neutrons in a nucleus-different for each element. An attraction called binding energy, or the strong force, holds these subatomic particles together. And in the topsy-turvy world of the atom, binding energy can have mass of its own.

Binding energy could be the key to the antigravity force. A ball of iron, with high binding energy, could receive a strong antigravity lift and fall slightly slower than a snakewood ball of equal weight. According to Fischbach, Galileo may have been dead wrong.

Naturally this heresy has generated monumental controversy

monumental controversy within physics circles. within physics circles, inspiring hundreds of researchers around the world to try to trap the elusive force.

Still, an answer may not come easily. Says Princeton University's Robert Dicke, an eminent physicist, "Few experiments are simpler in principle, harder to put into practice, and so far-reaching in implication."

One way to test the theory is simply to repeat the Eotvos experiments with modern equipment. The first such experiment was carried out by Peter Thieberger, who floated a copper sphere in a tank of water to search for the fifth force. Paul Boynton, a University of Washington physicist, fashioned weights of beryllium and aluminum and suspended them next to an immense granite wall in the Cascade Range. "The idea is to see if the cliff's mass pulls differently on the two bodies," he said.

Boynton and his colleagues detected variations but are still working to see if the fifth force is the cause.

British geophysicists Keith Runcorn and Bob Edge ran an experiment at a reservoir in Wales aimed at pinning down the fifth force by measuring the gravitational pull of the water as the reservoir emptied and filled. "We were definitely surprised," said Edge, an expert in measurement of tidal changes. "Early results showed that the water's gravitational attraction deviated about five percent from the expected. Like everybody, we are worried we have missed something."

Donald H. Eckhardt, a geophysicist at the U.S. Air Force Geophysics Laboratory in Bedford, Massachusetts, is more sure of his results. He and his colleagues went up a North Carolina television tower nearly 600 meters high, measuring the pull of gravity. His group found a "significant departure" from normal gravity, said Eckhardt at a recent meeting of physicists in Perth, Western Australia. The scientists had gathered from around the globe to try to sort out the fifth force and other gravity-related problems.

Mark Ander of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Mark Zumberge of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, led a team that braved subzero temperatures and blizzards in Greenland. There they lowered a serisitive gravity-measuring device down a 2,000meter hole bored through ice at a site dubbed Dye 3.

The results stunned the Perth group. The Greenland team found a "very large anomaly," suggesting something other than ordinary Newtonian gravity. Further, the "force" was dead opposite to that found by other experimenters: It actually increased gravity's strength. Several months later Ander and Zumberge announced that their results needed more thinking-that anomalies in the Earth's crust may have affected the measurements.

Other seekers ofthc;: fifth force have encountered disappointing results. University of Washington physicist Eric Adelberger did an experiment similar to Paul Boynton's. He found absolutely nothing at all. James Faller at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics in Boulder, Colorado, compared the falling rate of masses of unlike composition, ala Galileo. Faller also came up empty.

Indeed, there seem to be as many detractors as experimenters. I first met one, theoretical physicist Alvaro De Rujula, a blue-eyed Spaniard, at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva, in 1986. "In a few years, this fifthforce rubbish will be gone," he predicted.

Two years later his criticism was more subdued. "In the absence of any two experiments with the same results, we can't really say anything scientific about it yet," he said. Princeton's John Wheeler, a leading theorist, was more adamant. "I think the fifth force will prove to be a flash in the pan," he told me.

Even experimenters with positive findings still recoil from tampering with the work of Isaac Newton, one of the greatest thinkers in history by anybody's account.

Born in 1642, the year Galileo died, Newton was a man of almost terrifying powers of concentration. While still an undergraduate at Cambridge University in England, he invented the mathematical system of calculus-later to prove essential to understanding gravity.

Years later, German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz developed a similar system, and Leibniz's supporters claimed his was better. Swiss mathematician Johann Bernoulli set out to resolve the dispute by publishing two problems requiring calculus.

After several months Leibniz had solved but one. When Newton received the problems, he solved both within 24 hours, submitting the results anonymously.

Bernoulli then declared: "The lion is known by his claw."

At the time, it was generally accepted that the planets and moons were carried around their orbits by vortices in an invisible "ether," a favorite theory of the French philosopher Rene Descartes. Newton wondered about this.

During an 18-month stretch before he was 24, he worked out the laws of motion and universal gravitation, showing that the force pulling the apple down and the force keeping the moon in orbit were one.

Newton's law of gravitation, universally accepted by scientists even in the face of a fifth force, showed that any two objects attract each other at a rate directly proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of their distance apart. An object ten times closer feels a pull not ten times but a hundred times greater.

And his mathematical invention, calculus, explained Why the apple falls straight down-instead of, say, sideways toward a nearby mountain or building: All the gravitational mass of the Earth pulls toward a single point at the planet's center, overwhelming the minuscule pull of other objects.

Newton's Principia. written with abstruse mathematics to keep away "little smatterers," was published only by chance.

Nearly 20 years after Newton first explained gravity, England's astronomer royal, Edmund Halley, visited him for help calculating planetary orbits. Newton had already done the work but had lost the calculations. He did them again on the spot. Realizing the value of the research stuffed in Newton's desk, Halley himself had the material published in 1687.

"I really believe he did see the apple fall," said Professor Rupert Hall of London's Imperial College, a leading Newton scholar. "He confirmed it at least twice."

History's second most famous fruit tree-or at least what may be a graft on the stump of the original, which blew down in I 82o-stands at Woolsthorpe Manor, Newton's birthplace, a short drive from London. And it still produces a small, foultasting apple.

For Newton, gravity was a sort of cosmic cat's cradle-a combination of forces from every star and planet tugging and pulling at every other celestial object across the chasms of space. This concept may, surprisingly, remain intact even with a fifth force. "Since the fifth force is so weak and its range limited to a few hundred kilometers, our planetary calculations will still follow Newton," says Fischbach.

Even if the fifth force outflanks Newton on the wings of the superprecise technology of today, it will still have to contend with Albert Einstein, another of history's great thinkers.

In 1916 Einstein modified Newton's Principia with general relativity. While Newton's universe was clockwise and stately, Einstein's was strange and unsettling. Gravity was not a simple pull, but the very architecture of the universe itself. His universe was a single vast bed of gravity, not a hodgepodge of billions of attractive forces.

According to Einstein, in a perfectly uniform universe--one without matter-there would exist only time and a vast sheet of space, representing the possibility of gravity. Gravity would not yet exist. But if you put matter, say a star, into this universe, you would distort the sheet of space-time, like setting a cannonball on a taut sheet of canvas. This dimpling effect is gravity.

"From the point of Einstein's general relativity, it is easy to say that gravity is not a force at all," says Roger Blandford, an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

"It is simply the normal behavior of matter in space-time."

In terms of general relativity, then, gravity is simply a curvature caused by material objects in space-time. The universe itself, a machine fueled by gravity, is a consortium of the curvatures caused by all celestial objects pushing against the canvas of space and ~ime.

It is a difficult mental image, admits Blandford: "The metaphor of the cannonball on canvas leaves out the dimension of time so crucial to Einstein."

The glory of general relativity, one of the most powerful scientific statements of all time, is that it made predictions that Newton did not. According to Einstein, gravity, when strong, slows time and bends space. In 1919 astronomers found that the tremendous mass of the sun curves space just enough to slow light traveling through it, thus accounting for the apparent displacement of a star on the far side of the sun-as an oar seems to bend in water.

Physicists today think gravity played a major role in shaping the univase during its infancy, when matter, drawn to other matter by gravity, coalesced into stars and galaxies. Some physicists think gravity ultimately could cause the end of the

universe, too, if its current expansion eventually reverses itself in a massive gravitational contraction.

Gravity is responsible for the strangest beast in the cosmic menagerie. "A black hole is a creation of gravity," said Stephen W. Hawking, a general relativist who holds Newton's old chair at Cambridge University.

"Newton first posited the idea of escape velocity," Hawking told me in his office in a back-street building that seemed ancient enough for Newton himself to have occupied. "And a black hole is an object so dense that the speed required to escape its gravity is greater than that of light."

According to Einstein, during a cataclysmic event in space like the birth pangs of a black hole, waves of gravity should swarm back and forth across the field of space-time-as an earthquake sends shock waves through the Earth. Elaborate gravity-wave detectors have been placed around the globe to pick up these ghostly signals from space, though none have yet recorded an unambiguous signal.

Because of Newton and Einstein, scientists today can measure gravity's effect with precision. Still, nobody knows exactly what drives gravity-what makes it happen.

Quantum mechanics, a mathematical system developed in the 1920s and 1930s, describes in great detail how nature's other three forces work. Unfortunately, this leads to a paradox.

General relativity says that any large object-a star, a planet, a football-acts in an entirely predictable manner. In general, quantum mechanics merely makes statistical predictions for the behavior of subatomic matter. This means that there are different rules for these two realms.

Einstein could not abide the randomness of quantum mechanics. God does not play dice with the world, he declared.

He spent his last 30 years trying to find a single theoretical statement that would explain the behavior of both subatomic particles and the curved geometry of gravity.

The secret of this "theory of everything" (see SPAN June 1989), as physicists only half-jokingly call it, may lie at the beginning of the universe. When it was just a point of infinite heat, density, and pure energy, all four forces may have existed as one in a state of "symmetry."

As the universe exploded outward, symmetry was broken, and the forces split off from one another. Three of the forces went to work inside atoms, employing tiny force carriers known' as bosons. These short-lived subatomic particles zip back and forth between protons, neutrons, and electrons, binding them together or pushing them apart. Some physicists think particles called gravitons could do the same job for gravity. But no sign of them has yet been seen.

"General relativity and quantum mechanics are simply two different things," says Caltech's Blandford, as he tosses two books onto his desk, one on relativity and the other on subatomic physics. "One side sees geometry. The other sees gravity as just another kind of quantum force."

Theoretical physicists have tried to get around this split by using multidimensional geometry. Oxford University's Roger

Penrose, a mathematician with a supple, geometric mind that inspired several of Dutch artist M.C. Escher's marvelous visual illusions, envisions a subatomic world constructed of eightdimensional objects called "twistors," from which all four forces are generated.

Another contender for the "theory of everything" title is equally bizarre-the superstring theory. A creation of physicists John Schwarz of Caltech and Michael Green of the University of London, it supposes basic building blocks made up of tiny strings of vibrating energy.

These strings, open-ended or looped, are incredibly small: One string is to the size of an atom as an atom is to our solar system.

Always moving, strings engage one another in a free-for-all dance-swaying, bumping, sliding into one another in a process that could create every type of subatomic particle, including the elusive graviton. This theory combines the geometry of general relativity with the randomness of quantum mechanics.

"There has always been a problem fitting gravity into the scheme," says Schwarz. "But with strings, we find that not only does gravity fit, it becomes necessary." He acknowledges that superstrings are still only a mathematical abstraction.

Some theorizers think a new force such as Ephraim Fischbach's will be just the thing to unify gravity and the three quantum forces into physics' so-called holy grail.

Little wonder that the possibility of a mystical fifth force is driving on seekers everywhere. "A force counteracting gravity?

It's enough to get anybody's heart pumping," says Boynton.

Think of the possibilities. If we could harness such a force, might we someday have craneless construction, cableless elevators, or spaceships zipping between planets on "hyperdrive" that engages the fifth force locked within subatomic particles?

Naturally, none of this has escaped the notice of the U.S. government. Exotic and expensive research aimed at pinning down the new force is already in the works. Physicists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have joined with Italian physicists to find out if a fifth force would have an effecton antimatter. (Antimatter is material identical in mass but opposite in electrical charge from ordinary matter. Upon meeting, the two annihilate themselves in a violent burst of energy.)

Scientists at the European Space Agency are planning an experiment in space aimed at precisely measuri.ng the extent of fifth-force influence on objects floating free of Earth's gravitational pull. Japanese scientists working at the Tsukuba National Laboratory will spin a large rotor to see what effect a fifth force might have em various metals. And Italian scientists at CERN in Geneva are undertaking a similar experiment to help establish the range of the hypothetical new force.

Professor Romano Bizzarri of the University of Rome explained what seemed to me to be an especially keen Italian interest in the fifth force. "We Italians do love our Galileo Galilei and gravity."

Gravity influences virtually everything. Almost all mechanical devices on Earth, from clocks to hydroelectric dams, rely on gravity for their operation. So does a1l1ife.Gravity governs our

height and shape and keeps us from falling off the surface of a ball spinning 1,600 kilometers an hour at its Equator.

"We are children of gravity," says Dr. Ralph Pelligra, director of medical research at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Ames Research Facility in California.

"As we age, we reach a point when we begin to yield to it. Sagging skin and organs, varicose veins, arthritis, failing hearts-these all come from the lost battle against gravity.

"We can't touch it or see it. But it has guided the evolutionary destiny of every plant and animal species and has dictated the size and shape of our organs and limbs."

The human spine is a cantilever and our arms are levers, designed to overcome gravity. Says Pelligra, "Every bone and muscle is aligned to maximize mobility in one g. If you don't think so, look at the shapes of creatures that have evolved where gravity is not very significant-in the water."

I like to envision a species of humanoids that, having evolved on the moon with one-sixth Earth's gravity, are double our height but too spindly to play basketball. On Jupiter, which has 318 times Earth's mass, they might look like pancakes with short legs.

Here on Earth, gravity hardly exists for insects; in fact it presents almost no danger to any animal on the small side of a mouse, according to British geneticist J .B.S. Haldane. "You can drop a mouse down a thousand-meter mine shaft," he wrote, "and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes."

Not until we took to the zero-g environment of space did we find out how much the human body is a gravity-dependent machine. I shared in this realization high over the Gulf of Mexico in a NASA plane used to train astronauts.

The KC-135 aircraft, a military version ofa Boeing 707, with a near-empty fuselage padded like an asylum, flies in a parabolic curve that creates a sensation of weightlessness for 20 to 30 seconds. This occurs when the plane arrives at the top of a steep climb, levels off, and drops-making you feel as if you have arrived at the crest of a giant roller coaster.

As the plane reached the top of its first climb, euphoria erupted among a dozen astronauts, photographer James Sugar, and me. We whooped and yelled as we began floating free from gravity's bonds as only a handful of Earthlings have ever done.

Free-but helpless. I tried to swim. No luck, with nothing but air for my arms and legs to push against. Sugar snapped pictures as he floated by, oblivious of being on a collision course with a row of hard steel seats. With one hand I easily pushed him to safety.

At first it was great fun. But after 33 times and a little over ten minutes of weightlessness, I was disoriented and nauseated.

More serious damage to the body comes from prolonged absence of gravity. We have learned much about this from the often painful experiences of Soviet cosmonauts, unrivaled for long-duration sojourns in the punishing world of zero g.

His first night aloft Oleg Atkov drifted uneasily through the space station Salyut 7. Sleep was impossible. His head, accus-

tomed to its own weight on a pillow, felt large and light. His face was bloated with blood that, no longer held in his legs by gravity, had migrated upward. When he closed his eyes, he felt as ifhe were spinning, since without gravity his inner ear could not sense up and down.

Without intending, Atkov, a cosmonaut-physician, was serving as a test subject for another of Albert Einstein's contributions to science-the principle of equivalence.

It states that there is no difference between the effect of gravity and that of acceleration; they are equivalent. Thus a person falling will not feel his own weight, an idea that helped lead Einstein to his grand theory of gravity-general relativity.

An orbiting space station, like the moon, continuously falls toward Earth. Only its forward motion prevents it from crashing. To Atkov the effect was the same as being inside a freely falling elevator.

Atkov's body reacted profoundly.

His muscles, which were no longer needed for supporting his body or lifting things, atrophied rapidly, despite intense exercise each day. "I could see them wither before my eyes," said the amiable cosmonaut when I visited him in Moscow.

Atkov's bones, similarly underemployed, insidiously gave up calcium and lost density: "I became lethargic and fatigued, far worse than I had expected." When he landed after eight months in space, he was so weak he had to be carried on a stretcher. He called his one trip to space "more than enough."

Medical researchers are worried about a tentatively planned trip to Mars (see SPAN June 1989), taking as long as three years for the round-trip. Dr. Harold Sandler, a NASA aerospace physician at Ames, wonders: "Is there a point in sending someone to Mars who won't be able to stand up when he gets there?"

Some specialists think artificial gravity will be required. It could be attained in a slowly rotating space vehicle, creating a centrifugal effect as in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

A revolving spacecraft could also alleviate problems the Soviets have found in trying to grow plants in space greenhouses. In zero gravity, plants can grow with roots up and stems down, while weightless water cannot percolate through soil, which itself is floating away from roots. These are serious problems: Plants will be essential for providing food and oxygen during interplanetary flights.

Science has gleaned a lot about the most mysterious force in the universe since Newton gave us an inkling of how it works.

But does the knowledge do us any good?

Right now orbiting satellites like LAGEOS and GEOSAT are taking readings of variations in the Earth's gravitational field.

To do this, researchers determine whether a satellite has bobbed up or down with a change in Earth's gravity below. For instance, satellites drop noticeably over the "Indian Ocean anomaly" off Africa, where the Earth's surface bulges¡ and gravity's pull is particularly strong.

During the Apollo II mission to the moon in 1969, NASA learned-suddenly-about gravity variations there too. When the lunar module Eagle landed on the Sea of Tranquillity, pilot

Neil Armstrong was shocked to find he had missed the projected landing site by seven kilometers, a potentially fatal error.

Project scientists later determined that the spacecraft had been jolted from its planned orbit by the immense gravitation of the large lunar basins. These dark spots that create."the man in the moon" are filled three to eight kilometers deep with basalt, a dense mineral, something not considered before the trip.

On Earth, accurate charting of variations in gravity is used everywhere-for prospecting, for predicting volcanic activity, for the inertial navigation systems of planes, ships, and missiles, and for studying the Earth's interior.

"Irregularities in the density of Earth's mantle directly affect the gravity measured at the surface," geophysicist Brad Hager explained in his office at Caltech. For instance, gravity is especially strong in central Africa and the Himalayas and noticeably weaker in the Hudson Bay area and the Indian Ocean. "This has helped us draw a picture of core and mantle dynamics, which ultimately explain the Earth's geology."

Gravity can vary even when the surface is flat-important for mineral and oil prospectors. Using gravity meters, they look for strong local readings that can indicate ore-bearing minerals or weak signals that could lead to petroleum-rich salt domes.

The meters measure the gravitational pull on a suspended mass, much like some of the fifth-force experiments. Commercial models costing about $40,000 can detect a change of as little as .00093 gram in the weight of a person. They can even find a person behind a wall-or report the shape of a hidden underground passage.

We have begun to use Newton's discovery. Might we someday control it? Probably not, since the field of warped spacetime in which we dwell does not carry positive and negative charges like nature's other forces. Still, some physicists think gravity with a minus sign could exist someplace in the universe.

Or that, somewhere else out there, there could be negative mass that would have the effect of canceling out the gravity of positive mass like us.

And then there is still Ephraim Fischbach to contend with.

Scientists are already contemplating uses for his fifth force. But says Fischbach, "We just don't know yet where it could take us-just as nobody knew in the 1870s that the discovery of electromagnetism eventually would lead to television."

Newton knew that gravity kept everything in the sky in its' place. Today we think that it also created the universe and could one day bring it to an end in a final gravitational day of atonement, that it stokes the fusion fires of the stars, slows down the galaxies in their outward hurtle, and makes the planets round-and that our bodies need it more than we think.

How would Newton look on our achievements? Said Professor Hall during my visit to his Oxfordshire farmhouse, "He would be rather pleased, I'm sure. After all, he was after the secret of the universe, and he thought that gravity held it." 0 About the Author: John Boslough, a science writer, is the author of

Stephen Hawking's Universe.

A Park for Sculpture

Nestling amidst 160 woodland hectares some 90 kilometers north of New York City, Storm King Center is America's largest outdoor sculpture garden. It is home to 130 monumental sculpturessome four stories high-from the post1945 period. Fashioned from the shapes and materials of modern urban lifegirders and cables, steel and concrete, aluminum spars and oil storage tanksthese massive works stand majestically in perfect harmony with their picturesque natural surroundings in the Hudson River Valley.

Nar.1ed for the nearby Storm King

Mountain, the center, founded in 1960, was originally planned to be a museum dedicated to displaying works of the famed Hudson Valley School painters in their regional setting. But that was before its founder, the late Ralph Ogden, developed an interest in sculpture. Influenced by the famous outdoor installation of Henry Moore's works on a sheep farm in Scotland, Ogden began experimenting with placing sculptures outdoors. Then, in 1967, after visiting David Smith's outdoor studio in upstate New York, Ogden was so inspired by the way Smith had integrated his metallic, angular sculp-

tures

with

their

natural

environment

that he bought 13 of the artist's for Storm King.

works

Smith's sculptures still spearhead the center's collection that now features more than 100 modern masters such as Alexander Calder, Mark di Suvero, Nevelson, and Isamu Noguchi.

Louise

Storm King also holds shows of sculptures by other artists.

1. Ernest Trov3; Gox No.4, 1975; stainless steel; 2.75 meters high.

2. Forrest Myers; Mantis, 1968-70; Cor-ten and stainless steel; 2.53 meters high.

3. An aerial view of Storm King Center.

E

ver since Storm King Center became an outdoor park, the biggest chal-

lenge for its curators has been to create harmonious yet dramatic visual interaction between than-life works

these modern, largerand the surrounding

landscape.

To achieve this, careful, painstaking planning went into the installation of each piece. The land was reshaped and contoured-rises, knolls, and grassy cradles were created to show off each piece to the best advantage among earth, sky, and trees. Every time a new work is bought-or a show is held-great care is taken to design a site that best suits it.

There were other challenges. Ingenious ways were devised

to provide

invisible

lightning rods into the larger works that

tapped, these works emit different gongs,

are often struck by lightning. Again, since the massive sculptures are exposed to the

thumps, tones, twangs, and thrums. For example, when the wind hums through the cables holding heavy girders on a

elements, they must be painted, washed, or waxed to protect them against weathering.

In the park's natural setting, the everchanging

sunlight

on bronze takes on a mellow lifelike glow, and painted colors burst forth.

Moreover, each piece has its own natural "musical" accompaniment.

The wind soughing in the ears, of leaves, the fizz of passing part

di Suvero, the sculpture makes sounds.

casts its own magical

spell on the works. As the sun alters its color through the day, the personality of a sculpture changes: Sculpted surfaces reflect light and cast shadows, the patina

become

four-story mysterious

of the

the rustle insects all

sculpture.

When

1. Grace Knowlton; Spheres, 1973-75; concrete; diameter of the largest sphere is 2.44 meters.

2. Jerome Kirk; Orbit, 1972; stainless steel; 3.66 meters high.

3. Alexander Liberman; Adonai, 1971; steel; 10.66 meters high and 15.24 meters'lride.

4. John Newman; Wit's End, 1988-89; aluminum; 1.18 meters high and 3.21 meters wide.

1. and 2. Alexander Calder; Tom's, 1974; painted steel.

Cheval Rouge, 1974; steel painted red; 5.05 meters high.

3. Tal Streeter; Endless Column (center), 1968; steel painted red; 19.07 meters high.

Alexander Calder; The Arch (right), 1975; steel painted black; 17.07 meters high.

ntil five years ago, Storm King was a "well-kept secret" in the art world, owing as much to its low-key management style as to its rural location. However, now thousands of people visit the park each year.

U

What draws them tothecenteris the rarechanee to explore45 years of postmodem art in one idyllic setting. 'The element of discovery is important at Storm King, the idea that people can wander and find things," says Assistant Director Linda Steigleder.

But, as most of the pieces are designed to be touched, this has created problems. It is not surprising to see someone pick up a stick to bang on a sculpture in a spirit of playfulness.

Once a visitortumbled down from adi Suvero work, and was badly injured.

"It's a dilemma for us," says Steigleder. "We want them to touch, but we don't want them to hang, swing, or climb."

Fortunately, most encounters are benign, confined to stirring emotions: Awe, giddiness, wonder.

As the center raises its public profile, Director David R. Collens is concerned that Storm King may attract more visitors than it can accommodate. The park, he says, like the mobile parts of its giant works, seems most comfortable with its present slow movement, which stays in harmony with the local forces of nature.

0 4. Charles Ginnever; Fayette: For Charles and Medgar Evers, 1971; Cor-ten and steel; 2.54 meters high.

5. George Rickey; Two Planes Vertical-Horizontal II, 1970; stainless steel; 4.45 meters high.

Rivers have not just been mute witnesses to history. They have shaped it, providing sustenance to civilizations that settled on their banks. As populations have grown, so has the need for water. An Indo-U.S. training program is showing engineers how to manage this essential resource efficiently.

Managing the Flow

t is not just a question of how much water there is but of how that water is managed," says a young trainee at the central training unit of the Water Resource Management and Training Project.

(WRMTP) at Khadakvasla, 15 kilometers outside Pune in Maharashtra. "Whether the need is for irrigation, drinking, electricity or industry, efficient water management and water resource development are essential." The WRMTP is taking a giant step toward achieving that efficiency and development.

A collaborative effort of the Central Water Commission (CWC) of the Indian Ministry of Water Resources and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the program trains engineers engaged in planning and management of water resources for agencies of the central and state gov-

I

Above left: D.R. Arora, program manager for the Indo-U.S. training scheme for Indian engineers engaged in water resource planning and management, studies a map showing India's river basins.

Above: A chart details the courses offered in the program.

ernments. The central training unit at Khadakvasla has been set up by the Governmen t of India under the direction of CWC and USAID. The focus of the program is a concept called Integrated River Basin Planning, which is also the cornerstone of India's national water policy. The WRMTP is training engineers to look at a river basin as a nationalrather than a regional or local-resource and to design an optimum-use model for irrigation, transportation, recreation, and hydroelectric power in an integrated manner and without

neglecting the daily personal needs of the people who live around this water source.

D.R. Arora, a. USAID water resources engineer who is the program manager for WRMTP, says, "It would be fairly simple if local planners and government officials only needed to be concerned with the water source in their own locality and for their own needs. But, as we all know, a river system includes its entire basin. A river that runs through a particular city-say, Pune--doesn't start and stop at the boundaries of Pune. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using the water at the given location versus its use at another? This is the kind of question that must be asked, and the answers examined, when you are dealing with Integrated River Basin Planning."

Although integrated planning sounds like a logical solution to water

Above: Engineers from the Water Resource Management and Training Project pose for a keepsake photograph during their American tour. Right: Author Connie Howard and P.R. Karmarkar of the University of Poona collaborated on a video film on the training program. Right. below: Instructor Doug Jamesfrom Utah State University works with trainees on a computer model of a river basin project.

Even if water is scarce in a region, through more efficient planned use it is possible to i~crease the overall benefits to everyone there. ~~

problems, engineers and planners at Khadakvasla say it is difficult to get everyone to accept such a multifaceted program. Each farmer, each village, each city, each state and even each country (when you consider that many water sources cross national boundaries) thinks of its own water needs first. But water problems, experts say, have to be seen in a wider perspective. John Grayzel, director of USAID's Office of Natural

Resource Management and a social scientist, says, "Even if water is scarce in a region, through more efficient planned use it is possible to increase the overall benefits to everyone there."

Arora says, "To use water properly you must look at all the tradeoffs to all significant users, not just a few and not just at one tiJ!1e. The analysis techniques being taught at Pune highlight both the benefits and any potential adverse results of future water projects, in terms of individual parties and overall system efficiency. The immensity of the challenge in gearing India's water management toward integrated planning can be gauged from the fact that it will, in effect, mean retraining an entire bureaucracy. India's irrigation bureaucracy today employs approximately 160,000 engineers, almost all of whom are civil construction-oriented technicians. Their expertise is geared more to building dams and canals than to water management."

Commenting on the genesis of the training project, Arora says, "The initiative for it came from the Government of India in 1983. Indian planners felt that there was a need to

change the philosophy of their water resource development policy from a single-purpose use to an approach that was integrated, multidisciplinary, and multipurpose. They wanted to use the whole river basin rather than one administrative unit as the basis for their planning."

Several years of hard work and research went into designing the training program. The Central Water Commission worked with USAID in determining its components. USAID contracted Harza Engineering of Chicago, Illinois, a company with more than 60 years of experience in international water resource planning, to design the training course.

The program was inaugurated with a three-month course in mid-1988.

Since then two three-month courses and one nine-month course have been completed.

The program is conducted at the Central Water and Power Research Station (CWPRS) at Khadakvasla.

There is a guest house for trainees, a library, computer facilities, and offices for USAID, Harza, and CWC personnel. The curriculum includes computer model planning; formulation and analysis of development

needs, with water supply as the prime priority; developing reservoir silting, sizing, and operation models; flood control and hydroelectric studies; cost-estimating; sub-basin surface and groundwater-based assessment; environmental protection and enhancement needs; irrigation; and an introduction to systems engineering and operation. In addition to the regular courses, short courses cover specialized topics. There are also regional conferences, seminars, and workshops.

The classes are taught by university professors and practicing engineers from India and the United States. Utah State University in Logan, Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and the various Indian Institutes of Technology have contributed faculty members. Indian river basins are used as case studies. A. recent group of trainees visited the Pennar River Basin in Andhra Pradesh, which was the basis for one of their case studies. At the completion of the course, the trainees also do onsite surveys of several water projects in the United States, such as of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Currently, the course is enrolling

only government engineers. However, there are plans to establish regional centers throughout India that will be open to private-sector professionals. (Engineers or government officials interested in learning more about the course should write to: Chief Engineer, Central Training Unit, Water Resources Management and Training Project, Khadakvasla, Maharashtra 411023.)

Trainees we spoke to-from Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, New Delhi, and Rajasthan-were enthusiastic about the training. Said one, "This course, with its emphasis on planning for the future and the use of computers for designing efficient models, will help us move faster into the 21st century."

Added a trainee from Karnataka, "Integrated planning will prove beneficial to my home state but more than that, it will be beneficial to the entire country."

0 About the Author: Connie Howard. director of public relations at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, visited India to make an educational video film on the 'water-management training program.

Why Rabbit Had To Go Smart Maps

As John Updike's fictional hero, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, is put to rest in Rabbit at Rest, published in October 1989, the author draws a parallel between his own life and that of his character, and describes how he came to write the four "Rabbit" novels, beginning with Rabbit Run in 1959.

Digital maps, instantly updated with simple computer commands, are revolutionizing cartography.

These electronic maps can zero in on specific features, such as which area in a city has the largest number of young residents or consumes the .most electricity. Among other things, they can help in designing roads, siting power plants, or locating the ideal site for a new store.

Gardening From being one of America's most popular outdoor hobbies, gardening is now emerging as a popular career choice. Horticulture schools attract increasing numbers of adults who plan to leave their fast-paced careers "to dig in the dirt for a living," says The New York Times.

An American Legacy Most of the million priceless artifacts belonging to the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C .. lie in a warehouse for want of space. The Smithsonian Institution is now building a new museum for the spectacular collection.

W

ith job jumping becoming increasingly common in America, companies can quickly find themselves without crucial top-level executives. Hurriedly filling a position with a replacement from inside the company often creates problems of its own, such as opening another hole further down the corporate hierarchy.

So, today some American companies are trying a new tack-hiring senior managers, even chief executives, from the outside on a temporary basis.

Consider the advantages. Lining up a temporary replacement can be quick, because the individual need not be assessed on whether he or she would fit into the company on a long-term basis. It is also a way to rent before you buy; perhaps 25 percent of temporary executives take on their assignments permanently. Lastly, hiring a temp (the common term for a temporary worker) gives a company time to groom younger executives for eventual accession to a top job. And in this era of asset restructuring, a temporary executive is a perfect solution for the financial entrepreneur who wants to spruce up an operating division before selling it off.

~lPROGRAM

[

VOICE

The temporary executive route is working well for USGI, a mortgage serviceoutfit based in Darien, Connecticut. USGI had been growing at breakneck speed the past few years. Today it is the largest company servicing U.S. Federal Housing Authority mortgages, overseeing some $10,000 million. Unfortunately, the company's capitalization has not kept pace with its growth. Eventually the partnership will need additional equity. But USGI's vice president in charge of planning wasn't the man for the job. He left.

With just over 100employees, USGI sees itself as a large family, so the executive's parting was something of an unpleasant experience. William Gow, the company's chairman, did not want to risk taking on another full-timer only to find he was not suitable. He felt it would depress company morale. He also felt the job might eliminate itself eventually. So Gow was in the market for a temporary executive.

Gow went to New York-based Interim Management Corporation (Imcor), a temporary executive outfit he had heard about through a partner. In the first 18 months, Imcor had placed 35 executive temps.

Within two weeks of Gow's request, Imcor had dispatched four candidates to Darien, selected from a pool of2,500 in its

files. All are senior executives, in terms of experience and age (the average is 51). A third of the pool have opted for early retirement. Another third are victims of restructurings, and the remainder are individuals who simply opt for a flexible work routine.

Of the candidates introduced to Gow, one stood above the rest: Matthew Lind, 48, a man to whom an independent lifestyle is more important than steady

English

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advancement within the confines of a corporate bureaucracy.

An engineer with a doctorate in applied mathematics, Lind had worked in systems analysis at Mitre, the U.s. Air Force think tank for electronics. He had also been head of policy planning at Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in Washington, D.C., and worked in the corporate planning department at Travelers Corporation in Hartford, Connecticut.

When he met Gow, Lind was co-owner of a small investment banking firm, Stratmor Group, specializing in mortgage banking.

Lind was working for Stratmor out of his home. He had found that by upgrading his old IBM XT computer to a super PC, he was able to cut his technical work time for Stratmor-his main responsibility-by more than half. He was itching for something else to do, as long as he did not have to commit to permanent employment. Lind wanted to work only about four days a week at USGI on average and Gow agreed. His official title: Director of corporate development, reporting directly to Gow. Compensation?USGI pays $2,250 aday.

Lind gets $1,500 of that, and the rest, $750 a day, goes to ImcQr, the temp firm.

Lind docs not receive any benefits. Gow admits that Lind's services are "very

expensive." But he isn't complaining: "If we get what we want, it will be more than worth it."

Temporary executives differ from consultants in that they implement solutions. Consultants, by contrast, tend just to find solutions and leave it to the company to make the changes. Temporary executives and consultants have long been hired for specific projects-for example, launching a product or closing' down a plant. But Lind represents something new. Many temporary corporate managers have reached a point in their careers where they don't need or necesssarily want a steady job. "I'm one of a small group craving independence," says Lind, adding that he has sometimes been frustrated by the rigidity and bureaucracy he encountered in traditional jobs.

What other qualities characterize a good temporary executive? Generally, they have ten years of experience in a high-level management position, sufficient financial security to wait for an assignment that truly interests them, a record unblemished by poor performance, and a willingness to move (75 percent of assignments involve temporary relocation).

Like most of the people on Imcor's talent pool, Lind had reached a point

where money was no longer a compelling carrot. He already lives comfortably with his wife and three children in a spacious colonial home in New Rochelle, New York. What Lind enjoys about his arrangement with USGI is being able to do much of his work on his computer at home. He often gets up to work at three in the morning, and by noon is able to spend some time with his four-month-old son or play his piano.

How is the job going? So far, so good.

After just three months on the job, Lind had come up with a half-dozen schemes to help USGI increase its capital. Together he and Gow decided that bringing in an equity partner and working out some kind of joint venture is probably the way to go.

Gow sees Lind's "outsider" status as an advantage. Because interim employees like Lind are not seen as competitive threats to permanent employees, the temporary executives can rise above politics and concentrate more on the task at hand.

That is Gow's view. Theoretically it seems sound, but Lind disagrees: "Everyone must be concerned about what it takes to be effective. You can't thumb your nose at relationships."

Of course, in some important ways Lind is becoming a permanent temp. Gow says he would consider hiring Lind full time at some point in the future. That makes Lind a competitive threat to his colleagues who want to view him that way. Hiring him permanently could also be costly to USGI. Imcor charges as much as 35 percent of first-year salary as a placement fee, a percentage that decreases the longer an executive has worked on temporary assignment. After one year on the job the commission is waived.

How would Lind feel about a regular job? He is enthusiastic about his work, but longer term he is not sure. "It's something I would have to think about," he says. But for now he is getting a kick out ofUSGI, and USGI is getting its money's worth out of Lind. The temporary executive market in America, in short, is likely to expand.

0 About the Author: Dyan Machan is an associate editor o!, Forbes maf{{l:ine.

Wampler's

Wildflowers Leafing through the catalog of the Indiana University Press a couple of years ago, my eyes stopped at "Wildflowers of Indiana, Original paintings by Maryrose Wampler. Text by Fred Wampler."

Given my own vocation-planning and and florisupervision of landscaping culture at Avadh University, Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh-I was eager to see the book. I wrote to Maryrose Wampler and, to my delight and surprise, received the book as a gift from her. The book and the artist's letters gave me an insight not only into Indiana's beautiful wildflowers but also into the life of the American state's "premier wildflower artist."

Wampler, 52, says, "I have been a housewife and mama for most of my married life." But whenever she got time in between cooking and tending to her four children, she would paint. In 1974, to her astonishment, she won a 'national competition and was commissioned to produce a series of collector prints of flowers.

The prints got her national recognition and several other assignments (induding a set of first-day covers).

Wampler and her husband, Fred (below), a teacher and nature lover who has done the text for her book, spend a lot of time flower-hunting, traveling from city to city in their camper. Says Wampler, "The world is full of paintings for me ...waiting to be found anywhere plants grow."

0

Turning On To

Teleclasses

O

n

Saturday nights at II p.m. in Landcaster, California, Ramon Hernandez props his feet on his family-room coffee table and tunes his television set to cable channel 12. The program: "ED 581; Human Relations in the School."

• Three times a week on the island of North Haven off the rocky coast of Maine, Belinda Pendleton drives to the nearby local community school for her 4 p.m. TV course in social services.

• Three days a week, Elizabeth Karl stays late at her job in Tampa, Florida. At 6 p.m., she switches on the TV for a onehour course entitled "The Brain."

Welcome to the new world of U.S. higher education where commuting to college is passe.

More and more, across the United States, college studentsyoung and old-are opting to let technology instead of people transport information. In a sense, microwave, satellite, and cable television transmissions are replacing the car, the classroom, and the dormitory.

"In the time it used to take me to drive to the university campus, park the car, go in and sit down, I am literally through with class here in my living room," says Hernandez, a primary school teacher and father of nine. To qualify for a higher salary, Hernandez is seeking ten credit hours from the University of Reprinted

©

by permission

Colorado, one of 14 universities featured on a cable TV network known as "Mind Extension University" (MEU).

Devoted solely to education via distance learning, MEU offers undergraduate and graduate telecourses over ten cable systems nationwide including an accredited master of business administration degree.

"I don't want to leave the island but I want to get a degree," says 40-year-old Pendleton, who is seeking a two-year degree from the community college of Maine.

Since Maine ranked last among the 50 U.S. states in the percentage of adults participating in higher education, a full-scale planning effort was launched in 1989, resulting in transmission of 36 courses to more than 2,500 students in 47 locations. Because two-thirds of the populace live beyond reasonable commuting distance, and faculty are reluctant to teach in remote areas, the Maine system is designed to be interactive.

Students take their courses "live" via cable, and can talk with their professors over two-way audio hookups.

At the University of South Florida (US F), Elizabeth Karl's courses are broadcast live twice a week over ITFS (instructional television, fixed service) airwaves to receiving monitors in homes, hospitals, even prisons. One key site includes two-way video, meaning that the professor can actually see the students at their remote location. And the 3,000plus students take courses gen-

from The Christian

1990 The Christian

Science Monitor.

Science Publishing

All rights reserved.

Society.

erated not only by university faculty, but also by independent producers.

One top producer is the Annenberg/CPB . (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) Project, which covers the entire undergraduate curriculum from humanities and social sciences to natural sciences and mathematics. Formats vary. Some use video, others audio, still others use computers. All are keyed to newly created or specially selected texts and study guides.

Although telecourses have been around in America since the beginning of television 30 years ago, colleges and universities didn't begin producing their own until the mid-1970s. The 1980s brought an explosion of alternative instructional delivery with the lower costs of cable television, fiber optics, microwave, slowscan TV, satellites, and microcomputer networks.

"The real reason this is exploding now is that, for the first time,

the equipment is both inexpensive enough and powerful enough," says George Connick, president of the University of Maine at Augusta.

At a time when almost half the enrollment in U.S. higher education is part-time students, location and convenience are accordincreasingly paramount, ing to Kay Kohl, executive director of the National University Continuing Education Association.

"That makes TV appealing." Not that telecourses are easy-most require textbooks, workbooks, frequent exams, and written assignments.

Does all this mean the beginning of the end of the traditional university?

"No, but it means, or should mean, the end of the mammoth building boom based on the notion that students and faculty must aggregate at one location," says Connick. He sees the advent of a major structural change in the delivery of education across

The "Homework Hotline" television show (above left) is broadcast on weekdays in Los Angeles, California, to help schoolchildren with their homework problems. Similar programs, established in many U.S. cities, are conducted by professional teachers (above) who help students solve problems on their own.

the entire spectrum from kindergarten through college-both within schools and between sites-brought about by new TV technology.

"It is the old concept that will be constantly challenged and may even be replaced by 2001 with networks of staging areas, rather than campuses," says Connick.

Peter Dirr, executive director of the AnnenbergjCPB Project, says the growth of distance learning in U.S. higher education is hard to gauge because the field is changing so rapidly. Nationwide

enrollment in TV-taught courses was 500,000 in 1983; today the figure is 650,000.

Whether or not distance learning is equal to traditional classroom education in any measurable sense, George Connick and others say advocates of telelearning behave as if that is a given. Studies by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA, a research arm of the U.S. Congress), and those done by distance-learning universities themselves show high professor and student satisfaction, and negligible differences in test scores, when TV students are compared with in-class students.

In summarizing the attempts made in the past few years to evaluate educational uses of technology, Jerome Johnston, an associate research scientist at the Institute of Social Research at the University of Michigan, writes, "The burden of instruction rests not on the medium as much as the

instructional programming-the strategies, the content, and the motivational elements (music, entertainment, and pace)."

Tom Wilson, director of media services at USF, says most evaluations get lost in discussions of trade-offs. "A well-produced video production showing me the inside of a spewing volcano tells me more than any textbook picture," says Wilson. "But I can also get so caught up in live pictures that I miss the specifics, such as what lava is made of, and what it turns into when hard."

On one side, there is a dramatic loss of interaction between professor and student, as well as between students. But the potential of taped classes means that the student can watch the same lecture over and over until he or she comprehends it.

The availability of tapes eliminates missed lectures. And once professors have taped their own course, they have more free time to answer students' questions by phone or in person in small groups. "I think you can learn as much as any other way-but it takes more discipline," says Hernandez, echoing an oftenheard observation. .

"Obviously, distance learning has the capability of doing everything much more. efficiently," says Wilson. Though he won't quote exact figures, he says the amount his university generates in tuition is 31 times his expense budget. Wilson quotes figures from a study done by Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, showing that 15 percent of the tuition fee went to heat, cool, and maintain classrooms. "By transmitting a course over TV, you've saved 15 percent at the outset, not including such intangibles as students' commuting time and parking," Wilson says.

Among the other intangibles: Professors can find the time to watch their colleagues' courses, they can fine tune their own, and the public can have easier access.

In the Tampa, Florida, area, USF courses are available free on the local cable network.

With the price of everything from satellites to transponders coming within range of more institutions, observers see not only the lowering of institutional walls but also the eradication of geographical borders. That could have serious consequences in competition for student dollars.

"If local colleges start losing more and more students to telecourses from afar, you might find a wave of protective legislation," surmises Wilson. But others say the sword cuts two ways. "Many times older students have gotten their feet wet with us to get over their intimidation of higher education-then finish their degree at the local university," says MEU'~ Andrea Montoni.

Part of the challenge forced .on educators by progress in technology, say observers, is to explore the connections between effective uses of that technology and effective instruction. Another is to train teachers so that they are able to comfortably integrate the technology into their curricula.

"Teachers are walking into a buzzsaw with this stuff without even knowing it," says Ron Rescigno, superintendent of the Hueneme School District, California, where his Blackstock Junior High School is pioneering some of America's cutting-edge experiments in video and computer-assisted instruction.

The editors of Linking for Learning, the report issued by the OTA in 1989, concur: "If distance education is to play an even greater role in improving the quality of education, it will require expanded technology; more linkages between schools, higher education, and the private sector; and more teachers who use tech0 nology well."

About the Author: Daniel B. Wood is a staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor.

Remembering the Father of Television

television. Explaining the connection Although most people know that Alexander Graham Bell invented the between his blackboard diagram of a telephone and Thomas Alva Edison dedissector tube and the chemistry they veloped the electric light bulb, the idenhad been discussing, Farnsworth said, tity of another American, Philo Taylor "I've been thinking about this for two years, and I know I've got it. All those Farnsworth, an important pioneer in the deveiopment of television, is less whirligigs and mirrors that people are familiar. working on are wrong. They're barking Born on a farm in southern Utah, up the wrong tree. It's got to be done with electrons-that's the only way to Farnsworth developed his idea in 1922, at a time when the best minds were exachieve speed and distance." perimenting with the transmission of Work on television at that time inpictures through the air via whirling volved breaking light into tiny pinpoints with whirling disks and disks and mirrors-a process more related to movies than to today's transmitting the light via strategically placed mirrors.

Several individuals, electronics. including Britain's John Baird, who Some observers have commented actually managed several short-disthat Farnsworth's isolated childhood in tance transmissions in 1934, and VladiBeaver, Utah, and Rigby, Idaho, allowed his genius to flourish uncontamimir Zworykin, chief research scientist at Westinghouse Electric, were already nated by preconceptions of what could doing mechanical television research, or could not be done. Certainly, the but no one had yet thought of convertcreative abilities of his hardworking ing light into electronic signals. parents spurred Farnsworth's imaginaFarnsworth went on to explain how tion and boosted his confidence in his he would focus the image to be ideas. transmitted onto the photoelectric surFarnsworth learned to read before he face of a vacuum tube. Under proper went to school, and as a youngster he Philo T. Farnsworth (right) seen here with his control, each point of the image would built several machines that actually high school teacher Justin Tolman, who encouraged spin off electrons representing the worked. At II, he designed a device him in his revolutionary ideas. intensity of light trained on a particular that transformed his mother's handspot. He had also figured out how to cranked washing machine into an autochange the light waves from an undulating to an electronic matic one. He also won $25 in a contest to design an automobile zigzag pattern that could oscillate two million times per second. lock. He once surprised relatives by rebuilding a rusty electric generator.

Tolman saved a drawing that Farnsworth had made, an act that would prove of major significance during patent litigation His ability to visualize and memorize dozens, even hundreds, of complex structures and formulas increased as he grew older. years later. He realized that Farnsworth's ideas were unique Farnsworth's devoured technical magazines and books; by the and encouraged him to continue studying as he made notes and copied his drawings. time he entered secondary school in the fall of 1921, he had already In the fall of 1923, Farnsworth's father opened a boarding decided that images could be transmitted by electrical means. house near Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah.

While still a freshman, Farnsworth persuaded his advanced This gave Farnsworth access to students' textbooks. He tried to chemistry teacher, Justin Tolman, to allow him to attend class persuade BYU to admit him, but university officials insisted he without receiving any credits for the course. Tolman quickly finish high school first. discovered the youth's brilIiance. One day, he found the young man explaining Einstein's theory of relativity to his entranced Life changed abruptly in 1924. Farnsworth's father died of classmates. "I t was the best discussion of the theory of relativity pneumonia, and his mother suffered a nervous collapse. The I've ever heard or read," the teacher later wrote. boarding house was sold. But Farnsworth finished high school, Farnsworth later revealed to Tolman his idea for electronic and soon afterward he became the beneficiary of a stroke of good fortune.

The article appeared in the May 1990 issue and is reprinted with permission from The World & I, George Everson and Leslie Gorrell, two businessme\1 from a publication or The Washington Times Corporation. Copyright if) 1990.

Not many people know of Philo T. Farnsworth, the man who invented and developed the technology for television as we know it today.

San Francisco, were in Salt Lake City, Utah, to organize a local Farnsworth at his loft was Zworykin of Westinghouse, who had been experimenting with an oscillating mirror as the transfund-raising drive. Farnsworth signed up to help them, and he mitter and a cathode-ray tube as the receiver. Although he quickly impressed them both. One evening, during a chat, he told them about the problems he was having financing his had filed for a patent on this mechanical method in 1924, he invention. Everson found it incould never get it to actually work. teresting-"fantastic enough to be When Farnsworth showed him real," he later wrote in his journal. his dissector tube-the main After Farnsworth had answered â&#x20AC;˘ component of a television cameraZworykin turned it over in his their questions about technical mathands and said, "This is a beautiful ters and possible competitors, instrument. I wish that I had inEverson asked how much he vented it." Farnsworth entered thought he would need to test the system. "It's pretty hard to say," the these warm words into his lab notes.

Zworykin returned to his experiyoung man replied, "but I should ments, convinced that mechanical think $5,000 would be enough." television attempts were doomed The two men agreed to take a and electronic television would one chance, and drew up a three-way day be commercial.

Building on partnership. Farnsworth set up his first research laboratory in Los Anwhat he had seen, Zworykin .atgeles, close to the California Intracted the attention of Otto Sorg Schairer, the Radio Corporation of stitute of Technology (Caltech).

America (RCA) vice president in But his estimate of$5,000 proved charge of patents, who hired him woefully inadequate. He managed and began pouring millions ofRCA to prove a couple of his major prindollars into the scheme. ciples, but, after several months, the For the next decade, through partners agreed they needed much September 1939, both RCA and broader funding. They also realized Westinghouse tried to persuade they had to patent their ideas, so A "radio vision" set, invented by Francis Jenkins, had Farnsworth to sell his patents, they went to a law firm. At a meetfound its way into American homes by 1930. The spinningprovoking two court fights. But ing in August 1926 of the three disk viewer is on top with a radio below for the audio they failed, and instead tried to partners, the lawyers, and Caltech's usurp his invention. On May 13, Mott Smith, a national authority on portion of the broadcast.

1938, the examiner of interferences electro physics, Smith pronounced Farnsworth's idea scientifically sound, original, and feasible. in the U.S. Patent Office awarded priority to Farnsworth Television, Inc., for its scanning tube, the device that made the He took the partners' detailed memorandum and drawings development of a commercial television camera possible. RCA back to his lab for (urther study. The attorneys began a patent challenged the ruling twice but lost both appeals. search, and Everson sought funding.

By the time Schairer finally signed a contract with the upstart Everson's search led him to James J. Fagan, executive vice president of California's Crocker National Bank. Fagan called company, Farnsworth Television owned more than 75 crucial the invention "a damn fool idea," but believed that "somebody patents. Everson gleefully noted in his book about television ought to put money into it, someone who can afford to lose it." that "when Mr. Schairer finally signed the agreement, there After hearing Farnsworth in person, the bank set him up in a were tears in his eyes. It was the first time that his signature had laboratory in a San Francisco loft. been placed on a contract whereby the Radio Corporation had Although his estimate of one year and $25,000 turned into 13 to pay continuing royalties for the use of patents." years and more than $ I million before television became Among Farnsworth patents still being used today are those commercially available, Farnsworth and his handful of selffor the electric oscillator system, which breaks the picture into trained assistants transmitted a black triangle on September 7, electronic impulses for transmission; the system of pulse trans1927, and followed up three months later by sending a dollar mission, which transmits the electronic patterns through the sign to their bankers. air; the image-analysis tube, which picks up the signal; and the Among the scientists and technicians who visited image-receiving tube, which converts and reassembles the

signal into the picture that we see on the screen.

In 1949 Farnsworth Television could no longer stand alone in the cutthroat media market, so he sold his patents to International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) in Philadelphia and became head of its research department.

In the 1950s, his health began to fail. Still, he continued his work as best he could. A 1960 announcement, published in an article released by The New York Times news service, stated that ITT had seen "encouraging promise from a low-cost nuclear fusion process." This was "tantamount to harnessing the reaction of the hydrogen bomb." Company President Harold S. Geneen identified Farnsworth as director of the experiments. ITT offered no other details, but the article noted that Farnsworth's method was "said to involve an electrostatic process in which clouds of electrons would confine the hydrogen atoms in a small area for the actual fusion process."

Every conversation now revolved around fusion, and Farnsworth recruited eager young scientists to join him in Utah. In June 1966, he was granted a patent for an electric discharge device for producing interactions between nuclei (a modulating magnetic process), and developed a working model. However, he could never sustain the process longer than a microsecond. His biggest problem was finding materials to contain and dispose of the incredible heat.

Unfortunately, the solutions Farnsworth sought, which would harness the sun's power and solve the world's pollution problems, remained out of his reach. His health continued to deteriorate, and he died on March 11, 1971. His name slipped into obscurity. Yet the nearly 200 patents he was granted are still in force and remain integral to the industry he began. In tribute, World Book Encyclopedia recently informed his family that its next edition will set the record straight, and accord him his rightful. place.

Others already have recognized him. A 1983 commemorative U.S. postage stamp portrayed Farnsworth with his original TV camera. He was inducted into the U.S. National Inventors' Hall of Fame in Arlington, Virginia. And at the U.S. Patent Office, a Farnsworth display stands beside those of Bell and Edison.

Finally, a group of Utah schoolchildren did their part to recognize their state's great native son. Learning that each state is entitled to select two of its distinguished citizens for inclusion in Statuary Hall in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the fourth-graders of a Salt Lake City primary school, and their principal, nominated Farnsworth.

On May I, 1990, a life-size statue was unveiled, to join that of another Utahan-Brigham Young, the great Mormon leader.

Philo Taylor Farnsworth, who exemplified the best qualities of the American inventive mind, now has a place where the whole world can see him.

0 About the Author: Corrie Lynne Player is an Utah-based free-lance writer specializing in popular science subjects.

Last month India held its prestigious enginl'ering exposition-the ninth Indian Engineering Trade Fairat the Pragati Maidan in New Delhi. In addition to hundreds of Indian companies, a very large contingent of foreign firms participated in the fair.

America was represented by 40 companies, most of them at the cutting edge of high technology. Consistent with this year's theme, "Progress Through Technology," U.S. firms exhibited a wide variety of state-of-the-art wares in consumer products, computer software, scientific instruments, and industrial products.

Among the visitors to the U.S. pavilion was Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, who showed keen interest in the products displayed and in the results of Indo-U.S. technological cooperation.

Although the United States is one of India's largest business collaborators, there is still a tremendous scope for further expansion of these ties. "For example," said one American manufacturer of precision measuring equipment, "the market for advanced scientific instruments in India will continue to expand as the count~y makes rapid strides in industrial production and in communications networks. Precision instruments have diverse uses-to detect air and land polluiion, to monitor air quality in factories, or to oversee quality of production in high-speed manufacturing."

Some of these instruments, such as oscilloscopes, are already being produced and sold in India with an eye to future export, while other products are customized for the country. For instance, AT&T India Limited has developed software that allows a computer user to write commands in five Indian languages.

"Given the will and the right environment, Indian and American firms can forge many more productive, mutually beneficial business partnerships," he concluded.

-Sara Stryker

The U.S. National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations recently awarded 95 Americans with its prestigious Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

Among them was an American of Indian origin-P. Somasundaran, chairman of the department of minining, metallurgy, and mineral engineering at Columbia University, New York.

Other honorees included President George Bush, his chief aide, John Sununu; former U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan; U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Thomas Pickering; singers Frank Sinatra and Paul Simon, and Journalist Eric Sevareid.

The award, which was instituted in 1986, is named after Ellis Island in New York harbor that served as the major port of entry for more than 12 million immigrants to the United States from 1892 to 1924 It honors those American citizens, native or naturalized, who "exemplify the ideal of living a life dedicated to the American way while preserving the values of a particular heritage group; those who have attained achievements in reiniorcing the bonds between a heritage group and its land of origin; or, those individuals who have contributed distinguished service to humanity in any field, profession, or occupation."

Talking to reporters soon after the award ceremony at Ellis Island, Somasundaran said, "It is a wonderful feeling that even though you are in another country, your efforts are recognized." He added, "I think they are celebrating the fact that this country is made up of people of other origins; it's really a country of pluralism. There is less discrimination here in the United States than in any other country. Here, you are

The Centre for Environment Education (CEE) in Ahmedabad has developed innovative environmental education materials for the Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh with the active support and assistance of the U.S.National Park Service (NPS). The elements of the program-high-tech visitor centers, trail signs, exhibits, and explanatory pamphlets-are comparable to the best available in world's most advanced parks (see inside back cover).

The project, approved by the Indo-U.S. Subcommission on Science and Technology, is a collaborative effort between the NPS and the Indian Ministryof Environment and Forests. The costs of the project, which aims at improving the interpretative facilities at the

Kanha park, have been shared by the U.S. and Indian governments.

On behalf of the U.S. National Park Service, American Embassy Science Counselor Peter Heydemann presented the program

accepted more for what you are What matters is one's own efforts-what one makes of oneself. If you are willing to make the effort for that extra mile, then there is the opportunity for you to be recognized."

A native of Kerala, Somasundaran did his undergraduate studies at Kerala University, and later graduated in metallurgical engineering from the Indian Institute of Science (liS) in Bangalore, Karnataka. He went to the United States in 1961 to study at the University of California, Berkeley, where he completed his master's degree in one year and PhD in two.

Somasundaran has written and edited 11 books and 250 technical papers, and has numerous patents to his credit. In addition to his latest honor, he has received many other awards in the United States and abroad. He is the youngest recipient of the coveted Antoine Gaudin Award of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers.

However, Somasundaran is specially proud of being the only recipient "from outside India" ever of the liS's Distinguished Alumnus Award (for 1989). He received the award in July 1990 when he came to Bangalore to teach at the liS as the first head-yet another honor-of a recently endowed chair at the institute. "It was such a fabulous occasion and such a wonderful place that we almost didn't want to come back to the United States," Somasundaran said of the time he and his family spent in Bangalore.

package to officials of the Ministry of Environment and Forests at a ceremony held at the National Zoological Park in New Delhi on February 21. The ceremony also marked the official opening of

Kanha's three new visitor centers.

The Kanha project is a significant effort to educate the Indian public about the importance of parks in preserving the nation's environmental heritage as well as in improving the potential for tourism. It is the latest of many Indian projects supported by the NPS . over the past decade, all of which represent a collaborative attempt to develop Indian sites of unique environmental, historical, or cultural significance into major tourist attractions.

Under the Kanha project, Indian scientists, park planners and technicians visited the United States for tong-term training in U.S. parks, especially at the NPS's advanced interpretative facility in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia.

UTo Fashion a Peace" On February 7, U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III made several proposals for the security and reconstruction of the Persian Gulf area in his testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, D.C. Here are excerpts.

future. So tough times, I think we should recognize, lie ahead.

We should therefore approach the war-the postwar problems with a due sense of modesty. Respect for the sovereignty of the peoples of the Gulf and Middle East has to be uppermost. In any event, modern history has shown us that no single nation can long impose its will or remake the Middle East in its own image. After all, that is partly why we are Wnston Chmchillonce ob- fighting Saddam Hussein.

Yet among all the difficulties we face, served, "We shall see how absolute is one fact stands out: The peoples of the the need of a broad path of international Gulf and the entire Middle East desaction pursued by many states in comperately need peace .... We should theremon across the years, irrespective of the ebb and flow of national politics." If fore make every effort not just to heal the Persian Gulf after this war but also to try we are going to redeem the sacrifices now to heal the rest of the region which needs being made by the brave men and women who defend our freedom with their lives, it so very badly. So I would like to discuss then we are going to have to fashion a several challenges that I believe we are going to have to be addressing in the peace which is worthy of their struggle. postwar period.

And that can be done if we can hold One challenge ... will be greater security together in peace the coalition tempered by war. for the Persian Gulf. After two wars in ten years, this vital region needs new and I believe that when Congress voted the President authority to use force in supdifferent security arrangements.

In our view, there are three basic issues to be port of the U.N. Resolutions, it voted resolved: First, the purposes or principles also for peace-a peace that might preof the security arrangements; second, the vent such wars in the future. I believe that the American people support our role in role of the local states, regional organizations, and the international community; the coalition not only to defeat an aggresand, third, in the aftermath of the war, the sor but to secure a measure of justice and military requirements that will exist until security for the future. local stability is achieved, and whatever ... We and every nation involved in this conflict are now thinking about the postmilitary requirements might exist thereafter. I think we would find already a wide war situation and we are planning for the future. (It would be irresponsible of us measure of agreement on the principles. not to be doing so.) At the same time, ...it They would include: Deterrence of aggression from any would be both premature and unwise for quarter. us to layout too detailed a blueprint for Territorial integrity. There must be rethe postwar Gulf or, for that matter, for the region as a whole. The war itself and spect for existing sovereignty of all states the way it ends will greatly influence both and for the inviolability of borders; peaceful resolution of disputes; border the security of the Gulf and the rest of the area .... The military actions now under problems and other disputes that have long histories-and there are many beway nece~sarily involve many casualties, yond the Iraq/Kuwait example-should great hardships, and growing fears for the

be resolved by peaceful means as prescribed by the [U.N.] Charter.

These principles must be put into action first and foremost by the local states so that conflicts can be prevented and aggression can be deterred.

We would expect the states of the Gulf and regional organizations, such as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), to take the lead in building a reinforcing network of new and strengthened security ties. No regional state should be excluded from these arrangements.

Postwar Iraq could have an important contribution to play, and so could Iran as a major power in the Gulf.

There is a role, too, I think for outside nations and the international community, including the United Nations, to encourage such arrangements and to stand behind them. ...The President has said that we have no intention of maintaining a permanent ground presence on the Arabian Peninsula once Iraq is ejected from Kuwait and the threat recedes. Before security is assured, however, important questions have got to be answered ....

Let me list just a few of the questions that will need to be answered.

Should there be a permanent locally stationed ground force made up of local troops under United Nations auspices or under regional auspices such as the GCC? How can the international community reinforce deterrence in the¡ GulL.?

No one has the answers yet to these and other questions. Some may never be answered. But, however we eventually proceed, we will conduct extensive consultations among all of the concerned parties to any such arrangements.

A second challenge will surely be regional arms proliferation and control.

This includes both conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction. The terrible fact is that even the conventional

arsenals of several Middle Eastern states dwarf those of most European powers.

Five Middle Eastern countries have more main battle tanks than the United Kingdom or France.

The time has come to try to change the destructive pattern of military competition and proliferation in this region and to reduce arms flows into an area that is already overmilitarized.

That suggests that we and others inside and outside the region must consult on how best to address several dimensions of the problem. How can we cooperate to constrain Iraq's postwar ability to retain or rebuild its weapons of mass destruction and most destabilizing conventional weapons? How can we work with others to encourage steps toward broader regional restraint in the acquisition and use of both conventional armaments and weapons of mass destruction? What role might the kinds of confidence-building measures that have lessened conflict in Europe play in the Gulfand in the Middle East? And, finally, what global actions would reinforce steps toward arms control in the Gulf and Middle East?

These [steps] could include rapid completion of pending international agreements, like the chemical weapons convention, as well as much tighter supply restraints on the flow of weapons and dual-use technology into the region. And what implications does that have for arms transfer and sales policies?

A third challenge will be economic reconstruction and recovery. An economic catastrophe has befallen the Gulf and the nations trading with it. Kuwait, of course, has been looted and wrecked.

Hundreds of thousands of workers have lost jobs and have fled. Trade flows and markets have been disrupted. I'm confident that the people of Kuwait will rebuild their country. As we have worked with the Kuwaitis in their moment of trial, so we shall look forward to cooperating with them in their hour of recovery.

And no one should forget...that for the second time in a decade, the people of Iraq will be recovering from a disastrous

conflict. The time of reconstruction and recovery should not be the occasion for vengeful actions against a nation forced to war by a dictator's ambition.

The secure and prosperous future that everyone hopes to see in the Gulf has to include Iraq. Of necessity, most of the resources for reconstruction will be drawn from the Gulf. Yet, should we not be thinking also of more than just reconstruction? It might be possible for a coalition of countries using both local and external resources to transform the outlook for the region in expanding free trade and investment, in assisting development, and in promoting growth-oriented economic policies that have taken root across the globe.

Therefore .. .I will urge the consideration of a Middle East Bank for Reconstruction and Development to support these objectives. We have created regional banks for Asia, for Africa, for the Americas and, of course, recently for Europe. And, of course, the World Bank and IMF were important components of our postwar planning in the 1940s. Efforts to restore peace in this region, I think, warrant the same spirit of multilateral commitment to reconstruction and development.

A

ny economic effort must have a special place for water development. Well over half the people living in the Middle East draw water from rivers that cross international boundaries or depend on desalination plants. We have all been incensed by Saddam Hussein's deliberate poisoning of the Gulf waters that could affect a large portion of Saudi Arabia's drinking water.

Finally, we will want to consult with governments both from the Middle East and from other regions about specific arrangements that might best serve the purposes of regionwide economic cooperation.

Such cooperation would surely be helpful in reinforcing our overall objective-reducing one by one the sources of conflict and removing one by one the barriers to security and prosperity throughout the area.

A fourth challenge is to resume the search for a just peace and real reconciliation for Israel, the Arab states and the Palestinians.

By reconciliation, I mean not simply peace as the absence of war, but a peace based on enduring respect on tolerance and on mutual trust. .. .I personally have devoted considerable effort before the war to facilitating ¡a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians, an essential part of an overall peace process. But let's not kid ourselves. The course of this crisis has stirred emotions among Israelis and Palestinians that will not yield easily to conciliation. Yet, in the aftermath of this war, as in earlier wars, there may be opportunities for peace if the parties are willing. And, if they really are willing, we're committed to working closely with them to fashion a more effective peace process.

The issues to be addressed are; of course, familiar, and they are more challenging than ever. How do you go about reconciling Israelis and Palestinians? What concrete actions can be taken by each side? What will be the role of the Arab states in facilitating this process and their own negotiations for peace with Israel?

A fifth and final challenge concerns the United States. We simply have to do more to reduce our energy dependence .... We must bring to this task the same determination we are now bringing to the war itself. ... Some of these elements are political, some of them are economic, some of them of necessity are related to security. That suggests that we should view security not. just in military terms but as part and parcel of the broader outlook for the regIOn. We're not going to have lasting peace and well-being without sound economic growth, and we're not going to have economic growth if nations are threatened or invaded, or if they are squandering precious resources on more and more arms. And, surely, finding a way for the peoples of the Middle East to work with each other will be crucial if we are to lift our eyes to a better future....

0

Claude McKay

by H. H. ANNIAH

GOWDA

L

ast year a literary seminar was held in M ysore, Karnataka, on the black Jamaican-American poet, pamphleteer, and novelist Claude McKay (1889-1948). Titled "Claude McKay, The Harlem Renaissance and Mahatma Gandhi," the event was organized by the local Institute of Commonwealth and American Studies and English Language. In addition to India, McKay scholars came from many countries, including Canada, East Africa, Jamaica, and the United States. McKay's daughter, Hope McKay Virtue, was also a delegate. The scholars read papers covering all aspects of McKay's prose and poetry, his attempt to forge a wholesome sense of self amid the Western "jungles of civilization."

McKay was an important literary figure of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, a period with which he and his work are most closely identified. For India, these were momentous decades; it was a period of heroic nationalist fervor, ofthe Swaraj movement, following the return of Mahatma Gandhi from South Africa. His message of nonviolence, satyagraha, as a political weapon and his mission of eradication of the social evil of untouchability profoundly affectedIndia's millions. McKay, who aroused the conscience of the blacks against the injustice of the whites in his writings, was aware of the Mahatma and his satyagraha, so effectively tested against apartheid in South Africa and used to arouse the national conscience to win India's freedom.

Mc!\ay's writings about segregation in America have something of the sting of a Garibaldi or a Byron who, as it were, came among the blacks to help them become aware of their place in white society. He had the same goal as the Mahatma but lacked his gentleness and calm, his universal appeal and fame.

In recent years, there has been a revival of interestin American black nationalism. It is inspired by the renewal of nationalist modes of thought among blacks since the 1950s. From about 1914 to 1930 the nature of the American black community changed.

There then existed a sizable number of black intellectuals and a newly literate audience for them, and there was a rapid growth of black readers, newspapers, and magazines. These intellectuals, who were behind the demand for civil rights, were responsive to new movements such as feminism and socialism. Yet the transformation of black nationalist thought during the period did not constitute a complete break with the past. This was the renaissance of which McKay became a part.

Claude McKay was born in the hills of Jamaica, the son of a poor peasa nt. He grew up under the care of his elder brother and an English sq uire named Walter Jekyll, a freethinker and specialist in About the Author: H.H. Anniah Gowda is the director of the Institute of Commonwealth and American Studies and English Language in Mysore and the editor of The Literary Half-Yearly.

Jamaican folklore. Jekyll taught him how to use the native dialect inhis poems. At the end of1912, McKay went to the United States to study agriculture but decided to become a writer and settled down in New York, the most cosmopolitan of all metropolitan cities. He was not then fully prepared to involve himself in the fight against racism, but he was disgusted with the discriminatory practices against blacks in a society that professed egalitarian democratic doctrines. In fact, it was in the Kingston (Jamaica) Daily Gleaner of April 6, 1912 (three years before the Mahatma returned to India from South Africa) that McKay published his poem "Passive Resistance," with its confident note of certain victory for those opposing the "aliens in our midst."

He and the Mahatma were in absolute accord on the appropriateness and justifiability of satyagraha in a colonial state. McKay became the spokesman for satyagraha as a means of preserving the African spirit and creativity in an alien world. Writing was his weapon. With his two collections of poems, Constab Ballads (1912) and Songs of Jamaica (1912), McKay plunged into a literary career, and he soon became famous for a terrifying sonnet entitled "If We Must Die," a cry of defiant desperation written during the hectic race riots of 1919. It begins: If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, ...

Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

The poem was a war cry, its realistic imagery is as vivid as William Cowper's, and McKay became the spokesman of a ca use.

The sonnet was so popular that Winston Churchill quoted the poem without attributing it to the author. Itwasfoundon the body of a dead white soldier during World War 1. The man and the moment coincided in transforming McKay from being a type of colonial English romantic who worshiped nature and used a Trinitarian symbolism that associated the good with the black race and the soil (in his poems already published in Jamaica) to being an urban, race-conscious realist and propagandist.

In his two Jamaican collections, which are a sort of Wordsworthian "Prelude" in which he celebrates his boyhood and his life among the hills and dales, McKay listened to nature's great voice

and the Mahatma and shared the life of the black peasantry. These poems give us a substantial portrait of the people, their aspirations, and the concerns that dwell deep in the souls of the Jamaicans: Everything here is entirely and authentically West Indian. Theypoeticize the sufferingofhis people (often by criticizing those responsible for it), and go on to sing of the abiding cheerfulness and glory of the victims. McKay followed Wordsworth's dictum that poetry should be written in the language of the poet (in this case dialect), and be rooted in the soil: "Out of the suffering and the abundance of heart, the mouth speaketh." In Jamaica, McKay was moved to pity and hence to imaginative song by the forced social and economic conditions of his people.

When he moved to America and lived amid squalor, he made an attempt to project a positive "niggerhood"-a voice that could celebrate or defy with directness. It w.as like the magic voice of the Mahatma-a defiance of white racial imperialism. Gradually McKay grew in stature to bea poet of all the African-Americans; the poet who could clearly see the far-reaching implications of racism; forthose who were guilty of the evil; formankind as a whole; and not least for himselfas a poet and a human being. Unlike the Mahatma he faced multiple sets of contradictions: A simultaneous and conflicting longing for home and exile; for the green hills of Jamaica and the neon lights of Western capitals; for isolation and connectedness; for romantic individualism and communal identification; for sexual anarchy and personal commitment.

His poems reflect these tensions and deal with the woes of the oppressed people of every age (whoever or whatever race and religion they are) fighting with their backs against the wall to win their freedom. Yet he does not hate America. In "The Harlem Dancer," a sonnet, McKay invokes a vision of the details of an experience, and brings into picture the image in all completeness, and outlines its gradation of color, rendered with the skill and purity of an artist. The best of his poems are musical. Some have even been set to music. His theme deals with a community that is essentially restless, lonely, as in "A Memory of June." In the sonnet, "America," he shows his deep love for the nation, a love that inspires the poet like a stimulant. One half of the poem deals with-and condemns-the hostility that America has for blacks, but the other half stresses, by contrast, his love for the country of his adoption.

Each of McKay's three novels-Home to Harlem (1928), Banjo (1929), and Banana Bottom (I 933)-ean be considered a record of his own private struggle to project his personal and political realities in order to createa healing and liberating sense of identity.

His struggle was indeed painful. It was rendered more difficult by the dislocations of colonial inheritance; by his precarious position as a rootless, exiled black intellectual in the imperial West; by his bisexual ambivalence; and by his rebellious temperament.

An impassioned poet and writer, and a believer in Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent methods of protest, Claude McKay spent a lifetime trying to give American blacks an identity and an authentic voice.

Home to Harlem, his first novel, is a story involving the lives of the "lost folk," the poor black residents who inhabit the teeming metropolis north of I 10th Street in Manhattan, New York.

Two characters are drawn in contrast: Jake and Ray. The emphasis is on Jake and his picaresque adventures through Harlem. He enjoys being black and possesses infinite capacity to cope with the many troubles of being black in America. On the other hand, Ray, a Haitian-born intellectual, suffers from alienation and spiritual impotence.

Ray serves as an effective vehicle for McKay to explore the. complex dilemmas of the colonized elite. He is the son of a highly placed Haitian government official, his outlook is shaped by the works of Shaw, Ibsen, Lawrence, and Wells. "These were the great books that dominated the bright and dreaming dark days when he was a boy." Finally, he goes to the United States as a student at Howard University in Washington, D.C. During his absence American troops invade Haiti, his father is jailed, and his brother killed by the army. Ray, troubled and tormented, is unable to go home or continue his education but finds himself working as a waiter. His predicament symbolizes countless other colonial and postcolonial people who, victimized by the flow of imperial history, find themselves outsiders in the metropolitan centers of the West. Ray's wide exposure to Western intellectual tradition distances him from his cultural roots. He finds himself in "depth less alienation from oneself and one's people," as James Baldwin once put it in a similar context but much later.

McKay examines this crisis in Ray's life on two levels-his inability to find meaningful connection in a society in which he is fated to live, and his failure to invent a new community. He contrasts Ray with Jake who, though battered in other lands, can always come home to Harlem. Jake works when he likes, and loafs about when hedoes not havea mind todo so. For Ray, "thought is suffering," the opposite of joy. It is through understanding Jake, his attitude toward life and toward his blackness that Ray recognizes the extent to which his Western-oriented education has rendered him a "misfit," or has left him uprooted and homeless.

He decides to leave the United States and take up a menial job on board an Australia-bound freighter.

In Banjo, the sequel to Home to Harlem, the Haitian Ray reappears and the setting has moved to the waterfront of Marseilles in France, but the main symbols are the same. Jake's role is played by Banjo. Ray is still the intellectual given more to speculation than to action, but much more loquacious than hewas in Home. He stays on the periphery of this bohemian community and philosophizes on the problemofforging a meaningful black identity in the midst of what he calls the "obscene phenomenon" of Western civilization.

Thesolutions Ray proposes for the problem, on a philosophical

level, involve calculated de-Westernization of black consciousness and, on a personal level, a reconnection with others, and a return to culture and community. He grows and recognizes that "close association with the Jakes and Banjos had been like participating in a common primitive birthright." He realizes that he "had felt buttressed by the boys with a rough strength and sureness that gave him spiritual passion and pride to be his human self in an inhumanly alien world." From the helplessness and stagnation of estrangement, Ray has moved at least tentatively toward commitment and communion.

Banana Bottom clearly formulates McKay's vision of inter rei atedness of the self, the other, and the community. Here he argues that one can indeed go home again and get integrated like Bita Plant, the heroine. She returns to Jamaica after seven years of schooling in Europe. She Was sent to England by Malcolm and Priscilla Craig, a missionary couple, who had hoped to "civilize" her by removing her both physically and psychologically from her people and by exposing her to the traditions of the West. But the Craigs' experiment fails.

For McKay, Bita is the ideal black woman-proud, intelligent, yet realistic. She understands that her racial identity is the foundation of her happiness. Through the novel she is cast in a contrasting mold to Mrs. Craig, her white adoptive mother who condemned Bita's natural and spontaneous physical responses, valuing only the life ofthe mind and spirit. Bita marries J ubban, an uneducated black peasant. Their union represents fulfillment, because Jubban is in perfect harmony with himself and his environment, truly natural, spontaneous, gentle, and instinctive.

Bita encourages him. Her Western education has stayed with her.

Her reconnection with her community does not entail rejection 9f the positive elements in Western culture, and, in fact, it is accompanied by her mastery and control over certain Western intellectual forms. McKay's implication is clear: One can remain grounded in one's culture even while successfully negotiating one's way through the West. While home and wholeness elude Ray, Bita retains them through a personal commitment to Jubban, through whom she reintegrates with her folk community.

In McKay, the black man seems incapable of placing a value on the possession of Western education. In this, too, he is very close to Mahatma Gandhi, who distrusted Western education and wanted educa~ion that suited the needs of his people and the country.

All politics have tended to be a theater for conflicts between groups. The Mahatma took the lead in India in trying to eliminate caste prejudice, and to begin a change of heart in the attitude of the well-placed Indians toward the weaker sections of society. Likewise, but in a different arena and in a more modest way, Claude McKay attempted to eliminate prejudic_e based on race and color, and to bring a change of heart in the attitude of blacks who had prospered in America toward those of their brethren who remained poor.

D

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!

Her vigor flows like tides into my blood, Giving me strength erect against her hate.

Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.

Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state, I stand within her walls with not a shred Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.

Darkly I gaze into the days ahead, And see her might and granite wonders there, Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand, Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

When June comes dancing on the death of May, With scarlet roses tinting her green breast, And mating thrushes ushering in her day, And Earth on tiptoe for her golden guest, I always see the evening when we metThe first of June baptized in tender rainAnd walked home through the side streets, gleaming wet, Arms locked, our warm flesh pulsing with love's pain.

I always see the cheerful little room, And in the corner, fresh and white, the bed, Sweet scented with a delicate perfume, Wherein for one night only we were wed; Where in the starlit stillness we lay mute, And heard the whispering showers all night long, And your brown burning body was a lute Whereon my passion played his fevered song.

When June comes dancing on the death of May, With scarlet roses staining her fair feet, My soul takes leave of me to sing all day A love so fugitive and so complete.

Copyright

Š

Company.

Boston,

J

981. Reprinted

with the permission

Massachusetts.

of Twayne

Publishers.

a division

of G.K.

Hall and

Excerpts From Home to Harlem II: Arrival Jake was paid off. He changed a pound note he had brought with him. He had fifty-nine dollars. From South Ferry he took an express subway train for Harlem.

Jake drank three Martini cocktails with cherries in them. The price, he noticed, had gone up from ten to twenty-five cents.

He went to Bank's 'and had a Maryland fried-chicken feed-a big one with candied sweet potatoes.

He left his suitcase behind the counter of a saloon on Lenox Avenue. He went for a promenade on Seventh A venue between One Hundred and Thirty-fifth and One Hundred and Fortieth Streets. He thrilled to Harlem. His blood was hot. His eyes were alert as he sniffed the street like a hound. Seventh A venue was nice, a little too nice that night.

Jake turned off on Lenox Avenue. He stopped before an ice-cream parlor to admire girls sipping ice-cream soda through straws. He went into a cabaret.. ..

A little brown girl aimed the arrow of her eye at him as he entered. Jake was wearing a steel-gray English suit. It fitted him loosely and well, perfectly suited his presence. She knew at once that Jake must have just lanQed. She rested her chin on the back of her hands and smiled at him. There was something in his attitude, in his hungry wolf's eyes, that went warmly to her. She was brown, but she had tinted her leaf-like face to a ravishing chestnut. She had on an orange scarf over a green frock, which was way above her knees, giving an adequate view of legs lovely in champagne-colored stockings ....

Her shaft hit home .... Jake crossed over to her table. He ordered Scotch and soda.

"Scotch is better with soda or even water," he said. "English folks don't take whisky straight, as we do."

But she preferred ginger ale in place of soda. The cabaret singer, seeing that they were making up to each other, came expressly over to their table and sang.

Jake gave the singer fifty cents ....

Her left hand was on the table. Jake

covered it with his right.

"Is it clear sailing between us, sweetie?" he asked.

"Sure thing .... You just landed from over there?"

"Just today!"

"But there wasn't no boat in with soldiers today, daddy."

"I made it in a special one."

"Why, you lucky babyL ..I'd like to go to another place, though. What about you?"

"Anything you say, I'm game," responded Jake.

They walked along Lenox A venue. He held her arm. His flesh tingled. He felt as ifhis whole body was a flaming wave. She was intoxicated, blinded under the overwhelming force.

But nevertheless she did not forget her business.

"How much is it going to be, daddy?" she demanded.

"How much? How much? Five?"

"Aw no, daddy .... " "Ten?" She shook her head.

"Twenty, sweetie!" he said, gallantly: "Daddy," she answered, "I wants fifty. " "Good," he agreed. He was satisfied.

She was responsive. She was beautiful. He loved the curious color on her cheek.

*

*

*

They went to a buffet flat on One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Street. The proprietress opened the door without removing the chain and peeked out. She was a matronly mulatto woman. She recognized the girl, who had put herself in front of Jake, and she slid back the chain and said, "Come right in."

The wi~dows were heavily and carefully shaded. There was beer and wine, and there was plenty of hard liquor. Black and brown men sat at two tables in one room, playing poker. In the other room a phonograph was grinding out a "blues," and some couples were dancing, thick as maggots in a vat of sweet liquor, and as

wriggling.

Jake danced with the girl. They shuffled warmly, gloriously about the room.

He encircled her waist with both hands, and she put both of hers up to his shoulders and laid her head against his breast.

And they shuffled around.

"Harlem!

Harlem!" thought Jake.

"Where else could I have all this life but Harlem? Good old Harlem! Chocolate Harlem! Sweet Harlem! Harlem, I've got you' number down. Lenox A venue, you're a bear, I know it. And, baby honey, sure enough youse a pippin for your pappy. Oh, boy!" ...

*

*

*

*

*

*

After Jake had paid for his drinks, that fifty-dollar note was all he had left in the world. He gave it to the girl....

"Is we going now, honey?" he asked.

"Sure, daddy. Let's beat it." ...

Oh, to be in Harlem again after two years away. The deep-dyed color, the thickness, the closeness of it. The noises of Harlem.

The sugared laughter.

The honey-talk on its streets. And all night long, ragtime and "blues" playing somewhere, ... singing somewhere, dancing somewhere! Oh, the contagious fever of Harlem. Burning everywhere in darkeyed Harlem Burning now in Jake's sweet blood .

He woke up in the morning in a state of perfect peace. She brought him hot coffee and cream and doughnuts. He yawned.

He sighed. He was satisfied. He breakfasted. He washed. He dressed. The sun . was shining. He sniffed the fine dry air.

Happy, familiar Harlem.

"I ain't got a cent to my name," mused Jake, "but ahm as happy as a prince, all the same. Yes, lis."

He loitered down Lenox Avenue. He shoved his hand in his pocket-pulled out the fifty-dollar note. A piece of paper was pinned to it on which was scrawled in pencil: "Just a little gift from a baby girl to a honey boy!"

0

G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, pp 288, $24.95.

The Joy Luck Club': What a lovely title for one of the wisest, most perceptive books I have read in many years. At a time when immigrant voices from Asia are creating exciting literary ripples in the United States, The Joy Luck Club takes us almost into the soul center of the experiences of four Chinese women who have been wrenched from their country and culture, and have made new lives for themselves in America. The book is also about the claiming of that New World by their daughters who are American citizens.

The four Chinese women-the mothers-are forced to flee their native land -because of violence or cruel circumstances. Yet they manage to keep alive the wisdom and hidden secrets of life that they have carried over from their own culture. Jewellike, these sparks of remembered wisdom illuminate the book throughout, astonishing and delighting the reader. The stories of the four immigrants continue, and merge with the stories and experiences of their daughters who grow up as Americans.

Amy Tan succeeds wonderfully in capturing "the connecting hope passed from generation to generation."

Tan uses a complex structure with amazing success. She lets each woman (four mothers and four daughters) tell her own tale. The first-person shortstorylike vignettes alternate back and forth among the eight women and also between China and America, as the women relate their experiences. Sometimes the stories seem to become en'The book is available at American Center libraries in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, and New Delhi.

twined, and the voices and people seem to merge, but then it becomes the story of the brave Chinese woman with a tiger spirit and a frail exterior.

The Joy Luck Club effectively portrays the continuity of the Chinese immigrant woman's experience. As one of the mothers says, "I was raised the Chinese way: I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people's misery, to eat my own bitterness. And even though I taught my daughter the opposite, still she came out the same way! Maybe it is because she was born to me and she was born a girl... .All of us are like stairs, one step after another, going up and down, but all going the same way."

Tan shows great skill and insight in unfolding the tensions as well as the bonds that hold the mothers and daughters together. The mothers transmit to their daughters a quaint sense of hum or, courage, and an uncanny wisdom, often translated enchantingly into American terms, as the young generation copes with marriage problems, career crises, personality complexes, and the inevitable clash of their Americanness with the Chinese values of their parents.

When one of the daughters, in true American style, claims, "I am my own person," her mother responds with typical Asian conviction in the strength of family ties: "How can she be her own person? When did I give her up?" Explains another daughter to her allAmerican friend, "I don't know ~f it's explicitly stated in the law, but you can't ever tell a Chinese mother to shut up."

The book gets its name from an informal club started by Suyuan Woo (one of the mothers in the story) in Kweilin in South China, just before the Japanese invaded China. Woo and three other women would meet once a week to play mah jong, eat, and gossip. It was like dancing as death approached. "It's not that we had no heart or eyes for pain," as Woo explained to her daughter years later. "We were all afraid. We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish back for something already lost. ...

What was worse, we asked among ourselves, to sit and wait for our own deaths with proper somber faces? Or to choose our own happiness? So we decided to hold parties and pretend each week had become the new year. ... We weren't allowed to think a bad thought. We feasted, we laughed, we played games, lost and won, we told the best stories.

And each week, we could hope to be lucky. That hope was our only joy. And that's how we came to call

our little parties Joy Luck."

In 1949 when Woo and her husband moved to San Francisco, they met other Chinese couples. She saw "numbness" in the eyes of the women who, like her, "had unspeakable tragedies they had left behind in China and hopes they couldn't begin to express in their fragile English." She saw the need for another Joy Luck Club. The book begins, before moving back into the past, 40 years after the San Francisco club began.

Suyuan Woo has died. Her daughter is to take her place at the club. In fact, Suyuan Woo's narrative in the book is only in the form of her daughter's memories of her mother's story.

Given her own heritage, Tan is inevitably asked if the book is autobiographical.

Her reply is that the stories in her book are made up, but the feelings are true. Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California, in 1952, two-anda-half years after her parents immigrated from China. Although she never lived in the Chinatown section of San Francisco, where much of her story takes place, she did struggle with her own questions of ethnic identity as she "began to have changing perceptions of myself as a Chinese or an American or an Asian," she told the Voice of America in an interview. Tan first visited China when she was 35, and like Jingmei, one of her characters, met her halfsisters from her mother's previous marriage. That was also when she could feel for the first time that she was both Chinese and American.

Her mother wanted her to be a neurosurgeon and a concert pianist. In school Tan was told that English was her weakest skill. "I became a writer almost as a form of rebellion," she says. When she sold her book to Putnam in 1987, Tan never dreamed that it would be on the best-seller list soon after its publication in 1989 and stay there for months.

To look at your past with the desire to understand is possibly the beginning of all wisdom. Amy Tan does this through the collective wisdom of the mothers and the hard-won knowledge of the daughters in her book. What emerges most strongly in this authentic and wonderful book is the secret bond that lies between mothers and daughters, and the silent face of an age-old China bursting through, like flowers filled with a heady and hidden wisdom, in the generous and fertile soil of America. 0 Anna Sujatha Mathai is a Delhi-based poet and free-lance writer.