Miami Hurricane, November 17, 1981

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THE MIA
URRICANE
Volume 58, No.23
Tuesday, November
Phone 284-4401
Miami lit, im.   HH-   i ' ■ I   > 4 1 l\
Spare Shuttle Columbia Took Off in \ Dazzling DWplai Of Kin    .nd Smoke
Launch Something To Lose Sleep Over
By SCOTT E. RIXFORD
.ev    Writer
Dateline: 2300 hours, 11 Sovember 1.98J.
Hurricane writer/technical person/keeper of the
brain Charles Lavin called me at my home as I was trying to crawl out of a Maytag washer
"NASA has cleared the way for two Hurricane
writer- to he part of the news media present at tomorrow's shuttle liftoff. Do you want to go?"
"Why sure." I said I as I puked lint out of mv
rav el. "What time do you wish to leave?"
"How about twenty minute
• . . m
Al one o'clock In the morning, I found mvseif
drinking black coffee, eating Pringles. and riding on
my wa. to Cape Canaveral. It certainly i.sn't common
for a freshman entertainment writer to be invited to
cover such a mission during Ins first semester for the
newspaper My mind felt exhilarated, my body dead, I
would have to have been insane not to go.
It seemed I had been driving all night I read the
highway sign: I'alm Beach. 20 Hides. I broke down and
sobbed. The man in the white suit with the butterfly
net wa.s sitting on my shoulder. Mr l.avin was copping
/ s. and I was desperately in need of No-Doz. I had
P-r-'gles caught between my teeth and coffee stains on
my shirt. I had learned to hate small cars.
• * * •
After five hours of flying past the bubble gum boys.
we arrived ai Cape Canaveral. Lavin was still sleeping
I had bricks in my eyes and a contract with Crayola to
produce a new shade of red. After I received my pass,
nlinued through the many security gates and ar-
rived al 'he press booth  The time was 0600 hours   i_
November 1981
• • • •
What happened between 0600 hours and 0900
houra I'll never know I slept The honorable Charles
1 awn woke me up with his weirds of wisdom:
"If you  dont  get up. Rixford. you'll  nns^ i .
thing. You can I sleep ihe day away "
1 wished I had a rifle, I I hair, a bomb. Anvthing tn
I
reduce this person to nothingness  I grabbed mv , am-
era, my pen and ray notebook, and set out for a media
experience,
* * . .
As cynical as I may have felt that morning — I was
capable of stealing a cauldron of money from a Salvation Army volunteer — the remainder of the day would
prove to be one of the most exciting days of my life
After tipping my hat to such celebrities as David
Hartman. Dan Rather, and the writer for a publication
in Cat's Creek, Oregon, I planted my flag in a pue e oi
earth along the banks of the cape and began to set up
Reverend Probes Anti-Semitism
By MARIA t. SALAZAR
Vewi Writ,,,
"We Christians believe Jesus
Christ is our savior, but this savior
put a burden on us. We don't want
those burdens, but we can't blame
our own faith. We have to blame
someone else.
"Since Jesus was a lew. we
blame the Jews."
He may not think that analysis is
morally right, but that's how Reverend Edward H. Flannery. author
of The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries Of Anti-Semitism, sees anti-Semitism among
Christians
.tannery, director of the office
of Continuing Education of the
Clergy, Diocese of Providence.
Rhode Island, explained that view
in a lecture ahout anti-Semitism at
the  i M   I .is'   School   Auditorium
last Tuesday
This lecture is the beginning of a
lecture serial sponsored by the L'M
Judaic Studies Program for
1981-H_. According to Dr Helen
I agin, director of the program, the
series has been made possible
through a $12,000 grant from the
Greater Miami Jewish Eederation.
Addressing his lecture to a main
ly Jewish audience, Flannery. a
former executive secretary of the
Secretariat for Catholic-Jewish Relations of the National Conference
of Catholic Bishops, explained
what he believes are the main rea
sons for the Jewish-Catholic separation
F'irst. he said. Jewish people rejected to carry on a dialogue with
Christians, among many other reasons, for suspicion
"Jews have alwavs believed 'hal
Space 'Shot'
Wasn't Easy
B) ( 1IARI ES I . I AV1N
It has been my unfortunate experience while working for the liurrit iverlng a "big" event out oi
campus can be pretty frustrating. Covering the launch
Of the Columbia would be no different ... or so I
thought
Many people ha\e told me on more than one occasion that I am crazy When 1 walked into the office two
weeks ago looking foi someone to accompany me to
the launch. I again was told what I already knew. Tbe
only good place to see the launch up there would be
from inside Kennedy Space (enter. 1 was told. There
was no wa\ I v. ould get up there, let alone gel into the
compound I was better ofl watching the launch on TV.
But I didn't want to watch Ihe launch on TV I
wanted to be there. I wanted to see and hear It, 1 wanted in shout it for my photo collection So i continued
my search The onlj one. allowed Into the compound
other than employees of the Center were press representatives. I learned. I work for the Hurricane — that
should qualify me. Furthermore, the Story was approved for the news sec tion. Now all I needed was permission lo get into the compound
Here is where I thought 1 would come to a dead
end. 1 called Kenned) Space Center, and after being
tossed around from department to department. I was
told that I would have had to notify them ages in advance and the iinh way lo get in was to get clearance
from Washington Wow. Washington. Five minutes
later I was asking the D.C operator for the NASA
phone number NASA referred me to another number
In Kenned) Center, and aftei i ailing them and getting
some minor paperwork done, we were cleared for the
launch
And so thi trek began
At 11:00 p.m cm the eve of the No\ t George Haj.
the official "reporter" on the story, and I took ofl
four-and-a-half hour trip thai would get us losl a few
times and would send us hunting for an open service
station at 3 a m with the gas gauge needle way pasl I
After thai we weie to spend another thirty minutes
driving around the Cape in order to enter through Gate
_. whi ltd be officially given our press badges
and given tree run ol the complex Well, almost We
were yel to be stopped r various checkpoint-, and
turned back  bul we finally made it to the press sit.
There, al four in the morning, were reporters running around, helicopters taking off and landing (aster
Ihan plane- do at O'Hare, network biggies getting
preppeel up li ast. and dozens of photographers
letting   up   complicated   equipmenl    In   the  far  back-
grim ml stood the < olumbia on its pad. lit from all directions, waiting   And in the middle of it all. ihe count
down clocl away, without stopping   Without
atoppit .
lhe sun rose and tried to peek through the cloud
cover which was beginning to worry everyone. Thousands Ol lumens were produced by the network studios
as they all went on the air. Reporters typed madly on
theii portable VDT's Photographers checked then
equipment lor the upteenth time. / checked my equipmenl ior the upteenth time The clock counted awa>
. less than fiv.   minutes less than one minute
Thouse ven frozen on the far image of the
er, nol  unlike all those eyes fro/en every afternoon on the IV sei in the Union crime 2 p.m   And the
clock counted away        50 si ds       10 seconds   ..
_ i sei i ind.       3 i seconds
The onl> good picture I shot that morning was the
one ol the i Ioi k Aftei all attempts to launch thai mon-
sti i  tailed I bega ■■■ i whether the phone calls,
the running around, the 30 hours without sleep had
been worth n But when I gol ba, k to ihe office I knew
I had to go up again .nd again 1 was told that I was
out of my mind   Well, evet tied to his opin
ion.
i _th should nol   lavi    n nearl) as
i leared foi tbe
how to gel there, and we knew
av i iear i atastrophe, But
eports : om NASA wen no help in keeping things
, aim and organized I hen a ere talks about further de-
lavmg the laum h aiti d  Final
lo p m    m i iuld,  NASA
see page _/LAl NCH
The e\ p of   he
hectii    Alter  all,
launch,   we   knew
to fill up to
my camera It didn't takl long to sei up a Kodak 110
Instamaiu
1 observed. Ihe huge vehicle assembly plant with
Ms many-storied doors was more than just a building. It
waa America On one side was the .inerican flag, on
Ihe other the bicentennial star. 1 felt a stirring within
nie I ignored il. It continued My stomach moved, my
senses magnified. More Pringles. 1 decided
Ten minutes before liftoff, the last hold passed with
no complications Everyone was counting down the
seconds  Manv were pessimistic, mainly ihos,   who had
Se.  page Z/PRINGLES
there is something hidden in the
|( hristianl agenda "
Also, he said, lews think lhe
ilea ni trying to convert them is always present in these talks
On the other hand, he explained,
Christiana   also  did  not   want   to
conduct a dialogue with  Jews because of "indifference." This indil
ference. he said, ia because ol ignc.
ram i
The dialogue started after the
Holocaust. Flannery said. It was
"probably because Christiana felt
guilty and became more Christian
in the real wav
I he Ignorant e suffered b> i
tians about Jews, said Flannery, is
because Christians don't read their
own Bible "The lews are mentioned in the lirsl book of the
Bible, denesis
See page J/1 H II Rl
Miami I n u.-s n R
Larry Brodsky's three-yard touchdown
catch put the Hurricanes up 14-0 in
the first quarter of Saturday's Peach
Bowl rematch against Virginia Tech.
Miami held on to win, 21-14. The
'Canes, now 7 2 on the year, are closing in on the Top Ten. For a detailed
account of the game see SPORTS,
page  1 1