Word: aridities
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...gossip about the private life of French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Ever since the Paris daily Le Monde noted his penchant for mysterious nighttime disappearances from the Elysée Palace (TIME, Dec. 9), a favorite Paris parlor game has been to guess where, how arid with whom the President spends his evenings. Palace officials insist that Giscard's nocturnal wanderings involve nothing more adventurous than dropping in on old friends for a drink and a chat. They contend that his yearning to escape the pressures of office briefly is just a harmless aspect...
...Secret Agent James Bond, Actor Sean Cannery came to epitomize the icy-cool professional. Now retired from Bondian intrigue, Connery has found his latest role as Raisuli, "the last of the Barbary pirates," a hotter venture. Filmed in the arid deserts of Almeria, Spain, The Wind and the Lion co-stars Candice Bergen as Connery's American kidnap victim, and Brian Keith as President Theodore Roosevelt, whom Connery tries to blackmail. Based loosely on an actual historical incident, the movie required Connery to be costumed in Arab headgear so hot that it kept the actor within wandering distance...
...long-awaited strip-mining bill to help increase coal production from the present 600 million tons per year to 1 billion tons. The growth would occur, as the bill now stands, in regions where the land can be reclaimed after surface mining: mainly the Midwest and Appalachia. Reclaiming the arid stretches of the West would be more difficult. In the meantime, underground mining, which is the only way to extract most of the nation's 1.3 trillion tons of coal, should be expanded by using advanced technology: machines that continuously bore or shave seams and greatly increase production...
What is more, says the Ford Foundation group, the nation could achieve that reduction while continuing to guard the environment; it could "still stop strip-mining for coal in the arid West" and would not have to rush nuclear plants into use while doubts remained as to their safety. "Neither jobs, nor growth rates in incomes, nor household comforts will suffer" by cutting the growth of energy use to 2%, they conclude. "Insulating homes and buildings and making cars that get better mileage are no threat to anyone-except perhaps to the energy-company salesmen...
...Groove Tube probably looked better on tape. There, the visual texture of television can be effortlessly duplicated and, in more modest circumstances, the film's misfires and arid portions would not seem so greatly enlarged. A bit of patience is required plus some small tolerance for a sort of home-room scatology, but perseverance is rewarded...