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The Augusta News-Review - June 30, 1977
Walking With Dignity
By AL IRBY
It is hoped that my readers will take this article to heart,
especially those of Negroid background, because the latter has
genetic weakness or hypertension tendency in this area.
Hypertension or high blood pressure is “the silent killer” because
it may be present in your body for many years with no symptoms
until an attack occurs. By that time, it may be too late for
protective measures. One out of every five Americans may have
hypertension in varying degrees. It is a serious problem. WHAT IS
HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE? AND WHAT CAN BE DONE TO
GUARD AGAINST IT? Blood pressure varies with a person’s
physical build, diet, and other factors. But the World Health
Organization officially says that a reading of anything over
160/95 is high blood pressure requiring treatment.
Any measure of 140/90 or less is normal or below normal. The
first figure (systolic) measures the pressure of blood in the
arteries when the heart beats. The second figure (diastolic)
measures the pressure of blood in the arteries when the heart is at
rest, between beats. UNRECOGNIZED PRESSURE CAN BE
RISKY: If unrecognized-and therefore untreated-high blood
pressure may injure heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, eyes, ears, liver,
and glands.
Swollen ankles and dropsy (edema) may be caused when the
heart muscles are stretched and the heart can not be emptied with
every beat. This causes a blood back-up and poor circulation.
Shortness of breath and fatigue may also occur. I hope that all of
my readers will have regular tests as a part of their regular medical
check-up; also have your blood pressure tested. Do-it-yourself
appliances for checking your readings at home are also available.
Ask your doctor about these and follow his instructions,
religiously.
BUILDING RESISTANCE TO HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
Help your body maintain a healthy blood pressure level with
these protective tips.
1- KEEP SLIM AND HEALTHY. Shed unnecessary pounds.
Follow a well-balanced but moderate-calorie and moderate-fat
food program. Once you become slim, stay slim.
2 - AVOID TOO MUCH SALT. Salt tends to retain water, and
this puts a strain on your heart and raises blood pressure. Avoid
excessively salty foods such as ham, bacon, luncheon meats, hot
dogs, salt poik, anchovies, caviar, pickles, potato chips, salted
Benjamin ,
Bonks r.&A
F(<
Commiw
Winds of change
in a troubled land
The winds of change blowing in that troubled land. Southern
Africa, are increasing in relentless velocity. To switch a
metaphor: Coming events cast their shadows before them. And to
q T HF
<3 POWER
S/&GIORY
By Dr . G. E. A. Toote
The silent invasion
Do illegal aliens compete effectively with and displace large
numbers of American workers? Is the social cost of illegal aliens
residency counter balanced by their availability as needed low
cost labor? Will the new influx of illegal aliens remain here, and
impose increasing long-term burdens on municipal and federal
budgets, to which they are not proportionate contributors?
CHEAP LABOR
Inflation - deflation has caused many industries to relocate to
areas of cheap labor, such as Mexico or the American side of the
Mexican border.
For 52.30 an hour, thirty five women sort and box shrimp on
the Texas-Mexican border. They can package for freezing and
grade six thousand pounds of shrimp an hour with machine help.
On the Mexican side of the border, one hundred and sixty
women, peel and devein shrimp without machines, remove shells
and back veins from two thousand pounds of shrimp an hour.
Their base pay is 99 cents an hour.
MEXICO
Mexico is struggling to survive serious economic crises. More
titan half of the work population is unemployed or
underemployed. At least twenty per cent of its population
depends upon wages earned in the United States.
The Mexican population has tripled from twenty
million in 1945 to sixty three million today. As a nation it has
one of the world’s highest birth rates. Next year, its population
will increase by two million more people.
The Mexican government predicts a population in excess of
one hundred and twenty million by the end of the century.
U. S. - MEXICAN BORDER
The 2,000 mile border between Mexico and the United States
is almost indefensible. In 1976 almost eight hundred thousand
illegal aliens, most from Mexico were arrested after crossing over.
The number of illegal aliens in the United States is greater than
the number of unemployed Americans.
NATURALIZED AMERICANS
Four hundred thousand foreigners become legal residents each
year. Most of them seek employment. Many seek welfare and
unemployment benefits.
One out of every five persons who surreptitiously enters from
Mexico, if caught, face little punishment other than deportation,
which has proven not to deter their attempt to return the next
day.
“The silent killer”
Page 4
nuts, popcorn, and other so-called trash food. Here is a sensble
tip, flavor foods with lemon juice, herbs and spices. Read labels
of packaged foods. If the foods contain salt, do not buy them.
Switch to fresh foods when possible.
3 - WORK OFF TENSIONS, OR BETTER STILL AVOID
THEM. Bottled-up tensions, anger, and frustrations can cause
increased blood pressure. “Blow your stack” or “get it off your
chest” , by doing what doctors recommend. Take long walks and
participate in physical activities.
4 - ELIMINATE SMOKING. Nicotine constricts the arteries.
This makes it harder for the heart to pump blood. A strain results
and the levels of blood pressure become higher. Give up smoking,
like I did, and give your heart a chance to give you a healthy
blood pressure.
5 - RESTRICT Fat intake. Hard fats will clog the arteries and
that tends to harden them and cause hypertension. Trim off all
visible fats before cooking and again before eating. Use more oils,
more skim-milk products, and eat more fish.
6 - BOOST INTAKE OF ROUGHAGE FOODS. Roughage
foods include whole grains, bran, wheat germ, fresh fruits, and
rough vegetable. They contain fiber that helps regulate
cholesterol levels and thereby control blood pressure. To know
this much about food and your body, does not mean that you are
a book buff, or really smart. The American Medical Association
has been telling Blacks that we are vulnerable to hypertension or
high blood pressure;but too many Blacks continue to succumb
every year to this, my name for it-“THE SILENT KILLER . So,
we will sum this important sketch up by saying, let us unmask
this “SILENT KILLER” by having our blood pressure checked.
Cooperate with your doctor. Improve your living habits, and you
will help guard yourself against that demon the “SILENT
KILLER”, hypertension.
STROKES ARE FRIGHTENING, OVER 40,000 VICTIMS
IN GEORGIA YEARLY. A stroke occurs when the blood supply
to the brain is shut off by a blood clot or hemorrhage. When the
blood cannot normally get to the brain it damages the
surrounding nerve cells; and when these nerve cells become
damaged, the parts of the body controlled by these nerve cells
can’t maneuver. So, please take care of yourself, stop smoking,
and watch your diet.
quote that ancient poet, the old tent-maker, Omarr Kayyam:
“The moving fingers writes and having writ, moves on/Nor all
your piety nor wit can lure it back nor all your tears cancel one
line of it.”
The plot thickens. Critical moment has become crucial, crucial
moment builds unerringly to crisis, crisis rushes pell mell to
climax. Climax, like a hugh ocean wave washing up the beach,
crashes into denouement - the unraveling. The finish. The end.
And then the waters recede. A foamy white, bubbly substance
remains to mark its retreat. But soon it, too, is gone. And all is
quiet, serene, for now. The turbulence, the fury having spent
themselves, are no more.
It is odd that life and art - story telling and other - imitate
each other. The rage in life, as in art, is always at its most furious
and deafening when the end is near.
1 thought about that the other day when I read a letter to the
editor in the New York Times, it was from a lady who says she is,
or rather gave the impression of being white Rhodesian who has
lived in this country for 16 years. I will not print her name. It
would serve no useful purpose.
What she has to say does, if only in a perjorative way-- for its
shrillness and wrong-headedness. May the Lord Bless her. But the
tenor of her argument is that the racist rulers of Southern Africa
- Rhodesia, South Africa, etc. - are burdened only by the fact
they are white in Africa.
Never mind that four million whites in South Africa ruthlessly
rule more than 19 million Blacks and coloreds, running
roughshod over their human rights; trampling into the hot dry
earth, their humanity. Forget that less than 250,000 whites in
Rhodesia keep the cruel heel of murderous oppression on the
necks of millions of Blacks. Forget even that South African
whites hold nearly a million Blacks in thrall in South-West Af
rica, an area the United Nations has decreed to be illegally held
for more than 30 years by South Africa.
Never mind, she seems to be telling us, that South African
police brutally put down riots in Soweto last year, killing more
than 600 most of them children, wounding and maiming
thousands, and arresting thousands more, although to her credit
she says “no South African is indifferent to or proud of' that.
The fact of the matter, she says quoting Prime Minister
Vorster: “I am prepared to hand for what I am, but I'm damned
if I will be hanged for what I am not."
“He is prepared,” she says” to hang for what he is, and that is
for being a white man. That sir, is our great burden -- being white
(in Africa.).”
If he had to face this Lord tomorrow and say “I have been
rebuked and scorned in South Africa because and only because I
am white,” 1 doubt if Vorster could look his maker in the eye,
that B assuming he is a Christian who believes, as he and his
group, the Afrikaaners say they do, that their God is a Just God.
What a monstrous statement. For the Bible says: “As ye have
done to the least of these ...” 1 do often write of these things.
I usually save my sermons for the pulpit. I emphasize religious
belief in this instance because 1 am addressing the subject of
South Africa dominated by what purports to be strongly Christian
white people who are doing all kinds of unchristian things to
their Black brothers and sisters, then hiding behind their
“superior” Christian way of life and culture.
Another white South Africa leader using U. S. Black slang,
vowed the other day, “There is no way. Baby, we will permit (a)
one man, one vote” law to come into being.
If Vorster and his followers' only crime was being white in
Africa, then the whole world could breathe easier. For the threat
of a bloody race war would not be hanging like a terrible
Damocles'sword over the bared throat of that unhappy land.
Three hundred years of appalling exploitation and brutal
repression of Blacks in Southern Africa so that the white man can
live in ease, sloth and spender in that mineral-rich land cannot be
wiped away with a shrug and an uttered falsehood piously putting
the blame for the wretched situation on the back of the victim.
Coming events do cast their shadows before them. The winds
of change are blowing ever stronger in that land and we must
tremble for our white brethren there “if there is a just God.”
Redemption can be theirs if they care to seek it. But attitudes
like those embraced by the letter writer to New York Times seem
to foreclose this effort for the present.
Meanwhile, “the moving finger writes . . .”
[tear Editor
I am presently incarcerated
and have lost all contact with
my family. I would really
enjoy receiving letters from
anyone wishing to write to me.
Im 7.
All letters will be answered.
Thomas R. McCalister 145-285
P.O. Box 787
Lucusville, Ohio
45648
AJ} 1
TO BE EQUAL
Bv Vernon E. Jordon Jr. .
Southern Africa policy advanced
The Carter Administration is pursuing a revised Southern
Africa policy that will hopefully liberate Blacks there from
minority rule. Given the rigidity of the South African
government, it is hard to say whether change can come peacefully
to the region, but American pressure is a vital ingredient.
South Africa’s Prime Minister John Vorster is the key to
change in the entire region. He’s staked his policy on helping to
achieve a settlement in Rhodesia. In return, he’s banking on
American gratitude that will leave intact minority white
domination of South Africa.
That’s an offer the United States can, and reportedly has,
refused. Vice President Mondale has informed Vorster that
nothing less than majority rule will do.
There are four major elements in the Southern African pot --
Rhodesia. Namibian independence, South Africa’s apartheid, and
South Africa’s policy of “separate development.”
‘ All are agreed that Rhodesia’s break away regime has to give
way to majority rule. And Namibia, illegally held for years by
South Africa, has to have UN supervised elections that permit
free participation of all groups, not just those the South African
government sanctions.
Rhodesia and Namibia are pawns in Vorster's game. He’ll
buckle under on those if he doesn't have to compromise too
much on what he considers internal South African affairs.
The vicious apartheid system is probably negotiable. The South
Africans have sent signals indicating they might relax some of the
more objectionable features of the system. When I was there last
year it was clear that some of the petty apartheid rules -
especially those affecting Blacks working for foreign businesses -
were not strictly enforced.
But without massive foreign, especially American, pressure.
South Africa is likely to persist in its separate development
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS By Kenyon C Burke
Abortion service:
seperate & unequal
Why is it that even after favorable legislation is passed and
court decisions rendered securing individual rights on an equal
basis for all, that government officials continue to impose their
personal views upon the rest of us?
In a strange and misguided legislative maneuver, opponents to
making abortion available to poor women, via Medicaid are
actively trying to rewrite the law.
Current attempts by the Administration to reintroduce a
proposal that would bar Medicaid reimbursements for abortions
are “cruel, discriminatory and almost certainly unconstitutional,
according to Henrietta Marshall, chairman of the Planned
Parenthood Federation of America.
Mrs. Marshall’s statement was released here today at the
national family planning agency’s headquarters as Congress
prepared to debate an Administration proposal proscribing
federal reimbursements for abortion services under Title XIX of
the Social Security Act (Medicaid”), the federal-state medical
assistance program for low-income persons.
The controversial anti-abortion section of the 1978
Labor-HEW Appropriations Bill -- introduced and passed in
identical form in the last Congress, and later enjoined by a
Brooklyn federal district court - is scheduled for debate by the
House of Representatives on or after Wednesday, June 15.
“Incredible as it seems in a system governed by the rule of law,
the Administration is bringing before Congress a proposal
identical to one enjoined by a federal court just a few months
ago,” Mrs. Marshall said. “It is as though the court had never
acted.”
Furthermore, the proposal is being presented as a rider to an
appropriations bill, thus, in effect, initiating a major policy
through a side door. As a policy change involving the health and
welfare of hundreds of thousands of individuals, the measure
surely merits proper legislative consideration, including public
hearings involving expert witnesses.
Respect for law and due process, and concern for the health
and well-being of many thousands of poor women faced every
year with the trauma of unwanted pregnancy, require that
Congress act speedily and decisively to reject this misguided
initiative.
“Implementation of this provision would in effect establish a
two-class system of abortion services,” Mrs. Marshall continued.
“Women with means could continue, as before, to obtain safe,
legal abortions through the private medical care system, while the
poor, who lack the means to pay for the procedure and to
undertake the considerable travel that is often required to get to
an abortion facility, would be forced once again, as they were
policy. This carves out parts of the country for so-called
independence for tribal “homelands.” With this. South Africa’s
Black majority is fragmented into tribal groupings and demed
South African citizenship.
The masses of urbanized Blacks are still confined to Black
townships, are still forced to become an army of underpaid cheap
labor, and still refused recognition in their own land.
As “citizens” of some fictional “homeland” they may never
have seen, Blacks are denied the right to vote or to participate in
civic life. If they become involved in political or union activity, or
even if they lose their jobs, they face being deported to the
“homeland area.”
Separate development is a shell game designed to pacify the
international community while assuring permanent minority rule
in South Africa. It's the real issue in South Africa. Apartheid, a
serious affront to any concept of morality and human rights, is a
system that supports minority rule. It makes it easier to
implement, but even if apartheid were to vanish, minority rule
would continue.
Separate development, though, is a policy that is at the core of
the South African system of subjugating the Black majority. It
denies them basic citizenship, as well as the rights that should go
with that citizenship.
The United States has already said it won’t play Vorster's
game, and is demanding an end to separate development. But
words aren’t enough. A moratorium on new investment in South
Africa, heavy diplomatic and economic pressure, and other forms
of sanctions should be instituted so that the government there
will entertain no illusions about America’s resolve.
We can’t talk about human rights as an international issue
while tolerating wholesale deprivation of the human rights of
South Africa’s Black majority.
before the 1973 Supreme Court decisions, to seek out cut-rate
and often dangerous procedures, or to carry an unwanted
pregnancy to term.”
In addition, when the government pays for childbirth but not
elective abortions, it is weighting the choice in favor of one
option, she said. This policy is patently coercive and
discriminatory. It the government is to reimburse providers on
behalf of women who elect one method of treating pregnancy
(i.e. childbirth), it should, in order to preserve a neutral stand on
the issue, reimburse also on behalf of those who elect the other
principal method - abortion.”
“The government itself has estimated that the inability of
indigent pregnant women to obtain Medicaid abortions might
result in up to 250 deaths and 25,000 cases of serious medical
complications every year from self-induced or illegal procedures,”
she said. She noted also that “the economic cost to society if all
poor women were forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term
has been estimated as SSOO million annually.”
Considering the fact that there were one million teen-age
pregnancies last year with over two thirds of them being
unintended one would think that the government would be
seeking multiple ways to prevent unwanted births as well as ways
to insure equi access to all methods of fertility management.
Vigorous efforts on the part of responsible legislators and
concerned citizens should press for an expansion of monies set
aside for family planning and call a halt to mischievious attempts
to deny these options to those who can least afford them.
| THE AUGUSTA NEWS-REVIEW
Mallory K. Millender .Editor-Publisher
Frank Bowman General & Advertising Manager
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