Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1988. január-június (42. évfolyam, 1-26. szám)
1988-03-31 / 13. szám
Thursday, March 31. 1988. AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZO 11. Land of All-out Records This book about the United States comes darn close to making a record of its own: three editions have come out in Budapest in less than a year. For a non-Iiterary work, the 90,000 copies sold in Hungary is quite an amazing number. The author was correspondent for Hungarian Radio and Television in the United States from 1978 to 1983 and is therefore well known to the Hungarian public. Of course this alone would be insufficient to guarantee the success of the work. What does the title of your book refer to? The book is about a country where the superlative can be freely applied. Indeed, the United States is one of the most immense, most populous and richest countries of the world. At the same time resourceful Americans perhaps as a result of tradition or perhaps deliberately - like to use superlatives when their use is not merited. What made ,you decide to write about the United States? HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE: The United Farm Workers warns consumers that growers still have special permission to market table grapes with excessive sulfite residues - even tough at least 16 people have died since 1983 after eating foods preserved with sulfur dioxide. The powerful grape growers are allowed to sell grapes with sulfite residues well above the Food and Drug Administration limit of 10 parts per million so long as 40% of them - two of five bunches - carry labels saying: "Grapes Have Been Treated With Sulfites." They even get to add the words, "To Ensure Freshness & Quality." Ironically, the back side of the sulfite label adds the advertising claim, "Grapes, the Natural Snack." The Farm Workers remind workers that the only way they can protect themselves, and help farm workers at the same time, is to boycott the contaminated grapes. Just tell the grocer you heard that through the grapevine. A collection of 74 contemporary fine art works of prominent West German art collector Peter Ludwig and his wife are on show in Hungary for one year. The works which arrived for the exhibition can offer a characteristic contemporary artistic review and can form tha basis of a modern art collection which presents the European, American and Hungarian tendencies of our days, in the framework of one exhibition. BY ISTVÁN KULCSÁR Interview with the author For a journalist like me it is quite natural to attempt to compile a full picture of the country one has been working in for long years. Earlier, as Hungarian Radio's Moscow correspondent, I wrote two books about my experiences inside the Soviet Union, and if I count my guide-book, then the number is three. Along with the reports sent from New York to Hungarian Radio and Television, I also wrote letters to a literary weekly, the Budapest-based Elet és Irodalom (Life and Literature), about my impressions and sentiments on day-to- day life in America. As a matter of fact I put the book together as an extension of these letters. Naturally I also made use of statistical information and other facts, but I never attempted to write an exhaustive book that would reflect every side of American life. The letter form enabled me to diverge from my subjects at times and follow my mind on the road of free association. I struck an easy-going note, telling a joke or two wherever it seemed appropriate. What then does "Land of All-out Records" talk about? About the things in the United States, both positive and negative, which impressed me the most. About the day-to-day customs, about the legal system, about Hungarian- Americans, about schools, the telephone system, the prices, the salaries, about the importance of cars, the behavior of drivers, about politicking American-style, crime, television, advertising, everything that is as American as good old apple pie. PASSOVER The American Jewish community celebrates Spring's return and the memory of the liberation from Egyptian slavery. It is a time of hope and joy. Yet the increasing desperation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict dampens our spirits. It is important though that we not succumb to cynicism. Rather w^ bring our concern for peace into our holiday, truly giving it form and lending us strength to envision a more just world. We affirm a vision of a time when Palestinian and Jew shall no longer raise arms against each other but rather shall abandon war and create together a new order. We pray that the day will hasten in coming and that both people will soon know true peace, a time of harmony built on individual tranquility and the acceptance, and appreciation of one another. B. K. Cigarette ads mislead public Over 100,000 internal tobacco industry documents, reviewed by lawyers in a landmark trial in Newark, N.J., reveal tactics to lure Americans into smoking despite evidence linking tobacco to lung cancer. A 1972 Tobacco Institute memo describes a 20-year "holding strategy," whose elements included "creating doubt about the health charge without actually denying it, advocating the public's right to smoke... and encouraging objective, scientific research." But, testimony showed the Liggett Group withheld the results of research commissioned in 1955 that proved tars in its Chesterfield and L&M cigarettes caused cancer in mice. The suit was brought by Antonio Cipol- lone against Philip Morris Inc., the Liggett Group and Lorillard Inc., manufacturers of the cigarettes his wife Rose smoked for 40 years before her death from lung cancer in 1984. The Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience (AESTE) was founded in 1948 by ten European countries. At present 50 national committees promote the exchange of experience among future engineers. Hungary is the fourth socialist country to join the organization. Since 1982, the number of students who have received an opportunity to get acquainted with the production and work methods of the advanced Western European countries has increased ten-fold. This summer, 350 Hungarian university and college engineering students will be able to acquire practical experience in plants that use top technology. Students of several Hungarian universities and colleges participate, alongside students of the Budapest University of Technology, in the various exchange programmes. Most of the students arrive in Hungary from Western European technical universities, and students have also come from Japan, the United States, Canada, and Jordan and Egypt. .»»••••••»»■••«Mil M*1 « «. ■ »—-■ mm m m t ,» COMPREHENSIVE------„----- ep®--------------SUXXXXX) From B’nai B’rith ■ Standard Semi-Private Room Charges Are Eligible Expenses ■ Home Health Care Benefit ■ Maternity Benefit ■ Ambulatory Surgical Benefits ■ Second Surgkal ■ Dental Option Opinion Benefit Plus, with the B'nai B nth plan you choose the doctor: you choose the hospital: you choose the deductible. And. you're covered wherever you go—when you travel, your protection goes with you. Available for B'nai B'rith members up to age 65. We enroll new members. 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