Down through the years the Constitution has not always included all Americans — especially Blacks and women. No such charges have been leveled against the Religious Liberty clauses, though there have been occasions when their protections have been overridden or imperfectly applied. To remind us — as the Framers knew well — that “nothing human can be perfect,” we hear remarks from a distinguished Baptist pastor, an accomplished lawyer, and an eminent civil rights leader, Dr. Benjamin Hooks.

On June 25, 1988, leaders in government, religion and business signed the Williamsburg Charter in Colonial Williamsburg. I felt privileged to be one of them.

The Williamsburg Charter is an historic document that reaffirms the first sixteen words of the Bill of Rights. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free expression thereof.” We stand in awe of these men of Williamsburg who, more than 200 years ago, inspired these words. We salute their special genius. We admire their courage, for these sixteen words were to change, in a most remarkable way, the future course of history, both of our nation and the world.

People were to be free to pursue, without interference, those things about which they felt most deeply — those elemental questions of conscience that give meaning to life. Yet, the affirmation of religious freedom would have meant nothing without the protection of a strong, abiding sense of mutual responsibility for its preservation. We must always remember that, in the words of the Charter, “Rights are best guarded when each person and group guards for all others those rights they wish for themselves.”

On most dairy farms teat dips are applied to the teats of cows either before or after milking in order to prevent pathogens from gaining access to the mammary gland via the teat canal. In the present experiments, a natural teat dip was developed using a fermentate containing the live bacterium Lactococcus lactis DPC 3251. This bacterium produces lacticin 3147, a two-component lantibiotic which was previously shown to effectively kill Gram-positive mastitis pathogens. Lacticin 3147 activity in the fermentate was retained at 53% of its original level following storage for 3 weeks at 4°C. In the initial experiments in vitro, 105 colony-forming units/ml (cfu/ml) of either Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus dysgalactiae or Streptococcus uberis were introduced into the lacticin-containing fermentate. Neither Staph. aureus nor Str. dysgalactiae could be detected after 30 min or 15 min, respectively, while Str. uberis was reduced approximately 100-fold after 15 min. Following these trials, preliminary experiments were performed in vivo on teats of lactating dairy cows. In these experiments, teats were coated with each of the challenge organisms and then dipped with the lacticin-containing fermented teat dip. Following a dip contact time of 10 min, staphylococci were reduced by 80% when compared with the undipped control teat. Streptococcal challenges were reduced by 97% for Str. dysgalactiae and by 90% for Str. uberis. These trials showed that the teat dip is able to reduce mastitis pathogens on the teats of lactating cows.

The technique of external reflection infrared (IR) spectroscopy is used to study silicon surface chemistry. External reflection is enhanced by implanting a buried cobalt silicide layer in silicon to act as an infrared reflector. The preparation of clean well-ordered surfaces from the ion implanted substrates is demonstrated. The reactions of water and ethanol with Si(100) are investigated.