“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Yet American specialists on Iran do not believe that even those two severe decimations of its leadership will result in the collapse of the Iranian government. In their opinions none of the guerrilla resistance organizations would be able to run the country—deal with its growing economic difficulties, say, or its other great challenges. Nor, despite Western fears, does the Russian-oriented Tudeh, Iran’s Communist Party, seem anxious to take over; instead, the leaders of the Tudeh are supporting the government [at least so far], just as the armed forces do. Despite the appearance that the revolution in Iran—made up as it is of all of those diverse consciousnesses—is feeding upon itself in very destructive ways, in ordinary terms, civil war does not appear to be likely. Yet. And the Iraqi conflict goes on.³

Through all of our challenges, we were aware of at least some of the incredible variety of positive and negative world events in the news—the bombings and the peace talks, the sports contests and the religious controversies, the national strikes and the latest developments in the arts. Amid the economic difficulties in our own country, and after a number of often very expensive delays, the second flight of our shuttle spacecraft, Columbia, came due on November 4. Of primary importance was to be the testing in space of the 50-foot-long remote-control robot arm, which had been designed to place satellites in orbit and retrieve them for service and repair. Only seconds before lift-off, however, computers shut down Columbia’s flight because of a drop in pressure in oxygen tanks. Then clogged oil filters were discovered. The launch was rescheduled for November 12.

2. The cleanup costs at Three Mile Island are now projected at more than $1.5 billion, and will continue to increase. Many government officials and private analysts now believe that if the operating risks associated with nuclear power generating plants do not ultimately shut down many of them, their economic dilemmas will. I don’t know whether the nuclear power industry in the United States will die, but it’s in great trouble: Various studies show that around half of the 90 reactors under construction could be replaced by more economical coal-fired plants, containing excellent pollution-control equipment. By the late 1980s power from those new nuclear plants will be 25 percent more expensive than it would be if generated from coal.