THE HAPPY DAYS AHEAD

"It does not pay a prophet to be too specific."

- L. Sprague de Camp

"You never get rich peddling gloom."

- William Lindsay Gresham

The late Bill Gresham was, before consumption forced him into fiction writing, a carnie mentalist of great skill. He could give a cold reading that would scare the pants off a marble statue. In six words he summarized the secret of success as a fortuneteller. Always tell the mark what he wants to hear. He will love you for it, happily pay you, then forgive and forget when your cheerful prediction fails to come true - and always come back for more.

Stockbrokers stay in business this way; their tips are no better than guesses but they are not peddling dividends; they are peddling happiness. Millions of priests and preachers have used this formula, promising eternal bliss in exchange for following, or at least giving lip service to, some short and tolerable rules, plus a variable cash fee not too steep for the customer's purse .. . and have continued to make this formula work without ever in all the years producing even one client who had actually received the promised prize.

Then how do churches stay in business? Because, in talking about "Pie in the Sky, By and By," they offer happiness and peace of mind right here on Earth. When

Karl Marx said, "Religion is the opium of the people," he was not being cynical or sarcastic; he was being correctly descriptive. In the middle nineteenth century opium was the only relief from intolerable pain; Karl Marx was stating that faith in a happy religion made the lives of the people of the abyss tolerable.

Sprague de Camp is Grand Master of practically everything and probably the most learned of all living practitioners of science fiction and fantasy. I heard those words of wisdom from him before I wrote the 1950 version of PANDORA'S BOX. So why didn't I listen? Three reasons: 1) money; 2) money; and 3) I thought I could get away with it during my lifetime for predictions attributed to 2000 A.D. I never expected to live that long; I had strong reasons to expect to die young. But I seem to have more lives than a cat; it may be necessary to kill me by driving a steak through my heart (sirloin by choice), then bury me at a crossroads.

Still, I could have gotten away with it if I had stuck to predictions that could not mature before 2000 A.D. Take the two where I really flopped, #5 and #16. In both cases I named a specific year short of 2000 A.D. Had I not ignored Mr. de Camp's warning, I could look bland and murmur, "Wait and see. Don't be impatient," on all in which the prediction does not look as promising in 1980 as it did in 1950.

Had I heeded a wise man on 2 out of 191 could today, by sheer brass, claim to be batting a thousand.

I have made some successful predictions. One is

"The Crazy Years." (Take a look out your window. Or at your morning paper.) Another is the water bed. Some joker tried to patent the water bed to shut out competition, and discovered that he could not because it was in the public domain, having been described in detail in STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. It had been mentioned in stories of mine as far back as 1941 and several times after that, but not until STRANGER did the mechanics of a scene require describing how it worked.

It was not the first man to build water beds who tried to patent it. The first man in the field knew where it came from; he sent me one, free and freight prepaid, with a telegram naming his firm as the "Share - Water Bed Company." Q.E.D.

Our house has no place to set up a water bed. None. So that bed is still in storage a couple of hundred yards from our main house. I've owned a water bed from the time they first came on market - but have never slept in one.

I designed the water bed during years as a bed patient in the middle thirties: a pump to control water level, side supports to permit one to float rather than simply lying on a not - very - soft water - filled mattress, thermostatic control of temperature, safety interfaces to avoid all possibility of electrical shock, waterproof box to make a leak no more important than a leaky hot water bottle rather than a domestic disaster, calculation of floor loads (important!), internal rubber mattress, and lighting, reading, and eating arrangements - an attempt to design the perfect hospital bed by one who had spent too damned much time in hospital beds.

Nothing about it was eligible for patent - nothing new - unless a sharp patent lawyer could persuade the examiners that a working assemblage enabling a person to sleep on water involved that - how does the law describe it? - "flash of inspiration" transcending former art. But I never thought of trying; I simply wanted to build one - but at that time I could not have afforded a custom - made soapbox.

But I know exactly where I got the idea. In 1931, a few days after the radio - compass incident described in the afterword to SEARCHLIGHT, I was ordered to Fort Clayton, Canal Zone, to fire in Fleet Rifle & Pistol Matches. During that vacation - with - pay I often re turned from Panama City after taps, when all was quiet. There was a large swimming pool near the post gate used by the Navy and our camp was well separated from the Army regiment barracked there.

I would stop, strip naked, and have a swim - nonreg (no life guards) but no one around, and regulations are made to be broken.

Full moon occurred about the middle of Fleet Matches - and I am one of those oddies who cannot sink, even in fresh water (which this was). The water was blood warm, there was no noise louder than night jungle sounds, the Moon blazed overhead, and I would lie back with every muscle relaxed and stare at it - fall into it - wonder whether we would get there in my lifetime. Sometimes I dozed off.

Eventually I would climb out, wipe my feet dry with a hanky, pull on shoes, hang clothes over my arm, and walk to my tent in the dark. I don't recall ever meeting anyone but it couldn't matter - dark, all male, surrounded by armed sentries, and responsible myself only to a Marine Corps officer junior to me but my TDY boss as team captain - and he did not give a hoot what I did as long as I racked a high score on the range (and I did, largely because my coach was a small wiry Marine sergeant nicknamed "Deacon" - who reappears as survival teacher in TUNNEL IN THE SKY).

Some years later, bothered by bed sores and with every joint aching no matter what position I twisted into, I thought often of the Sybaritic comfort of floating in blood - warm water at night in Panama - and wished that it could be done for bed patients.. . and eventually figured out how to do it, all details, long before I was well enough to make working drawings.

But 1) I never expected one to be built; 2) never thought of them (except for myself) other than as hospital beds; 3) never expected them to be widely used by a fair percentage of the public; 4) and never dreamed that they would someday be advertised by motels for romantic - exotic - erotic weekends along with X - rated films on closed - circuit TV.

By stacking the cards, I'm about to follow the advice of both Bill Gresham and Sprague de Camp. First, I will paint a gloomy picture of what our future may be. Second, I'll offer a cheerful scenario of how wonderful it could be. I can afford to be specific as each scenario will deny everything said in the other one (de Camp), and I can risk great gloom in the first because I'll play you out with music at the end (Gresham).

GLOOM, WOE, AND DISASTER - There are increasing pathological trends in our culture that show us headed down the chute to self - destruction. These trends do not require that we be conquered - wait a bit and we will fall into the lap of whichever power cares to occupy us. I'll list some of these trends and illustrate (rather than prove) what I mean. But it would be tediously depressing to pile up convincing proof - I'm not running for office. I do have proof, on file right in this room. I started clipping and filing by categories on trends as early as 1930 and my "youngest" file was started in 1945.

Span of time is important; the 3 - legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots.

A few years ago I was visited by an astronomer, young and quite brilliant. He claimed to be a longtime reader of my fiction and his conversation proved it. I was telling him about a time I needed a synergistic orbit from Earth to a 24 - hour station; I told him what story it was in, he was familiar with the scene, mentioned having read the book in grammar school.

This orbit is similar in appearance to cometary interplanet transfer but is in fact a series of compromises in order to arrive in step with the space station; elapsed time is an unsmooth integral not to be found in Hudson's Manual but it can be solved by the methods used on Siacci empiricals for atmosphere ballistics: numerical integration.

I'm married to a woman who knows more math, history, and languages than I do. This should teach me humility (and sometimes does, for a few minutes). Her brain is a great help to me professionally. I was telling this young scientist how we obtained yards of butcher paper, then each of us worked three days, independently, solved the problem and checked each other - then the answer disappeared into one line of one paragraph (SPACE CADET) but the effort had been worthwhile as it controlled what I could do dramatically in that sequence.

Doctor Whoosis said, "But why didn't you just shove it through a computer?"

I blinked at him. Then said slowly, gently, "My dear boy - " (I don't usually call Ph.D.'s in hardcore sciences "My dear boy" - they impress me. But this was a special case.)

"My dear boy ... this was 1947."

It took him some seconds to get it, then he blushed.

Age is not an accomplishment and youth is no sin. This young man was (is) brilliant, skilled in mathematics, had picked German and Russian for his doctorate. At the time I met him he seemed to lack feeling for historical span ... but, if true, I suspect that it began to itch him and he made up that lack either formally or by reading. Come to think of it, much of my own knowledge of history derives not from history courses but from history of astronomy, of war and military art, and of mathematics, as my formal history study stopped with Alexander and resumed with Prince Henry the Navigator. But to understand the history of those three subjects, you must branch out into general history.

Span of time - the Decline of Education

My father never went to college. He attended high school in a southern Missouri town of 3000+, then attended a private 2 - year academy roughly analogous to junior college today, except that it was very small - had to be; a day school, and Missouri had no paved roads.

Here are some of the subjects he studied in backcountry 19th century schools: Latin, Greek, physics (natural philosophy), French, geometry, algebra, 1st year calculus, bookkeeping, American history, World history, chemistry, geology.

Twenty - eight years later I attended a much larger city high school. I took Latin and French but Greek was not offered; I took physics and chemistry but geology was not offered. I took geometry and algebra but calculus was not offered. I took American history and ancient history but no comprehensive history course was offered. Anyone wishing comprehensive history could take (each a one - year 5 - hrs/wk course) ancient history, medieval history, modern European history, and American history - and note that the available courses ignored all of Asia, all of South America, all of Africa except ancient Egypt, and touched Canada and Mexico solely with respect to our wars with each.

I've had to repair what I missed with a combination of travel and private study.. . and must admit that I did not tackle Chinese history in depth until this year. My training in history was so spotty that it was not until I went to the Naval Academy and saw captured battle flags that I learned that we fought Korea some eighty years earlier than the mess we are still trying to clean up.

From my father's textbook I know that the world history course he studied was not detailed (how could it be?) but at least it treated the world as round; it did not ignore three fourths of our planet.

Now, let me report what I've seen, heard, looked up, clipped out of newspapers and elsewhere, and read in books such as WHY JOHNNY CAN'T READ, BLACKBOARD JUNGLE, etc.

Colorado Springs, our home until 1965, in 1960 offered first - year Latin - but that was all. Caesar, Cicero, Virgil - Who dat?

Latin is not taught in the high schools of Santa Cruz County. From oral reports and clippings I note that it is not taught in most high schools across the country.

"Why this emphasis on Latin? It's a dead language!" Brother, as with jazz, in the words of a great artist, "If you have to ask, you ain't never goin' to find out." A person who knows only his own language does not even know his own language; epistemology necessitates knowing more than one human language. Besides that sharp edge, Latin is a giant help in all the sciences - and so is Greek, so I studied it on my own.

A friend of mine, now a dean in a state university, was a tenured professor of history - but got riffed when history was eliminated from the required subjects for a bachelor's degree. His courses (American history) are still offered but the one or two who sign up, he tutors; the overhead of a classroom cannot be justified.

A recent Wall Street Journal story described the bloodthirsty job hunting that goes on at the annual meeting of the Modern Languages Association; modern languages - even English - are being deemphasized right across the country; there are more professors in MLA than there are jobs.

I mentioned elsewhere the straight - A student on a scholarship who did not know the relations between weeks, months, and years. This is not uncommon; high school and college students in this country usually can't do simple arithmetic without using a pocket calculator. (I mean with pencil on paper; to ask one to do mental arithmetic causes jaws to drop - say 17 x 34, done mentally. How? Answer: Chuck away the 34 but remember it. (10 + 7)2 is 289, obviously. Double it: 2(300 - 11), or 578.

But my father would have given the answer at once, as his country grammar school a century ago required perfect memorizing of multiplication tables through 20 x 20 = 400 ... so his ciphering the above would have been merely the doubling of a number already known (289) - or 578. He might have done it again by another route to check it: (68 + 510) - but his hesitation would not have been noticeable.

Was my father a mathematician? Not at all. Am I? Hell, no! This is the simplest sort of kitchen arithmetic, the sort that high school students can no longer do - at least in Santa Cruz.

If they don't study math and languages and history, what do they study? (Nota Bene! Any student can learn the truly tough subjects on almost any campus if he/she wishes - the professors and books and labs are there. But the student must want to.)

But if that student does not want to learn anything requiring brain sweat, most U.S. campuses will baby-sit him 4 years, then hand him a baccalaureate for not burning down the library. That girl in Colorado Springs who studied Latin - but no classic Latin - got a "general" bachelor's degree at the University of Colorado in 1964. I attended her graduation, asked what she had majored in. No major. What had she studied? Nothing, really, it turned out - and, sure enough, she's as ignorant today as she was in high school.

Santa Cruz has an enormous, lavish 2 - year college and also a campus of the University of California, degree granting through Ph.D. level. But, since math and languages and history are not required, let's see how they fill the other classrooms.

The University of California (all campuses) is classed as a "tough school." It is paralleled by a State University system with lower entrance requirements, and this is paralleled by local junior colleges (never called "junior") that accept any warm body.

UCSC was planned as an elite school ("The Oxford of the West") but falling enrollment made it necessary to accept any applicant who can qualify for the University of California as a whole; therefore UCSC now typifies the "statewide campus." Entrance can be by examination (usually College Entrance Examination Boards) or by high school certificate. Either way, admission requires a certain spread - 2 years of math, 2 of a modern language, 1 of a natural science, 1 of

American history, 3 years of English - and a level of performance that translates as B+. There are two additional requirements: English composition, and American History and Institutions. The second requirement acknowledges that some high schools do not require American history; UCSC permits an otherwise acceptable applicant to make up this deficiency (with credit) after admission.

The first additional requirement, English composition, can be met by written examination such as CEEB, or by transferring college credits considered equivalent, or, lacking either of these, by passing an examination given at UCSC at the start of each quarter.

The above looks middlin' good on the surface. College requirements from high school have been watered down somewhat (or more than somewhat) but that B+ average as a requirement looks good if high schools are teaching what they taught two and three generations ago. The rules limit admission to the upper 8% of California high school graduates (out - of state applicants must meet slightly higher requirements).

8% - So 92% fall by the wayside. These 8% are the intellectual elite of young adults of the biggest, richest, and most lavishly educated state in the Union.

Those examinations for the English - composition requirement: How can anyone fail who has had 3 years of high school English and averages B+ across the board?

If he fails to qualify, he may enter but must take at once (no credit) "Subject A" - better known as "Bonehead English."

"Bonehead English" must be repeated, if necessary, until passed. To be forced to take this no - credit course does not mean that the victim splits an occasional infinitive, sometimes has a dangling modifier, or a failure in agreement or case - he can even get away with such atrocities as " - like I say - ."

It means that he has reached the Groves of Academe unable to express himself by writing in the English language.

It means that his command of his native language does not equal that of a 12 - year - old country grammar school graduate of ninety years ago. It means that he verges on subliterate but that his record is such in other ways that the University will tutor him (no credit and for a fee) rather than turn him away.

But, since these students are the upper 8% and each has had not less than three years of high school English, it follows that only the exceptionally unfortunate student needs "Bonehead English." That's right, isn't it? Each one is eighteen years old, old enough to vote, old enough to contract or to marry without consulting parents, old enough to hang for murder, old enough to have children (and some do); all have had 12 years of schooling including 11 years of English, 3 of them in high school.

(Stipulated: California has special cases to whom English is not native language. But such a person who winds up in that upper 8% is usually - I'm tempted to say "always" - fully literate in English.)

So here we have the cream of California's young adults; each has learned to read and write and spell and has been taught the basics of English during eight years in grammar school, and has polished this by not less than three years of English in high school - and also has had at least two years of a second language, a drill that vastly illuminates the subject of grammar even though grasp of the second language may be imperfect.

It stands to reason that very few applicants need "Bonehead English." Yes?

No!

I have just checked. The new class at UCSC is "about 50%" in Bonehead English - and this is normal - normal right across California - and California is no worse than most of the states. 8% off the top - Half of this elite 8% must take "Bonehead English."

The prosecution rests.

This scandal must be charged to grammar and high school teachers ... many of whom are not themselves literate (I know!) - but are not personally to blame, as we are now in the second generation of illiteracy. The blind lead the blind.

But what happens after this child (sorry - young adult citizen) enters UCSC?

I TELL YOU THREE TIMES I TELL YOU THREE TIMES I TELL YOU THREE TIMES: A student who wants an education can get one at UCSC in a number of very difficult subjects, plus a broad general education.

I ask you never to forget this while we see how one can slide through, never do any real work, never learn anything solid, and still receive a bachelor of arts degree from the prestigious University of California. Although I offer examples from the campus I know best, I assume conclusively that this can be done throughout the state, as it is one statewide university operating under one set of rules.

Some guidelines apply to any campus: Don't pick a medical school or an engineering school. Don't pick a natural science that requires difficult mathematics. (A subject called "science" that does not require difficult mathematics usually is "science" in the sense that "Christian Science" is science - in its widest sense "science" simply means "knowledge" and anyone may use the word for any subject... but shun the subjects that can't be understood without mind - stretching math.)

Try to get a stupid but good - natured adviser. There are plenty around, especially in subjects in which to get a no - sweat degree; Sturgeon's Law applies to professors as well as to other categories.

For a bachelor's degree:

1) You must spend the equivalent of one academic year in acquiring "breadth" - but wait till you see the goodies!

2) You must take the equivalent of one full academic year in your major subject in upper division courses, plus prerequisite lower division courses. Your 4 - year program you must rationalize to your adviser as making sense for your major ("Doctor, I picked that course because it is so far from my major - for perspective. I was getting too narrow." He'll beam approvingly.. or you had better look for a stupider adviser).

3) Quite a lot of time will be spent off campus but counted toward your degree. This should be fun, but it can range from hard labor at sea, to counting noses and asking snoopy questions of "ethnics" (excuse, please!), to time in Europe or Hong Kong, et al., where you are in danger of learning something new and useful even if you don't try.

4) You will be encouraged to take interdisciplinary majors and are invited (urged) to invent and justify unheard - of new lines of study. For this you need the talent of a used - car salesman as any aggregation of courses can be sold as a logical pattern if your "new" subject considers the many complex relationships between three or four or more old and orthodox fields. Careful here! If you are smart enough to put this over, you may find yourself not only earning a baccalaureate but in fact doing original work worthy of a Ph.D. (You won't get it.)

5) You must have at least one upper - division seminar. Pick one in which the staff leader likes your body odor and you like his. ("I do not like thee, Dr. Fell; the reason why I cannot tell - ") But you've at least two years in which to learn which professors in your subject are simpatico, and which ones to avoid at any cost.

6) You must write a 10,000 word thesis on your chosen nonsubject and may have to defend it orally. If you can't write 10,000 words of bull on a bull subject, you've made a mistake - you may have to work for a living.

The rules above allow plenty of elbowroom; at least three out of four courses can be elective and the remainder elective in part, from a long menu. We are still talking solely about nonmathematical subjects. If you are after a Ph.D. in astronomy, UCSC is a wonderful place to get one . . but you will start by getting a degree in physics including the toughest of mathematics, and will study also chemistry, geology, technical photography, computer science - and will resent any time not leading toward the ultra - interdisciplinary subject lumped under the deceptively simple word "astronomy."

Breadth - the humanities, natural science, and social science - 1/3 in each, total 3/3 or one academic year, but spread as suits you over the years. Classically "the humanities" are defined as literature, philosophy, and art - but history has been added since it stopped being required in college and became "social studies" in secondary schools. "Natural science" does not necessarily mean what it says - it can be a "nonalcoholic gin"; see below. "Social science" means that grab bag of studies in which answers are matters of opinion.

Courses satisfying "breadth" requirements

Humanities

Literature and Politics - political & moral choices in literature

Philosophy of the Self

Philosophy of History in the Prose and Poetry of W. B. Yeats

Art and the Perceptual Process

The Fortunes of Faust

Science and the American Culture (satisfies both the Humanities requirement and the American History and Institutions requirement without teaching any science or any basic American History. A companion course, Science and Pressure Politics, satisfies both the Social Sciences requirement and the American History and Institutions requirement while teaching still less; it concentrates on post - World - War - TI period and concerns scientists as lobbyists and their own interactions rows with Congress and the President. Highly recommended as a way to avoid learning American history or very much social "science.")

American Country Music - Whee! You don't play it, you listen.

Man and the Cosmos - philosophy, sorta. Not science.

Science Fiction (I refrain from comment.) The Visual Arts - "What, if any, are the critical and artistic foundations for judgment in the visual arts?" - exact quotation from catalog.

Mysticism - that's what it says.

(The above list is incomplete.)

Natural Science requirement

General Astronomy - no mathematics required Marine Biology - no mathematics required Sound, Music, and Tonal Properties of Musical Instruments - neither math nor music required for this one!

Seminar: Darwin's Explanation

Mathematical Ideas - f or nonmathematicians; requires only that high school math you must have to enter.

The Phenomenon of Man - " - examine the question of whether there remains any meaning to human values." (Oh, the pity of it all!)

Physical Geography: Climate

The Social "Sciences" requirement

Any course in Anthropology - many have no prereq. Introduction to Art Education - You don't have to make art; you study how to teach it. Music and the Enlightenment - no technical knowledge of music required. This is a discussion of the effect of music on philosophical, religious, and social ideas, late 18th - early 19th centuries. That is what it says - and it counts as "social science."

The Novel of Adultery - and this, too, counts as "social science." I don't mind anyone studying this subject or teaching it - but I object to its being done on my (your, our) tax money. (P.S. The same bloke teaches science fiction. He doesn't write science fiction; I don't know what his qualifications are in this other field.)

Human Sexuality

Cultural Roots for Verbal and Visual Expression - a fancy name of still another "creative writing" class with frills - the students are taught how to draw out "other culture" pupils. So it says.

All the 30 - odd "Community Studies" courses qualify as "social science," but I found myself awed by these two: Politics and Violence, which studies, among other things, "political assassination as sacrifice" and Leisure and Recreation in the Urban Community ("Bread and Circuses").

Again, listing must remain incomplete; I picked those below as intriguing:

Seminar: Evil and the Devil in the Hindu Tradition. Science and Pressure Politics - already mentioned on page 529 as the course that qualifies both as social "science" and as American History and Institutions while teaching an utter minimum about each. The blind man now has hold of the elephant's tail.

The Political Socialization of La Raza - another double header, social "science" and American History and Institutions. It covers greater time span (from 1900 rather than from 1945) but it's like comparing cheese and chalk to guess which one is narrower in scope in either category.

The name of this game is to plan a course involving minimum effort and minimum learning while "earning" a degree under the rules of the nation's largest and most prestigious state university.

To take care of "breadth" and also the American history your high school did not require I recommend Science and Pressure Politics, The Phenomenon of Man, and American Country Music. These three get you home free without learning any math, history, or language that you did not already know .. . and without sullying your mind with science.

You must pick a major.. . but it must not involve mathematics, history, or actually being able to read a second language. This rules out all natural sciences (this campus's greatest strength).

Anthropology? You would learn something in spite of yourself; you'd get interested. Art? Better not major in it without major talent. Economics can be difficult, but also and worse, you may incline toward the Chicago or the Austrian school and not realize it until your (Keynesian or Marxist) instructor has failed you with a big black mark against your name. Philosophy? Easy and lots of fun and absolutely guaranteed not to teach you anything while loosening up your mind. In more than twenty - five centuries of effort not one basic problem of philosophy has ever been solved .. . but the efforts to solve them are most amusing. The same goes for comparative religion as a major: You won't actually learn anything you can sink your teeth into

but you'll be vastly entertained - if the Human Comedy entertains you. It does me.

Psychology, Sociology, Politics, and Community Studies involve not only risk of learning something - not much, but something - and each is likely to involve real work, tedious and lengthy.

To play this game and win, with the highest score, it's Hobson's choice: American literature. I assume that you did not have to take Bonehead English and that you can type. In a school that has no school of education (UCSC has none) majoring in English Literature is the obvious way to loaf through four years. It will be necessary to cater to the whims of professors who know no more than you do about anything that matters ... but catering to your mentors is necessary in any subject not ruled by mathematics.

Have you noticed that professors of English and/or

American Literature are not expected to be proficient in the art they profess to teach? Medicine is taught by M.D.'s on living patients, civil engineering is taught by men who in fact have built bridges that did not fall; law is taught by lawyers; music is taught by musicians; mathematics is taught by mathematicians - and so on.

But is - for example - the American Novel taught by American novelists?

Yes. Occasionally. But so seldom that the exceptions stand out. John Barth. John Erskine fifty years ago. Several science - fiction writers almost all of whom were selling writers long before they took the King's Shilling. A corporal's guard in our whole country out of battalions of English profs.

For a Ph.D. in American/English literature a candidate is not expected to write literature; he is expected to criticize it.

Can you imagine a man being awarded an M.D. for writing a criticism of some great physician without ever himself having learned to remove an appendix or to diagnose Herpes zoster? And for that dissertation then be hired to teach therapy to medical students?

There is, of course, a reason for this nonsense. The rewards to a competent novelist are so much greater than the salaries of professors of English at even our top schools that once he/she learns this racket, teaching holds no charms.

There are exceptions - successful storytellers who like to teach so well that they keep their jobs and write only during summers, vacations, evenings, weekends, sabbaticals. I know a few - emphasis on "few." But most selling wordsmiths are lazy, contrary, and so opposed to any fixed regime that they will do anything - even meet a deadline - rather than accept a job.

Most professors of English can't write publishable novels ... and many of them can't write nonfiction prose very well - certainly not with the style and distinction and grace - and content - of Professor of Biology Thomas H. Huxley. Or Professor of Astronomy

Sir Fred Hoyle. Or Professor of Physics John R. Pierce. Most Professors of English get published, when they do, by university presses or in professional quarterlies. But fight it out for cash against Playboy and Travis Magee? They can't and they don't!

But if you are careful not to rub their noses in this embarrassing fact and pay respectful attention to their opinions even about (ugh!) "creative writing," they will help you slide through to a painless baccalaureate.

You still have time for many electives and will need them for your required hours - units - courses; here are some fun - filled ones that will teach you almost nothing:

The Fortunes of Faust

Mysticism

The Search for a New Life Style

The American Dilemma - Are "all men equal"?

Enology - hi story, biology, and chemistry of winemaking and wine appreciation. This one will teach you something but it's too good to miss.

Western Occultism: Magic, Myth, and Heresy.

There is an entire college organized for fun and games ("aesthetic enrichment"). It offers courses for credit but you'll be able to afford noncredit activity as well in your lazyman's course - and anything can be turned into credit by some sincere selling to your adviser and/or Academic Committee. I have already listed nine of its courses but must add:

Popular Culture - plus clubs or "guilds" for gardening, photography, film media, printing, pottery, silk-screening, orchestra, jazz, etc.

Related are Theater Arts. These courses give credit, including:

Films of Fantasy and Imagination - fantasy, horror, SF, etc. (!)

Seminar on Films

Filmmaking

History and Aesthetics of Silent Cinema

History and Aesthetics of Cinema since Sound

Introduction to World Cinema

Sitting and looking at movies can surely be justified for an English major. Movies and television use writers - as little as possible, it's true. But somewhat; the linkage is there.

Enjoy yourself while it lasts. These dinosaurs are on their way to extinction.

The 2 - year "warm body" campus is even more lavish than UCSC. It is a good trade school for some things - e.g., dental assistant. But it offers a smorgasbord of fun - Symbolism of the Tarot, Intermediate Contract Bridge, Folk Guitar, Quilting, Horseshoeing, Chinese Cooking, Hearst Castle Tours, Modern Jazz, Taoism, Hatha Yoga Asanas, Aikido, Polarity Therapy, Mime, Raku, Bicycling, Belly Dancing, Shiatsu Massage, Armenian Cuisine, Revelation and Prophecy, Cake Art, Life Insurance Sales Techniques, Sexuality and Spirituality, Home Bread Baking, Ecuadorian Backstrap Weaving, The Tao of Physics, and lots, lots more! One of the newest courses is "The Anthropology of Science Fiction" and I'm still trying to figure that out.

I have no objection to any of this.. . but why should this kindergarten be paid for by taxes? "Bread and Circuses."

I first started noticing the decline of education through mail from readers. I have saved mail from readers for forty years. Shortly after World War Two I noticed that letters from the youngest were not written but hand - printed. By the middle fifties deterioration in handwriting and in spelling became very noticeable. By today a letter from a youngster in grammar school or in high school is usually difficult to read and sometimes illegible - penmanship atrocious (pencilmanship - nine out often are in soft pencil, with well - smudged pages), spelling unique, grammar an arcane art.

Most youngsters have not been taught how to fold 81/2" x 11" paper for the two standard sizes of envelopes intended for that standard sheet.

Then such defects began to show up among college students. Apparently "Bonehead English" (taught everywhere today, so I hear) is not sufficient to repair the failure of grammar and high school teachers who themselves in most cases were not adequately taught.

I saw sharply this progressive deterioration because part of my mail comes from abroad, especially Canada, the United Kingdom, the Scandinavian countries, and Japan. A - letter from any part of the Commonwealth is invariably neat, legible, grammatical, correct in spelling, and polite. The same applies to letters from Scandinavian countries. (Teenagers of Copenhagen usually speak and write English better than most teenagers of Santa Cruz.) Letters from Japan are invariably neat - but the syntax is sometimes odd. I have one young correspondent in Tokyo who has been writing steadily these past four years. The handwriting in the first letter was almost stylebook perfect but I could hardly understand the phrasing; now, four years later, the handwriting looks the same but command of grammar, syntax, and rhetoric is excellent, with only an occasional odd choice in wording giving an exotic flavor.

Our public schools no longer give good value. We remain strong in science and engineering but even students in those subjects are handicapped by failures of our primary and secondary schools and by cutback in funding of research both public and private. Our great decline in education is alone enough to destroy this country ... but I offer no solutions because the only solutions I think would work are so drastic as to be incredible.

Span of Time - Decline in Patriotism and in the Quality of our Armed Forces

The high school I attended (1919 - 24) was an early experiment in the junior and senior high school method. The last year of grammar school was joined with the freshman class as ':junior high" while the sophomores, Juniors, and seniors were senior high.

There was a company of junior ROTC in junior high and two companies in senior high. Military training gave no credit and was not compulsory; it was neither pushed nor discouraged. A boy took it or not, as suited him and his parents. Some of the sub freshman (ca. 13 years old) were barely big enough to tote a Springfield rifle.

Kansas City had a regiment of Federalized National

Guard, with one authorized drill per week, 3 hours each Wednesday evening. For this a private was paid 69, a PFC got a dollar, and a corporal got big money - $1.18.

The required & paid weekly drill was not all, as about half of the regiment showed up on Sundays at the "Military Country Club" - acres of raw wood lot until the regiment turned it into rifle range, club house, stables, etc. No pay for Sundays. Two weeks encampment per year, with pay. For most of the regiment, this was their only vacation, two weeks then being standard.

That regiment ran about 96% authorized strength. About 1921 Congress authorized the CMTC, Citizens Military Training Corps. It proved very popular. A month of summer training in camp at an Army post, continued through 4 years, could (if a candidate's grades were satisfactory) result in certification for commission in the reserve. Civilians submitted to military discipline in CMTC but were not subject to court martial. Offenders could be sent home or turned over to civilian police, depending on the offense.. There were few offenses.

CMTC candidates got 3 per mile to and from their homes, no other money.

In 1925 I was appointed midshipman. There were 51 qualified applicants trying for that one appointment.

240 of my class graduated; 130 fell by the wayside. One of that 130 resigned voluntarily; all the others resigned involuntarily, most of them plebe year for failure in academics (usually mathematics), the others were requested to resign over the next three years for academic, physical, or other reasons. A few resigned graduation day through having failed the final physical examination for commissioning. Three more served about one year in the Fleet, then resigned - but these three volunteered after the attack on Pearl Harbor. 28 of the 129 who left the service involuntarily managed to get back on active duty in World War Two.

So with four exceptions all of my class stayed in the Navy as long as the Navy would have them. About 25% were killed in line of duty or died later of wounds. Neither at the Academy nor in the Fleet did I ever hear a midshipman or officer talk about resigning. While it is likely that some thought about it, all discussion tacitly carried the assumption that the Navy was our life, the Fleet our home, and that we would leave only feet first or when put out to pasture as too old.

Enlisted men: When I entered the Fleet, before the Crash of '29 and about a year before unemployment became a problem, Navy recruiting offices were turning down 19 out of 20 volunteers; the Army was turning down 5 out of 6. The reenlistment rate was high; the desertion rate almost too small to count.

Span of Time - Today in the Armed Forces

I have said repeatedly that I am opposed to conscription at any time, peace or war, for moral reasons beyond argument. For the rest of this I will try to keep my personal feelings out of the discussion - as I did in the rosy picture painted above. I reported facts, not my emotions.

I will not review details showing that the USSR is today militarily stronger than we are as the matter has been discussed endlessly in news media, in Congress, and in professional journals. The public discussion today concedes the military superiority of the USSR and centers on how much they are ahead of us, and what should be done about it. The details of this debate are of supreme importance as the most expensive thing in the world is a second - best military establishment, good but not good enough to win. At the moment the three - cornered standoff is saving us from that silly way to die ... but I cannot predict how long this stalemate will last as key factors are not under our control, and neither our government nor our citizens seem willing to accept guns instead of butter on the scale required to make us too strong for anyone to risk attacking us. Polls seem to show that a controlling number of voters think that we are already spending too much on our Armed Forces.

What I set forth below comes primarily from an article by Richard A. Gabriel, Associate Professor of Politics, St. Anselm's College, Manchester, New Hampshire, author of CRISIS IN COMMAND. I lack personal experience with Army conditions today but what Dr. Gabriel says about them matches what I have heard from other sources and what I have read (I belong to all three associations - Army, Navy, Air Force - plus the Naval Institute and the Retired Officers Association; I get much data secondhand but no longer see it with my own eyes, hear it with my own ears).

Readers with personal experience in Korea, Viet Nam, and in the Services anywhere since the end of the Viet Nam debacle, I urge to write and tell me what you know that I don't, especially on points in which I am seriously mistaken.

Summarized from "The Slow Dying of the Amen - can Army," Dr. Richard A. Gabriel in Gallery magazine, June 1979, p.41 et seq.:

Concerning the All Volunteer Force (AVF): Early this year the Pentagon admitted that all services had failed to meet quotas.

30% of all Army volunteers are discharged for offenses during first enlistment. Of the 70 per 100 left, 26 do not reenlist. The desertion rates are the highest in history... and this fact is partly covered up by using administrative discharges ( - i.e., "You're fired!") rather than courts martial and punishment - if the deserter turns up. But no effort is made to find him.

According to Dr. Gabriel, citing General George S. Blanchard and others, hard - drug use (heroin, cocaine, angel dust - not marijuana) is greater than ever, especially in Europe, with estimates from a low of 10% to a high of 64%. Marijuana is ignored - but let me add that a man stoned out of his mind on grass is not one I want on my flank in combat.

Category 3B and 4 (ranging down from dull to mentally retarded) make up 59% of Army volunteers.. . in a day when privates handle very complex and sophisticated weapons and machinery. Add to this that the mix is changing so that a typical private might be Chicano or Puerto Rican, the typical sergeant a Black, the typical officer "Anglo." And that officers are transferred with great frequency and enlisted men with considerable frequency and you have a situation in which esprit de corps cannot be developed (an outfit without esprit de corps is not an army unit; it is an armed mob - R.A.H.).

Today we have more general officers than we did in World War Two. Our ratio of officers to enlisted men is more than twice as high as that of successful armies in the past. But an officer is not with his troops long enough to be "the Old Man" - he is a "manager," not a leader of men.

Dr. Gabriel concludes: "The most basic aspect is the need to reinstate the draft."

I disagree.

My disagreement is not on moral grounds. Forget that I ever voiced opposition to slave soldiers; think of me as Old Blood - and - Guts willing to use any means whatever to win.

Reinstating the draft would not get us out of trouble, even with the changes Dr. Gabriel suggests to make the draft "fair."

As everyone knows, we were in the frying pan; shifting to AVF, instead of producing an efficient professional army, put us into the fire. Dr. Gabriel urges that we climb back into the frying pan - but with improvements: a national lottery with no deferments whatever for any reason.

I can't disagree with the even - steven rule... but my reason for thinking that Dr. Gabriel's solution will not work is this:

A lottery, even meticulously fair, cannot make a man willing to charge a machine - gun nest in the face of almost certain death. That sort of drive comes from emotional sources. Esprit de corps and patriotism cannot be drawn in a lottery.

Conscription works (among free men) only when it is not needed. I have seen two world wars; we used the draft in each.. . but in each case it was a means of straightening out the manpower situation; it was not needed to make men fight. Both wars were popular.

Since then we have had two non - Wars - Korea and Nam - in "peacetime" and using conscript troops.

And each non - War was a scandalous disaster.

I don't have a neat solution to offer. If the American people have lost their willingness to fight and die for their country, the defect cannot be cured by conscription. Unless this emotional condition changes (and I do not know how to change it), we are whipped no matter what weapons we build. It could be overnight, or it could continue to be a long slow slide downhill over many years - ten, twenty, thirty. But the outcome is the same. Unless something renews the spirit this country once had, we are in the terminal stages of decay; history is ending for us.

Our foreign masters might graciously let us keep our flag, even our national name. But "the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave" will be dead.

Time Span - Inflation

The Winter of '23 - '24 I paid a street vendor 5 for a five billion mark German note and I paid too much; 5,000,000,000 DM was worth a trifle over 1. A bit later it was worth nothing.

In 1955 at the foot of the Acropolis I bought a small marble replica of the Venus of Melos for 10,000 drachma. I wasn't cheated; that was 35$ USA.

There are the British pound, the Turkish lira, the Italian lira, the Mexican peso, and several others; all mean one pound of silver. Look up "exchange" and "commodities" in your newspaper; grab your pocket calculator and see how much each is inflated.

When I was a child of four or five my brothers and I used great stacks of hundred - dollar bills as play money. Confederate - After two centuries, "Not worth a continental," still means "worthless." Memory is long for the damage done by inflation.

Before paper "money" was invented, inflation was accomplished by adding base metal to silver and/or gold while retaining the name of the coin. By this means the Roman denarius was devalued to zero during the first three centuries A.D. But inflation did not start with Caesar Augustus. In the early days of the Republic before the Punic Wars the cash unit was the Libra (Libra = lb. - pound = 273 grams, or about 60% of our pound avoirdupois, 454 grams). That's too large a unit for daily retail use; it was divided into 12 unciae (ounces).

A "lb." of silver was called an "as." 1/12 of that, struck as coinage, made efficient currency. Now comes war and inflation -

Eventually the "as" - once a pound of silver - was so debased that it amounted to a penny, more or less. Augustus, by decree, went back on a silver/gold standard and created the denanius, 3.87 grams of fine silver. He made 25 denarii equal in value to one aureus (7.74 grams of gold), or a ratio of 12.5 to one. ("Free and unlimited coinage of silver at a ratio of sixteen to one!" The Great Commoner and the august Emperor had similar notions about hard currency.)

One Augustan denarius equalled in gold at today's London fix ($385/troy ounce) a nominal $3.83, or about 3 of a gram of gold. This tells us nothing about purchasing power; it simply says that the Augustan denanius was a solid silver coin almost the size and weight of the solid silver quarter we used to have before the government foisted on us those sandwich things. How much olive oil or meal that would buy in Rome around 1 A.D. can be estimated from surviving records - but all the gold in Rome could not buy an aspirin tablet or a paper of matches. No way to compare. And hard money was not supplemented by printed money, bank checks, and transactions that take place entirely inside computers - but I can't go into how those phenomena affect purchasing power without writing a book twice as long as this one on fiscal theory (which I am quite willing to do but nobody would buy it).

What Augustus did was to stabilize Rome's money by defining it in terms of two commodities, each intrinsically valuable, each stable in supply, each almost indestructible, and he defined also the legal ratio between the two coinages - an effort to circumvent Gresham's Law, unknown then but Augustus appears to have had a gut feeling for it. (Not Bill Gresham - the other one. Thomas Gresham.) But a bimetallic standard has its problems; the free economy ratio tends to drift away from the legal ratio, and Gresham's Law begins to work. But this happens very slowly with

hard money and is not the disaster that printing - press inflation is, or the debasing of hard money.

Caesar Augustus died in 14 A.D.

His corpse was hardly cold before the vultures got to work. Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero - even Claudius did nothing to stop the robbery. Titus attempted an Augustan return to honest money in 80 A.D. but he died in September the following year; his successor was a disaster even as Caesars go.

"Put not your trust in Princes." Debasement of the currency continued under every Caesar for the next two centuries. Diocletian (reign: 294 - 305) inherited a worthless denarius; he returned Rome to the bimetallic standard at a level barely below that of Augustus. But he increased enormously the bureaucracy, instituted the harshest of taxation to pay for his "reforms," and decreed price - fixing - which worked just as it always does.

On his retirement (not assassination !) debasement was resumed while taxes stayed high, and Rome was on the skids. The decline and fall of the denarius and of Rome paralleled each other.

I'm tempted to discuss France's incredible inflation and collapse thereof during the French Revolution (and three more French inflations since then), and the inflations of several other countries in other centuries. But they are monotonously alike and differ from debasement primarily in the fact that the invention of paper "money" permits the corruption of legal tender to get utterly out of hand before the people notice it. In Germany in the early twenties people used to take wheelbarrows to the grocery store - not to fetch back groceries but to carry money to the grocer. But the early stages of disastrous inflation feel like "prosperity." Wages and profits go up, old debts are easier to pay off, business booms.

It is not until later that most people notice that prices and taxes have gone up faster than wages and profits, and that it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet.

There is a strong emotional feeling that "a dollar is a dollar." (Hitler called it, "Mark is Mark!") But you can reexamine it in terms of prices on bread, or how many minutes to earn a dollar. And don't forget taxes! If you aren't working at least the first three months of each year to pay taxes before you can keep one dollar for yourself, then you are on welfare, one way or another. You may not think you are taxed that much - paycheck deductions and hidden taxes are extracted under anesthesia. Try dividing the Federal Budget by the number of wage earners not on the public payroll, then take a stab at where you fit in. Don't forget the same process for state, county, and city. There are Makers, Takers, and Fakers, no fourth category, and today the Takers and the Fakers outnumber (and outvote) the Makers.

Today it takes more dollars each year to service the National Debt than the total budget for the last and most expensive year of the Korean War. I am not going to state here the amount of our National Debt. If you have not heard it recently, you wouldn't believe me. If you don't know, telephone your Congressman and ask; he has a local office near you. If the telephone information service can't (won't) tell you, the city room of any newspaper does know his number.

Our National Debt will never be paid. We are beyond the point of no return. Inflation will continue and get worse ... and the elderly on fixed incomes and the young adults trying to start families will continue to bear the brunt.

Every congressman, every senator, knows precisely what causes inflation... but can't (won't) support the drastic reforms to stop it because it could (and probably would) cost him his job. I have no solution and only once piece of advice:

Buy a wheelbarrow.

The Age of Unreason

Having been reared in the most bigoted of Bible Belt fundamentalism in which every word of the King James version of the Bible is the literal word of God - then having broken loose at thirteen when I first laid hands on THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES and THE DESCENT OF MAN - I should have been unsurprised by the anti - intellectual and anti - science ground swell in this country.

I knew that our American temperament, practical as sharp tools on one side, was never more than three quarters of an inch from mindless hysteria on the other side. I knew this - my first long story was IF THIS GOES ON - , a yarn based on the assumption that my compatriots were capable of throwing away their dearly - bought liberties to submit to a crude and ridiculous religious dictatorship.

(In forty years of letters about that story no one has ever criticized this assumption; I infer that I am not alone in believing it.)

I had read much about the Ku Klux Klan during the Tragic Era, talked with many who had experienced it, then experienced its nationwide recrudescence in the early 1920's. I had seen dam foolishness from dance marathons to flagpole sitters, and had made considerable study of crowd behavior and mass delusions. I had noted, rather casually, the initial slow growth of anti - science - & - intellect - ism.

Yet the durned thing shocked me. Let me list some signs:

a) I CHING;

b) Back - to - nature cults;

c) The collapse of basic education;

d) The current respectability of natal horological astrology among "intelligentsia" - e.g. professors, N.Y. literary people, etc.;

e) "Experts" on nuclear power and nuclear weapons who know nothing whatever of mathematical physics and are smug in admitting it;

f) "Experts" on the ecology of northern Alaska who have never been there and are not mathematically equipped to analyze a problem in ecology;

g) People who watch television several hours a day and derive all their opinions there from - and expound them;

h) People who watch television several hours a day;

return of creationism - "Equal time for Yahweh) The return of witchcraft.

The mindless yahoos, people who think linearly like a savage instead of inductively or deductively, and people who used to be respectful to learned opinion or at least kept quiet, now are aggressively on the attack. Facts and logic don't count; their intuition is the source of "truth."

If any item on the above list strikes you as rational, I won't debate it with you; you are part of the problem.

But I will illustrate what I mean in categories where I think I might be misunderstood.

a) I CHING - easier than "reading the augurs" but with nothing else to recommend it. Chinese fortune cookies are just as as accurate - and you get to eat the cookie. Nevertheless this bit of oriental nonsense is treated with solemn seriousness by many "educated" people. It is popular enough to make profitable the sale of books, equipment, magazine articles, and personal instruction. Paralleling I CHING is the widespread use of Tarot cards. Fortunetelling by cards used to be a playful parlor game, a mating rite - a nubile girl limited by the vocabulary and public manners of the Mauve Decade could convey to a rutty young male almost any message by how she chose to "read his fortune" - with no impropriety. But neither he nor she took the cards seriously.

Tarot cards formerly were used only by Gypsy or fake - Gypsy fortunetellers; they were not an article of commerce, were not easy to find. Today they are as easy to buy as liquor during prohibition, and also books on their "interpretation." Reading the Tarot is taken with deep seriousness by a dismaying number of people - having the Hanging Man turn up can cause great anguish.

b) Back - to - nature cults: I do not mean nudist resorts or "liberated" beaches. The growing realization that human bodies are not obscene is a sane, healthy counter trend in our crazy culture. By back - to - nature cults I mean people who band together to "return to the land" to grow their own food without pesticides, without artificial fertilizers, without power machinery, self - reliant in all ways ... but with no comprehension that a spading fork implies coal mines, iron ore, blast furnaces, steel mills, factories, etc., that any building more complex than a log cabin or a sod house implies a building - materials industry, etc.

If all of us tried to go back - to - nature, most of us would starve rather quickly. These back - to - nature freaks can't do arithmetic.

c) The collapse of basic education - no need to repeat.

d) Natal horological astrology - Baseline: fifty - odd years ago astrology was commonly regarded as a ridiculous former superstition, one all but a tiny minority had outgrown. It is now the orthodoxy of many, possibly a majority. This pathological change parallels the decay of public education.

Stipulated: Ancient astrologers were scientists in being able to predict certain aspects of descriptive astronomy such as eclipses, positions of the sun, moon, and naked - eye planets, etc. Whether or not they believed the fortunetelling they supplied to their kings, patrons, or clients is irrelevant. The test of a science is its ability to predict; in the cited phenomena the Chaldean priests (for example) performed remarkable feats of prediction with handcrafted naked - eye instruments.

It has long been known that Sol is the heat engine that controls our weather. Recently, with the discovery of solar wind, the Van Allen belts, et al., we have become aware of previously unsuspected variables affecting us and our weather, and successful predictions are being made empirically - no satisfactory theory.

"What sign were you born under?" - I don't recall having heard that question until sometime after World War Two. Today it is almost impossible to attend a social gathering (including parties made up almost solely of university staff and spouses) without being asked that question or hearing it asked of someone else.

Today natal horological astrology is so widely accepted that those who believe in it take it for granted that anyone they meet believes in it, too - if you don't, you're some sort of a nut. I don't know what percentage of the population believe in natal horological astrology (sorry about that clumsy expression but I wish to limit this precisely to the notion that the exact time, date, latitude, and longitude of your birth and the pattern of the Sun, Moon, and planets with respect to the Zodiac at that exact time all constitute a factor affecting your life comparable in importance to your genetic inheritance and your rearing and education) - I don't know the percentage of True Believers but it is high enough that newspaper editors will omit any feature or secondary news rather than leave out the daily horoscope.

Or possibly more important than heredity and environment in the minds of True Believers since it is seriously alleged that this natal heavenly pattern affects every day of your life - good days for new business ventures - a bad day to start a trip - and so forth, endlessly.

The test of a science is its capacity to make correct predictions. Possibly the most respected astrologer in America is a lady who not only has her daily column in most of the largest newspapers but also annually publishes predictions for the coming year.

For ten years I clipped her annual predictions, filed them. She is highly recommended and I think she is sincere; I intended to give her every possible benefit of doubt.

I hold in my hand her predictions for 1974 dated Sunday January 13, 1974:

Here are some highlights: " .. . Nixon ... will ride out the Watergate storm ... will survive both the impeachment ordeal and the pressures to resign ... will go down in history as a great president ... will fix the responsibility for Pearl Harbor" (vindicating Kimmel and Short).. . "in... 1978 ... the cure for cancer will be acknowledged by the medical world.. . end the long search." (1974) "The dollar will be enormously strengthened as the balance of payments reflects the self - sufficiency in oil production." "The trouble in Ireland will continue to be a tragic situation until 1978." (Italics added - R.A.H.) "Willy Brandt" (will be reelected) "and be in office for quite some time to come. He will go on to fantastic recognition about the middle of 1978." (On 6 May 1974 Brandt resigned during a spy scandal.) She makes many other predictions either too far in the future to check or too vaguely worded. I have omitted her many predictions about Gerald Ford because they all depend on his serving out the term as vice president.

You can check the above in the files of most large newspapers.

e) & 1) - no comment needed.

g) & h) need no comment except to note that they are overlapping but not identical categories - and I should add "People who allow their children to watch television several hours a day." (Television, like the automobile, is a development widely predicted... but its major consequences never predicted.)

i) The return of creationism - If it suits you to believe that Yahweh created the universe in the fashion related in Genesis, I won't argue it. But I don't have to respect your belief and I do not think that legislation requiring that the Biblical version be included in public school textbooks is either constitutional or fair. How about Ormuzd? Ouranos? Odin? There is an unnumbered throng of religions, each with its creation myth - all different. Shall one of them be taught as having the status of a scientific hypothesis merely because the members of the religion subscribing to it can drum up a majority at the polis, or organize a pressure group at a state capital? This is tyranny by the mob inflicted on minorities in defiance of the Bill of Rights. Revelation has no place in a science textbook; it belongs under religious studies. Cosmogony is the most difficult and least satisfactory branch of astronomy; cosmologists would be the first to agree. But, damn it; they're trying! - on the evidence as it becomes available, by logical methodology, and their hypotheses are constantly subjected to pitiless criticism by their informed equals.

They should not have to surrender time on their platform, space in their textbooks, to purveyors of ancient myths supported only by a claim of "divine revelation."

If almost everyone believed in Yahweh and Genesis, and less than one in a million U.S. citizens believe in Brahma the Creator, it would not change the constitutional aspect. Neither belongs in a science textbook in a tax - supported school. But if Yahweh is there, Brahma should be. And how about that Eskimo Creator with the unusually unsavory methods? We have a large number of Eskimo citizens.

j) The return of witchcraft - It used to be assumed that Southern California had almost a monopoly on cults. No longer. (Cult vs. religion - I am indebted to L. Sprague de Camp for this definition of the difference. A "religion" is a faith one is born into; a "cult" is a faith an adult joins voluntarily. "Cult" is often used as a slur by a member of an older faith to disparage a newer faith. But this quickly leads to contradictions. In the 1st century A.D. the Christians were an upstart cult both to the Sanhedrin and to the Roman priests.

"Cult" is also used as a slur on a faith with "weird ideas" and "weird practices." But this can cause you to bite your tail even more quickly than the other. "Weird" by whose standards?

(Mr. de Camp's distinction implies something about a mature and presumably sane adult becoming a proselyte in a major and long - established faith, such as Islam or Shintoism or the Church of England ... but the important thing it implies is that a person born into, let us say, the Presbyterian Church is not being odd or unreasonable if he remains in it all his life despite having lost all faith; he's merely being pragmatic. His wife and kids are there; he feels that church is a good influence on the kids, many of his friends are there. It's a comfortable habit, one carrying with it a degree of prestige in the community.

(But if he changes into a saffron robe and shaves his pate, then goes dancing down the street, shouting, "Hare Krishna!" he won't keep his Chevrolet dealership very long. Theology has nothing to do with it.)

One of the symptoms of this Age of Unreason, antiscience and anti - intellect, in the United States is the very prominent increase in new cults. We've never been without them. 19th Century New England used to breed them like flies. Then it was Southern California's turn. Now they seem to spring up anywhere and also are readily imported from abroad. Zen Buddhism has been here so long that it is usually treated with respect ... but still so short a time (1950) that few American adults not of Japanese ancestry can claim to have been born into it. Ancient in Japan, it is still a cult here - e.g., Alan Watts (1915 - 1973), who moved from Roman Catholic priest to Episcopal priest to Zen priest. I doubt that there is any count on American Zen Buddhists but it is significant that both "satori" and "koan" were assimilated words in all four standard U.S. dictionaries only 16 years after Zen Buddhism penetrated the non - Japanese population.

And there are the Moonies and the Church of Scientology and that strange group that went to South America and committed suicide en masse and the followers of that fat boy from India and - look around you. Check your telephone book. I express no opinion on the tenets of any of these; I simply note that, since World War Two, Americans have been leaving their "orthodox" churches in droves and joining churches new in this country.

Witchcraft is not new and never quite died out. But it is effectively new to most of its adherents here today because of the enormous increase in numbers of witches. ("Warlock" is insulting, "Wizard" barely acceptable and considered gauche, "Witch" is the correct term both male and female; The religion is usually called either the Old Religion or the Craft rather than witchcraft.)

The Craft is by its nature underground; witches cannot forget the hangings in Salem, the burnings in Germany, the fact that the injunction, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Exodus XXII, 18) has usually been carried out whenever the Old Religion surfaced. Even during this resurgence only four covens have come to my attention and, not being a witch myself, I have never attended an esbat (easier to enter a tyled lodge!).

The Craft is not Devil worship and it is not Black Mass but both of the latter have enjoyed some increase in recent years.

If witchcraft has not come to your attention, search any large book store; note how very many new titles concern witchcraft. Most of these books are phony, not written by witches, mere exploitation books - but their very existence shows the change. Continue to show interest and a witch just might halfway reveal himself by saying, "Don't bother with that one. Try this one." Treat him with warm politeness and you may learn much more. To my great surprise when I learned of it, there are over a dozen (how much over a dozen I have no way to

guess) periodicals in this country devoted solely to the Old Religion.

Time Span - The Cancerous Explosion of Government

Will Rogers told us that we were lucky in that we didn't get as much government as we pay for. He was (and is) emphatically right... but he died 15 August 1935. The Federal government spent $6,400,000,000 in the last 12 months of his tragically short life. The year he was born (1879) the Federal government spent $274,000,000 - an expensive year, as we resumed paying specie for the Greenback Inflation, $346,700,000 of fiat money.

What would Will Rogers think of a budget of $300 billion and up?

(1980 figures are extrapolations = wild guesses) (Too timid?) Much too timid! - as you knew when you read them, as I knew when I prepared them. I plotted all of the above figures on graph paper, faired the curves, suppressed what I knew by memory (even refrained from consulting World Almanacs to bridge the 9 years since the close of compilation of THE STATISTICAL HISTORY) and extrapolated to 1980 by the curves - not tangent, but on the indicated curve.

By the best figures I can get from Washington today (20 Nov 1979) the budget is $547,600,000,000; the expected deficit is $29,800,000,000; and our current Federal Public Debt is estimated at $886,480,000,000.(!!!)

The end of the Federal fiscal year, September 30, is still over ten months away. In ten months a lot of things can happen. Unexpected events always cause unexpected expense.. . but with great good luck the deficit will not increase much and the National Public Debt will stay under $900,000,000,000.

In case of war, all bets are off.

What is happening is what always happens in fiatcurrency inflation: After a certain point, unpredictable as to date because of uncountable human variables, it becomes uncontrollable and the currency becomes worthless. Dictatorship usually follows. From there on anything can happen - all bad.

The Greenback Inflation did not result in collapse of the dollar and of constitutional government because gold backing was not disavowed, simply postponed for a relatively short time. The Greenback Party wanted to go on printing paper money, never resume specie payment - but eventually we toughed it out and paid hard money for the Greenbacks that had financed the Union side of the war. From 1862 to 1879 gold and silver were not used internally. Our unfavorable balance of trade for 1861 - 65, which had to be met in gold, was $296,000,000. Hard times and high taxes - but we made it.

The French Revolution inflation was unsecured. Between April 1790 and February 1796, 40 billion livres or francs were issued. New paper money (Mandats) replaced them that year; the following year both sorts were declared no longer legal tender (waste paper!) - and 2 years later Napoleon took over "to save the Republic."(!)

We could still keep from going utterly bankrupt by going back on some hard standard (gold, silver, uranium, mercury, bushels of wheat - something). But it would not be easy, it would not be popular; it would mean hard times for everyone while we recovered from an almighty hangover. Do you think a Congress and a President can be elected on any such platform?

One chink in the armor of any democracy is that, when the Plebs discover that they can vote themselves Bread & Circuses, they usually do ... right up to the day there is neither bread nor circuses. At that point they often start lynching the senators, congressmen, bankers, tax collectors, Jews, grocers, foreigners, any minority - take your choice. For they know that they didn't do it. The citizen is sovereign until it comes to accepting blame for his sovereign acts - then he demands a scapegoat.

I used official figures without comment to show where we have been the past 70 years... and how we got into the mess we are in. But, while I think our government is more nearly honest than some others (see INSIDE INTOURIST Afterword, page 439), there is a lot of hanky - panky in those official figures. Example:

Social Security taxes go into the general fund and are spent. If Social Security were in fact insurance (the basis on which the gimmick was sold to us by FDR's "New Deal"), the receipts would be segregated and invested and not shown as income ... OR a competent insurance actuary with staff would calculate the commitment and it would show in the National Public Debt.

(The fact that a debt is amortized over the years doesn't stop it from being a debt. It was an amortized mortgage that got me into this racket. The prospect of years and years of future monthly payments spoiled my sleep.)

The only way the Government can go on paying Social "Security" to my generation is by taxing you young people more and more heavily... and each year there are more and more old people and fewer and fewer young people. It won't help to run the printing presses faster; that causes food to rise in price, rents to go up, etc. - and people over 65 start putting pressure on Congress .. . and there's an election coming up. (There's always an election coming up.)

One thing I learned as a ward heeler was that (with scarce exceptions) people in my age group want one of two things: 1) They want to keep on clipping those coupons and collecting those rents and they don't give a damn what it does to the country, or 2) they want that raise in Social Security (Townsend Plan) ("Ham & Eggs") (you name one) and they don't give a damn what it does to the country.

(I don't claim to be altruistic. Just this pragmatic difference: I am sharply aware that, if the United States goes down the chute, I go down with it.)

I use the term "Federal Public Debt" because what is usually termed the "Public Debt" is by no means our total public debt. There are also state, county, city, and special - district debts. It is difficult to get accurate figures on these public debts but the total appears to be larger than the Federal Public Debt. I can't make even a wild guess at the Social Security commitment

but our total public promises - to - pay have to exceed two trillion dollars. How much is a trillion? Well, it means that a baby born today owes at least $4,347.83 to the Federal Government alone before his eyes open. (No wonder he yells). It means that the Zero Population Growth family (who was going to save us all - remember?) of father, mother, and 2.1 children owes $17,826 in addition to private debts (mortgage, automobile, college for 2.1 children).

Of course papa won't pay it off; that debt will grow larger. But it will cost him $2000 a year (and rising) just to "service" his pro - rata; any taxes for which he gets anything at all - even more laws - is on top of that.

A trillion seconds is 31,688 years, 9 months, 5 days, 8 hours, 6 minutes, and 42 seconds - long enough for the precession of the equinoxes to make Vega the Pole Star, swing back again to Polaris, and go on past to Alpha Cephei. Or counting the other way it would take us to 29,708 B.C.... or more than 25 thousand years before Creation by Bishop Usher's chronology for creationism.

I don't understand a trillion dollars any better than I do a trillion seconds. I simply know that we had better stop spending money we don't have if we want to avoid that Man on Horseback.

But I don't think we will stop "deficit financing," the euphemism that sounds so much better than "kiting checks."

You may have noticed that 1970 figure for public employees (not my extrapolation for 1980, but the official 1970 figures straight from the United States Bureau of the Census).

That figure does not include the Armed Forces. It does not include some special categories. It is easier to learn the number of slaves imported in 1769 (6,736) than it is to find out exactly how many people are on public payrolls in this country. And it is not simply difficult but impossible to determine how many people receive Federal checks for which they perform no services. (Or food stamps. Are food stamps money?) But one thing is certain: the number of people eligible to vote who do receive money from some unit of government (aid to dependent children, Supreme Court justices, not growing wheat, removing garbage, governors of states, whoever) exceeds the number eligible to vote but receiving no pay or subsidy of any sort from any unit of government.

Have you read the Federal Register lately? Have you ever read the Federal Register? Under powers delegated by Congress certain appointed officials can publish a new regulation in the Federal Register and, if Congress does not stop it, after a prescribed waiting time, that regulation has the force of law - it is law, to you and to me, although a lawyer sees nuances. I have vastly oversimplified this description, but my only purpose is to point out that "administrative law" reaches into every corner of our lives, and is the major factor in the enormous and strangling invasion of the Federal Government into our private affairs.

I can't see anything in the Constitution that permits the Congress to delegate its power to pass laws.. . but the Supreme Court says it's okay and that makes my opinion worthless.

I'm stopping. There are endless other gloomy things to discuss - the oil shortage, the power shortage (not the same thing), pollution, population pressure, a projected change in climate that can and probably will turn the problems of population and food into sudden and extreme crisis, crime in the streets and bankrupt cities, our incredible plunge from the most respected nation on Earth to the most despised (but we are nonetheless expected to pick up the tab). Bill Gresham was right but he told only half of it: you not only don't get rich peddling gloom; it isn't any fun.

So now come with me - "OVER THE RAINBOW - "

The new President had not been in office ten days before it became clear to his own party as well as to the "loyal opposition" that he was eyen more of a disaster than the defeated candidate had predicted. Nevertheless the country was shocked when he served even fewer days than the ninth President - killed in a crash, his private plane, himself at the controls; dying with him his three top aides: White House chief of staff, press secretary, appointments secretary.

No U.S. or Canadian news medium said a word about alcohol or incidents in the dead President's past; they treated it as a tragic accident. Papers and TV reporters elsewhere were not as reticent.

The Speaker of the new House saw the ex - Vice President first (even before the oath of office) as the Speaker's seniority in line of succession enabled him to do. He came right to the point. "I am ready to take this load off your shoulders. We both know that you were picked simply to support the ticket; no one ever expected to load you down with this. Here's how we'll do it: You resign at once, then we'll meet the press together - after I'm sworn in. I'll do most of the talking. I promise you, it won't be a strain on you."

"I'm sure that it won't be. You're excused."

"Huh!"

"You may leave. In fact I am telling you to leave. I thought you had come to stand beside me as I take the oath.. . but you have something entirely different in mind. You would not enjoy staying; I would not enjoy having you stay."

"You'll regret this! You're making a mistake!"

"If a mistake was made, it was made at the Convention. By you and five others, I believe; I was not present. Yes, I may regret it but this is what I undertook to do when I accepted the nomination for the Vice - Presidency. Now get out. Pronto!"

The new President sent for the Director of the Budget forty minutes after the swearing in. "Explain this to me."

The Director hemmed and hawed and tried to say that the budget was too technical for anyone not in public life before -

- and was answered, "I'm accepting your resignation. Send in your deputy."

It was almost a week before this call was made: "Admiral? This is the President. If I come to your home, do you feel well enough to see me?"

There was a tussle of wills that the Admiral won only through pointing out that it was never proper to subject the President of the United States to unnecessary risk of assassination... and that with his new car, fitted for his wheelchair, he still went to the Pentagon twice a week. "I'm old, I admit; I was born in 1900. But I'm not dead and I'm quite able to report to my Commander in Chief. And we both know that threats have been made."

The President won the next argument. On being wheeled in the Admiral started to get out of his chair. "Do please sit down!"

The old man continued to try to rise, leaning on the arm of his nurse. The President said quickly, "That was expressed as a request but was an order. Sit down."

The Admiral promptly sat back down, caught his breath and said formally, "Ma'am, I report - with great pleasure! - to the President of the United States."

"Thank you for coming, sir. In view of our respective ages ... and your health, I felt that it was a time to dispense with protocol. But you are right; there are indeed a flood of threats, many more than get into the news. I don't intend to be a target.. - at least until we have a new Vice President sworn in."

"Never be a target, Madam. You would be mourned by everyone, both parties. Uh, if I may say so, you are even more beautiful in person than you are on the screen."

"Not mourned by everyone, I'm certain, or I would not nave to be cautious about assassination. As for that other, I'm not beautiful and you know it. I know what

I have. I project. But it's not physical beauty. It's something that a pro - a professionally competent actress - does with her whole being. Her voice, her expression, her hands, her body. A gestalt, with regular features the least important factor. Or not present, as with me."

The President smiled, got up and went around the big desk, leaned over the Admiral, kissed his forehead. "But you are an old dear to have said it."

He cleared his throat, noisily. "Ma'am, what is your opinion in the matter against that of millions of men?"

"We've dropped that subject. Now to work! Admiral, why is it that there has been so much difficulty with nuclear power plants ashore but never any trouble with your nuclear submarines?"

The President slapped her desk, glared at the leader of the delegation. "Stop that! Handkerchief head, you've come to the wrong church. In this office there are no Blacks - or Blues, Whites, Greens, or Yellows - just Americans. Besides that, you claim to be a Black representing Blacks. Hmmph! That's a phony claim if I ever - "

"I resent that, Mrs. Ni - "

"Pipe down! 'Madam President,' if you please. And one does not interrupt the President. I said your claim was phony. It is. I'm at least three shades darker than you are.. . yet I'm smooth brown, not black." She looked around. "I don't see a real sooty black in your whole delegation. Mmm, I see just one darker than I am. Mr. Green, isn't it? That is your name?"

"Yes, Madam President. From Brooklyn."

"Any white blood, Mr. Green? Perhaps I should say 'Any Caucasian ancestry?'"

"Possibly. But none that I know of, Ma'am."

"We're all in that boat - . . including all whites. A person who claims to be absolutely certain of his ancestry more than three generations back is accepting the short end of a bet. But since you are from Brooklyn, you can help me pass a word. An important word, one that I'll be emphasizing on the networks tonight but I'll need help from a lot of people to let all the people know that I mean it. A Black who gets elected from Brooklyn has lots of Jewish friends, people who trust him.

"That's right, Madam President."

"Listen to my talk tonight, then pass it on in your own words. This nation has split itself into at least a hundred splinter groups, pressure groups, each trying for a bigger bite of the pie. That's got to stop! - before it kills us. No more Black Americans. No more Japanese Americans. Israel is not our country and neither is Ireland. A group calling itself La Raza had better mean the human race - the whole human race - or they'll get the same treatment from me as the Ku Klux Klan. Amerindians looking for special favors will have just two choices: Either come out and be Americans and accept the responsibilities of citizenship ... or go back to the reservation and shut up. Some of their ancestors got a rough deal. But so did yours and so did mine. There are no Anglos left alive who were at Wounded Knee or Little Big Horn, so it's time to shut up about it.

"But race and skin color and national ancestry isn't all that I mean. I intend to refuse to see any splinter group claiming to deserve special treatment not accorded other citizens and I will veto any legislation perverted to that end. Wheat farmers. Bankrupt corporations. Bankrupt cities. Labor leaders claiming to represent 'the workers' ... when most of the people they claim to represent repudiate any such leadership.

Business leaders just as phony. Anyone who wants the deck stacked in his favor because, somehow, he's 'special.'"

The President took a deep breath, went on: "Any such group gets thrown out. But two groups will get thrown out so hard they'll bounce! I'm a woman and I'm Negro. We've wiped the Jim - Crow laws off the books; I'll veto any Crow - Jim bill that reaches this office. Discrimination? Certainly there is still discrimination - but you can't kill prejudice by passing a law. We'll make it by how we behave and what we produce - not by trick laws.

"I feel even more strongly about women. We women are a majority, by so many millions that in an election it would be called a landslide. And will be a landslide, on anything, any time women really want it to be. So women don't need favors; they just need to make up their minds what they want - then take it." The President stood up again. "That's all. I'm going to devote this term to those 'unalienable rights' - for everybody. No splinter groups. Go tell people so. Now git.. . and don't come back! Not as a splinter group. Come back as Americans."

They moved toward the door. Their erstwhile leader muttered something. The President demanded, "Mr. Chairman, what did you say?"

"I said," he answered loudly, "you aren't going to have a second term."

She laughed at him. "I thought that's what I heard. Burr head, I'm not worrying about being reelected; I worry only about how much I can do in four years."

(Editorial in the Springfield Eagle)

LIFE INSURANCE?

The President's surprise nomination of the House Minority Leader for the vacant vice - presidency has produced some snide theories, one of the nastiest being the idea that she fears a plot on her life by the wheeler - dealers who put the late President into office, so she is spiking their guns (literally!) by rigging things to turn the presidency over to the opposition party should anything happen to her....

prefer to take her at her word, that her objective is to get the country unified again, and that a woman and a man, a Republican and a Democrat, a White and a Black, could be the team to do it.

The Speaker of the House has still not commented, but his floor leader and the nominated minority leader appeared with the President when she announced her choice. The Senate President Pro Tempore said, "I see no reason why confirmation should not go through quickly. I've known Don for thirty years; I trust that I am not so narrow - minded that I can't recognize presidential caliber in a man of another party.

customary to be of the same party, there is a custom just as long standing (and more important) that a President have a Vice President he (she) trusts to carry out his (her) policies.

Let's back them to the limit! Let's all be Americans again!

"Thanks for coming."

"Madam President, any time you send a car for me, then scoot me across the country in a hypersonic military jet, thanks should be the other way. My first experience above the speed of sound - and my first time in the Oval Office. I never expected to be in it."

She chuckled. "Nor did I. Especially on this side of this desk. Let's get to work." She held up a book. "Recognize this?"

"Eh?" He looked startled. "Yes, Ma'am, I do. I should."

"You should, yes." She opened to a marked page, read aloud: "' - I have learned this about engineers. When something must be done, engineers can find a way that is economically feasible.' Is that true?"

"I think so, Ma'am."

"You're an engineer."

"I am an obsolete engineer, Ma'am."

"I don't expect you to do the job yourself. You know what I did about fusion power plants."

"You sent for the one man with a perfect record. I've seen the power ship moored off Point Sur. Brilliant. Solved an engineering and a public relations problem simultaneously."

"Not quite what I mean. I consulted the Admiral, yes. But the job was done by his first deputy, the officer he has groomed to replace him. And by some other Navy people. Now we're working on ways to make the key fission - power people - safety control especially - all former Navy nuclear submariners. But we have to do it without stripping the Navy of their Blue and Gold crews. On things I know nothing about - most things, for this job! I consult someone who does - and that leads me to the person who can do it. Since I know very little about how to be President, I look for advice on almost everything."

"Ma'am, it seems to me - and a lot of other people - that you were born for the job."

"Hardly. Oh, politics isn't strange to me; my father held office when I was still a girl at home. But I did my first television commercial at fourteen and I was hooked. If I hadn't been 'resting' between contracts, I would not have had accepted the Governor's appointment - I was just his 'exhibit coon' but the Commission's work did interest me. Then I was still an 'exhibit coon' when he saw to it that I was on his favorite - son slate. Then, when the three leading candidates deadlocked, my late predecessor broke the deadlock in his favor by naming me as the other half of his ticket. I went along with it with a wry grin inside, figuring, first, that the ploy wouldn't work, and second, that, if he did get nominated, he would find some way to wiggle out - ask me to withdraw in favor of his leading rival or some such."

She shrugged. "But he didn't - or couldn't. I don't know which; he rarely talked to me. Real talk, I mean. Not just, 'Good morning,' and, 'Did you have a comfortable flight' and not wait for an answer.

"I didn't care. I relished every minute of the campaign. An actress sometimes plays a queen... but for four months I got to be one. Never dreaming that our ticket would win. I knew what a - No, de mortuis nil nisi bonum, and we must get back to work. What would you do about pollution of streams?"

"Eh? But that one has already been solved. By one of the Scandinavian countries, I believe. You simply require every user to place his intake immediately downstream from his discharge of effluent into the stream. In self - protection the user cleans up his discharge. It's self - enforcing. No need to test the water until someone downstream complains. Seldom. Because it has negative feedback. Ma'am, complying with a law should be more rewarding than breaking it - or you get positive feedback."

She made a note. "We could clean up the Mississippi that way. But I'm fretted about streams inside states, too. For example, the Missouri, where it is largest, is entirely inside the State of Missouri."

"Ma'am, I think you'll find that you have jurisdiction overall navigable streams."

I do?

"Ma'am, you have powers you may never have dreamed existed. A 'navigable stream' is one only three feet deep, I think. You may right now have the power to order this under law already on the books. If there is a paragraph or even a clause on placement of inlets and outlets, you almost certainly can issue an executive order right away. Today. The boss of the U.S. Engineers would know. General Somebody. A French name."

She touched a switch. "Get me the head of the U.S. Engineers. How would you dispose of nuclear power plant wastes? Rocket them onto the Moon as someone

urged last week? Why wouldn't the Sun be better? We may want to go back to the Moon someday."

"Oh, my, no! Neither one, Ma'am."

"Why not? Some of those byproducts are poisonous for hundreds of years, so I've heard. No?"

"You heard correctly. But the really rough ones have short half - lives. The ones with long half - lives - hundreds, even thousands of years, or longer - are simple to handle. But don't throw away any of it, Ma'am. Not where you can't recover it easily."

"Why not? We're speaking of wastes. I assume that we have extracted anything we can use."

"Yes, Ma'am, anything we can use. But our great grandchildren are going to hate you. Do you know the only use the ancient Romans had for petroleum? Medicine, that's all. I don't know how those isotopic wastes will be used next century .. . any more than those old Romans could guess how very important oil would become. But I certainly wouldn't throw those so - called wastes into the Sun! Besides, rockets do fail - . . and who wants to scatter radioactives over a couple of states? And there's the matter of the fuel and steel and a dozen other expensive things for the rockets. You could easily wind up spending more money to get rid of the ashes than you ever got from selling the power.

"Then what do you do? They say we mustn't sink it into the ocean. Or put it on the Antarctic ice cap. Salt mines?"

"Madam President, honest so help me, this is one of those nonproblems that the antitechnology nuts delight in. Radioactive wastes aren't any harder to handle than garbage. Or hot ashes. Or anything else you don't want to pick up in your bare hands. The quantity isn't much, not at all like garbage, or coal ashes. There are at least a half dozen easy ways. One of the easiest is to mix them with sand and gravel and cement into concrete bricks, then stack them in any unused piece of desert.

"Or glass bricks. Or let the stuff dry and store it in steel barrels such as oil drums and use those old salt mines you mentioned - the bricks you could leave in the open. All by remote manipulation, of course; that's the way a radioactives engineer does everything. Waldoes. That's old stuff. No trouble."

"I thought you said you were obsolete."

He grinned sheepishly. "Ma'am, it's easy to talk. As long as I know that young fellows will have to do the tedious drudgery that goes into making anything new work. But the solutions I've offered are practical. No new discoveries needed.

"How about air pollution?"

"What sorts, Ma'am? The two main sources are internal combustion engines - trucks and autos - and industrial smokes. Quite different problems."

"Pick one."

"Transportation pollution is going to solve itself soon. Either the hard way or the easy way. Oil, whether it's our own or from the OPEC, is too valuable to be burned in cars and trucks; it's the backbone of the chemical engineering industry - fertilizers, plastics, pesticides, lubricants, and so forth. So, quite aside from the energy problem, we need to stop burning it. We can either wait until it's forced on us catastrophically . . - or we can turn to other transportation power voluntarily, and thereby become self - sufficient in oil for peace or for war. Either way, transportation pollution is ended."

"But what other transportation power, Doctor?"

"Oh. Half a dozen ways, at least. Get rid of the I.C. engine completely, both Otto cycle and Diesel cycle, and go back to the external combustion engine and steam. The I.C. engine never did make sense; starting and stopping combustion every split second is a guarantee of incomplete combustion, wasted fuel, and smog. Air pollution. External combustion has no such built - in stupidity; no matter what fuel, it burns continuously and can be adjusted for complete combustion. The Stanley Steamer used kerosene. But that's petroleum again. I would use wood alcohol as a starter - it hurts me every time I pass a sawmill and see them burning chips and slash.

"But wood alcohol has its drawbacks. We may burn hydrogen someday. Or learn to store electricity in less weight and less space. Or store energy in a flywheel. But all of those, even hydrogen, are simply ways to store energy. It still leaves an energy problem."

"Hydrogen, too? But you said we would burn it. No?"

"We'll burn it for some purposes; in some ways it's the ideal fuel; its only ash is water vapor. But, Ma'am, we don't have hydrogen; we have water - and even with perfect efficiency - never achieved - the energy you get out of hydrogen by burning it cannot exceed the energy you must use in getting that hydrogen by electrolysis of water. So you must generate electricity first."

"I see. No free lunch."

"Never a free lunch. But the energy problem can be solved several ways . . - through renewable resources. We've been using nonrenewable resources - coal and oil and cutting trees faster than they grow."

"Renewable resources - Windmills and water power and sun power?"

"Wind and water power are fine but limited. I mean effectively unlimited power. Such as this new wrinkle of thermoelectric power from the temperature difference of deep ocean and surface ocean. But there aren't too many really convenient places to do that. You named the one energy that is unlimited and convenient anywhere. Sun power."

"So? What desert is convenient to the Gary steel mills?"

"Not desert, Ma'am; the Sierra Club wouldn't like it."

"I plan to tell the Sierra Club that they are not the government of the United States. But in stronger language."

"I look forward to hearing you, Madam President.

The Sierra Club loves deserts and hates people. But our deserts aren't sufficient. Sun power, yes - but unlimited sun power. In orbit."

South Africa Enraged

United States Surprise Return to Gold Standard at $350 per Troy Ounce of Fine Gold Has

Bourses in Turmoil

"New Policy Obvious Concommitant of

Return to Balanced Budget," Says

Treasury Secretary Spokesman

"The Way to Resume is to Resume."

By ADAM SMITH

Finance Editor

WASHINGTON - The Treasury Secretary, after reading aloud to the Press the President's brief announcement of resumption of specie payments immediately at $350/oz., emphasized that this was not a tactical maneuver to "strengthen the dollar," not an auction of bullion such as those in the past, but a permanent policy consistent with the administration's total policy. "A return to our traditional policy, I must add. A century ago, for 15 years, war caused us to suspend specie payments - but never with any intent to accept the vice of fiat money. Since 1971, as sequelae to 3 wars, we have had a similar problem. By letting the dollar float until the world price of gold in terms of dollars settled down, we have determined what could be called the natural price. So we have resumed specie payment at a firm gold standard. God willing, we will never leave it."

This was in answer to the London Times correspondent's

frosty inquiry as to whether or not the Secretary thought anyone would want our gold at that price. The Treasury Secretary told him that we were not "selling gold" but promising to redeem our paper money at a gold - standard price. The Times' question was inspired by the fact that at the close of market Friday the London fix was $423. 195 per troy ounce, with the Zurich fix, the Winnipeg fix, and the Hong Kong fix (the last only hours before the Washington announcement) all within a dollar of the London fix.

PRAVDA: " - .capitalistic trickery - "

Moscow has not had a free market in gold since pre - 1914 but, as a gold - producing country, its response to our resumption policy has been even more acid than the shrill complaints from Johannesburg. The Zurich gold market did not open today. London opened on time but the price dropped at once, with the first purchase at $397. 127, which slowed but did not stop the decline. Winnipeg opened an hour late; the reason became clear when the Prime Minister announced the tying of the Canadian dollar to the U.S. dollar at one - to - one - a fait aCCompli as the two currencies have hunted up and down, never more than 1% apart, for the past several months.

The timing of the announcement gave the world a weekend in which to think things over, the purpose being presumably to reduce oscillations. The New York Stock Market responded with an upward surge. The Dow - Jones Industrials closed at

"Mr. Chairman, are these unofficial figures I have in front of me - that each of you has in front of you - correct? Or have my informants been leading me down the garden path? The figures on the use of hard drugs, for example?"

"Madam President, I don't know quite how to answer that."

"You don't, eh? You're Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and for four years before that chief of staff of your service. If these figures are not right, how far are they off and which way?"

"Ma'am, that is a question that should be put to each of the Services, not to me."

"So? General, you are relieved of active duty. A request for retirement will be acted on favorably, later today. You are excused. General Smith, take the chair."

The President waited until the door closed behind the ex - Chairman. Then she said soberly, "Gentlemen, it gives me no pleasure to put an end to the career of a man with a long and brilliant record. But I cannot keep in a top spot in my official family a military officer who can't or won't answer questions that, in my opinion, must be answered if I am to carry out my duties as Commander in Chief. If he had answered, 'I don't know now but I'll start digging at once and won't stop until' - but he said nothing of the sort. I gave him two chances; he brushed me off." She sighed. "I suppose he dislikes taking orders from one with no military experience; I do not assume that my sex and skin color had anything to do with it. General Smith, you are in the chair by default; I can't ask you about the other Services. How about your own? Hard drugs."

"I suspect that this figure is conservative, Ma'am. I've been trying to get hard data on hard drugs since I was appointed to this job a year ago. In most cases we need evidence from medical officers to make it stick

• . . and all our doctors are overworked; we don't have nearly enough of them. Worse yet, some of the doctors are pushers themselves; two were caught."

"What happened to them? Making little ones out of big ones?"

"No, Ma'am. Discharged. In civilian practice, I suppose."

"For God's sake, why? Has the Army forgotten how to hold a court martial? Two drug pushers, simply sent home and still licensed to practice medicine - and to prescribe drugs. General, I'm shocked."

"Ma'am, may I say something in my own defense? Then you can have my request for retirement, if you wish it."

"Please. Go ahead."

"These cases occurred before I became Chief of Staff. At the time these two were caught, I was Superintendent of the War College; drugs are not a problem there. When last I had troop duty, I did have a policy of treating use of hard drugs as a criminal offense, as permitted and required by regulations. But the very most I ever managed was to get some sent to the V.A. for hospital cure and rehabilitation. Under the present rules, if a man has a good lawyer - and they do, usually - he can get away from courts martial and appeal to a civilian judge. That usually ends it."

"Madam President, may I add something?"

"Certainly, Admiral."

"Have you heard of the mutiny in the Somers about a century and a half back?"

"I - Yes, I think I have! A novel. Voyage to the - Voyage to the First of December. Right?"

"There was a novel some years back; I think that was the book's title. I haven't read it. Then you are aware that it was a tragic scandal, with mutineers hanged at the yardarms. What I wanted to say was this: I think the figures on drugs in the Navy are about right - lower than in the Army, of course; the circumstances are different. But what is killing the Navy - aside from a shortage of career officer material - is that both mutiny and sabotage are out of hand - . - because offenses that used to rate hanging from the yardarm are now treated as 'Boys will be boys.' A great deal of it does derive from a change in the legal structure, as the General said. I would rather have five ships properly maintained, properly manned, shipshape and Bristol style, than ten ships undermanned and shot through with men who should never have been accepted in the first place. A stupid and sullen seaman is worse than no one at all."

The President said, "Judges, chapter seven."

The Admiral looked puzzled. The Marine Commandant suddenly said, "Gideon's Band!"

"Exactly. I suspect that we have been trying to meet

quotas - numbers of men - rather than placing quality first. I'm sure it's not as simple as that, but that does seem to be part of it. General, does the Air Force have any different slant on this?"

"No, Ma'am, I think the Navy and the Corps both speak for me. And the Army. . - although Smitty's problems are different from ours. Our worst problem is hanging on to trained men.. - because what we teach them, flying and electronics especially, are very salable on the outside. I want to add something, though. Marijuana is not on the list of drugs. It may very well be true that grass is no worse than liquor. But neither one mixes with driving a flying machine. Or anything in an airplane. But grass is harder to cope with. A stash is easier to hide than a bottle, and it is harder to tell when a man is stoned than when he is drunk. And much harder to prove. I welcome suggestions."

"I think we all do. Although I think we've pinpointed one essential. Quality before quantity. Gentlemen, we'll let this marinate about ten days while all of us try to spot all of the basic things that are wrong

then meet again and exchange ideas. In writing. Call the shots as you see them, don't be afraid of hurting feelings, pay no attention to sacred cows. Admiral, you found things wrong with the military legal system; please analyze the matter, with specific recommendations. If you truly feel that we need to go back to keelhauling and hanging at the yardarm, say so."

"I do not, Ma'am. But I do think the present rules are more suited to a Scout camp than to a fighting force. Punishment should be swift and certain; mutineers should not be coddled. We need a new code."

"Work on it. I assume that you have legal aides. Mr. Secretary of Defense, I have not intended to monopolize the floor. Before we adjourn, I want you to give us your opinions on problems of discipline. I would like to hear comment on those figures I supplied, all categories. But you aren't limited to that. Feel free to bring

up anything. I think that discipline in the Armed Forces is as serious a problem as I face . . - and the most difficult."

"Discipline is not one of the duties of the Secretary of Defense."

"So? What are your duties?"

"To manage my department. Discipline belongs to these gentlemen. Not to me. And certainly not to you. You are way out of line."

"You forgot something, sir. The President is in the direct line of command, at the top, and cannot avoid responsibility for any aspect of her command. The Secretary of Defense is not in the line of command; he is an executive secretary for the President. However, since you see your job as merely managerial, and not concerned with morale and discipline, I won't press you about it. I have your signed resignation in my desk, inherited from my predecessor. I'm accepting it. At once."

The ex - Secretary leaned back and laughed. "How just like a woman! Ruffle her feathers and she flies off the handle. But it's okay, Shortie; I didn't intend to stay this long. After the Chief died I was ready to quit. But Charlie asked me to stick around a little longer, keep an eye on you. I know what you did to him the day of the tragedy, standing in his way when he was entitled to the job. You never were anything but an election poster. Didn't anybody ever tell you that?"

"You may leave now. You're excused."

"Oh, I'm leaving; I've got a press conference in ten minutes. Just one thing: You said Joe probably disliked taking orders from you because you've had no military experience. Nonsense. Any top brass expects to take orders from a civilian. But no real man will take orders from a nigger, much less a nigger wench."

The Marine was out of his chair so fast that it overturned, snatched the ex - Secretary out of his chair and got a hammerlock on him - but beat the others to it only by being closest.

"Down on your knees and apologize, you jerk! That's the President of the United States you're talking to!" The Marine General's Deep South accent, ordinarily carefully corrected, came out in full force, thick as gumbo.

"Make him take his hands off me!"

"Keep him secure, General. And thank you, sir. But don't rough him up more than necessary. Admiral, if you will be so kind as to check, I think you will find two Marines and two Secret Service men just outside that door. Please ask one of them to telephone for two White House Police. I want this person removed from the building and not allowed back in. Nor back into the Pentagon, ever. Most especially not into his former office."

"A pleasure, Ma'am!"

"Thank you, sir. I hope to see you all here at the same time a week from Thursday. General Smith, I ask you to remain chairman pro tern, in addition to your regular duties. Adjourn when it suits you. I'm withdrawing now; I want to lie down. I find that I am a bit shaky...."

CND 4,O6CRH

CHEYENNE - LEGISLATURE BOTH HOUSES PASSED OVERWHELMINGLY FIRST AND SECOND READING EMERGENCY MEASURE RESTORING PAUPERS OATH FOR RECIPIENTS OF ANY PUBLIC

ASSISTANCE OF ANY SORT REPEAT ANY SORT IN RESPONSE TO

GOVERNOR'S IMPASSIONED CLAIM THAT THERE WOULD BE NO

MONEY FOR THE BLIND AND THE TOTALLY HELPLESS UNLESS

STATE RETURNED TO NINETEENTH CENTURY TEST OF ELIGIBILITY MORE

CHEYENNE - AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION WILL FILE

CLASS ACTION IN FEDERAL COURT TO STOP RESTORATION OF

PAUPERS OATH AS PREREQUISITE FOR PUBLIC ASSISTANCE.

"Come in, Senator! Thank you for doing me this favor!'

"Madam President, it would be a pleasure to call on you at any time even if you were not President. Perhaps more."

"Uncle Sam, I don't know what that means but I like it. Now to work! Would it suit you to work for me?"

"You know it would, my dear - but I have a constituency."

"I don't mean resign and take a job here. But can't you pair votes, or something? I need a lot of help from you right now and more later."

"Anything the President wants, the President gets. Yes, I can always arrange a pair. . - even when I'm only nominally out of the District." He looked down at her. "Trouble?"

"Work I don't know how to handle. I've got to appoint twenty - three judges and I can't put it off much longer. And I don't know how to tell a knucklehead from an Oliver Wendell Holmes. See that tall stack? And that one? Those are the written opinions - or other legal writings if they are not already judges - from the candidates for judgeships. No names on them, and other identifications blacked out. Just identification numbers. I thought I could read this mess and tell which ones had their heads screwed on tight. I can't. I don't understand legalese, I'm not a lawyer."

"I'm not a lawyer either, bright eyes.'

"No, but you're the world's leading semanticist. I figured that, if you couldn't understand something, then it was really nonsense."

"It's a good approach. If a person of normal intelligence, and a reasonably full education, cannot understand a piece of prose, then it is gibberish. But you shouldn't be doing it; you have a country to worry about. I don't have time, either, but I'll take time; my staff are quite competent to wipe the noses and hold the hands of my constituents for a while. I'll arrange it."

"Then you'll do it! Uncle Sam, you're a dear!"

"But I want a bribe."

"You do? I thought I was supposed to be offered bribes, not have to pay them."

"I'm eccentric. I take bribes only from pretty little girls I've known a long time."

"You're eccentric, all right. What is that thing you wear on your head? A cow pat?"

"My dear, you're colorblind. Madam President, I have a proposed amendment to the Constitution I want you to sponsor... and by great good luck I just happen to have a copy of it on me."

"I'll bet you sleep with a copy of it on you. No, just put it on the desk. Now tell me what it is supposed to accomplish."

"It permits a citizen to challenge the Constitutionality of any law or regulation, Federal or any lesser authority, on the grounds that it is ambivalent, equivocal, or cannot be understood by a person of average intelligence. Paragraph two defines 'average intelligence.' Paragraph three defines and limits the tests that may be used to test the challenged law. The fourth paragraph excludes law students, law school graduates, lawyers, judges, and uncertified j .p.'s from being test subjects. I call it 'the Semantic Amendment.'

"No, you don't; you call it 'the Plain English Amendment.' Show biz, Uncle Sam. Senator, under this amendment could a person challenge the income tax law on the grounds that he has to hire an expert to make out his form 1040?"

"He certainly could. And he would win, too, as no three I.R.S men can get the same answers out of identical data if the picture is at all complex."

"Hmm - What if he's bright enough but can't read?"

"Paragraph three."

"How about the Federal Budget? It isn't law in the usual meaning but Congress votes on it and it has the force of law, where it applies."

"First paragraph. It quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck - it's a duck."

"I'll try to study this before I fall asleep tonight. Senator, this one we're going to put over!"

"Don't be too certain, Madam President. Lawyers are going to hate this ... and the Congress and all the state legislatures have a majority of lawyers."

"And every one of them not anxious to lose his job. That's their weakness ... because it's awfully easy to work up hate against lawyers. Senator, this bill will be introduced by lawyers. Both Houses. Both parties. Not by you, you're not a lawyer. Uncle Sam, I'm an amateur president but I'm a pro in show biz. It'll play in Paducah."

The two Presidents were seated alone at the front of the crowded grandstand. Two kilometers in front of them a spaceship, small compared with the Shuttle assemblage, but close to the size of the Shuttle alone, stood upright in the bright Mexican mountain sunshine. A voice from everywhere was counting:

" - sixty - one seconds one minute.... fifty - nine fifty - eight - "

She said, "How are you coming with Spanglish, Seсor el Presidente?"

He shrugged and smiled, "As before, Doсa la Presidenta. I know it is simple; I hear your people and ours talking in it - . . and I understand them. But I don't have time to study. When I leave office - " He spread his hands.

"I know. Perhaps two years from now - I can't believe I've been in office only six years. It feels like sixty."

"You've accomplished sixty years of statecraft; the whole world is awestruck."

" - forty - one ... forty... thirty - nine - "

"There never was anything really seriously wrong with my country, Mr. President. We made some silly mistakes, then compounded them by being stubborn. The Fence, for example. What's the point in a Fence that doesn't work? So I had it torn down."

"Madam, your most creative act of statesmanship! Without that act of faith, you and I could never have put over our Treaty of Mutual Assistance. And the dozen major advances we have started under it. This. You and I would not be sitting here."

"Yes. No more wetbacks and this. Mr. President, I still don't understand how a beam of light can put a spaceship into orbit."

"Neither do I, Madam President, neither do I. But I believe your engineers.

"So do I but it frightens me."

" - fifteen... The Binational Solar Power Zone is now on standby power.. . nine... eight - "

"Oh! Will you hold my hand? Please!"

" - four! . . - three! .. . two! - . . one! ... LIGHT!"

A single inhalation by thousands, then came the everywhere voice in soft, reverent tones: "Look at that bastard go!"

" - direct from O'Neill Village, Ell - Five. It's a beautiful day here, it's always a beautiful day here. But today is our happiest fiesta ever; little Ariel Henson Jones, first baby born in space, is one year old today. All four of her grandparents are here, her father's parents having traveled all the way from Over - the - Rainbow, Ell - Four, via Luna City Complex, just to be here on this great day. Don't repeat this but a little bird, a parrot, told me that one of Ariel's grandmothers is pregnant again. I won't say which one but it's personal good news for all of us here in the sky because, if true and I can assure you it is, it is one more and very important datum in the rapidly growing list to show that youthfulness in all ways is markedly extended simply by living in free - fall. Correction: the mild acceleration we experience at the skin of our Village... but which we can leave behind completely at any time for freefall sports at the axis.

"And you can enjoy them, too. This newscast comes to you sponsored by O'Neill Village Chamber of Commerce. Visitors welcome. You haven't lived until you ride the Light Beam, the cheapest way to travel per thousand kilometers ever invented by a factor of at least one hundred.. . and not uncomfortable even the first few seconds since the installation of the new total support hydraulic couches. Also you haven't lived until you've seen our free - fall ballet! You think Las Vegas has shows? Wait till you see a Coriolis torch dance. Or what free - fall does for a hundred - centimeter bust. Oh, boy! Or if you like to gamble we'll take your money with brand - new games as happily as Monte Carlo or Atlantic City. See your travel agent for a variety of package vacations.

"Or more than a vacation. Buying a share in the Village is cheaper than buying a house in most cities down heavyside. But if you are young and healthy and possess certain needed skills your migration into the sky can be subsidized. Phone the placement office here for details, same rates as from San Francisco to New York. Wups! Almost forgot to tell you: knowledge of industrial Spanglish required, plus some Brownie points for any other language you know.. .

It could be that way, over the Rainbow. As Madam President said, there never has been anything incurably wrong with our country and our world - just a horrid accumulation of silly mistakes that could be corrected with horse sense and the will to do it.

We have a lot of healthy, intelligent people with a wide spread of useful skills, trades, and professions. We have a wonderful big country not yet too crowded and still wealthy in real wealth, bankrupt on paper but that can always be corrected with real wealth, will, and work. Actually it's easier to be happy and get rich than it is to go down the chute. This country has so much going for it that it takes a lot of work combined with wrong - headed stubbornness to ruin this country. It's not easy.

In the meantime don’t go away. There are still a lot of sacred cows I haven't kicked but plan to... someday. So, unless I'm hit by a taxicab while swiveling on my cane to ogle pretty girls, I'll be back.

The End.