The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 18, 1989 - Page 5
Speaker laments
Ethiopian Jewry
by Ross Tanzer
Nobel
-
physics
10
The president of the Michigan
Association for Ethiopian Jews
spoke of the plight of those Jews'
not allowed to leave Ethiopia last
night before a small but interested
gathering at Hillel.
Jack Edelstein, who travelled to
Ethiopia three years ago, used slides
from his trip as part of his presenta-
tjon.
Edelstein first developed his in-
terest in Ethiopian Jews while visit-
ing Israel in 1985. While there, he
befriended Jewish refugees who had
recently escaped from Ethiopia and
learned of the problems they had
faced there.
"Attaining visas for departure
from the Ethiopian government is
virtually impossible, and emigration
has slowed to a mere trickle over the
past few years," Edelstein said.
He explained that most of the
Jews who arrived in Israel had sur-
vived a difficult escape, which began
with a two-week voyage over the ar-
duous Sudan Desert bordering
Ethiopia.
"Close to 2,000 refugees, of all
religious descent, perished during
that voyage because of their weak
conditions caused by the Ethiopian
famine of the 1980s," Edelstein said.
He said most of the refugees who
attempted leaving Ethiopia were men
between the ages of 20 and 40 be-
cause they had the best chance for a
successful escape. After visiting an
Ethiopian village, Edelstein said,
"There is a marked lack of men in
the (Ethiopian Jewish) population
within this age group."
The purpose of the Michigan As-
sociation for Ethiopian Jews is to
help support these separated fami-
lies, he said. "All we do is continue
sending money and giving encour-
agement to families in whatever way
we can."
The program works in accordance
with the American Association for
Ethiopian Jews, based in Washing-
ton. This group works mainly to
help Ethiopian Jews attain exit visas
from Ethiopia, so they can live in
Israel.
Edelstein said neither group sup-
ports sending food to the impover-
ished country because political re-
pression often prohibits Ethiopians
from receiving such aid.
winner
on atonf
by Heather Fee
Norman Ramsey, who last week
won the Nobel prize for Physics,
discussed methods of time measure-
ment throughout history yesterday in
a packed Dennison Auditorium.
Precise measurement of time be-
gan with the invention of the pendu-
lum midway through the 17th cen-
tury, Ramsey said in his speech, ti-
tled "Time and the Physical Uni-
verse." After Galileo identified the
pendulum as a potential time mea-
surer when he observed a swinging
lantern in a church in 1583, it took
roughly three quarters of a century
before the pendulum was put into
use.
Ramsey, a Higgins Professor of
Physics at Harvard University, is in
town as part of the Samuel A.
Goudsmit Lecture Series and will be
leading colloquia, informal discus-
sions, and seminars the rest of the
week.
Ramsey was awarded the Nobel
prize for his discoveries of oscilla-
tory frequencies inside atoms, which
led to the creation of atomic clocks,
the most precise time measure ever
found.
Born in Washington D.C. in
1915, Ramsey held many influential
jobs including scientific consultant
to the Secretary of War during World
War II and a group leader for the
Manhattan Project, which was
charged with developing the atomic
bomb. Ramsey has won many
honors and awards for his work, in-
cluding the National Medal of
Science.
The content of the speech focused
speaks
1clocks
on the recently-invented atomic
clocks. The two types of atomic
clocks developed in the last 50 years
are the Atomic Cesium Beam and
the Atomic Hydrogen Maser.
"The Cesium Beam is extremely
stable," said Ramsey. "If two
(Cesium Beam) clocks ran for one
million years, one clock would only
be one second off from the other
one."
But, Ramsey said, "The Hydro-
gen Maser is even more stable. It
has 1,000 times greater stability,"
but only for periods of a few hours.
These clocks can be used to im-
prove the efficiency of radio tele-
scopes and to measure distances.
Ramsey concluded by relating
clocks to the theory of relativity. He
said that theoretically the most effi-
cient clock would be one using light
bouncing off mirrors.
The problem with this type of
clock, he said, is that "according to
the Special Theory of Relativity, the
speed of light is the same for all ob-
servers independent of their veloci-
ties." Because of this, he said,
"observers moving at different veloc-
ities will each think the other's
clock runs slow."'
According to the General Theory
of Relativity a clock farther from the
earth runs faster and a clock in a
black hole slows down so much it
appears to stop.
Ramsey is currently investigating
recent claims of "cold fusion."
It's not cottage cheese
Mary Beth Seefelt, an Art school junior, mixes dye for her weaving and
textile class.
Amnesty Int'l
LONDON (AP) - The Soviet Soviet Union
Union's attitude towards human March, and f
rights has improved dramatically and perspective o
most political prisoners have been shifted dramat
freed, although abuses persist and the report said.
picture is "deeply confusing,"
Amnesty International says. 'The Sovi
In a report published Wednesday, shifted d
the worldwide human rights
ipovement says its list of Soviet
citizens imprisoned for non-violent Amnesty In
exercise of their human rights shrank of the 600 I
from 600 three years ago to about 90 released early
in July, and would have been lower freed from r
but for further arrests. where some h
An Amnesty International more against t
delegation was allowed into the "They mak
:
Soviets have improved
for the first time last
ound that "the Soviet
)n human rights has
ically since 1986," the
of prisoners of conscience to be freed
since the 1950's. Political arrests
have also fallen noticeably since
1986," the report said.
"The most promising prospect
iet perspective on human rights has
ramatically since 1986.'
-Amnesty International report
rights picture in the U.S.S.R is
deeply confusing."
A new centrally controlled police
force with extensive powers was set
up in July 1988 under a decree that
gives the austerities "unrestrained
powers to ban or break up peaceful
assemb~lies," it said.
There also had been new arrests,
so that when the Amnesty
International delegation visited
Moscow it had a list of 100
detainees, including 25 conscientious
objectors to military service, 25
people in psychiatric institutions,
and about 30 imprisoned for non-
violent nationalistic activity, the
report said.
nternational added that
prisoners, 337 were
, and another 79 were
psychiatric hospitals
had spent 15 years or
heir will.
.e up the largest group
for long-term reform is a major
review of law...apparently aimed at
bringing Soviet law into line with
international standards," the report
said.
' But "despite this clear trend
towards reform," it said, "the human
Bush picks deputy health director to
succeed Koop as surgeon general
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush has
' picked Antonia Novello, deputy director of the
National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development, to be surgeon general, administra-
tion sources said yesterday.
Novello was undergoing routine background
checks before her formal nomination, said the
sources, who spoke only on condition of not be-
ing identified.
Chase Untermeyer, President Bush's person-
nel chief, said "there is a candidate in clearance,"
but he refused to confirm or deny that candidate
was Novello.
Novello's office said she had no comment and
declined to provide any background.
According to an industry newsletter, Medicine
& Heath, she is 44 years old and studied at the
University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine.
She would succeed C. Everett Koop, the out-
spoken pediatrician who stepped down last month
after serving in the post for most of the decade.
Novello was recommended to the White
House by Louis Sullivan, secretary of the De-
partment of Health and Human Services, the
sources said. Her nomination was pushed by Se-
nator Orrin Hatch, a State Representative from
Utah, the senator's office said.
"Doesn't
every
Pre-med
deserve
a choice?"
Tom Garcia, M.D. (UAG '75)
Cardiologist
Houston, Texas
"The right choice was there when I
needed it. I made that choice, and now I'm
a physician. My alma mater may be just
right for you. It's your choice."
inese anti-porn campaign backfires
BEIJING (AP) - Headlines in Such orders are not unusual: A reader who wrote to China handed them in. It was the t
official newspapers yesterday pro- Chinese children are accustomed to Youth News agreed. Students at the the town for a while."
claimed impressive results that after bringing in dead rats during anti-rat middle school in her hometown in
two months the "sweep up pornog- campaigns and the masses have met eastern China's Jianoxi province Other problems develope
raphy" campaign has netted 30 mil- quotas for killing mosquitoes and were ordered to bring in two yellow Dengzhou City in central Ch
lion books and magazines. swallows. books apiece. Henan province, a reader repor
alk of
ed in
hina's
ted in
0sOi "f
_g
Universidad Aut6noma de Guadalajara
School of Medicine
Guadalajara, Mexico
But on inside pages, several
newspapers revealed the details of
how the campaign backfired, in
some cases increasing sales of
pornographic books and spreading
them among children.
It seems that in many cities each
work unit was given a quota for
turning in pornographic material.
Bosses gave their workers orders:
bring in one dirty book apiece.
_ Even elementary schools were
given quotas, and they sent their
,pupils home to rummage through
*,shelves and cupboards for "yellow
literature," the Chinese phrase fort
pornography.
A
Ann Arbor's
iHalowem
Headquarters:
Make-up " Glitter
Masks . Wigs " Hats
Canes " Vampire Blood
Ears e Tails - Noses
& much more!
NUDCE SEL ECTIINM.
But this assignment caused
unusual confusion. Economic Refer-
ence News said some students took
the order literally and came back
with books printed on yellow paper.
Others grabbed calendars with pic-
tures of female movie stars, or any
magazine that had a woman's picture
on the cover.
Some parents complained that
they didn't have any pornography,
but teachers told them to bring in
anything for the count the paper
said.
The newspaper described the as-
signment as "preposterous."
"Parents didn't know whether to
laugh or cry," wrote Long Ximiao.
"Some parents asked their children to
go to the street and buy porno-
graphic books at high prices. There
were so many people buying porno-
graphic books that the supply fell
short of demand and the prices went
up several times each day."
"The book sellers were very
happy to earn so much money,"
Long wrote. "The chil-
dren...exchanged the books and read
them with curiosity before they
a letter to tne Peasant~sDaily. tHe
said so many people were drafted
into "sweeping up pornography"
teams that their "quality was not too
high," and team members were found
to reading the confiscated books for
their own use.
Some even resold them, the
reader said, creating new outlets for
yellow literature.
No such discouraging details have
made it into the front-page reports.
The People's Daily praised regional
party committees for taking a lead-
ing role in the campaign.
The International Choice
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