Elections Issue
The Candidates Answer Your Questions
The Student Newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Volume XVI, Number 48
Charlotte, North Carolina
Tuesday, March 17, 1981
1979 Burma Find
Professor's Book Confirms Asian Origin
BBB Warns Of Easy Money Offer
By David E. Griffith
“We’ll pay you 50 cents per
envelope stuffed and submitted to
us.” So says the advertising for Essex
House, a work-at-home company
whose advertising circulars have ap
peared on several UNCC bulletin
boards.
The ad gives its reader the impres
sion that his company located in Van
Nuys, Calif, will send an applicant
material to be stuffed into envelopes
and submitted back to Essex House
at a payment of 50 cents per envelope
stuffed by the home employee.
But as Better Business Bureau
(BBB) officials say, “Work-at-home
offers are often more involved than
they seem.”
Down in the body type of the Essex
circular, it says, “We’ll pay you 50
cents for each envelope you secure,
stuff with our circulars and submit to
us according to our instructions.”
However, the ad stipulates that in
order to start work for the company
you must pay them $15 for the starter
kit. This starter kit includes an eight-
page instruction booklet and 50
Evolutionary Biology of the New
World and Continental Drift, a
528-page book co-edited by UNCC
Anthropology Professor Russell
Ciochon may answer some fundamen
tal questions about the dispersal and
evolution of all higher primates.
In May 1979 Ciochon was involved
in a team which discovered 40-million-
year-old primate fossils in Burma.
The team consisted of Donald
Savage, a paleontologist at the
University of California at Berkeley,
several Burmese scientists, and
Ciochon. Their finds were named Am-
pithecus and Podaungia.
This finding confirmed evidence of
actual ancestral higher primate stock
and suggested their origin was Asian
instead of African, as had been
previously proposed.
According to Ciochon the book
argues the ancestors of these
Burmese anthropoids probably
dispersed across Asia into Africa by
advertising flyers for Goodlife Com
munications (a work-at-home offer
quite similar to Essex House whose
address in Oregon is constantly
changing). Goodlife Communications
is not listed in any Oregon telephone
directory or with the Portland BBB.
Once the individual receives the
starter kit, he is instructed to place a
newspaper ad. The ad reads
something like “Earn extra money at
home. Send a self-addressed, stamped
envelope to (the address of the person
who placed the ad). If the homework
er receives any response to the ad,
they are instructed to send the
unsealed SASEs (“secured” by the
newspaper ad) to Goodlife Com
munications (P.O. Box 22000,
Milwaukee, Ore.).
This is how Essex House can assure
its home employees, “By following
our instructions you will receive pre
addressed envelopes with postage
stamps already affixed.” The ad
coaches workers in another
paragraph, “How you go about
receiving the envelopes is a secret and
can only be revealed to members who
crossing the narrow swap-like Tethys
Sea about 40 million years ago.
“Once in Africa this ancestral stock
began to differentiate with some
populations ultimately becoming
ancestors of the 30-million-year-old
Fayum primate made famous by
paleontologist Elwyn Simond of
Duke University,” Ciochon said.
“Other populations probably dispers
ed across the equatorial Atlantic
Ocean to reach South America.’’
Ten years ago such a crossing
would have been scoffed at by much
of the scientific community. However,
in the book’s first chapter, written by
D.H. Tarling, an English
geophysicist, evidence is provided
that the marine gap between South
America and Africa 40 million years
ago was only half that of the present
distance between the two continents.
As further evidence, Tarling says
geophysical and paleontological
evidence supports the existence of
volcanic islands (stepping-stones) in
agree not to unfold such secrets to
anyone who is not a member.”
BBB brochures call work-at-home
offers similar to Essex House “work-
at-home schemes,” because they all
have one thing in common: you have
to buy something before you can start
work.
Postal Inspector Chris Marko, who
is stationed in Los Angeles area, says
Essex House is under investigation
for possible violation of the mail
fraud act. She added, “I’ve never seen
a work-at-home offer of this nature
that is legitimate.” Marko said
envelope stuffing schemes are a type
of pyramid racket and pyramids are
illegal because there is always a built-
in loser. “Whenever we hear of a per
son placing one of the newspaper ads
it is our policy to visit them and ask
them to stop. We’re not after these
people though; they’re just victims.
We just don’t want them to cause
other people to fall victim to the
schemes.
The BBB advises extreme con
sumer caution toward any work-at-
home offers.
the ancient equatorial Atlantic and
that postulated ocean currents would
favor such a migration.
Ciochon says the new book will not
only do much to clarify the line of
evolution leading to New World
monkeys, but it will also provide a
proper perspective in which to ex
amine the evolutionary relationships
of the Old World monkey, apes and
humans.
“I fully believe our understanding
of the earlier phases of our primate
ancestry will be significantly advanc
ed by this publication, perhaps even
to the extent similar to recent
publications regarding the origin of
the human line itself,” Ciochon said.
According to Ciochon the book
presents the arguments and concen
sus portions of an international sym
posia held in Turin, Italy and
Bangalore, India. At this symposia,
scientists discussed and debated the
issues of higher primate evolution
and the effects of continental drift on
the directions and modes of dispersal
of the anthropoids.
The symposia and the volume’s
preparation were provided by grants
from the Smithsonian Foreign Cur
rency Program and the L.S.B. Leakey
Foundation.
The book is published by Plenum
Press of New York and sells for
$49.50.
Inside
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