Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, 2002 (14. évfolyam, 4-45. szám)

2002-05-10 / 19. szám

AMERICAN Hungarian Journal MEDITATIONS by Dr. Bela Bonis Pastor (562) 430-0876 First Hungarian Reformed Church, Hawthorne (Continued from last week) As concluded in my previous meditation, religious and politi­cal leaders, from Pres. Bush to the Vatican, sharply criticized the announcement that scien­tists in Massachusetts had suc­ceeded in creating the first cloned human embryo, pushing religion and science onto an ex­pected but as yet uncharted ethical frontier. The scientists insisted the work aimed to produce stem cells for new medical therapies rather than to clone a human being. Ad­vanced Cell Techonogy of Wor­cester, Mass., announced-last Nov. 25 that it had succeeded in growing - for only a few hours - cloned human embryos of four to six cells. "We should not, as a society, grow life to destroy it", said Bush in response to reporter questions, "and that’s exactly what’s taking place... it’s morally wrong." Since, however, federal money cannot be used for cloning re­search involving human embryos, so much of the scien­tific work in the field is being carried out by private firms. The Vatican, responding with unusual speed, said, last Nov. 26 that despite the "humanistic intentions" of scientists, the first cloning of human embryos is an act of "moral gravity" that must be unequivocally condemned. Calling the step a significant ethical event, the Vatican said it reopened the debate over when human life begins. The Catholic Church holds that life begins not at birth but at the fertilization of an egg. So human stem cells must be "treated with respect" because of "the human patrimony of which they are carriers." Re­searchers at Advanced Cell. Technologies reported that none of the human embryos developed into stem cells, which can grow into any cell or type of tisssue in the body. The company’s goal is to succeed in growing them to a mass of several hundred cells in order to isolate embryonic stem cells. A United Methodist lobbyist on Capitol Hill joined in con­demning the private company’s experiments. So did Richard Land, president of the South­ern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commis­sion. Also joining the call for congressional action were a number of conservative Chris­tian political action groups. But Rabbi Richard Address, director of the Union of Ame­rican Hebrew Congregations’ Department of Jewish Family Concerns is supportive of stem cell research. Celebrating the Written Word: 7th Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA By SUSAN JANCSO “Since its inception in 1996, the Festival of Books has become known for its celebration of the written word through a wonderful array of entertainment, including lectures, exhibits and storytelling in the children's area. This festival also hosts some of the most rec­ognized authors in the world, who offer entertainment to children, adults and people from all walks of life.” James K. Hahn, Mayor of the City of Los Angeles, greeted the 7th annual Festival of Books with these words and more. This year there was a special reason for celebration, in addition to the ones that kept people flocking to the UCLA campus on the last Saturday and Sunday in April each year. Mr. Hahn has chosen FAHREN­HEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury to promote his “One Book, One City” campaign for literacy. Last year it was Mr. Riordan who helped make the event a success, with his daughter reading for his grand­daughter up on the stage of Royce Hall, with the proud grandpa looking on. This last Saturday, on the same stage, Mayor Hahn per­sonally introduced Ray Bradbury, one of the “founding fathers” of science fiction, and a native of L.A., to the audience of a chock-full auditorium. Mr. Hahn was introduced by Steve Wasserman, long­time editor of the L.A. Times Book Review and co-director of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities at USC. I had the good fortune of running into Mr. Wasserman at the Press Room one morning. I told him the Book Review was my fa­vorite reading, the part I first got out of the Sunday paper each week. He liked that - who wouldn’t? My readers also make my day when they say the first thing they read in the American Hungarian Journal is my article... But then he went on to express his apprecia­tion for Hungarian culture and talent, and I was truly amazed how much he knew about us. It turned out that Mr. Wasserman had been instrumental in getting published a book by Miklós Haraszti, The Velvet Prison: Artists Under State Socialism. The name brought to my mind another, Professor Peter Hargitai of Florida State Univer­sity, who translated Antal Szerb's The Traveler into English. Mr. Wasserman was familiar with that work as well arid said it had been featured in Book Review. After some research on the Internet, I found there is a second, more recent English version, entitled "Jour­ney by Moonlight", translated by Len Rix. Antal Szerb was, of course, a prominent figure in Hungarian literature. His History of Hungarian Literature and History of World Literature are still con­sidered authoritative, almost 60 years after his death in a concentra­tion camp. Steve Wasserman wrote in my book the following message for the readers of the American Hungarian Journal: "Best iPisLes to tire readers eCeryipLtere, especially in Hung ary, iCi/ese peopie itaCe preduced a iConderfuiiy ferti/e iiterary cu/ture - ironic, engaged, indispensabie.- SteCe (Easserman Literarg Editor Los Angefes Times RAY BRADBURY on the stage at Royce Hall - in actual size and also larger than life, on the giant screen above. His raised index finger calls to all of us to follow our dreams and loves. Returning to Royce Hall and Ray Bradbury, the celebrated 81- year-old author arrived in a wheelchair, perhaps frail in body but strong in spirit, and his message was loud and clear. “The secret of everything is to be in love” - he said, and he meant it both ways. Yes, loving a person and sharing your life with that person is im­portant, but so is loving your work, enough to make you want to get up in the morning. Finding forever new scientific or spiritual pur­suits, and falling in love with those, is an essential part of human development and life itself. He loved Buck Rogers comic strips, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, magicians, King Kong, H.G. Wells, King Tut, Jules Verne, and all these themes came through in his writings later on. Bradbury had some further good advice: “You must follow your own dreams and loves. Don't let anyone talk you out of it. Fire all your false friends and surround yourself with other fools like you!” Ray Bradbury moved to Venice, California in 1950, with his wife and small child, badly in need of money. He wrote “The Fireman” - the short story which eventually became Fahrenheit 451 - in nine days, on a rented typewriter in a basement at UCLA. He had had strange ideas before. He wrote “The Pedestrian” after being stopped by a policeman for walking in the wrong place. In it, he imagined a future society in which walking was forbidden and pe­destrians treated as criminals. This ties in neatly with the premise of Fahrenheit 451 - a future society where reading is forbidden and books are burnt, where firemen have to start fires instead of putting them out. “I did not write Fahrenheit 451 - it wrote me” - Bradbury says in his new foreword to the 40th Anniversary Edition, referring to the process of writing. As for his inspiration, he mentioned Hitler's torching books in Germany in 1934 (to him almost as bad as burn­ing people in Auschwitz), the witch hunts of Salem in 1680, where one of his ancestors was tried and released, and the triple burnings of the Alexandrian library. What a great choice to have Ray Bradbury, author of The Mar­tian Chronicles, a citizen simultaneously of L.A. and the future, to represent the spirit of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books! And what better symbol for the seven-year-old tradition of the Fes­tival than Fahrenheit 451, which was also made into a great film starring Oskar Werner as Montag? Who could ever forget the sear­ing pain of watching the books bum, or the hope against hope that our culture will survive against all odds? The closing images show people walking around in the woods - each one a living book - re­citing their respective texts'so they won't disappear into oblivion. Those images are indelibly burnt upon the mind of all of us who love books and freedom. Mommy Anyuka Mamma Mamita Maty Mutter Happy Mothers’ Day to all our mothers far or near, anywhere in the world, in any language! James Hahn, Los Angeles városának polgármestere Steve Wasserman, az LA Times Book Review főszerkesztője —— «”***» M

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