ustxtxb_obs_1982_01_15_50_00014-00000_000.pdf

The final final assembly of all 1, *U.S. nuclear weapons takes place in the Texas Panhandle. Houston has more oil company headquarters than any other city in the world. The whole state reeks of Sunbelt boosters, strident anti-unionists, political hucksters, and new industry and money. THIS IS THE LOOK OF TEXAS TODAY and the Texas Observer has its independent eye on all of it. We offer the latest in corporate scams and political scandals as well as articles on those who have other, and more humane, visions of what our state can be. Become an Observer subscriber today, order a gift for a friend, or instruct us to enter a library subscription under your patronage. NIMMONallIMIIIIIIMMIllimmimmmemmernommismow Num Send the Observer to city state zip city state zip name name address address this subscription is for myself $20 enclosed for a one-year subscription gift subscription; send card in my name bill me for $20 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 600 W. 7th, Austin, Texas 78701 14 JANUARY 15, 1982 to be arrested, with hardly anyone even aware that all of this has happened: you say that it is useless. But the Jews have a legend: the fate of the world depends on the integrity of five righteous men. And no one knows who they are. “I will preserve my integrity. I will not recognize the authority of the powers of darkness, nor the lines which they draw upon the earth. They erect a fence and say that outside of it I may pray, but that inside I may not go. This is the holy place of their idol; if I acknowledge their fence, it becomes an idol to me. It is like burning incense to Ceasar. Think how easy it would have been for the early Christians to burn that pinch of incense. But they went to the lions instead. “Perhaps I will be shot for crossing the fence; I will certainly go to prison. I do not expect anything else. But I will tell’ them, with Meshak, Shadrak, and Abednego: If our God, the one we serve, is able to save us from the burning fiery furnace and from your power, 0 King, He will save us; and even if He does not, then you must know, 0 King, that we will not serve your god nor worship the statue you have erected on the plains of Dura.” LaDon Sheets is in prison now in Cali fornia, sentenced to a year in maximum security for kneeling in the buffer zone to pray. But he accelerated many things. I went to St. Francis to see the fence Where, months before, he had climbed, and to see the cathedral in Amarillo of Bishop Leroy Matthiesen, who spoke out against Pantex in September, but primarily to see the town, for its name and what had been built there. Here was where irony ended. I did not know until later that I had gone to St. Francis in the month which marked the beginning of the eight-hundredth year since the saint’s birth. I did not know that more was happening in Amarillo than anyone saw. Transmutation is the power by which the hydrogen bomb is able to destroy cities; transmutation is the source too of all life. Transmutation of the elements, in the hands of the dark powers, may destroy us all, as the ancient Chinese alchemists prophesied. But there are many kinds of transmutation. This is the purpose of pilgrimages. The Kremlin and the Pentagon, they think they are the Lord Basking in the lightning of their terrible swift sword. They rewrote Revelation and they simulated Hell But they cannot last forever, \(Ind their time will come as well. When Christ returns in glory, tojudge us for our sins. What will he say at Pantex, when The end of the world begins? Norman Hugh Redington lives in Lubbock and is a founding member of the South Plains Alternative Resources Coalition. ANDERSON & COMPANY COFFEE TEA SPICES TWO JEFFERSON!WARE AUSTIN, TEXAS 78731 512 453-1533 Send me your list. Name Street City Zip