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Show 12 The Rocky Mountain Open Door, Baptist Medical Center changes sex policy Southern Baptiste, the church President Carter Is affllated with, formerly ruled In Oklahoma City last month to ban sex changes at their Baptist Medical Center, a mqjor U.S. center for such surg y- t The Rev. Joe Ingram, said This decision will be it. There will be no ifs, ands or question marks. This will be the decision that stands. The officials voted 542 against the operations which Is dominated by Baptist ministers opposing the sex changes on grounds that such psychological abnormalities can only be righted through spiritual transformation. But the Board's decision wasn't had without a bitter fight within the demonlnatlon. Of the 64 members of the board, there are eight women, eight laymen and 48 ministers from all areas of the state. The other three members are the three statewide officers of the convention. Board members already have received a recommendation from the boards committee on hospitals and the Rev. Ingram said the board would certainly follow the committee's recommendation. The announcement has not been made formally, but one committee who voted In favor, said the vote went overwhelmingly against permitting the operations, but other members said there was heated discussion concerning this matter. OOKc November, 1977 Ski Utah t Sun Valley ditto in Idaho. Sun Valley was down 50 percent in revenues, on an operating season two weeks shorter than normal. Snow? There just wasnt any except e the variety. Crystal Mountain perhaps the Pacific Northwest was worst hit of all. Crystal opened Dec. 28, for a dodgy 16 days, then had to close down until March. Total operating days were 70, as compared to a normal season of 200 days. Revenues were down71 percent. The largest snow accumulation was in March 52 inches; normally there would be eight feet of snow on the mountain that month. So it went. Mission Ridge didnt open at all, Mt. Hood Meadows was open from Dec. 31 to Jan 23, closed until Feb. 28, then open on weekends only until May; revenues were off 50 percent. So what the hell happened? The media kept saying only that the storm tracks had moved, which is about same as saying that the Rockies and the Western States didnt get much precipitation and the East did which we knew in the first place. The larger and more intriguing question is, why? A favorite theory of the has to do with sun spots, and it is a fascinating one. It has been known for some time that there is a statisical relationship between solar flares and weather changes on earht, but respectable scientists have always played down the connection because theve been unable to come up with a causal relationship. (Theyre getting closer, but there is still something of. a missing man-mad- 12 Off Cover Price on Major Paperback Titles & Publishers During November gloom-and-doome- rs link.) It has also long 258 East 1st South Open dally 10-- 9, Sun. 2--7 held that solar activity operates on an 11 year cycle, with periods of high activity coming at that fre- quency and many weather anomalies seem to occur on the same time frame. But one researcher has now uncovered a period of 75 years when there was no sun-spactivity at all. It occurred in the latter half of the' 17th century; its called the Maunder Minimum. It just hapLittle Ice pens that the Age when European glaciers extended to their greatest size since the true Ice age, when Spanish explorers in the New World reported walking their horses across a occurred in frozen Rio Grander the latter part of the 17th century. During the Maunder Minimum. WeTe due for a peak in sun-spactivity at any moment now but strangely, it doesnt seem to be happening. As a matter of fact,, were about 22 months overdue for the sun to start acting up again. It keeps not doing so. Gulp. Or, if that aint enough for you, consider the future of skiing (not to mention the human race) in the light of the coming Grand Alignment. It was discover-- ; ed in 1954 that when any three of the suns nine planets are arranged in a line or arranged to form a right angled triangle radio communications on earth are severely disturbed. Geomagnetic disturbances are also expected to have an effect on weather patterns. Now, it happens that in 1982 all nine planets will be aligned in a straight line on one side of the Sun. Thars a Grand Alignment, which occurs once every 1 79 years. And it happens that this Grand Alignment is going to occur in a year when sun-spactivity is scheduled to out anyway. peak The last previous Grand Alignment was in 1802, which seems to be, in the scanty weather records that are available, the beginning cold point of an unusual in Northern the Hemisphere period including 1816, the Year of No Summer.(The ice never went out on Lake Champlain that summer. The previous Grand Alignment to that on ewas in the early 1600s just before the peak of the Little Ice Age. The Grand Alignment before that was in the middle of the 1400s; it happens that the Norse colonies on Greenland, established when that name was appropriate, had to be abandoned just after the middle of th 1400's because Greenland turned permanently white. There was a Grand Alignment about 375 A.D.; there is an unusiial cold spell in Chinese weather records starting about 400 A.D. There was another Alignment in 875 B.C.; most of the glaciers of the Rockies formed or reformed in a cold era from 900 to 450 B.C. There have been two significant global temperature declines since 1600, Gecunng in 1630 and 1809, or thprpflhontc. ftranrl Alionmntc nr. ot so-call- ed ot gloom-and-doo- m ot 20-ye- ar . . curred in 1624 and 1803. Gulp again, eh? Well, it probably isnt nice to make jokes about either Mother Nature and her Grand Alignments, or about the future of the race. The thesis I have just summarized is only one of hundreds. If it is too gloomy and doomy for you, rest assured that there are others which make just a good a case for the opposite. Namely, a continued benigh period in global weather last year just an anomaly, every- thing to balance out again pretty soon. I havent included those there because they dont tell us much' about .. future skiing. One thing youve got to admit about the ice age doomsayers: They suggest well have good skiing on our wasy to extinction If we can find the petrochemicals to run the lifts and to get to the mountains, after weve heated our homes and offices. And next year? Will the snows come back to the Rockies? All we really know is that weather does tend to balance itself out. The weather is warmer than normal about half the time, colder than normal the other half if you just wait long enough, and are ever able is. to determine what normal Itll average out. The Rockies have exactly the same chance of getting a splendid snow year this winter as they did last year. Dont be depressed, however:theyve also go the same chance as they did before the best snow year they ere ever had. Its a crapshoot, but the odds remain just about Thats aobut the only thing about eh weather you can depend on. Somebody Is doing something about it, however. If you cant depend on weather, you can de- on Despite last years Eend ski resorts Western many are going ahead with the installation of snowmaking equipment at a furious rate so no matter how the winter turns out, you can at least reduce your chances of scratching your ski bottoms this winter. Thats something, right there. 50-5- ski-bi- z. 0. ' |