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

2002-06-21 / 25. szám

AMERICAN

Hungarian Journaí

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MEDITATIONS

by Dr. Bela Bonis Pastor

(562) 430-0876 First Hungarian Reformed Church, Hawthorne

JESUS’ earthly father, Joseph was a righteous man. He obeyed the Word of God, whether written in the laws of Moses or uttered in dreams by angels. He obeyed, and obedience made a marriage where there might have been divorce. Obedience saved his son from Herod’s hatred. Joseph’s obedience took him to Egypt and then again to the security of Nasareth, where it shaped the daily life of his family be the keeping of feasts. Joseph is the patron saint of the fathers of families. I feel a particular friendship for him. He must have trained Jesus with a more conscious loving, a more patient searching of his son in order to learn the character of the stranger placed into his care. And I am convinced that Joseph founded his right to raise this child upon the word of God - the immediate message of the angels (Matth. 1:20-25) and the covenantal law, required of all faithful fathers. Recall even the three days when Jesus stayed away from her parents in the temple of Jerusalem where he was in conversation with the teachers and scribes. His parents were desperately looking for the apparently lost child.

"Why were you looking for me?" - Jesus asked. "Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?" (Luke 2:40) As Luke records it, the adoptive father was quiet. Joseph "did not understand the saying" that Jesus had spoken to him. Intellectually, the plain man was ignorant. Yet he acted nevertheless, because obedience is always possible by faith. In fact, Joseph could best fulfill his parental role precisely because he did not do it for his own benefit; he raised a child who was born in the image of God. In the household of Joseph and Mary Jesus "increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor vith God" and with the neighbors (Luke 2:51- 52). By loving God, Joseph loved Jesus aright. And by following God, Joseph led his son out of the house, into adulthood and into the purpose for which he was born. And the more I think of Joseph, in whom meakness was a strength, the more I honor him and set him as an example for all fathers to follow.

The Kitchen Table Atom Bomb

By Alex Kirby, BBC News Online environment correspondent

British researchers say it would be frighteningly easy for terrorists to make a nuclear bomb. They say the chemistry involved is simpler than in making illicit designer drugs. They believe making a device would be no harder than building the bomb that destroyed the Pan Am aircraft over Scotland in 1988. And they say the UK should stop reprocessing spent nuclear fuel soon, to prevent it being stolen. The claims are made in a paper by the Oxford Research Group (ORG), The Production of Primitive Nuclear Explosives from Mox Fuel (Mox is a mixture of uranium and plutonium oxides). It describes the ease with which a determined but technically unsophisticated group could make, not a “dirty bomb”, but a genuine nuclear explosive. The paper says a terrorist organization could “relatively easily extract the plutonium and fabricate a nuclear explosive, having first acquired Mox fuel”.

Both the 1988 Lockerbie bomb and the nerve gas weapon used in the Tokyo subway in 1995, it says, “required considerable planning and scientific skills”. It adds: “It is a sobering fact that the fabrication of a primitive nuclear explosive using reactor-grade plutonium, obtained from Mox, would require no greater skill.”

“None of the concepts involved in understanding how to separate the plutonium is difficult. A second-year undergraduate would be able to devise a suitable procedure by reading standard reference works, consulting the open literature in scientific journals and by searching the World Wide Web.” ORG says enough plutonium to check and refine procedures can easily be extracted from mud from the Ravenglass estuary in northwest England, which it says is contaminated by discharges from the nearby Sellafield reprocessing plant. It would be easy, the paper says, for the bombmakers to refine their methods without arousing suspicion “by using environmental chemistry as a front”.

A plutonium oxide bomb would be an effective weapon, but one made of metallic plutonium might produce a bigger explosion. The paper says it would be a job for two or three people.

“The emergency services... would find it difficult even to deal effectively with the dead. “

The completed bomb - the plutonium, a beryllium shell, and a plastic explosive container - would have a diameter of about 80 cm (31 inches). ORG says: “The size of the nuclear explosion from such a crude device is impossible to predict. But even if it were only equivalent to the explosion of a few tens of tons of TNT, it would completely devastate the center of a large city.

“Such a device would, however, have a strong chance of exploding with an explosive power of at least 100 tons of TNT. Even 1,000 tons or more equivalent is possible, but unlikely.” A 100-ton equivalent explosion would be “catastrophic,” with anyone caught in the open within 600 metres (650 yards) likely to be killed by the direct effects of radiation, blast or heat.

“An explosion of this size, involving many hundreds of deaths and injuries, would paralyze the emergency services. They would find it difficult even to deal effectively with the dead.” The report adds: “Even if the device, when detonated, did not produce a significant nuclear explosion, the explosion of the chemical high explosives would disperse the plutonium widely.” So much of the stricken city would remain uninhabitable until decontaminated, which could take years. ORG concludes that the risk of terrorists stealing the material for a nuclear device is “a terrifying possibility”. It is urging a halt to reprocessing at Sellafield as soon as possible.

TO OIJR READERS:

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE HÍRLAP WILL NOT BE APPEARING ON JULY 5 AND JULY 12, 2002, BECAUSE OF THE ANNUAL SUMMER BREAK.

V_________________________ ~_______________________

Ship sets off for Antarctic rescue

A South African ship is to sail from Cape Town for the Antarctic to rescue more than 100 crew and passengers, including 79 Russian scientists, on board a German ship trapped in pack-ice. The conditions are terrible. This time of year it's dark for 24 hours, the temperature is -50C, and there are very high winds with lots of ice flying around. South African officials said the rescue vessel Agulhas was expected to cover 4,150 kilometres (2,580 miles) and reach the German ship - the Magdalena Oldendorff from Hamburg - in a week's time. The officials said the rescuers would take two airforce helicopters with them to supply fuel and food to the trapped ship. The Agulhas has a Russian expert specializing on polar navigation - known as an “ice-pilot” - and will be aided by an Argentinean icebreaker, which is set to depart from Buenos Aires shortly.

y* DINING OUT ^

j|with Restaurant Reviewer David Nelson

TOKÁT

Hungarian cooking and baseball have this in common: They both need to be enjoyed slowly and repeatedly. There is no other way to develop a fine appreciation of the subtleties of each. Some Hungarian flavors, like those of a paprika-powered goulash, are as bold and impossible to miss as a ball hit out of the park, but others require concentration to be noticed, such as the faint trace of garlic that perfumes the "heavenly" fried bread that is one of many specialties at TOKAJ, a delightful Hungarian restaurant in Vista. Yeasty, crisp and finger-burning hot, these deep-fried puffs of dough are served on the house the first time around, and afterwards cost $2 for a generous order. Operated by a young couple from Hungary.

TOKAJ takes its name from the famed Tokay wine that for centuries has been one of this romantic country’s most celebrated products. The wine list naturally includes several varieties of Tokay, including the deluxe Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos. And although the place is informal and unpretentious, a visit nonetheless feels like a brief vacation in Hungary, thanks to a collection of artworks and handicrafts, and to traditional music that is alternately grand, dramatic, as fast as a rhapsody and as light-hearted as a Gypsy tune. Dinners include choice of a warming, old fashioned-tasting-chicken noodle soup or a green salad, and the soup seems the more authentic introduction to such Hungarian classics as pork-and-rice-stuffed cabbage rolls ($13), and sertesporkolt ($13.50), a rich pork stew that is seasoned with paprika and onion and served with a mound of tender dumplings. Dumplings, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, rice, red cabbage and sauerkraut alternately garnish virtually all dishes, and sometimes several of them are heaped on the platter, as with the "fatanyeros" served for two or four guests ($29 or $55). These massive wooden boards bear generous amounts of breaded pork schnitzel, garlic-flavored roasted pork loin and savory Hungarian sausage, and not too many diners manage to finish everything. Other excellent choices include the creamy chicken paprikash ($12.50), the delicately stuffed chicken breast Kiev ($12.50), and the Transylvanian cabbage, which garnishes sauerkraut with slowly stewed, deeply flavorful pork and beef ($13). To be sure, the list includes a hearty beef goulash ($14.50), accompanied by dumplings. Named for the restaurant, the Tokaj schnitzel ($13.50) stuff filet or pork with eggs, sausage and onion.

Tokaj serves dinner nightly except Wednesday at 1717 East Vista Way. Telephone: 760-941^1626 Minden vendégünket szeretettel várunk:

Hétfő, kedd csütörtök: 4 pm -9 pm. Péntek, szombat: 11.30 am. -10 pm. Vasárnap: 2 pm -9 pm.

A tulajdonosok: Mihály és Ágnes Kotász.

Poll released by Anti-Defamation League finds

Increase in Anti-Semitism Among Americans

(AP) A survey released by the Anti-Defamation League found 17 percent of Americans hold “hardcore” anti-Semitic views - a rise from four years ago - while 35 percent fall into a “middle” category defined as faint prejudice against Jews. “The evidence suggests that a strong undercurrent of Jewish hatred persists in America,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, which released the survey. The survey didn’t provide statistical data for the apparent rise in anti-Semitism, but Foxman said it could be linked to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a belief that Americans were targeted because of the U.S. government's support for Israel. “The American people are more unsettled, they're still wondering, ‘Why do people hate us?’ They’re searching for answers,” Foxman said. When asked in other polls whether they sympathize more with Israel or the Palestinians, Americans consistently have said Israel by about a 4- to-1 margin throughout this year. But when the question is asked differently, a majority in other polls have said they would like the U.S. to take a neutral position in the conflict. The ADL survey's findings are based on an “index of anti- Semitic beliefs” used by researchers in four previous surveys over the past 35 years. The survey measured bias by the number of affirmative answers to 11 questions, including, “Do you believe Jews have too much power in the United States?” In 1992, the same survey found that 20 percent of Americans fell into the hardcore anti-Semitic category. That had fallen to 12 percent in 1998. The new survey deemed 48 percent of the country prejudice-free, down from 53 percent in 1998. “We are greatly concerned that many of the gains we had seen in building a tolerant and accepting America have not taken hold as firmly as we had hoped and have, to some degree, been reversed,” Foxman said. The national survey, conducted from April 26 through May 6, polled 1,000 Americans over age 18.

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