According to a recent publication of the U.S. State Department, “The Canadian record in protection of human rights is one of the finest in the world.” Although President Carter has frequently spoken about threats to human rights in Communist and Third World countries, he has seemingly endorsed the State Department view by not saying a word about problems in Canada. Carter's silence has been largely matched by that of the American press, with the result that few Americans know that within the last year Canada has been rocked by a continuing scandal in which it has been revealed that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP—yes, the “Mounties“) has for decades been systematically and secretly opening mail, breaking into homes and offices, and obtaining confidential tax, unemployment, and medical records, and checking into all candidates for political office.

The independence movement in Puerto Rico has been formed in reaction to the cultural and economic dominance of the mainland, and thus it has been anti-Yanqui and anticapitalist. Radicals and nonfriends of the United States, from Castro through many Latin American and Third World leaders, have taken up the cause of Puerto Rican independence as one of the easiest ways, after Vietnam, of discrediting America. Puerto Rican advocates of independence express -themselves with bombs. But causes should not suffer guilt by association, and nonradical Americans might well reconsider the issue. It has been remarkably little examined in the American press except from a usually emotional leftist viewpoint, but there is a good case for amicable separation or divorce on grounds of incompatibility.

Every so often some “scholarly commentator” suggests that the United States should admit it made a mistake when it acted unilaterally to annex Puerto Rico in 1898. To remedy the damage, such writers argue, the United States should now take the initiative in preparing Puerto Rico to become an independent nation. To help atone for his eighty years of “colonial” intervention they would have Uncle Sam be both sympathetic and generous in helping the new republic get started: Plenty of transitional assistance would be provided, and there would be “continuing warm friendship” after the final break. Once Puerto Rico is turned loose, it is explained, its people would at least be “free,” the U.S. would have extricated itself honorably from an expensive international embarrassment, and we could all live happily ever after.

Revolution” belongs to that expanding list of English words whose multiple meanings make any precise usage elusive, if not impossible. The misuse and abuse of the term “revolution” in ordinary communication is enough of a problem, but the flexibility of the term in scholarly writings makes reasonable discourse across disciplinary lines a monumental task.

Humanists, social scientists, and natural scientists have contributed in various ways to the ambiguity of the word. Invite three theologians, let's say, to discuss “revolution in the modern world” and witness the use of the same grammatical substantive to describe ecclesiastical reform, or any given number of societal changes, or the violent overthrow of an established political regime. Under such circumstances communication is as difficult as it is for a trio of recent immigrants engaged in a conversation that includes the English word “rose,” each having reached the separate conclusion that the speaker is referring to a flower, or a color, or an action just performed.

Chief Gatsha Buthelezi is the controversial Zulu chief and leader of the still legal Inkatha opposition movement to South Africa's apartheid policies. In conflict with both the current Pretoria authorities and black African supporters of violent revolutionary action, Buthelezi is said by his supporters to represent a nonviolent, multiracial and liberal- democratic opposition leadership. His is a middle ground that Buthelezi's critics say is fast eroding under the increasing polarization generated by the policies of the Pretoria regime. Buthelezi's supporters counter that the chief is the most popular black African leader in the country. They cite among other evidence a recently completed four-year study by West Germany's Arnold Bergstrasser Institute, which polled urban blacks in different parts of the country and concluded that Buthelezi is supported by almost half of the urban blacks.

Is there something about modern society itself that makes governments inadequate to the tasks they face in the contemporary industrial world? In recent years critics such as Daniel Bell and John Kenneth Galbraith have analyzed postindustrial society in an attempt to illuminate its basic character. Other prominent analysts have spoken about the ungovernability of modern societies and the dilemmas encountered by governments as the demands they face outstrip resources. The daily press obligingly confirms the existence of almost chronic crisis and of persistent political failure in the various capitals of the developed world.

What emerges from all this is the vision of a society that we recognize but do not really comprehend: a busy, complex society that projects new conquests for itself as it discovers ever new latent capabilities; at the same time, a society out of control and deeply dangerous to the individuals who are both its beneficiaries and its victims.

Greetings: As you are a practical group, yet with a philosophical turn of mind, you have sought my opinion on basic questions of government. I answer that leaders have but two duties: internally, to promulgate just laws and maintain order; externally, to provide for the security of the state in defending it from strangers. Of these two, I turn my attention in this testimony to the problem of maintaining the security of the state, for without this all other questions of government are moot. The first question, therefore, is how best to maintain the security of the state, whether through arms or by some other means.

To answer this one must look to the very nature of men. The history of all nations has been conflict and warfare. Therefore at all times and in all places men have found it necessary to arm themselves for defense against the attacks of their enemies.

Thank you for asking me to join this discussion. Your invitation has charm and just the touch of beleaguered optimism I always loved. After all the blood your century has spilled, at least a few of you believe that reasonable men might yet persuade the world that war must never come again. It warms and heartens me that the plight of Peace still touches some minds. You really seem to believe that some argument, even one called up from the past, might yet move the warrior heart. Do I believe that this might happen? Of course I will try again. The native good sense of men might yet listen. I never despaired of mankind, no matter how much evidence might have overwhelmed my faith in it.

At least this discussion can be carried on safely in public. There was a time when speaking out against war was dangerous, and I constantly spoke against it.

A woman traveling alone all the way from Holland to Bulgaria! And sleeping in a monastery! Villagers, visitors, and monks marveled, for although the small mountain cloister had held its doors open for decades, most lodgers were native families.

The Orthodox monastery near the village of Bachkovo, Bulgaria, founded by Georgian monks in 1083, had been plundered in the name of Allah, liberated in the name of the czar and was now very much in order under the Soviet state, both as monastery and hostelry.

Sacred and secular mingled within the same walls that had secluded seventeenth-century monks from worldly things. Four long, white stucco buildings with wooden galleries and grated windows enclosed the courtyard with chapel and fountains. Over the broken cobblestones chickens, geese, lambs, and pigs wandered about among the tourists, monks, and priests.

In the midst of the Democratic national convention in July, 1976, Roman Catholic Archbishop Joseph L.Bernardin of Cincinnati spoke out publicly against the party's recently adopted platform plank favoring legal abortions. The plank, he said, was offensive to many Catholics.

Stuart Eizenstat, a key aide to Governor Jimmy Carter, who was about to become the party's presidential nominee, told the press that the archbishop's statement “was not from the hierarchy.” “My understanding is that many in the hierarchy were extremely upset and in effect told him to cool it. No one has come to his support. I think that fellow went out on a limb.“

Archbishop Bernardin was in fact the elected president of the American bishops and was speaking in their name. After numerous telegrams from bishops protesting Eizenstat's remark, he apologized, explaining that he had not known who Archbishop Bernardin was.