One of the most popular and exciting gymnasts to compete in the Olympic Games was the Romanian Nadia Comaneci. Fourteen-year-old Nadia burst on the Olympic scene when she competed in 1976 in Montreal against Olga Korbut, the great young Russian gymnast. Olga had won two gold medals in the 1972 Olympics, and she was going […]
Science and technology are getting a bad press these days. Increasingly scornful of the materialism of our culture, some people speak about returning to a simpler, pre-industrial, pre-scientific day. They fail to realize that the “good old days” 1 were actually horribly bad old days of ignorance, disease, slavery, and death. They I fancy themselves […]
Anger, fear, or the shock of sudden sorrow brings physical changes in our bodies. The digestion is shut down, the blood pressure is raised, the heart speeds up, and the skin becomes cold. If maintained over a prolonged period, this emergency status makes the body – and the personality – tight, dry and rigid. In […]
A strong wind had started up, whistling and moaning through the thick leaves, and frightening Sue and Anne. CRASH! They heard a loud smashing noise as a tree came down in a large gust. They took refuge under the gateway of a building and were not sure what to do. Sue doubted whether they would […]
The letters we write can spell the difference between making and missing an important sale, between landing and losing a job, between a yes and a no from the girl or boy of our dreams. A neighbor of mine recently wrote to two contractors for bids on a concrete driveway. Here’s the beginning of one […]
How many people can the earth hold? Will birth and death rates continue to 1 decline? Can food production keep pace with population growth? Can technology I supplement or replace today’s resources? What are the long-term effects of pollution 1 on health, climate, and farm production? Debate over such issues has spawned I many volumes, […]
A very old lady who had devoted her life to pioneer work in education once told about a dangerous illness she had suffered in her middle years. She lay hovering between life and death, in the twilight of half-surrender, when she overheard two of her co-workers talking just outside her hospital room. “If we could […]
Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead? Everyone knows the answer: they both weigh the same. An interesting point, however, is what sort of image popped into your head when you read those words. One person who answered this question saw, distinctly, a pair of scales with a cube of […]
For most of us, love is the most absorbing subject in existence. There is an enormous range of meanings in this one little word: motherly love and self-love, fatherly love and children’s love fc their parents; there is brotherly love and there is the love of one’s home and one’s country; there is love of […]
Why does a gorilla beat its chest? It depends on the gorilla – and on the situation. In some instances, the flamboyant and intimidating gesture may be just what it seems: a warning to keep away. When truly aroused, the leader of the gorilla troop rises and drums his chest rapidly, palms open and slightly […]