What's New Friday Aug 1, 2008

WHAT’S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday,  1 Aug 08   Washington, DC

1.  THE POPE VERSUS THE PILL:  "HUMANAE VITAE" AT FORTY.
Last Friday, July 25, 1968, marked the 40th anniversary of the encyclical 
of Pope Paul VI banning artificial birth control.  Ironically, 1968 was 
also the year Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb, and Silent 
Spring by Rachel Carson (1962) was still fresh in the public mind.  
Humanae Vitae was almost totally ignored by Catholics in Europe where the 
birth rate now hovers at 2.1, just right to maintain a stable population.  
An op-ed in the July 27 Washington Post by a correspondent for the 
National Catholic Reporter, describes the births that didn’t happen 
because of the pill as "rivaling the impact of the Black Death."  But 
never mind what the women want, the overwhelming support for Humanae Vitae 
among the celibate men who are the bishops of the church is seen as 
justification, as though irrelevance is a virtue.

2. THE PRESIDENT VERSUS THE PILL:  DEFINING "ABORTION."
Among the parting gifts to the American people by George W. Bush is a 
regulation now under review that would deny federal funds to any health-
care facility that does not allow employees to refuse to provide care that 
violates their personal convictions.  The regulation would classify the 
most widely used methods of contraception as "abortion."  Because abortion 
is legal, the regulation would not outlaw contraceptives, but it would add 
a significant obstacle to the easy access to methods of birth control that 
are used by 12 million women a year.

3.  CELL PHONES AND CANCER: DR. LARRY KING CLEARS IT UP.
It began 15 years ago on Larry King Live; a guest, David Raynard, whose 
wife died of brain cancer, "she held it against her head and talked on it 
all the time."  What more do you need?  This week Dr. King was back, 
talking about the warning issued by Dr. Herberman, director of the 
University of Pittsburg Cancer Center.   He based it on one fewer cases 
than David Raynard had to go on.  WN wrote about it last week.  Why did 
Ron Herberman, a law abiding immunologist and administrator, who probably 
hasn’t had a parking ticket in 20 years, decide to flout the conservation 
of energy, the most fundamental law of physics?

4.  EINSTEIN: WHAT DID HE KNOW - AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?
Last week WN said Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1905.  He did 
not, as a number of readers kindly pointed out.   That was the year he 
published the work.  He had to wait another 16 years to be awarded the  
prize in 1921.

5.  METAMORPHOSIS: INFAMOUS SERBIAN FUGITIVE ARRESTED.  Thirteen years 
after his indictment in connection with the Srebrenica massacre and the 
deadly siege of Sarajevo, Radovan Karadzic was found with a beard and a 
new identity living openly in Belgrade.  How could a mass murderer support 
himself for 13 years without drawing on his past?  No problem.  He 
practiced alternative medicine, which requires little more than a lack of 
scruples.  He was fully qualified.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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