European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 27, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 a the stars and stripes columns Ellen Goodman Book helps beginners help the environment an  Nav in 1v10_ or i a. Its an average Day on the planet Earth. Acid rain is falling on the City. The temperature is rising and you Don t know whether its Spring or the greenhouse effect. You drive Home counting the Fossil fuels you re devouring. Forty Miles North a nuclear Power Plant has started up and nobody knows what to do with its waste. On the radio someone tells you that the clean air Bill has been compromised into the sort of maybe sometimes clean air Bill. You Stop at the supermarket for this weeks groceries which Are also next weeks garbage and next Century a Landfill. While you think about this the Hole is growing in the Ozone the rain Forest is shrinking in Brazil and the stuff spewing out of a Pennsylvania Plant has the canaries choking for air. This is your life in the Era of eco worry. The most quantifiable result of the environmental movement is an anxious powerless Ness growing across the landscape like Kudzu. Eco worry encompasses everything from the pollution of Eastern Europe to the birthrate in Kenya. The sheer vast Ness of the problems Are technically and personally overwhelming a prescription for paralysis. At times the american consciousness seems All raised up with no place to go. But a Small antidote for powerlessness has been marketed and become the phenomenon of the publishing world. The slim volume called �?o50 simple things you can do to save the Earth has pushed aside gothic and diet books to grasp the no. 1 spot on the Trade paperback list for two solid months. �?o50 simple things is the brainchild of John Javna a self described baby Boomer from Berkeley with a biography that makes the Quot big chill look like Cinema verite. A product of Middle class Suburbia a College dropout a seeker of communes and consciousness he recently turned 40 and is soon scheduled to become a father. He will not be using disposable diapers. A Wiki plahet15 Earth Javna started this a a beginner s Book for the environment after writing 23 other texts from Quot the Doo Wop sing along songbook to a Uncle Johns bathroom Reader a this Book began because Javna and friends hey kids we could do the show right Here wanted to know How the Way they lived affected the world. A we wanted people to know what they could do that a positive to make a differ ence a a says the hyper energetic Javna who did no to even have an office phone before december. A we want to give them some sense of control. Its our purpose to empower people to make them feel Good about what they can  Javna and friends put the Book together gathering and translating the jargon of environmental agencies and scientists into everyday speak and paid a Small Vermont press to print 26,000  f. Buckley or. Within months the Rock group rom started giving the books away s built a sitcom around ii the us House asked for a copy and tha f broke the million Book Barrier. �?o50 simple things belongs to the a if everyone lit just one Little Candle Quot school of social activism. In its Effort to keen simple it can be simplistic. But to again if everyone did just Light one Lite Candle or change one incandescent Bush for a fluorescent one Thev figure wed save the Energy produced in one Vear by a nuclear Power Plant. The Beauty of the Book is that it gives people something to do and a reason to do it. The information offered a in turn Quirky random important and interesting a proves Javna a Point that Quot Vou done to have to be a rocket scientist to protect the  you can still get rid of junk mail get a Low flow head for the Shower and Slit the plastic rings on your six pack. A _ beginners Are reassured that even if they can to Trade the car for a Bike grow flax for their own clothes or take group showers they Are not hopeless in impure. They can at least get the engine tuned look for recycled cardboard instead of plastic and use an ecological excuse to let the Lawn grow. The sheer popularity of "50 simple things Points to a constituency of ecu worriers who just want to be Given something to do. Javna a next Book is directed at 50 things kids can do. What is less reassuring is that in the age of individualism every american could take a string bag to the grocery store and the wetlands would still become theme Parks. But this is just for beginners. A most of us done to know whats going on a we re just afraid a says Javna. A the Point of the Book is to take people beyond  with Luck  get Way beyond up to the last and not so Simpie things you can do to save the Earth. Number 49 stay involved. Number 50 spread the word c the Boston Globe newspaper co hard facts dictate How narcotics flow Best fought or craps Tirkin i cnnrai4 i n Iun 1 it. A. I. Some years ago when 1 served in the United nations As a Delegate i Learned of the super hush hush event of the previous Day. One of our Narco people had got wind of it from an informer of a Caribbean country who had never misinformed. He had something like a 1,000 percent batting average. If he whispered Over the Telephone that John Abraham flying into Juk on Eastern flight 806 from Xyz was bringing in a Pound or two of Coke or heroin Abraham would walk Down the Gangway of the plane into the hands of soft spoken but quite Resolute gentlemen who would Lead him into a private room where he and his baggage were searched. And somewhere the arcs would find the Pound or two of dope. But what happened 1 write As of 1973 was that said informant made his whispered Telephone Call and the or. Abraham on this particular flight was an ambassador of the Caribbean country to the United nations. He walked Down the Gangway and was diplomatically led into a private room and there told sorry or ambassador but we want your loot and its easier for us and for you if you just hand it Over than if we have to search you for it. Great indignation of course he had no dope on him. And so the search began. Nothing in the baggage. But the narc spotted a suspicious bulge in the right shoulder pad of the ambassadors suit and with Fine scissors Over sibilant protests Cut the threading and discovered a nothing. At this Point the arcs called the state department and asked would it be of if they proceeded with a strip search the state depart ment thought about it and said no. Meanwhile the ambassador was Yelling and screaming about How his country would declare War on the United states that he was going to Call a press conference the next Day. What happened the next Day was nothing. The ambassador stayed around for a week or so and then Slid Back Home. We did no to know never would whether he was carrying the stuff somewhere in the recesses of his person whether he had smelled trouble and ditched it in the air plane a or whether this one time the informant had been mistaken. So it goes. The american civil liberties Union is up in arms because professional arcs Are trained to identify and then detain and search Quot types Quot of people who Are likelier than other types to be smuggling drugs. The problem is this simple namely that the people who tend to gel searched tend to be Black or hispanic. But current sociological protocols Tell us that we must not be presumptively sceptical of anybody for any reason connected with race or color. The trouble is of course that presumptions which need absolutely to be of seized in establishing guilt or innocence cannot realistically be observed when on the prowl for suspects. The supreme court last year authorized the stopping and checking of suspects but used language of the Here today gone tomorrow Type that affects not to know what is in fact going on. The court said that the behaviour of someone being stopped and checked was legitimate reason for stopping him but on no account could such a be Havior be transcribed As related to race. In other words if two 25-year-Olds Are stalking a presidential candidate and one of them looks like Robert Redford the other like Sirhan Sirhan. And there is time to Stop and question Only one of the two one must not incline to Stop Sirhan Sirhan rather than Robert Redford. The police nod their Heads when they hear this and proceed to Stop Sirhan Sirhan. The new York times reports that the Mississippi Sun Herald a Biloxi newspaper examined last december police files on people stopped and searched on interstate 10. A of 57 stops 55 involved hispanic or Black people who drove cars with Texas or Florida License  then in new Jersey a statistician discovers that on a stretch of the new Jersey Turnpike 4.7 percent of the traffic was late Model cars with out of state License plates driven by Black males but that 80 percent of the arrests on the Highway fit that description. And a teaching tape used by the Texas department of Public safety shows a new Mexico officer explaining to recruits that most drug couriers arc Black or hispanic. A every once in a while we get a White subject smuggling a an officer explained a but he a the  you have Here a classical collision Between abstract propositions and empirical knowledge. There is no Way Short of Auto hypnosis to avoid knowing that there Are eight crimes committed by Blacks for every one by a White a which it is important to add says nothing about Why this should be so. And if the arcs Are going to pursue their appointed task of stopping the tide from coming in they will need to be guided by experience not by egalitarian taxonomy. C Universal press Syndicate