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Just like Hot Lips Houlihan—the often strong—willed character she plays on the television series M*A*S*H—Loretta Swit speaks her mind with conviction . . . and one of the causes she's most passionate about is animal abuse. As an active spokesperson for Friends of Animals (a nonprofit animal protection organization based in New York), Ms. Swit frequently attends fur fashion shows in order to protest the cruelty of snaring animals in painful leg-hold traps to obtain their pelts for high-fashion garments.

The core of the problem, she explains, is that many more furbearers die than are actually needed, because carcasses with nonsalable fur are simply "trashed". For example, Ms. Swit notes, it takes an average of 42 pelts to make one 40-inch fox coat, but some 126 other animals will die in steel traps (and later be discarded) . . . all, she exclaims, "to produce one fox coat for one woman's vanity! "

The humane-minded actress also deplores other evidence of what she terms the low value commonly placed on mammal and marine life. Rodeos, Loretta maintains, brutalize normally tractable animals in order to put on a "good show" and—of course—thousands of seals are clubbed to death each year in the Bering Sea as part of a routine "harvest". The television star is further concerned about the treatment of domestic pets: Many people rob cats of their natural defenses by having them declawed, while others neglect to have their animals neutered (which would help reduce the population of homeless dogs and cats). Finally, Ms. Swit criticizes the management of zoos (which she calls "overpopulated jails that turn animals into neurotic pacers" ).—JM.

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY II

In 1979 Joseph P. Kennedy II—eldest son of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy—formed a nonprofit oil company called Citizens Energy Corporation (CEC) . . . in order to help needy people combat the increasing costs of energy. The firm's stated plan of action involves purchasing crude oil from producing nations, contracting to have it processed, selling off the gasoline and other by—products at market prices, and using the profits to bring cut-rate heating fuel to low-income families.

At present, CEC buys petroleum from the Republic of Venezuela, has it processed in a Caribbean refinery, and sells the resulting fuel oil to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In its first two winters of operation, the company provided the state with over 13 million gallons at nearly 40% off the market price . . . and assisted more than 75,000 people who were trapped between the onset of harsh weather and a sharp rise in heating costs.

Citizens Energy Corporation—which has declared its determination to help reverse the age-old trend of Third World resource exploitation—is also in the process of organizing technical assistance programs for the developing nations. It has, for instance, a number of biofuels projects in the works in Costa Rica: On a dairy farm near the Irazu volcano, a recently completed biogas unit now produces power from processed animal wastes . . . and the firm has been working with the Costa Rican government in an effort to use biofuel technology in coffee dryers. The company's current plans include utilizing the Central American nation's annual twomillionmeter production of woodwastes . . . by converting them—through pyrolysis—to charcoal and oil.—JV.

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