University of Virginia Library

What's New Around The World?

As the price of Mao buttons
dropped sharply in New York
last week, school children in
Londonderry, Northern Ireland
were lining up for what is
called the "Matin?e
performance." Bogside's
Catholic ghetto kids, it seems,
have cornered the market on
rubber bullets.

The aim of the game: the
kids bait British soldiers into
firing the black, resilient
projectiles at them, then
retrieve the bouncing slugs
which bring as much as $12.50
apiece from the dwindling
number of memento-hungry
American tourists remaining in
Ireland. One kid even trained
his dog to fetch the swag.

The bullets are about one
and a half inches long. They
are fired from shotguns with a
muzzle velocity of 162 feet per
second - a mere limp
compared to the 2,650 feet per
second a rifle bullet travels.
The shotgun is based on an
American riot model, and the
ammunition was developed
from a wooden variety
employed by the British Army
to subdue unruly Communist
activities in Hong Kong.

Fired for ricochet effect at
first, the bullets are supposed
to hurdle off the payment into
the shins of those in the front
ranks of street crowds,
knocking them to the ground.
But the crowds have grown
adept at dodging the missiles,
and Irish tempers have risen
the soldiers no longer aim for
the street but instead fire
directly at the people. One
woman has been reported
blinded, with others injured
less badly.

And should the violence
spread, imagine the scene in
Washington: Senator Edward
Kennedy and Bernadette
Delvin in an armored Buick
— leading an assault on the
British embassy using rubber
bullets. Special IRA
replacements emerge from
helicopters only to discover the
battle lost, with Taiwanese
tourists and Chiang Kai-chek
sympathizers struggling over
the spent missiles, which might
then be resold to American
tourists or shipped to Macao
where fireworks experts would
recycle the slugs for an
invasion of the Chinese
mainland.

Meanwhile, at the White
House, a food fight erupts in
the state dining-room. Henry
Kissinger, angered by reports
that he will be traded to
Warner Bros. for a new
Stanley Kubrick film, an
update of Goethe's Faust,
holds off the Secret Service,
the President and Mrs. Nixon
by flinging scalding globs of
sweet and sour pork from
behind an overturned side
table. He is subdued and
dragged away screaming when
his electronic chop sticks fail
to work.

On Capitol Hill, Senator
James Buckley is accused of
underworld activity in New
York City. (He and his brother,
William F. Buckley, it is
learned, have been smuggling
duty-free Mao buttons through
Hong Kong for illegal
importation to the United
States, where the buttons are
resold at inflated prices.) Sep.
Buckley takes cover in the
Senate cloakroom, where a
flying squad of Nader's Raiders
wrestle him to the floor and
tickle him until he confesses.

Photo By John Bueacher