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W2A-038-0.txt
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1.0 Introduction
The HyperText Markup Language (HTML) used by the World-Wide Web has limited markup and structure recognition capabilities. Only a small set of text characteristics can be represented, and few of these have any functional value beyond display capabilities. The HTML ANCHOR element supports hypertext links; however, it cannot retrieve components of a linked document, such as a single glossary entry from a collection of several thousand entries, without resorting to programs external to HTML and the Web server. In spite of these limitations, HTML and the Web are key technologies for libraries.
The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) is a full- featured, standard markup language. HTML is actually an SGML Document Type Definition. Ideally, it would be possible to retrieve text documents marked up with the richer SGML tag set via the World-Wide-Web.
This technical paper discusses how the Web can be linked to the PAT system, Open Text's search engine that supports access to SGML-encoded documents. This Web-to-PAT Gateway utilizes the Web's Common Gateway Interface (CGI) capability and SGML-to-HTML filter programs.
After briefly overviewing key technical concepts, the paper explains the operation of the Web-to-PAT Gateway, using several examples of how it is employed at the University of Virginia Libraries, including access to text files such as a Middle English collection, the Oxford English Dictionary, and the Text Encoding Initiative's Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange.
2.0 Key Concepts
This approach to using the Web to provide access to complex textual resources involves many tools and concepts that may be unfamiliar to the reader. This section provides a very brief overview of these complex topics and it describes their interrelationships.
2.1 SGML and HTML
Standards and open systems must be an essential part of library efforts to provide large-scale, wide-area access to textual resources. Textual resources must be reusable. Because of the cost of creating texts, it must be possible to use the texts in a variety of settings with a variety of tools. To that end, a standards-based encoding scheme must be the foundation of text creation.
The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), an international standard, is such an encoding scheme, and it has proven extremely valuable in effecting an open systems approach with text. [1] This paper is not the place to present a detailed argument for using SGML, especially when this has been done so effectively elsewhere. [2] However, in addition to its value as an internationally approved standard, SGML is ideally suited to supporting text retrieval because it is a descriptive rather than a procedural markup language. SGML is a language designed to reflect the structure or function of text, rather than simply its layout or typography. In a text retrieval system, portions of an SGML document can be searched and retrieved, and functionally different textual elements can be displayed in accordance with their function.
The difficulty of designing an implementation of SGML to meet a broad range of text processing needs in the humanities has been met by the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) in its Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. [3] The application of SGML using the TEI Guidelines will play a central role in ensuring that textual resources--particularly those important to textual studies--are produced in a way that make them flexible and of continuing value. The TEI itself is a collaborative project of the Association for Computers and the Humanities, the Association for Computational Linguistics, and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing. Its purpose is the promulgation of guidelines for the markup of electronic text for a variety of disciplines involved in the study of text. In mid-1994, a comprehensive and detailed two volume set of guidelines was published. The print version of the TEI Guidelines is an absolutely essential acquisition by libraries; an electronic version has been made available by the author. [4]
A central feature of SGML is the DTD (Document Type Definition). The DTD is a codification of the possible textual characteristics in a given document or set of documents. SGML expresses the organization of a document without necessarily using the file system paradigm (i.e., discrete files representing the organizational components of a document). It expresses textual features (e.g., footnotes, tables, and headings) and the building blocks of content (e.g., paragraphs) using a descriptive language focusing on the role of the element, rather than some presumed display value. SGML is not a tag set, but a grammar, with the "vocabulary"--or tags--of an individual document being articulated in its DTD. Using this rigorous grammar, SGML can both declare information about the document in a way that can be transported with the document and can enforce rules in the application of markup by aiding in "parsing" the document.
The HyperText Markup Language (HTML), which is used with the Web, is a form of SGML expressed by its own unique DTD. The shape of the HTML DTD has changed significantly since first articulated by researchers at CERN, and it continues to change with the demands of the Web. [5] HTML was designed to facilitate making documents available on the Web, and it expresses a variety of features such as textual characteristics and hypertext links. These hypertext links are HTML's most useful capability because they allow authors to link documents to other resources throughout the Internet, effectively making the Internet into a large hypertext document.
2.2 CGI and FORM Use
The Web is far more than a server protocol for the transfer of HTML documents. Among the many resources it offers in facilitating sophisticated retrieval of information is the Common Gateway Interface (CGI). Like HTML, CGI is in transition. However, in its current state, it offers capabilities that allow the Web to support much more complex documents and retrievals than HTML alone supports. The Common Gateway Interface is a set of specifications for external gateway programs to speak to the Web's server protocol, HTTP. It allows the administrator to run external programs from the Web server in such a way that requests from the server return a desired document to the user or, more typically, generate a document on the fly. This capability makes it possible to provide uniform access to data structures or servers that are completely independent of the HTTP, including structures such as those represented in SGML documents or Z39.50 servers. The CGI specification is available on the NCSA documentation Web server. [6]
Closely associated with the CGI is the FORM specification, which was first introduced with NCSA's Mosaic Web client. This feature is a client-independent mechanism to submit complex queries, usually through a graphical user interface. FORM-compliant interfaces such as Mosaic, Lynx (a UNIX VT100 client), and OmniWeb (a NeXTStep client) use fill-out forms, check boxes, and lists to mediate queries between the user and CGI resources. Users respond by making selections that qualify submissions to the server (e.g., checking a box to indicate that a search is an author search) thereby making a complex command-line syntax unnecessary. [7]
2.3 Computer Languages and CGI
CGI programs can be written in a variety of languages, including UNIX shell scripts, C programs, and Perl. In fact, there are few limitations on the type of language that can be used. Perl is foremost among the options available to most Web administrators. Largely the work of Larry Wall, Perl can be used to create extremely fast and flexible programs with no practical limits on the size of the material it can treat. Perl also has outstanding support for the UNIX "regular expression," making it ideal for text systems where one form of markup must be translated to another. [8]
3.0 The Web-to-PAT Gateway
The modular approach taken in the Web-to-PAT Gateway separates the operations of retrieval to allow one component (e.g., an SGML-to-HTML filter) to be upgraded without affecting other components. It should be emphasized that this separation of operations grew out of local needs and that other approaches, including an approach that combines all operations in a single program, are possible. The four steps are:
1. FORM Handling
Users, with the aid of the FORM, submit a query.
2. CGI Query Handling
The query is received and translated to a PAT search.
3. PAT Result Handling
Information returned from PAT is transformed into lists or entries that can be selected.
4. SGML-to-HTML Filtering
The richer SGML is transformed into HTML.
This multi-stage approach has many advantages. For example, it is possible to use different programming languages or other software tools for each processing stage, selecting them based on their utility for particular functions or their ability to comply with local requirements. In the approach documented here, HTML FORMs, shell programs, C programs, and Perl programs have been used for the four operations. Separating the functions also allows persons with different responsibilities, skills, or interests to manage the different processes. For example, a system administrator might manage the second and third stages, while someone responsible for more aesthetic issues in the delivery might manage parts of the first and the fourth stages. At the University of Virginia Library, SGML-to-HTML filters continue to be enhanced by staff from the Library's Electronic Text Center in a process completely separate from the development of other parts of the interface.
3.1 HTML FORM for Query Submission
The use of an HTML FORM to handle query submission may be simple or complex. The three examples given here demonstrate that range: the Middle English FORM supports word and phrase searches; the Oxford English Dictionary search provides a great deal of information about the areas to be searched and information to be retrieved; and the TEI Guidelines FORM allows users to browse the document in a variety of ways, such as by chapter or other section. (The Middle English and TEI Guidelines resources are encoded in SGML.)
3.1.1 Middle English Query
The FORM created for Middle English materials was deliberately made simple to allow users to retrieve keywords-in-context (KWIC) without knowing commands such as those needed to view search results. [9]
A search term is requested from the user and registered as the variable "query." So that neither the user or system is overwhelmed by large result sets, the size of result sets is limited to 100 items, and an additional FORM option (registering the variable "size") is included to help the user subsequently move through the results 100 items at a time or to sample 100 items from the entire result set.
3.1.2 OED Query
The richness of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is often overwhelming even for sophisticated users. Most users do not want keyword-in-context results and would prefer simple look up capabilities. The OED is a complex product designed to facilitate a broad array of activities. Consequently, even simple searches require elaborate query structures.
The OED FORM assists users in submitting many of the most commonly performed searches, including dictionary entry retrieval with simple look ups and truncated term look ups (e.g., "photo" for all words beginning with this stem). [10] It is also possible to retrieve quotations by the quote's author (e.g., retrieval of all quotations authored by Chaucer). This process includes the following:
1. In the FORM, the user submits a search term which is captured as the variable "query."
2. The user selects the type of search. Many types of searches are possible, including traditional look ups, alphabetic browses, full-text searches, and quotation retrieval.
3. Several other elements are used to limit the size of results. As in the Middle English search FORM, a default of no more than 100 results at a time may be viewed from each search.
4. In addition, a variable called "period" is offered to allow users to limit quotation searches by century.
3.1.3 TEI Guidelines Query
The structured browsing of the TEI Guidelines adds another important feature for mediating access to large or complex collections. Users of the TEI Guidelines are as likely to want to read a chapter or section as they are to want to search the contents.
To facilitate this sort of browsing, an initial HTML page is created containing the titles of the major SGML hierarchical structures of the TEI Guidelines (e.g., the DIV0 element), and each of these structures is linked to an HTML page containing the titles of subsidiary structures (e.g., the DIV1 through DIV4 elements). [11]
For example, the top-level HTML page is linked to the secondary HTML page for Part I of the TEI Guidelines. [12]
TEI Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange (P3)
You may also browse the Guidelines.
* Bibliographic header of the TEI Guidelines
* Preface
* Acknowledgments
* Changes from TEI P1 to TEI P3
* Part 1: Introduction
* Part 2: Core Tags and General Rules
* Part 3: Base Tag Sets
* Part 4: Additional Tag Sets
* Part 5: Auxiliary Document Types
* Part 6: Technical Topics
* Part 7: Alphabetical Reference List of Tags and Attributes
* Part 8: Reference Material
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W2B-022-0.txt
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Oddly enough, though Charles Darwin stood the scientific world on end by what he found by going to sea 135 years ago, subsequent tinkerers in evolutionary theory have been largely landlubbers. Virtually ignoring seven-tenths of our planet's surface, such investigators focused on land-locked fossil records, establishing evolution's hallowed grounds in the plains of East Africa and the Middle East.
Surely a lack of sophistication in sea-faring technology accounts for much of the land-based research effort, although effective deep-sea trawling and sampling devices were in use by scientists in Darwin's day. But even with the advent of powerful sonar gear and deep-ocean drilling techniques in the 1950s, evolutionists' attention remained largely riveted on dusty fragments gleaned from the world's remote hillsides.
In recent years, however, scientists began revisiting the oceans, curious about how certain sea fossils fit models of evolutionary theory synthesized almost entirely from scattered, often puzzling evidence recovered from dry land. Some intriguing results turned up recently in the laboratories of two Florida State University (FSU) marine paleontologists.
Tony Arnold and Bill Parker compiled what may be the largest, most complete set of data on the evolutionary history of any group of organisms, marine or otherwise. The two scientists amassed something that their land-based colleagues only dreamed about: An intact fossil record with no missing links.
" It's all here-a virtually complete evolutionary record," says Arnold. "There are other good examples, but this is by far the best. We're seeing the who 'repicture of how this group of organisms has changed throughout most of its existence on Earth."
The organism that Arnold and Parker study is a single- celled, microscopic animal belonging to the Foraminiferida, an order of hard-shelled, planktonic marine protozoans. Often shortened to "forams," the name comes from the Latin word foramen, or "opening." The organisms can be likened to amoebas wearing shells, with perforations through which their protoplasm extends. The foram shell shapes range from plain to bizarre.
Tropical and subtropical seas around the globe abound with forams, which are divided into two general types: The free- floating, planktonic form that is uniformly small (usually less than a 5Oth of an inch long) and the benthic or bottom-dwelling variety that is typically much larger. The latter type is perhaps best remembered by Earth-science students or by spelunkers who commonly find the fossils imbedded in cave walls. The ancient Egyptians used limestone blocks containing the large, extinct Nummulites to build the tops of some Giza pyramids.
But it's the planktonic variety that chiefly interests Parker and Arnold. Unlike their oversized cousins, free-swimming forams are found almost everywhere in the oceans. Their fossilized skeletons, in fact, were among some of the first biological material recovered from deep ocean bottoms by scientists in the 1850s. For nearly a century, geologists have used the tiny fossils to help establish the age of sediments and to gain insight into prehistoric climates.
Only since the early 1960s, though, have scientists begun to fully appreciate fossil forams' potential as a tool for use in evolutionary studies and a host of Earth sciences as well. Advanced deep-sea drilling techniques, combined with computer- assisted analytical tools, have ushered in a whole new vista of foram research. Arnold and Parker are among the first scientists to harness sophisticated technology to a foram project for the express purpose of studying evolution.
In 1980, Arnold successfully married computers with optical devices to create an efficient, precise way to analyze foram fossils. Before the technique was developed, the field was represented only by a few extraordinarily dedicated individuals who spent countless hours over microscopes, sorting and analyzing the sand-grain-sized shells virtually by hand.
The apparatus Arnold and Parker now use combines the latest in video technology with their specially programmed computer. Although it requires an operator, the system is the fastest, most reliable means of foram identification and classification available. It soon will become far more powerful if its developers succeed in linking it with a scanning electron microscope.
" There's a nifty passage in Darwin." says Arnold, "in which he describes the fossil record as a library with only a few books, and each book has only a few chapters. The chapters have only a few words, and the words are missing letters."
" Well, in this case, we've got a relativ 've complete library," says Arnold. "The ` books' are in excellent shape. You can see every page, every word."
As he speaks, Arnold shows a series of microphotographs, depicting the evolutionary change wrought on a single foram species. "This is the same organism, as it existed through 500,OOO years," he says. "We've got hundreds 'veexamples like this, complete life and evolutionary histories for dozens of species."
About 330 species of living and extinct planktonic forams have been classified so far. After thorough examinations of marine sediments collected from around the world, micropaleontologists now suspect these are just about all the free- floating forams that ever existed.
The species collection also is exceptionally well-preserved, which accounts largely for the excitement shared by Parker and Arnold. "Most fossils, particularly those of the vertebrates, are fragmented-just odd and ends," says Parker. "But these fossils are almost perfectly preserved, despite being millions of years old."
By being so small, the fossil shells escaped nature's grinding and crushing forces, which over the eons have in fact destroyed most evidence of life on Earth. The extraordinary condition of the shells permits the paleontologists to study in detail not only how a whole species develops, but how individual animals develop from birth to adulthood.
The resulting data base thus holds unprecedented power for evolutionary studies, says Arnold. Not only can he and Parker use it to describe how evolution has worked in a particular species, but they can use it as a standard for testing evolutionary theories, which are growing in number.
" Scientists are overflowing with ideas on the laws of evolution, or principles of evolutionary change, but most of them are simply untestable because of the poor fossil record," says Arnold, "And unless they can be scientifically tested, theories don't really amount to much. So, what we have here is a wonderful opportunity to test a lot of these ideas quantita- tively. We'll be able to 'lly, with some degree of reliability, that yes, this or that happens in the forams or no, it doesn't."
Some biologists have long suspected that the evolutionary process works differently, although within certain principles, among different species. In other words, what may be true for evolution in mammals may not be true in mollusks.
The forams may not be representative of all organisms but, at least in this group, we can actually see how evolution happened," says Parker. "We can see transitions from one species to another. And that's a very rare observation."
Had Darwin been able to examine the fossil record of forams, he could have fortified many of his arguments on how new species come into being, and perhaps eased a nagging worry about the terribly incomplete fossil record yielded by terrestrial research.
As for the origin of species, the famous naturalist always held that new plants and animals arise from unstable varieties sprung off from old species. Competition among varieties and their abilities to withstand environmental pressures eventually lead to populations that are so profoundly different that they become reproductively incompatible with populations other than themselves. And voila, a new species is born.
Darwin termed the process gradualism, a theory that invokes the slow accumulation of small evolutionary changes over a large period of time, as a result of the pressures of natural selection. What Arnold and Parker found is almost a textbook example of gradualism at work.
We've literally 'ven hundreds of speciation events," says Arnold. This allows us to check for patterns, to determine what exactly is going on. We can quickly tell whether something is a recurring phenomenon-a pattern-or whether it's just an anomaly. This way, we cannot only look for the same things that have been observed in living organisms, but we can see just how often these things really happen in the environment over an enormous period of time."
Such a revelation flies in the face of latter-day rethinking of Darwinian evolution, which during the past 20 years has tended to gravitate toward a new theory called punctuated equilibrium. First postulated in the early 1970s by paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen J. Gould, this idea refutes gradualism's central premise that great amounts of time are necessary to create new species.
Punctuated equilibrium holds that new species may arise fairly quickly (over thousands instead of millions of years) from small animal populations that somehow become isolated. Intermediate stages are too fleeting to become fixed in the fossil record-thus the conspicuous gaps or so-called missing links. (Darwin blamed the "imperfection in the geological record" for the gaps in the fossil record.)
But in the near-perfect record exhibited by the forams studied at FSU, the highly touted Eldredge-Gould theory of punctuated equilibrium apparently doesn't work. The record reveals a robust, highly branched evolutionary tree, complete with Darwin's predicted "dead ends"-varieties that lead nowhere- and-a profusion of variability in sizes and body shapes. Transitional forms between species are readily apparent, making it relatively easy to track ancestor species to their descendants. In short, the finding upholds Darwin's lifelong conviction that "nature does not proceed in leaps," but rather is a system perpetually unfolding in extreme slow motion.
In the hands of less scrupulous observers, the foram record may have been construed to support Gould's hypothesis about the suddenness of speciation. Darwin would have been shocked to find out just how fast the great family of forams churns out new species, says Parker. Through dating analysis, he and his colleague showed that the forams could produce a whole new species in as little as 200,000 years-speedy by Darwinian standards. "But as fast as this is, it's still far too slow to be classed as punctuational," says Arnold.
Other curiosities are beginning to emerge from the probe into the forams' past. One finding is being described-perhaps too hastily-as disproving Cope's Rule, named for its synthesis by American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope. His time-honored evolutionary principle basically holds that, within a group, animals tend to start out small and increase in size over time.
" We've fou 'veout that apparently, lineages don't exactly work that way," says Arnold. "Many of the forams start out small, and essentially stay that way until extinction. Others do manage to wander into dramatically larger sizes, but they're th 'reare ones."
This find doesn't necessarily contradict what Cope said, only what many scientists think he said, says Parker. "Cope's observation was simply that there are a few extremely large examples (of individuals) in any given lineage, and these examples always occur at the later stages of the organism's development. And that's apparently true. But our findings show that the vast majority of forams start small and end small, even though the mean size increases somewhat due to a few very large specimens. As you get more and more species evolving, some of them eventually manage to get moderately to very large, but most of them don't increase in size at all."
It may be in what the foram record suggests about how life copes with mass annihilation that eventually draws the most attention to the FSU paleontologists' work. The geologic record has been prominently scarred by a series of global cataclysms of unknown, yet hotly debated, origin. Each event, whether rapid or slow, wreaked wholesale carnage on Earth's ecology, wiping out countless species that had taken nature millions of years to produce. Biologists have always wondered how life bounces back after such sweeping devastation.
One of the last great extinctions occurred roughly 66 million years ago and, according to one popular theory, it resulted from Earth's receiving a direct hit from a large asteroid. Whatever the cause, the event proved to be the dinosaurs' coup de grace, and also wiped out a good portion of the marine life-including almost all species of planktonic forams.
This period of massive death, which ended the Cretaceous Period, ushered in the modern chapter of biological development. Earth entered the new era, the Cenozoic, with a wide range of ecosystems virtually devoid of life (and thus competition between species), yet quite fertile and primed for repopulation.
Some observers, perhaps following Darwin's lead, have envisioned a sedate repopulation sequence, with speciation occurring at an immensely slow rate. None of the species die off until their numbers begin to saturate the environment, exhausting its capacity to sustain such proliferation of life.
Other scientists have theorized, but never been able to demonstrate, that in the absence of competition, an explosion of life takes place. The evolution of new species greatly accelerates, and a profusion of body shapes and sizes bursts across the horizon, filling up vacant spaces like weeds overtaking a pristine lawn. An array of new forms fans out into these limited niches where crowding soon forces most of the new forms to spin out into oblivion similar to sparks from a bonfire.
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W2F-002-0.txt
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A Constant Lover
by Paul Rosenblatt
I took the wrong exit off the autostrada. I had gone too far. I had been waiting for the right one. I thought I could spot it by keeping my eye on the city in the distance. I kept thinking this is not the exit, the next one, and the nest one would not be it and so I went until I realized I was circling pretty far north of Florence, certainly of the historic center, and so gazing for a bright afternoon sun as if there were a direction to be found there, I turned off at an exit under a high pale blue sky and the I saw above the city a cloudy and faint white moon in the sunlit sky. I was somewhere on some outskirts but I managed to make my way back thinking of where the Arno must be and then there I was in the heavy bumper to bumper traffic of the Lung' Arno and I did not mind the traffic because it felt good not to be alone.
I enjoyed the movements of the crowds along the Arno and in the stop and go traffic there was time to comfortably watch the stroll of women in their Easter finery. There were more than a few in tights and jeans. Ah, the Arno, I thought, the fair river of Dante. Then I thought of the lines of the grand Tuscan to the college or assembly of hypocrites, that I was born and grew up by the beautiful Arno, in the great city. This I always liked when he next says and I said aloud, e son, col corpo ch' i' ho sempre avuto. Now I said it aloud in English, I am in the body I have always had. Yes, I liked that, the hypocrites in a make believe that destroys the soul, a world of deliberate make believe, and here's Dante in the middle of his life alive in the body that he has always had in the world of his make believe, his divine poem.
Well, that's what came to me anyway as I passed the Ponte S.Trinita and I realized I had daydreamed too far and I had to turn way back into the neighborhood of the American Consolute on Lungarno Vespucci to find may to Hertz. I parked the car and closed it. I patted the right front fender. "Nice horsey," I said. I had sure come to like that car. I took the keys and the papers and dropped them into the slot of the drawn door shutter and I walked a bit with the strap of the overnight slung over my shoulder when I spotted a taxi.
4.HER HAND ON HIS ASS
I had flown open the windows of my apartment. It was spring in Florence. The street below was wholly domesticated this late Easter afternoon with families and clans. Some were clearly returning from the Casnine with soccer balls and balloons or from the Boboli gardens or some with enough flowers to open a sidewalk stand or with casks of oil and wine from family gatherings in country homes. Some of the children were cranky, some wild, a few dazed. One little boy was pissing on a post near the entranceway of an apartment house while his family was carrying on a lively, animated conversation with a group of friends in front of the building. I guess the poor kid couldn't wait until they were done talking which he probably already knew would be forever. I felt for the kid. It was nice well-fed neighborhood.
I was living on Via Arnolfo almost across the way from the corner where Cimabue runs into it and only a long hemispheric block from the Ponte S. Niccolo and the Hotel Mediterraneo and the only a few blocks from the Piazza Beccaria and really no more than a twenty or twenty-five minutes by foot from the historic center. Nice and well located.
It had been a very cold winter. Water pipes had burst, the Arno had frozen over and a bunch of laughing boys and girls had managed to drive a packed car onto the ice there in the middle of the river, and old Neptune, the Great White Man of the Fountain in the Piazza della Signoria, had icicles on his beard and elsewhere. So did old Cosimo looking on from his horse and so did his horse.
The truth is that winter I had a jock cup of icicles myself. I had placed my hopes for the thaw in the woman who lived above me.
I could hear her footsteps clicking through my apartment as if she were in my apartment. I could hear her going into the living room, the dining room, down the corridor, into the kitchen, the bedroom. Wherever she went I could hear her. She was caged animal in high heels on an Italian marble floor. There she was drawing the bath water, a fate, a destiny if I would but seize it! Dash up the stairs, I tell myself. Ring the bell. She comes to the door. She has had barely time to wrap the bath towel about her. The conversation is always tentative and on her part a bit coy. The closing line is always the same. I am saying to her, "Yes, I would love to take a bath!"
She was wonderful. I would say about twenty-two or three, and I was nel mezzo del cammin, in the middle of my journey as the divine poem begins.
She was tall enough, about five eight, two or three feet short of the length of a tiger if you take away the tiger's tail.
She had blond hair streaked with a darker color or two that she wore short and kind of punky, and she had blue eyes kind of almond shaped and apple rosy cheeks and lips that you knew you had to touch lightly with your fingers before you kissed them. I couldn't figure out her nationality and so I decided she was Lithuanian.
Her nipples always seemed to be visible no matter what she was wearing, a blouse or a sweater or pullover or dress, no matter the material. The form and shape of those nipples seemed to come through no matter what. Those nipples would make a painter's strawberry delight if she were modeling in the nude. Her breasts were so beautifully shaped that she needed no bra and she wore none. I know because I'v 'veeen her in a skimpy yellow tank top. She had a tight band of a waist and a fully pledged, marvelously singing ass, a Hymn to Paradise. She had rich, strong thighs and legs. I have seen her in white short shorts that carried a red Paris signature on the hip and she always wore high heels. From time to time we would pass on the street and she would give me a kind of half smile and I would feel the beginnings of a thaw from that frozen state I have just spoken of to a liquid one.
Although as luck would have it, for the six months that I had been living there, we had never met in the vestibule or the elevator, no such intimacies. I think I must have met all the neighbors- about twelve apartments in the building, two on a floor- but never her in that small elevator or in the vestibule. I had met her boyfriend in the elevator from time to time. He was tall and handsome and charming and apparently well-heeled. Once he was carrying flowers and wine once a large water color landscape with a glass frame that was spidery shattered and he looked at me and pointed to the glass and smiled and shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. He always had a pleasantry either about the weather or the Viola soccer team. They weren't doing too well. He was young and seemed to have it all.
He was from Milan. I knew that from the license plate on his BMW, which was usually parked at the entrance of the building. Parking on that street was just about impossible and how he always seemed to find a parking space and one in front of the building, I' 'lldon't know. There are mysteries to good fortune and they are finally not to be looked into.
I guess that he was from Milan was why he was not around very much, just a weekend here or there. Sometimes I would see them walking the street his arm about her shoulder and she with her arm about his waist and sometimes her fingers curled the edge of his front trouser pocket and sometimes the back trouser pocket and sometimes she placed her hand on his ass.
5. THE CLIMAX IN THE CHORUS
I did not watch the replay of St. Peter's. My appetite was large. I had missed the family day meal so I went along the Borgo degli Albizzi and I found Vecchia Firenze open. I had a vegetable soup and the house penne and a veal chop and a radicchio and french fries which I 've got to tell you were invented by the Italians. I drank a red tavola with the meal and then I had an expresso. The Vecchia Firenze was jammed with tourists, two or three large groups of senior high school college kids from the British Isles or Germany or something, I can't tell what anymore and I couldn't grab the language in the distant din, maybe it was Dutch or Frisian or something, or who knows but they could have been from Denmark or Sweden, and so I named them, as usual, Lithuanian.
Where you came in the main entrance with the low arch, there was one long table at the rear of this room and I was seated close by. This great wood table held a family group. There was a stately grandmother wearing a good many beautiful jewels. She was lean and even her wrinkles had a beauty to them and she was sitting at the head of the table. She sat very straight and never quite smiled but always seemed as if she pleasantly were about to. She presided over that table like a grate and much beloved Queen. She would nod her head up and down in assent to the talk that was not merely going on about her but which was always finally addressed to her. There were sons and daughter with their families at the table and it looked about six grandchildren in all. Everyone seemed to be a good eater and they were having a great time and I enjoyed being near by.
I continued on up the street and joined the crowds on Via De' Calzaiuoli. They were chiefly a younger generation going up and down and flirting. There was an open gelateria and I had a double scoop, huge, of chocolate gelato. Then I felt the pang in my heart and the tremble in my knees and I knew I was looking for the great love of my youth.
There was no reason in the world why I should ever find her, let alone in Florence, and there was no reason to look then and there, my heart sorrowfully aching, but I get these damned moments and suddenly I am looking and wherever I am or have been I look. That the soul for you. That what yearning does for the soul. You become haunted and spooky. You are alone and the silly dream persists even in the middle of the journey when you should not only know better but do know better- no, not something idealized and ennobling, a Beatrice or a Laura, but more like Rogers and Hammerstein than Petrach or Dante, gross, as the kids in America say, some kind of their musicals in America, a look across the crowded room or is it the crowded sea and there she is, lutes and flutes, a slow motion ballet, and I am eating chocolate and she is strawberry gelato. What you end up with is the click of high heels on Italian marble, the hollow hallway of reverberation.
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W2C-017-1.txt
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Mixed feelings from teachers before vote
Big Island teachers left their picket lines and headed to the polls Tuesday afternoon to vote on an agreement between the state and the Hawaii State Teachers Association.
Hundreds of teachers from 10 West Hawaii schools gathered at the Church of Latter - Day Saints hall in Kailua - Kona to review the proposal before casting their votes.
HSTA and state officials announced the end of the strike, which resulted in 14 days of lost educational instruction, late Monday. The strike ended just hours before a federal judge could have intervened and appointed a receiver to take over the school system.
Teachers are expected to return to school this morning, with classes slated to resume Thursday.
Reaction to the contract agreement was mixed and many teachers leaving the hall refrained from answering questions, while others refused to provide their names.
" I voted to ratify it," said one teacher who asked to remain anonymous. "I think if we didn't the public would tear our throats out. But I feel bad for the senior teachers, they got shortchanged again. There are no two ways about it."
Several teachers noted the contract did not include provisions for retroactive pay.
" It (the state's offer) is fair," said Brian Boshard, Kealakehe Intermediate School teacher. However, he added, the lack of retroactive salary is obviously not what the teachers wanted.
" I voted my heart," Boshard said. "I'm a public 'mhool teacher. I would be working without a raise anyway - it's my calling.
During a nearly two - hour discussion prior to the vote, HSTA Kona Chapter President Bob Hurley fielded questions and reviewed salary schedules.
" I don't think teachers felt pressured about anything," he said. "They just had to figure out what was their personal choice given the reality."
Hurley said it was difficult to determine how the majority felt, but noted many expressed anger regarding the lack of retroactive pay.
" It was a disappointment because (Cayetano) would not negotiate any retroactive pay," Hurley said. "He refused to budge. He didn't pay anyone over a two - year period and then we couldn't negotiate that."
Not all teachers voted to ratify the contract.
" My feeling is it's an ethical issue. We've got 'vehing added for cost of living for the past two years," one teacher who asked to remain anonymous said.
Hurley said many teachers already have plans to leave Hawaii for employment opportunities elsewhere, regardless of the vote results.
" If it is approved, teachers will have a salary schedule that functions like step increases," Hurley said. "It does a great deal to keep teachers we currently have - but for a lot of people, it was too little, too late - and a lot of teachers on the picket lines are ready to leave."
Hurley said officials estimate 1,400 new teachers will be needed next academic year, as well as additional staff to replace those leaving. He noted 200 teaching positions statewide were unfilled this year.
By striking, many teachers expected an offer that could put an end to future contract disputes. However, Hurley and other HSTA members said this offer does not eliminate the possibility of future strikes.
" I went on strike to ensure we would never have to go on strike again, but I don't think it's that way," an anonymous teacher said.
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W1A-010-0.txt
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Charles M. Goethe and the Eugenic Imagination
In 1945, the Eugenics Society of Northern California--the mouthpiece of prominent banker Charles Matthias Goethe--published a pamphlet that examined the culture of Java. Although he was primarily concerned with the eugenic health of the United States, Goethe insisted that there was much to be gained from a transnational perspective: "The eugenist studies these Backward Peoples. […] Thus, in the steaming orchid-hung tropics, we will try to unravel the twisted skein of population problems, common to Malay and Eskimo, to Hottentot, Lapp, and Berber." My project will examine Goethe's transnational view of eugenic theory and application, which he extended from Java to Egypt, China, Peru, and Nazi Germany. I will use his Eugenics Pamphlets as a key source. These pamphlets, published between 1930 and 1950 provide particularly rich insights into the heyday of forced sterilization and positive eugenics. Although eugenics is usually associated with domestic anxiety about immigration, minorities, and the decline of white fertility, I propose that eugenicist propaganda framed this anxiety in a larger structure of fear and fascination towards Goethe's so-called "Backward Peoples." By analyzing the manner in which Goethe's eugenic imagination addressed issues of culture, science, and reproduction outside the United States, I intend to illuminate the international perspective of American eugenics in the early twentieth century.
The bulk of the historiography of American eugenics provides a powerful narrative of growth that traces the development of eugenics from its theoretical foundations in England to its most thorough institutionalization in Western Europe and the United States. It tends to emphasize the domestic concerns of eugenicists while minimizing the interest they bore towards other countries and peoples, and "exotic" ones in particular. Daniel J. Kevles' In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (1985) serves as the standard for the history of eugenics in the United States and Britain. He discusses the establishment of eugenic ideas by English thinkers like Francis Galton, and the implementation of eugenic policies in the United States. Kevles, of course, sets a strictly British/American stage for eugenic thought.
Scholars following Kevles greatly expanded the study of eugenics in the United States, but still emphasized the domestic worries of eugenicists over their formulations of the non-American "other." In an attempt to escape this British/American tradition, some historians began to examine eugenics in other countries. In 1994, Stefan Kxhl published The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism, which connected Nazi race hygienists to American eugenicists. Studies which sought to offer comparative perspectives on eugenics--such as Mark B. Adams' The Wellborn Science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia (1990)--compared and contrasted the development and implementation of eugenic ideology, but did not emphasize its international scope or recognize the powerful influence of an international community of eugenicists.
In the past decade, historians of American eugenics turned to discussing how eugenics affected American women and minorities, especially in the context of nonconsensual sterilization programs that targeted African-Americans and Native Americans. Most visible were attempts to enlarge Kevles' preliminary discussion of how eugenics linked to ideas of womanhood. In Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom (2001), Wendy Kline recognizes the close links forged by eugenic thought to concepts of ideal sexual roles for women in particular.
The most recent scholarship addresses how eugenic ideas worked into the mainstream consciousness of American life. Again, this work provides powerful insights into eugenics and domestic life, but offers little about how eugenics pictured cultures/races outside of the United States. Popular Eugenics: National Efficiency and American Mass Culture in the 1930s (2006) is a collection of essays that analyze how eugenics manifested in American literature, fashion, comic strips, and film. Another recent work is Alexandra Minna Stern's Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America (2005). It focuses primarily on California as a pulse point for the implementation of eugenic institutions such as forced sterilization, but also considers how eugenic ideas touched on such institutions as school segregation, the Border Patrol, and environmental conservation.
While all of these works have contributed to an understanding of eugenics as chiefly an obsession of American/British scientists and governments about the racial makeup of their populations, they neglect the distorting mirrors held up by eugenicists like Goethe to other cultures. Although scholars have noted the connections between eugenics and public exhibits about non-American cultures--for example, the displays of Native American and African life at the 1933 World's Fair (1)--the possibilities for exploring eugenics' relationship to American imperialism are far from exhausted. My work will be a departure from other studies of eugenics in its close attention to the manner in which these cultures are represented.
I have chosen to focus on Charles Goethe because he remains a deeply controversial figure due to his philanthropy as well as his fierce devotion to eugenics. He also corresponded regularly with eugenicists from Britain and Germany, demonstrating the transnational nature of the field of eugenics in the most basic relationships between its proponents. Goethe was a founder of the Human Betterment Foundation, which also included biologist Paul Popenoe, Nobel winner Robert Millikan, and Stanford chancellor David Starr Jordan. A proud son of German immigrants, Goethe would follow the rise and fall of the Nazis carefully, and did not hesitate to praise the regime in its early years for its racial policies. His position as a successful banker--his estate was valued at $24 million in 1966--gave him considerable influence in bankrolling eugenic publications.
Most importantly, Goethe was an avid traveler; from the accounts supplied in his autobiography, Seeking to Serve, he gathered most of the material presented in his pamphlets from his trips to Palestine, Cuba, "Grand Leban," Syria, Mexico, Guatemala, Russia, South Africa, and many other countries. (2) He wove travel anecdotes and photographs into morality tales about eugenics for his publications. Goethe also highlighted his extensive travels in his autobiography.
Primarily, however, I will use his Eugenics Pamphlets to explore the international cast of Goethe's eugenics. They were produced for a wide audience; each pamphlet contains a footnote that offers pamphlets free of charge for classroom use. The style of his writing is also remarkably akin to a brief travelogue, complete with photographs (Fig. 1, 3). The purpose of these narratives, however, is clear: to promote eugenic ideas by examining the "naturally" occurring trends in "primitive" populations--overpopulation, disease, or infertility among the ruling groups. However, the manner in which Goethe presents each people differs, and I hope to scrutinize these differences in order to clarify how each people fits into the American eugenicist's schema of racial order.
In addition to the standard historiography of eugenics, I have reconstructed some of the early internationalisms among eugenicists of the early twentieth century, in order to demonstrate that Goethe's interest in non-Anglo-American peoples aligned perfectly with the direction of eugenic inquiry among a surprisingly diverse group of scientists. Moreover, Goethe's fascination with these peoples dovetailed with the hodgepodge of anthropology, statistics, and crude genetics that composed the foundation of eugenics. I identify Goethe--active in publication primarily from 1930 onwards--as a faithful descendant of early eugenicists such as Francis Galton, who relied on his travel in "exotic" locales to spur his thinking about populations. As a member of the Royal Geographical Society, Galton was well known for his international exploits: he lived in the Middle East in the mid 1840s and created some of the first maps of sub-Saharan Africa. (3) These experiences, coupled with his cousin Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, led him to formulate the term eugenics; in Better for All the World, Harry Bruinius noted: "While abroad, he had long been fascinated by the physical and mental ‘peculiarities’ of peoples like the Hottentots." (4)
From 1900-1939, the international eugenics community enriched Galton's legacy by relying on vaguely scientific/anthropological accounts of "Backward Peoples" to create the first substantial pools of academic eugenics knowledge. At the International Eugenics Congresses of 1912, 1921, and 1932, scientists from the United States, Britain, and other European countries presented papers on a wide range of eugenics issues. At the 1912 conference, a paper from the University of Naples, for example, considered mulattos from Louisiana and "polyhybrids" from the Philippines. (5) The international nature possessed by these proponents of eugenics is important to recognize because Goethe attended such conferences and drew upon the global scope of inquiry espoused by the attendees. Notably, Goethe and his wife were delegates to the Hague International Eugenic Conference in 1936, and reacted in shock to the execution of a Russian eugenicist friend, Nikolai Vavilov, in 1937. (6)
The bulk of my primary source research is complete, and my next task is to construct a theoretical framework for understanding Goethe's particular brand of eugenics. My tentative conception of Goethe's internationalism is to see it as paralleling some of the strategies of classical anthropology. As such, Goethe's characterizations of peoples in the Middle East, Asia, and South America follows classical anthropology's "schizogenic use of Time" (7); specifically, Goethe described his subjects as existing at an earlier stage of human development. For example, scattered through his pamphlets, Goethe inserted images of laborers or porters and captioned these photographs with a description of primitive, inefficient labor techniques. He followed this sketch with a declaration of superior American ingenuity in inventing weight-bearing machines, and usually concluded with an alarming statement about American "race-suicide." (8)
Potentially, I see Goethe's pamphlets as fulfilling a mission of popular anthropology, which bears a tendency towards exoticizing subject peoples and affirming the superiority of the Western reader. It is important to consider that Goethe offered these pamphlets free of charge, and especially encouraged teachers to utilize them. What kind of cultural work does popular anthropology do? In Reading National Geographic, Catherine A. Lutz and Jane L. Collins highlight the questions surrounding a similar publication that presents non-Western peoples to Western readers:
It is not about how "realistic" Western images of that world are but about the imaginative spaces that non-Western peoples occupy and the tropes and stories that organize their existence in Western minds. The question then becomes, how do these images purveyed by National Geographic affect this space? Do they congeal popular paradigms of evolutionary ascendancy? Do they emphasize contrastive work and evaluation? Or do they compel empathy and identification? Do they in some cases do both, drawing attention with an exotic element, and then--having captured their readers' attention--inviting them to imagine how they might feel in the setting depicted? (9)
Of course, a vital difference between National Geographic and Eugenic Pamphlets lies in the fact that Goethe crafted each article or "eugenigram" to convince the reader that at least in America, sexual reproduction demanded interference in the form of positive and negative eugenics. For example, Goethe inserted supposedly Chinese proverbs--complete with awkwardly drawn Chinese characters (Fig. 2)--into many of his pamphlets. These proverbs provided a bit of intellectual exotica in service of supposedly universal eugenic principles. Goethe was not interested in the preservation of any culture, but rather actively desired the transformation of his own. He did not seek only to entertain or titillate, but to provoke indignation and socio-political action through the rhetoric of eugenic imaginings.
Discussion of Nazi eugenics is well established among historians of science, as is the development of American eugenics; however, eugenics is usually understood to be associated mainly with internal concerns about the nation. Quite plainly, however, Goethe bridged the gap between domestic worries and his international hierarchy of nations and peoples. Accordingly, most scholarship has not exposed eugenics as an idea with international ramifications. Understanding the transnational background of American conceptualizations of eugenic principles outside of a domestic, American environment will allow eugenics to fit into broader issues of imperialism and colonialism. By examining Goethe's use of non-Anglo-American cultures, I hope to provide a unique perspective on eugenics' deeply problematic fantasies about "Backward Peoples."
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W2A-019-0.txt
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A telephone survey was conducted to examine the television viewing patterns and motivations of 615 respondents. Channel repertoire was operationalized in two ways. Total channel repertoire was defined as the number of channels viewers watched, using aided recall. Mindful channel repertoire was further defined as those channels identified by viewers through unaided recall. The findings indicate that total channel repertoire is related to media and audience factors. Perceived effort, motives for changing channels with a remote control, and intentionality were significant positive predictors of mindful channel repertoire.
Channel repertoire is the number of available television channels that viewers choose to watch, typically fewer than a dozen. The operative word is choose, because choice of favored channels is active rather than passive, especially as the number of possible choices has increased in recent years. As a result, channel repertoire is one element of the "new media environment" (Webster, 1986) that embodies the concept of selectivity.
There are practical reasons to study channel repertoire. Competitive considerations demand that broadcast and cable channels have "top of the mind" awareness. As compression technologies promise 400-channel cable television systems, the need for channels to attract loyal viewers increases. Auletta (1991) outlined the revolutionary impact of channel fragmentation on the Big Three networks, noting that they could "never recapture their monopoly"(p. 571).
The theoretical implications of channel repertoire are even more compelling. The portrayal of viewers as passive couch potatoes has been popular for many years because watching television involves some nonselective behavior. However, research has demonstrated that viewers have been quite active when there were only a few viewing choices (Bechtel, Achelpohl, & Akers, 1971), and they are still very active in the more current multichannel environment (Ferguson, 1990).
Channel Repertoire
The construct of channel repertoire can be operationalized in at least three different ways.
Channel familiarity is the number of channels with which a viewer is familiar (Heeter & Greenberg, 1988). Channel familiarity is assessed by asking respondents to freely indicate the channels they remember being able to receive (Greenberg, Srigley, Baldwin, & Heeter, 1988; Heeter, 1985, 1988). Channel familiarity is not a measure of viewing behavior because familiarity is not the same as use. Although viewers should be more familiar with the channels they watch, some viewers may be aware of channels (especially well publicized cable channels such as CNN, ESPN, Nickelodeon, and MTV) that they do not watch. Channel familiarity is most likely related to levels of promotion and publicity.
Aided channel repertoire presents a roster of channels from which a viewing repertoire can be recalled. Aided channel repertoire is probably the most accurate measure of viewing behavior because it most closely reflects ratings data, although it may be affected by cable channel alignment stability. Thus, aided channel repertoire is useful to media industries and to researchers interested in accurate measures of audience size and demographic makeup.
Unaided channel repertoire asks respondents to list, without any prompts, the channels they view regularly. The answers may provide the most valid data of channel repertoire, but they are susceptible to temporary memory lapse that may cause omission of salient channels. Greenberg, Heeter, and Lin (1988) noted that "unaided recall provides a smaller set of channels in the channel repertoire of the individual viewer" (p. 197). Thus, unaided channel repertoire is the most conservative measure of viewing.
It is important to distinguish channel familiarity, aided channel repertoire, and unaided channel repertoire because the different operationalizations have different theoretical implications. Channel familiarity is not a measure of viewing behavior but a measure of channel awareness. Although aided channel repertoire is the most accurate measure of viewing behavior, it does not distinguish between salient channels and less memorable channels. Aided channel repertoire may include channels that are used only rarely or as background and without full attention, because they are not top of mind. Unaided channel repertoire, on the other hand, suggests that exposure to those channels may be more mindful and frequent because those channels may be a regular part of television viewing.
A primary distinction between aided and unaided channel repertoire can be traced to the level of audience behavior. Researchers interested in reflections of gross audience behavior typically find aided channel repertoire measures appropriate because they most closely reflect ratings data. Although aided channel repertoire is not a clear operationalization of gross audience behavior, it is useful to macro-level research interests that focus on media economics, target marketing, and communication policy and public interest (Webster & Lichty, 1991).
Some media researchers, however, are less interested in gross exposure to different channels and are more concerned with the audiences cognitive processing and psychological effects of specific media content. For those purposes, aided channel repertoire is less precise than unaided channel repertoire because it does not reflect psychological aspects of the audience, such as attention to, impressions of, or involvement with television content. This approach focuses more on individual selection of television content and the psychological processes that influence audience's cognitive and emotional reactions to what they view (Bryant & Zillmann, 1991).
Webster and Lichty (1991) account for these two perspectives in their model of television viewing behavior. According to their model, there are two general influences on audience behavior. Structural determinants include media factors, such as the number of channel options, and audience availability (i.e., the amount of time available to watch television). Individual determinants include the needs, tastes, and preferences of individual audience members. Macro- and micro-level perspectives place different emphases on different aspects of the model. When researchers are interested in macro- level issues and measures of overall audience behavior, structural determinants are more important. When researchers are interested in micro-level issues, individual-level factors become more useful.
This article focuses on aided and unaided channel repertoire as reflections of audience behaviors and builds on past research about viewing behaviors and channel selection. We used the Webster-Lichty model of television viewing behavior to predict that media and audience factors would differentially explain aided and unaided channel repertoires.
Total Channel Repertoire
Total channel repertoire (TCR) is the number of channels that viewers remember watching if aided recall is used. Webster and Lichty (1991) noted that TCR is related to the number of channels offered. As channel availability increases, so does channel repertoire. But, as the number of channels increases, the proportion of available channels used decreases. What factors should predict total channel repertoire? A foundation for such prediction was laid by Webster and Lichty's (1991) model of audience television viewing behavior which points out two major influences on channel repertoire: media factors and audience availability.
Within the category of media factors, there are two obvious variables of cable television subscription and remote control device (RCD) ownership. Heeter (1985) found that TCR is predicted by cable television subscription. Ferguson (1992a) confirmed the influence of cable subscription and also noted the influence of RCD ownership. Remote control devices are an increasingly important element of the new media environment (Ferguson, 1992a; Walker & Bellamy, 1991). In 1990, the penetration of remote control reached 77.0%; in U.S. television households (Shagrin, 1990), compared to 70.2%; for the VCR (" In Brief," 1991) and 61.2%; for cable (Sheridan, 1991).
Within the category of audience availability, there are two variables of television exposure and channel changing. Audience availability usually refers to the number of people available to watch television. But, it can also refer to the accessibility of television content. So, higher levels of television viewing and channel changing may make more channels available to viewers.
Ainslie (1988) reported on "grazing" (flipping through channels with remote control devices) as a new way of watching television that makes more channels available to viewers. He found that viewers with remote control devices have significantly higher TCRs than viewers without RCDs.
The first hypothesis of the study focuses on TCR:
H1: Total channel repertoire will be predicted by (a) media factors (cable subscription and RCD ownership); and (b) audience availability (television exposure and channel changing).
Mindful Channel Repertoire
Mindful channel repertoire (MCR) is the number of channels that viewers freely recall watching (i.e., unaided). Mindful channel repertoire is generally smaller than total channel repertoire (Greenberg, Heeter, & Lin, 19813). Based on models of free recall in cognitive psychology, MCR indicates that channels have been accessed frequently, recently, or committed to long-term memory (Klatzky, 1980). Mindful channel repertoire also reflects a more active use of television, because channels are remembered without prompts and are at top of mind. Thus, viewers are more aware of channels whose programs are actively processed during exposure (Bahrick, 1979).
It is clear that MCR is influenced by media structure and audience availability variables. Cable subscription increases channel options, and greater television exposure increases opportunity to watch different channels. But, because MCR is a micro-level aspect of television viewing, MCR should also be explained by individual-level factors of the Webster and Lichty (1991) model. In this study, we focused on individual manifestations of audience activity in addition to media structure and audience availability.
Audience activity describes how intentionally and purposely people select and use media technologies and content. Audience activity has been a central assumption of the uses and gratifications perspective (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1974). Audience members are seen as active because they select and use media content to satisfy specific communication needs. Scholars, however, have expanded understanding of audience activity by suggesting that audience members are variably active along several different dimensions (Blumler,1979; Levy & Windahl, 1984, 1985). Scholars have investigated influences on audience activity (Levy & Windahl,1984; Perse,1990a; Rubin & Perse,1987b), outcomes of audience activity (Perse,1990b; Rubin & Perse,1987a), and audience activity in the newer media environment (Ferguson, 1992a; Levy, 1987; Lin, 1990; Perse,1990a). From this literature, we selected five variables to examine in this study: television viewing motives, intentionality, affinity, effort, and motivations for changing channels.
Television viewing motives. Rubin (1984) has argued that television viewing motives are a primary signal of audience activity. Ritualistic television use, which is marked by watching to pass time or out of habit, is a nonselective and less active use of television that focuses on using television as a medium, not specific content. Instrumental use, on the other hand, reflects selective and purposive exposure to specific content (see also Rubin & Perse, 1987b). Instrumental viewing motives, such as viewing to seek information, entertainment, and excitement, are also related to higher levels of television exposure (Rubin,1981, 1983) and exposure to several different program types, such as news, action-adventure, comedy, documentaries, magazine shows, drama, serials, sports, talk shows, and game shows (Rubin,1981,1983; Rubin & Rubin,19@2).1983) and exposure to several different program types, such as news, action-adventure, comedy, documentaries, magazine shows, drama, serials, sports, talk. Ritualistic and instrumental viewing motives should be linked differentially to TCR and MCR. Ritualistic viewing motives are related to higher levels of exposure to television and exposure to a wide variety of different program types (Rubin,1981,1983,1984). So, ritualistic motives might be positively related to TCR. But, ritualistic motives may not be related to awareness of the channels watched. Heeter (1985) reported that many people claimed that they did not know which channels they watched, "I don't know, I just watch TV" (p.22). She observed that channel familiarity was negatively linked to viewing television for habitual reasons. Ritualistic viewing motives should be associated with lower MCR because ritualistic television use is inattentive to content and accompanied by distracting activities (Perse,1990a; Rubin & Perse,1987b).
Unlike ritualistic motives, instrumental motives should be linked to greater awareness of the channels that are watched, because instrumental use of television is more active and aware. In general, an instrumental use of television is reflected in more use of program guides to plan viewing, greater planning of time to watch specific programs, and more thought about program content (Perse,1990a). The greater planning, effort, and awareness suggests that instrumental television use would be associated with higher MCR.
Intentionality. Intentional media use is planned and purposive. Intentionality is reflected in program guide use (Gantz & Eastman, 1983) and "making appointments" to watch news (Levy, 1978) and soap operas (Lemish, 1985). Intentionality is also associated with greater attention to programs during exposure (Rubin, Perse, & Taylor, 1988). Because intentionality is linked to greater awareness of programming alternatives and to plans to watch specific programs, intentionality should be associated with greater awareness of the channels that are watched.
Affinity. Affinity is another aspect of audience activity. Affinity reflects the importance that viewers place on television and its content. Affinity has been linked to higher levels of television exposure (Rubin, 1983), to higher levels of channel changing (Wenner, 1990), and to a more active use of television news (Rubin & Perse, 1987b). Because affinity is related to individual media factors and to greater television importance, affinity should be linked to higher mindful channel repertoires.
Effort. Effort is a goal-directed cognitive activity. Cognitive effort directs selective attention to specific aspects of a situation (Kahneman, 1973). Effort is reflected in conscious, controlled, and voluntary mental activity (Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977). Effort also influences what children learn from print and television (Salomon & Leigh, 1984). Because effort marks greater attention and awareness, we expect cognitive effort to be associated with awareness of channels watched.
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W2B-003-0.txt
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Although the Victorian period officially ended with the queen's death in 1901, its political and artistic cultures continue to have an unrivaled immediacy for us. In recent years, conservative moralists have praised the Victorian orphanage and recommended the Victorian virtues of thrift, cleanliness, hard work, self-reliance, self-respect, and national pride as solutions to American woes. At the other end of the political spectrum, university offices of moral sanitation issue pamphlets warning young women of date rape that recall Victorian manuals exhorting young women to avoid "vulgar familiarity." John Stuart Mill's schemes for flouting the tyranny of the majority by plural voting have been resurrected (albeit with the typical American emphasis on race) by the ill-fated Lani Guinier. In 1995, a magnificent exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite paintings traversed the country, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington is now the site of a major exhibition of Victorian painters.
But most of all it is Victorian novelists who exercise over Americans an appeal unmatched by that of any other group of writers. In 1996, the Morgan Library organized a sumptuous exhibition of the Brontes' manuscripts and memorabilia. Television productions of the works of Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Joseph Conrad (following a run of Anthony Trollope adaptations) pour forth abundantly, and films based on the novels of Emily and Charlotte Bronte and Thomas Hardy, though less abundant than those of the pre-Victorian Jane Austen, also proliferate. The Trollope Society, founded in 1987, boasts as a vice president the current British prime minister, John Major, and flourishes mightily: in the Seattle area, where I live, there are three separate branches. In the present euphoria, it came as little surprise to learn recently that Mary Thompson, who at 120 had become the oldest living American--she died in 1996 but did not make the Guinness Book of Records because, as the daughter of ex-slaves, she had no birth certificate--was reported by her son to have followed a strict regimen of reading Victorian novels every evening, and of having them read to her when she lost her sight.
The Victorians themselves would have found this strange; they believed the novel was the genre least likely to survive into the next generation, much less the next century. The essayist Thomas De Quincey, writing in 1848, shortly after the appearance of Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair, and Dombey and Son, declared the novel an inferior and ephemeral genre. "All novels whatever, the best equally with the worst, have faded almost within the generation that produced them. This is a curse written as a superscription above the whole class.... It is only the grander passions of poetry, allying themselves with forms more abstract and permanent," that, De Quincey said, could last. Mill deemed the novel an inferior genre because it could depict only outward things like manners and scenery, not the inner man: "The minds and hearts of greatest depth and elevation are commonly those which take greatest delight in poetry; the shallowest and emptiest... are... not those least addicted to novel-reading." Matthew Arnold told Stephen Coleridge that he had been offered 10,000 pounds to write a novel, but would not soil his hands by doing so because, as Coleridge's famous ancestor Samuel had said, "Novel reading spares the reader the trouble of thinking... and establishes a habit of indolence."
Nor were disparaging opinions of this subpoetic genre limited to poets and essayists. "By the common consent of all mankind who have read, poetry takes the highest place in literature," Trollope said. "In his own age, [the novelist] can have great effect for good or evil; but we know as yet of no prose novelist who has influenced after ages.... [T]he novelist can expect no centuries of popularity. But the poet adapts himself to all ages by the use of language and scenes which are not ephemeral." Novelists understood better than anyone else that their characters emerge, in part, out of historical awareness. Nevertheless, all of these clever people have turned out to be wrong; and George Bernard Shaw--who said that writers who write not for an age but for all time have their reward by going unread in all times--right.
Far from being time-bound, the Victorian novelists have demonstrated a staying power unequaled by their poetic contemporaries. Is this simply because of their intrinsic artistic merit? "Dickens," said Leo Tolstoy, "is a genius born once in a hundred years." William Makepeace Thackeray, according to Charlotte Bronte, was on a par with the Hebrew prophets. Bronte's sister Emily was, said Matthew Arnold, a writer "whose soul/Knew no fellow for might,/Passion, vehemence, grief,/Daring, since Byron died" (a reminder that it was the Victorian novelists, not the Victorian poets, who inherited the prophetic passion of the Romantics). George Eliot, whose fiction after Adam Bede (1859) was considered by Victorian critics the standard by which her contemporaries should be judged, was described by the luminaries who tried (unsuccessfully) to satisfy her wish to be buried in Westminster Abbey as "a woman whose achievements were without parallel in the previous history of womankind." But surely all these qualities were as evident to both common and uncommon readers at the beginning of the 20th century, when the reputation of Dickens, for example, was at its nadir, to be revived only after World War II, and Trollope was alleged by critics to have "disappeared."
Let me, cautiously, suggest (in ascending order of importance) four reasons for the enduring--and more especially the present--appeal of Victorian novelists.
First, unlike most serious modern novelists, they were content to think of themselves as popular entertainers cultivating a warm personal relationship with their readers yet also telling them what to do or think. (Until Virginia Woolf, no lengthy fiction was detached from its teller.) Who can resist the incessant direct addresses to their readers by Thackeray and Charlotte Bronte, as in the culminating one of the 30 in Jane Eyre?: "Reader, I married him." Dickens used the direct address less frequently but was equally concerned to make his readers familiar and comfortable with his voice. Tolstoy attributed this intimate relationship with readers to the Victorians' affection for their characters: "The first condition of an author's popularity, the prime means to make people like him, is the love with which he treats his characters. That is why Dickens's characters are the friends of all mankind: they are a bond of union between man in America and man in Petersburg." Thackeray, alluding to the serializations favored by him and Dickens, said that after his characters had been "boarding and lodging with me for 20 months," he knew them thoroughly, even to the sound of their voices. Those of us who were brought up on the modernist writers, so notably lacking in a tone of tender inclusiveness, now find the accents of love in the Victorians irresistibly endearing. (One of these accents is the reticent treatment of sex, in contrast to the banal explicitness of many contemporary novelists.)
We are also attracted to the Victorians by a curious mixture of the exotic and the familiar, the time-bound and the prescient. If they do not offer us precisely, as Thackeray described the world of his youth, "stage-coaches... riding-horses, pack-horses, highway-men, knights in armour, Norman invaders, Roman legions, Druids, Ancient Britons painted blue," they do give us plenty of fox hunting, dowry hunting, Puritanism, Irish peers, Knights of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, First Lords of the Powder Closet, and Grooms of the Back Stairs. We find in Victorian novels a depiction of variegated manners that our more democratic polity lacks, a class system with clearly demarcated, yet crossable, lines. We may rejoice in our freedom from the Victorian novelists' obsession (especially powerful in Dickens and Trollope) with becoming a gentleman, and yet be entranced by the thickness of social context in which Pip and other aspirants to gentlemanliness pursue their quest. Henry James explained his own need, as a novelist, for the Victorian English ambience in his 1879 description of "the lightness of the diet to which [Hawthorne's] observation was condemned." Being a young American rather than a young English novelist, Hawthorne was confronted by a negative spectacle: "No state... barely a specific national name. No sovereign, no court... no aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no army, no diplomatic service, no country gentlemen, no palaces, no castles, nor manors, nor old country-houses, no parsonages, nor thatched cottages nor ivied ruins; no cathedrals, nor abbeys, nor little Norman churches; no great Universities nor public schools--no Oxford, nor Eton, nor Harrow... no Epsom nor Ascot!"
A third reason for the Victorians' appeal is our recognition that Victorian society, despite its differences from the contemporary world, confronted its novelists with problems that prefigure our own: how to reconcile democracy with traditional humanistic culture; how to create a humane existence in the welter of urban life; how to find secular equivalents for fading religious faith. Foreshadowings of our dilemmas abound in the Victorian novel. Lionel Trilling justified both Dickens' alleged "exaggeration" and his interest in the mystery of evil when he wrote: "We who have seen Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels put on the stage of history, and Pecksniffery institutionalized in the Kremlin, are in no position to suppose that Dickens ever exaggerated in the least the extravagance of madness, absurdity, and malevolence in the world." Readers in search of early stirrings of feminism will find them in the passionate outbursts of Bronte's heroine in Jane Eyre and Sue Bridehead in Jude the Obscure, as well as in the intense yearnings of Dorothea Brooke in Middlemarch. Joseph Conrad's depiction, in Heart of Darkness, of the deterioration of imperialist idealism into a desire to "Exterminate all the brutes!" casts a lurid, prescient shadow on the ideologues of later final solutions; his portrait of the bomb-carrying "professor" in The Secret Agent prefigures our "guerrillas with tenure." In Daniel Deronda, Eliot probed so deeply into the roots of both Zionism and a Toynbee-esque variety of intellectual anti-Semitism that a street is named after her in each of Israel's three major cities. In The Warden, Trollope created in Tom Towers the archetype of many a New York Times or Washington Post columnist, issuing infallible bulls from "the Vatican of England," and "studiously striving to look a man but knowing within his breast that he was a god." In Jude the Obscure Hardy depicted with tremendous sympathy the intellectual ambition of a self-educated worker to break into the closed circle of Oxford, an ambition akin to that of American minorities to redefine the "mainstream" of our intellectual life. If Pip's quest for gentlemanly status is alien to us, the snobbish contempt for his adoptive "father," Magwitch, that results from the very "refinements" that Magwitch has purchased for Pip is a very American story, familiar--alas!--to countless European and Asian immigrants.
No single formula can encompass Victorian novelistic imaginations. Dickens insisted that all novelists report their own conception of reality from their own perspective, for "we are all partly creators of the objects we perceive." But although perception is creative, commonality of purpose may exist. Charlotte Bronte wrote of herself and her novelist colleagues as if they belonged to a trade union of moral reformers, headed by Thackeray: "I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day--as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things." In her insistence on the moral responsibility of novelists, their intense concern with conduct and its consequences, we recognize a stark contrast to the works of contemporary American novelists who subscribe to William Gass's dictum that "Life is not the subject of fiction" and believe that the novel is mainly about itself or about its language. It is above all a longing for what Arnold called Hebraism and a sense that faith abandoned remains a more compelling presence in literature than secular creeds adopted that draw us backward to the Victorians.
A contemporary, W. H. Mallock, spoke of George Eliot as "the first great godless writer of fiction that has appeared in England." What this godlessness meant, exactly, is suggested by F. W. H. Myers's description of his conversation with the novelist as they walked in the Fellows' Garden of Trinity College, Cambridge on a rainy evening in May 1873: "She, stirred somewhat beyond her wont, and taking as her text the three words which have been used so often as the inspiring trumpet-calls of men,--the words, God, Immortality, Duty--pronounced, with terrible earnestness, how inconceivable was the first, how unbelievable the second, and yet how peremptory and absolute the third... her grave, majestic countenance turned toward me like a sibyl's in the gloom; it was as though she withdrew from my grasp, one by one, the two scrolls of promise, and left me the third scroll only, awful with inevitable fates."
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W2D-014-0.txt
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HOW TO - Build a Scale Model
I enjoy models - - even since I was a young boy, though in my younger years I lacked the patience, steady hands and delicate motions needed to properly complete a model. This HOW TO will be a series that carries us from start to finish of a model, starting with the most boring part - - understanding what you're getting into 're what you'll need 'll get into it. But, without this section, it is hard to really know what you're doing or why 're/p>
Scale modeling is time consuming, and as a result this HOW TO will be in several parts, the first being the most basic in that it will cover selecting a model, thinking about paint layers and understanding the concepts and challenges in scale modeling. Also, the length of this write up will significantly decrease the length of the articles to come when we go through the actual building, painting, and finishing processes over the next several weeks. Be forewarned, building a model may feel like it drags on, but rushing a job will result in a really low quality build. As I stated, this will likely be the longest of my HOW TO series, but it is also the most important and will hopefully lay a foundation on the things to come.
The first thing to note is that with any scale model the idea is to be as close to perfect as possible. This adds to the amount of time it should take to build one. Things like how much detail a kit has, moving parts and the complexity of the kit itself make dissolve any static timeline in scale modeling.
It really doesn't matter where your interests lie, be they aircraft, cars, armor (tanks and military vehicles), or ships (wooden or otherwise), each type of model has its own specific obstacles that surface on all models of that type. As an example, a huge challenge in aircraft is understanding that no aircraft will look 'factory fresh' unless the model is to look like a restored museum item and therefore a lot of time and reflection will be needed for weathering the paint job effectively. With that, determining where your interests lie is one step closer to knowing or figuring out what brand of model to assemble. For me, it is cars and bikes.
So once, you've figured out what it 've you want to build, it's good to know who makes what and to what quality they make them. I'll jus 'llo ahead and state for the record, that while I'm not directly adv 'mtising for Tamiya, they are in my honest opinion the BEST models that you can buy (despite their very high price point). As a result I'll mai 'll talk about the Tamiya brand and later HOW TO articles will be on a Tamiya model (of either the Yamaha YZR-M1 50th Anniversary or Tamiyas newest release (end of January), the Lamborghini Countach LP500S - - I'll let 'llu decide which you'd li 'd me to go over)
There are several reputable model manufacturers out there. Choosing a model largely depends on several factors, the first being in what scale you wish to build. I build in two scales: 1/24 and 1/12 (which are usually cars and motorcycles). The second factor being to what level of detail do you wish to achieve. Some models are 'curbside' meaning they have no engine, just a closed hood. Some models don't have steerable wheels, but most have rolling wheels. Some models are molded in grey resin while others come with metal plated or dyed parts. It just depends on what you want to achieve. Some manufactures only make models in certain scales or only make them of certain materials.
The last thing that should be taken into consideration when selecting a model is how well you know the item you are building. Some kits aren't as accurate as they'd ha 'd you believe. For instance I recently built my father a replica of his first car when he was a teenager - - a 1966 GTO with the 389 Tri Power and the ultra rare factory installed Ram Air, Hurst 4 on the floor shifter in Fontaine Blue with Aqua interior. Aside from what he would reminisce, I knew VERY little about the car and spent a month doing deep research on the car, saved 500 some odd pictures of the inside (interior and engine bay) and outside (even the undercarriage), what the extras for the car were, etc. prior to even starting to build the model.
Some of that stuff has no bearing if you know that these parts won't be seen - - for instance you can glue a hood closed and forego the engine when you really don't feel like messing with it (but kits with engines cost more so it's like wasting money).
The kit itself came with two side mirrors and Rally II wheels. The instructions called for the window trim to be flat black and the stock six-pack wasn't configured correctly. Without research I would have never known that the'six pack' had the middle carb sitting higher than the outside carbs, the window trim was chrome, Rally I wheels were stock not Rally II wheels (Rally II wheels weren't on the car until 1967) and the car only had a driver side mirror on the outside, not two. The kit would have me build an inaccurate model - - which is not acceptable to me.
To fix large inaccuracies you've got to scra 've build them or find a company who makes accurate replacements / enhancements (and there are many companies who do this, so don't fear too much if you find yourself in this spot)
First and foremost, the paint is a primary concern. Everything rests on the paint - - a bad paint job will overshadow any other aspect of a model because it is the most visible feature. In order to ensure that the paint comes out well good preparation materials are needed as well as just good preparation.
While at this point we do not need to apply paint it is important to have colors and vehicles in mind. If you're buildin 're kit and want to use factory colors then you'll 'll need to pick out those colors. If you're lookin 'reo do a custom paint job then you'll 'llso need to pick those out. Certain colors look better on certain cars while other can completely throw off the project. For instance you'll 'llobably not want to paint a 1989 Savanna RX-7 FC3S in Wimbledon White because it looks funny and because Wimbledon White is a Ford color, not a Mazda color. You would however probably paint it Black, Red, Aluminum or White since those were the factory colors that the car came in. You may even want to go totally custom and paint it something like Mica Red fading to Mica Crimson with Metallic Black accents (like lamp covers, door guards and spoiler). Anyway you want to paint a model is fine as far as color goes but it is important to be aware that not all paint is the same - - in short paint is not paint is not paint.
Lacquer is thinner than acrylic and enamel but is subject to chipping, fading, and is typically 'flat'. Lacquer dries very fast compared to enamel because the vehicle in the paint evaporates. The vehicle in lacquer also softens paint below it and chemically bonds to any pre-existing layers of paint. For this reason is it never a great idea to put lacquer over top of an enamel or acrylic. Lacquer will cost you more money in the long run to use because it requires that you seal it to avoid chipping and fading, but sealing it deepens the color and gives a much better finish. Cleaning lacquer up is harder because it needs stronger chemicals that can attack the plastic of a model, so lacquers are good for masked spray work and base coats. Tamiya paints are never enamels... they're with 'reSpray lacquer or bottled acrylics but are formulated to not react with other brands of enamel, acrylic and lacquers.
Enamel is fairly thick and unlike lacquer the drying process can take upwards of 2-3 days. Technically enamel doesn't dry so much as it simply hardens with an outer shell forming within about an hour. Enamel doesn't soften the layer of paint below it but can be softened by lacquer - - therefore again I stress that it is a bad idea to put lacquer over enamel. The exception to this is clear coats. Enamel is typically semi-gloss (egg shell or satin as it is sometimes referred) or gloss. The thickness of enamel coupled with the time reduced amount of time it takes for a shell to form over it makes enamel prone to 'orange peel' and if not careful quite possible to fill in panel lines on accident. The clean up however is fairly simple as the chemicals used need time to attack plastic. It's also the easiest paint to strip off of a model when you're not 're happy with the overall paint job. A couple of hours in degreaser and you'l 'llever know there was any paint on it at all! Testors makes all three varieties of paint and are really bad about reacting to certain brands of lacquer over their own brand of lacquer, though Tamiya and Mr. Color work well with Testors brands of paint.
Acrylic paint is a double edged sword. It dries fast so it is best suited for detail work that isn't going to take long, but it is usually water soluble so the cleanup is simple while still wet. Once dry however, acrylics are like enamel and chemicals are needed to remove them. Also like enamel, acrylics do not soften the layer of paint below them. Acrylics are also very easy to dilute into 'inks', which in turn are used to detail panel lines with 'loaded brushes' so that the model has more dimension and realistic look. Acrylics are also almost always gloss and require a bit of stirring because they separate quickly.
Tamiya metallic acrylics require being stirred every 7-10 minutes and all of them require stirring (or vigorous shaking) at every use but they go down really well. Testors and Mr. Color acrylics don't need to be stirred as often as Tamiya, but go down pretty thick which can cause brush strokes to be clearly visible. TO summarize the concept of paint you should just simply remember the order in which you want to put down your paint layers.
These are things to think about when you choose a model. Understanding in what order you'l 'lleed to apply colors saves a lot of work and frustration in the end. Above all, make sure that whatever brand of paint you use, that it is safe on polystyrene. Polystyrene is only one kind of model plastic but it is the most common. Another common plastic is Polycarbon which is primarily used for RC bodies and parts. Polycarbon paint will attack ('eat' is probably more accurate) polystyrene as polystyrene is pretty much super condensed Styrofoam. Also, since lacquer and enamel have some form of urethane in them... be smart about it and be in a well ventilated area (like outside). I'l 'llxplain more on painting when it's time to paint the model.
Preparing to build a model is more than just clearing table space and a model. There are basic things you' 'llneed in order to ensure that your model gets off to a good start.
Sandpaper is probably the most underrated material you' 'llneed. It's used for removing 'pull lines' (where the injector pills away from the mold), swirls, flashing, and sprue (a sprue tree is what each piece is attached to prior to being cut away) connectors. Sandpaper is also used to finish paint jobs. Typically one would use 3600 to 12000 grit for removing and reducing 'orange peel' (the tiny pits that appear in a spray paint job).
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W2C-015-0.txt
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Next weekend in Florence, you can visit an adobe home built by Jesus Martinez in the 1870s and see the original saguaro-rib ceiling supported by crooked cottonwoods harvested at the Gila River.
Next month in Globe, you can tour one of the town's earliest schools that sits on a hill overlooking the Old Dominion Mine, soon to open as a bed-and-breakfast. You also can tour the mine.
In Tubac, Arizona's oldest non-Indian community, you can walk through history, from the 1750s to the late 1880s, starting with a look at an archaeological dig.
In Willcox, there's the oldest department store in the state.
All across Arizona, communities large and small use building tours to show off their history, lifestyle and the hard work of people who cherish their homes. What better way to taste the true flavor of a town than to visit private dwellings and special buildings? "It's been such a neat thing," said Sheldon Miller, manager of the Globe-Miami Chamber of Commerce. Its annual tour has grown in the past three years to draw a couple of thousand visitors. The event has become a sort of community festival, with an associated antiques show, community theater performances and an exhibit of local quilting art.
" We found out things about ourselves that we were unaware of, that people enjoy our historic structures and homes that we took for granted," Miller said. "People coming from the outside were probably much more appreciative of our history than we as citizens were.
" We know of instances where people have come on the tour, been impressed with the community, and have come back to explore us a little more."
Catalysts for volunteers
The tours can be massive community catalysts, said Susan Spater, director of the Pimeria Alta Historical Society Museum in Nogales, because so many volunteers are needed to coordinate the event, sell tickets and serve as guides in the homes and buildings.
In Globe, students are recruited from high schools and 4-H Clubs to serve as greeters and door openers, Miller said. The tours, which have more than 100 people working daily, also are painless teaching tools.
" It helps us with understanding the continuity of history a little better," Spater said.
The Nogales tour typically includes several turn-of-the-century homes, Queen Anne Victorians and Sonoran-style adobes, the hidden treasures of Nogales that still are lived in by fifth-generation families. Nogales has more examples of domestic historic architecture from the turn of the century than any other town in the state, Spater said, and the historic tour highlights this resource.
The tour also includes a contemporary home, she said, to illustrate that history extends into our time. The home of noted Arizona architect Bennie Gonzales, for example, has been on the tour.
Jerome high on list
Aficionados of home tours could make an argument that Jerome's is Arizona's most popular tour. Jerome also has been opening its homes to the public longer than anyone else: The 1993 tour will be its 28th.
Jerome homes can even be viewed as works in progress. "We get people who come back year after year after year," said Christine Warren, tour coordinator. "We always try to do something different. We try not to show (the same home) within five years. If it's under construction, we'll show a home, then show 'll again five years later.
" Just two years ago, we had a friend's house just up the hill from me. I said, 'Leave everything the way it is. Don't worry about cleaning up the sawdust and putting tools away.' So he just cordoned it off so people could move through it easily, and people loved it. It was one of the most popular stops on the tour. Hopefully, in five years, we'll be able to talk him i 'll it again and show the progress."
Miners of major interest
Mining communities, including Jerome, Bisbee, Globe-Miami and Ajo, typically include both modest miners' houses restored in creative ways as well as larger homes built for or by the mine managers. Once you've walked on stepping ston 'vedown an otherwise inaccessible "street" in Jerome, to a home where all groceries are transported in a child's red wagon, you have a better grasp of the challenges and delights of living there.
Bisbee, called Queen of the Mining Towns in its heyday, could today be called Queen of the Home Tour Towns. In addition to its 10-year-old fall home tour, another popular bed-and-breakfast tour is held in June. This one focuses on the adaptive reuse of miners' boarding houses, defunct schools and large homes originally built for mining executives.
Last year, Bisbee added another home tour, this one of artists' homes and studios, in March.
" It really went over well," said Pat Hernandez of the Bisbee Chamber of Commerce.
New look at old homes
Older desert towns play up their adobe heritage, showing off original details and years of hard work by homeowners. Florence, which has more than 130 buildings on the National Historic Register, is a virtual catalog of Territorial adobe construction, starting with Sonoran-style row houses punctuated by one doorway after another.
Last year, Tubac started a one-day historic walk. Almost all of the buildings in the old part of town are adobe. The old Presidio, or fort, is where the tour starts, and visitors can go down into an archaeological dig to see the foundations of the original structure, built in 1752.
The local Historical Society already had offered a brochure for a self-guided tour. However, said assistant manager Richard Williams at the Tubac Presidio, "we decided that in order to spread the word and generate more interest in the historical nature of what we have here, we should one day a year make it more similar to the Florence effort. Not all home tours reach so far back into time.
History is relative
A tour was held of the "historic" first homes in Green Valley, a 26-year-old retirement community south of Tucson. According to sponsors, the tour was a major hit.
" People love these things," Spater said. "From our point of view, it's such a seductive way to communicate history.
" People absorb tremendous amounts of history doing something that's very fun. It's a wonderful educational project for us. You don't have to dress up or go to a lecture hall, just show up for something that's really fun."
Some tours are fund-raisers that focus on well-appointed homes that may or may not have historic status. Often, these fund-raisers are held during the holidays. Last year, the Pinetop-Lakeside Cup of Cheer Christmas Home Tour offered refreshments, five homes and an antiques store. One house was a large log cabin; another was a mobile home.
" And a couple were traditional homes," a spokeswoman said. "There are so many mobiles up here... The idea is to get decoration ideas. And I think women just like to look at houses."
1) The second Pinal County Courthouse, 102 years old, is one of the most recognized buildings in the town and always is on the annual tour of historic buildings in Florence. The first courthouse, now McFarland State Park, also is on the tour.
2) It's always 9 o'clock - - or is it 11:45? - on the cupola of the second Pinal County Courthouse. The clock faces and curtains are painted.
3) The Florence Woman's Club building is on this year's community historic tour. Woman's Clubs sponsor some of the many home tours held across the state. A fireplace inside the club is large enough to accommodate standing adults.
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W2A-022-0.txt
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Abstract. - - Diets of northern squawfish Ptychocheilus oregonensis, smallmouth bass Micropterus dolomieu, walleye Stizostedion vitreum, and channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus from John Day Reservoir were examined to determine the extent of predation on juvenile salmonids during seaward migrations of the salmonids during April-August 1983-1986. Juvenile Pacific salmon Oncorhynchus spp. and steelhead 0. mykiss were the most important food group (by weight) of northern squawfish - - about 67%;-- but made up smaller proportions of the food of the ether predators: channel catfish, 33%;; walleyes, 14%;; smallmouth bass, 4%;. Seasonal changes in diets indicated that northern squawfish preferred juvenile salmonids in May and August (generally the peak of salmonid out-migration), and switched to prickly sculpin Cottus asper when numbers of juvenile salinonids declined; walleyes and smallmouth bass showed a preference only for prickly sculpin among the prey fishes analyzed. As judged by dietary composition and prey selectivity, the northern squawfish was the major fish predator on juvenile salmonids in the reservoir; channel catfish also were important predators in the upper reservoir in spring. Walleyes and smallmouth bass were much less important predators on salmonids, and appeared to select subyearling chinook salmon only in August when the distribution of this prey overlapped with that of the predators. Size-selective predation by northern squawfish may also play an important role in reducing survival of the smaller individuals within each run of out-migrating juvenile salmonids.
A complex of factors that included overfishing, watershed disruption, and dam building contributed to the decline of salmonid fisheries in the Columbia River. Historically, the Columbia River system was the greatest producer of chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha and steelhead 0. mykiss in the world (Stone 1878; Evans 1977). Declines of the salmonid spawning runs were not apparent until the boom period of the canning industry in the late 1800s, although the runs were still substantial in the early 1930s (Craig and Hacker 1940; NPPC 1984). During 1928-1932, about 3,820 commercial fishermen (not including Indians) harvested an average annual catch of about 13.5 million kilograms from Columbia River stocks, exclusive of ocean catches; the catch of all salmon and steelhead in 1933 was about 11.8 million kilograms (Craig and Hacker 1940). The Northwest Power Planning Council (NPPC) adopted a salmonid run estimate of 10 to 16 million adults in the Columbia River system before any dams were built (NPFC 1986); and Chapman (1986) estimated 7.5 million (neither estimate included harvest by Indians). Total runs of salmonid adults were about 2.5 million fish in the mid 1980s, as judged by counts at dams (Chapman 1986).
Construction of dams for hydropower, flood control, and irrigation, combined with the effects of overfishing, logging, grazing, farming, and mining, caused drastic reductions in Columbia River salmon and steelhead populations (Craig and Hacker 1940; NPPC 1984). From 1933, when the first main-stem dam was completed, to 1975 (when the last of 28 dams composing the Federal Columbia River Power System was completed) the annual commercial catch of salmon declined from about 9.5 to 3 million kilograms. More than half of the accessible natural spawning habitat was lost (NPPC 1984). The dams impeded or blocked upstream spawning migrations of adults, altered the river's dimensions, flows, and temperatures, and increased the mortality of juveniles as they migrated back to the sea (Raymond 1968; Trefethen 1972; Schwiebert 1977). Mortality of juvenile salmonids has been increased because of diseases introduced from hatchery stocks (developed to rehabilitate runs), gas bubble disease from nitrogen supersaturation at dam spills, delayed migrations and asynchronous smoltification, direct mortality from dam turbines, and increased predation (Raymond 1968, 1969, 1979; Bently and Raymond 1976; Ebel and Raymond 1976; Ebel 1977; Rosentreter 1977; Weitkamp and Katz 1980; Zaugg et al. 1985).
Predator-prey relations, the subject of this and subsequent papers in this issue (Beamesderfer and Rieman 1991; Rieman et al. 1991; Vigg et al. 1991), have been altered by dams in several ways. The relatively still reservoirs behind dams disorient juvenile salmonids, slow their out-migrations, and expose the fish to high temperatures. At the dams, fish become concentrated near spillways or other passage routes and endure considerable stress as they pass to the tailrace below. All these factors can affect the vulnerability of young salmonids to predation. The magnitude of predation has been difficult to measure, but Ruggerone (1986) estimated that ring-billed gulls Larus delawarensis consumed about 2%; of tile peak spring migration of juvenile salmonids below Wanapum Dam, Columbia River.
The northern squawfish (see Table 1 for scientific and common names of fish mentioned herein), the prevalent endemic piscivore in the Columbia River system, has caused substantial depletions of juvenile salmonids in various waters (Ricker 1941; Jeppson and Platts 1959; Thompson 1959; Thompson and Tufts 1967). In Lake Washington, which has several species in common with those in Columbia River reservoirs, northern squawfish are opportunistic feeders that prey both on limnetic and benthic-littoral fishes (Eggers et al.,1978). They feed primarily on the most abundant resident prey species, prickly sculpin, except during seasonally high abundances of the predominant planktivore, juvenile sockeye salmon. Brown and Moyle (1981), who reviewed the impact of squawfish predation on salmonids, indicated that predation may be substantial in lakes but not in streams except near dams, water divisions, or other artificial disruptions of flow. They also concluded that additional studies on squawfish feeding were needed, especially on the effects of dams and water diversions on predation during out-migrations of salmonid juveniles.
Northern squawfish have become more abundant in the Columbia River with the development of reservoirs and other predator species - - walleyes, channel catfish, and smallmouth bass-- have been introduced there. These predators are relatively abundant and feed on forage fishes in other areas (e.g., Stevens 1959; Wagner 1972; Johnson and Hale 1977; Knight et al. 1984). Maule and Horton (1984) documented that walleyes eat young salmonids in the Columbia River, but concluded that the impact of predation could not be assessed without fish population estimates.
In 1982, the Bonneville Power Administration funded studies, conducted jointly by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, to quantify the effect of fish predation on out-migrating juvenile salmonids in John Day Reservoir in the Columbia River. Four aspects of predation were studied during 1982-1986: (1) feeding ecology, (2) consumption rates by predators, (3) abundance and distribution of predators, and (4) total effect of predation on the mortality of out-migrating juvenile salmonids. The major findings of these studies are reported in four companion papers of which this is the first. Here we document the feeding ecology of northern squawfish, walleyes, smallmouth bass, and channel catfish in John Day Reservoir, quantifying the diets of these four predators temporally and spatially, and evaluating predation dynamics with respect to out-migrations of juvenile salmonids.
Study Area
John Day Dam was built in 1968 at Columbia River kilometer 347 (measured from the mouth); it is the third dam upstream from the ocean (Figure 1). It forms John Day Reservoir, which is 123 km long and extends to McNary Dam. John Day Reservoir has a mean elevation of 89 m above mean sea level, a mean width of 1.8 km, a mean depth of 8.0 m, a maximum depth of 44.2 m, a surface area of about 21,040 million hectares, and a capacity of about 3 x l0~ m3 (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, unpublished data). Discharges from McNary Dam are generally highest (about 64,000 m3Is) in April and lowest in November. Water residence time varies directly with flow, because there is little storage capacity.
Temperature ranges from 0 to 27(C; it is usually lowest in February and highest in August. Partial thermal stratification occurs in summer; the reservoir is considered to be polymictic. On the basis of nutrients and primary production, John Day Reservoir maybe categorized as mesotrophic (Hjort et al. 1981).
Out-Migration of juvenile Salmonids
The fishes of John Day Reservoir comprise 34 resident and anadromous species (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, unpublished data). The spawning migration of adult anadromous salmonids passing John Day Dam and entering the reservoir during 1983-1986 was composed of 27%; steelhead, 50%; chinook salmon, 20%; sockeye salmon, and 4%; coho salmon; these proportions have been similar since the dam was closed in 1968 (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 1986).
Hatchery production of anadromous salmonids upstream from McNary Dam (mid-Columbia and Snake rivers) during 1983-1986 averaged a 35 million fish per year, composed of the following species (in percent): fall chinook salmon, spring chinook salmon, 33.1; summer chinook salmon, 6.4; coho salmon, 1.4; and steelhead, (Fish Passage Center 1986). (Spring, summer fall stocks are named for the season in which a return to the river.) Spring chinook salmon, and sockeye salmon, and steelhead generally migrate as yearlings, whereas summer and fall chinook salmon out-migrate as subyearlings. Natural reproduction of fall chinook salmon, primarily in the free-flowing Hanford Reach above McNary Reservoir, is relatively high. On the basis of the "passage index" (dam counts adjusted by flow), juvenile emigrants at McNary Dam are 34.60, chinook salmon yearlings, 40.8%; chinook salmon subyearlings, 1.7%; coho salmon, 10.3%; sockeye salmon, and 12.6%; steelhead (Fish Passage Center 1986). Juvenile salmonids emigrate from April to August; most subyearling chinook salmon migrate in July, and the peak migrations of the other groups are in May (Figure 2).
Methods
Fish sampling. - - Diets of predators were monitored from 1983 to 1986 at five locations in Day Reservoir (Figure 1; Table 2). Two stations - - the McNary Dam tailrace (river kilometers 463-470) and the area near the dam face from v boats are restricted (here termed "restricted zone," km 470-470.5)-- were areas influenced by turbine outflow and spill. Irrigon (km 444-458) was a transitional zone but was mostly similar to the tailrace area. Arlington (km 387-399), the reservoir station, typified habitats away from direct influence of dams. The John Day forebay station (km 347-354) was an area where juvenile salmonids sometimes concentrate before they pass the dam. The Arlington station was establish 1984, the others in 1983.
Predators were sampled monthly at each station on a diel schedule (four consecutive 6-h PC each day for at least three consecutive days) from April through August each year (but no July samples were collected in 1983 and 1984). In 1986, the restricted zone station was sampled every other week from April through August; all other stations were sampled only in July. Although the sampling design was not consistent and balanced within or among years (Table 2), all combinations of locations and months were covered over the 4 years. Because of this broad coverage and because predator diets turned out to be temporally and spatially consistent from year to year, we pooled data or used averages across months, years, or stations to increase sample sizes without substantially sacrificing accuracy. Predators were collected primarily with a boat electroshocker. However, a semiballoon bottom trawl (9-rn headrope) and multifilament bottom gill nets measuring 60 x 1.8 m with meshes (stretched measure) of 8.9, 10.2, 12.7, or 15.2cm were used for 1-h sets at all stations except John Day forebay to collect walleyes and channel catfish.
Collection of food data. - - Living predaceous fishes were anesthestized with benzocaine, weighed to the nearest gram, and measured (fork length) to the nearest millimeter. Stomachs of small-mouth bass longer than 100 mm and walleyes longer than 200 mm were pumped with a modified Seaburg sampler (Seaburg 1957) to obtain stomach contents; the fish were then released. Entire digestive tracts were removed from channel catfish and northern squawfish longer than 250 mm; smallmouth bass shorter than 100 mm, walleyes shorter than 200 mm, and northern squawfish shorter than 250 mm were preserved whole. All collections were preserved in 10%; formalin.
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W2B-038-0.txt
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Introduction
As the World Wide Web begins to outgrow its academic and scientific beginnings, the limitations of its standard language, HTML (HyperText Markup Language) become more evident. The Web has grown considerably and stands to become a powerful if not dominant medium of mass communication. If this is to happen, the Web must be able to effectively compete with its mass-media counterparts: television, radio, and print-media. To do this, the needs of creative people-- designers, artists, musicians, must be taken into account. We should ask "how do the tools of traditional media content creators differ from those of the Web designer?" One answer is that theirs are powerful and creativetools - - which allow the creative process to work unimpeded. Simply said, what they need is the flexibility to create what they imagine, and the ability to do that in the way they choose. All this with a reasonable assurance that their creations can experienced as intended by their public. Solutions will have to be radical, but not in the traditional sense. It is important to realize that, in terms of the end user, the best Web content these days is designed rather that 'programmed'. If one understands this difference, one can see how primitive current Web design tools actually are.
However, designers and artists are not the only people creating content for the Web. It should be noted that the Web is a highly powerful tool in the scientific and academic community. There, the considerations of textual structure are the first priority. Furthermore, Web content creation should be accessable to those with minimal computer literacy. The popularity of the Web can be at least partly attributed to the easy in which the average person can learn and use HTML. Therefore, a language should be available that does not require extensive understanding of computers or the working of the Internet.
In answering the demands of the these, often disparate camps of content creators, I have outlined some preliminary ideas for a new 'meta-lan 'mage' for the World Wide Web. This new language would in itself provide few additional functions, but rather offer an umbrella under which the present language tools could work cooperatively, establishing certain norms (keywords) through which language components could interact. I wish only to suggest guidelines for constructing a meta-language - - principles which should guide any implementation. The details of a meta-language specification are beyond the scope of this initial proposal.
The Present Situation: The Nature of HTML
To understand the limitations of HTML, it is important to first understand its central principle: markup. Markup is a codified way of delineating the structure of a text document, in such a way that it can be displayed reasonably across a variety of platforms. Its first considerations are: "what information is important?" and "what are the structural relationships?". Once this is 'marked', 'mhe browser software is left to decide how best to display the document onscreen. The great majority of functions available in HTML are geared to these structural considerations. Because of this, HTML is inherently text-dependent. This means, from the designer's point of view, he or she must first confront the text; its quantitative and structural qualities. Images, or other non-text material are almost always the second priority - - an afterthought. To add multimedia, the Web-designer must inevitably rely on various tricks and improvisations, only to be then unsure of how the final product will appear to the end user. If this is compared with television or print media, one sees that it is an unacceptable situation. Take the example of television news, which increasingly use Web-style informational presentation. The combination of multimedia with text based visuals is essential to their presentation - - images and text are, at least in design, on equal footing. And even though the variety of television receivers is wide, the producer can always be sure that his or her information will be reproduced in tact, barring physical defects in the receiver itself, and broadcast artifacts. This is because television has the advantage of uniformly adopted industry standards, on which designers can rely. One such standard is NTSC video, which despite its significant shortcomings, provides a fixed pixel area (645x486), guaranteeing proper image proportion on every set. While this may seem trivial, it does assure the content designer that his product can be similarly reproduced by a variety of receivers. This gives the television designer a kind of creative flexibility not available to the Web-designer (yet). It's also no secret that television exceeds the Web in popularity and social influence. The Web can do this and much more if those who create content have the tools that allow their creativity to flourish. While this will eventually be accomplished by software in which the underlying code is transparent to the user, the first step is to have the code resources in place which embody the principles necessary for the multimedia Web to gel.
HTML and Multimedia
Every successive HTML spec has included more multimedia functionality. This will no doubt continue. But, the problem of the media/text schism remains if multimedia is addressed through HTML alone. There, multimedia is treated as an extraneous 'element' - - a separate entity from the text. While in HTML thorough consideration has been given for textual structure, no 'markup 'msystems exist for multimedia. No language is available that considers text and non-text material as theoretically equal. For example, in HTML it is easy to describe the title and important subjects in a text passage:
<title>
This is the title
</title>
<h1>
This is important
</h1>
<h2>
This is kinda important
</h2>
What I told you is pretty important, but please don't forget
this.
This is simple enough, but how would you describe to a HTML interpreter, "take the red parts of image A and mix them selectively with the white parts in image B only if the mouse is in the upper righthand corner of the screen"? It is of course possible, but extremely inconvenient and error prone.
Part of the problem is that HTML instructions are given in a linear fashion. The interpreter receives a start tag
<tag>
and formats the text in the specified way until is receives an end tag
</tag>
. There are exceptions to this, but the core of HTML thinking remains based on linear code interpretation. However, multimedia often doesn't fit this linear model. It may seem that video and music are simple progressions from beginning to end - - in the old paradigm this is certainly the case. But the Web is, or should be, interactive. The Web allows for interactive multimedia on a scale never before thought of. It is the Web's single most attractive feature. Just as hypertext changed the way a reader experiences text, Web multimedia will alter time-based notions such as plot and timing beyond recognition. A language which proceeds from a linear viewpoint will never allow multimedia to reach this goal. Without multimedia, the Web will remain largely the toy of a vertical market.
Artistic creation rarely follows a clear line. For the artist/designer HTML with its linear nature is a considerable impediment. It forces the artist to create a visual object (the page) in a linear manner: "ok, we have blue text until here, then a GIF 100x150 pixels, then back to text, and that word should be in italics." Even though one might create parts of a page in a non-linear way, one sees from the example that the smallest building blocks are lines, interpreted from left to right. A painter would think, "a house is in the foreground, the sun is above it to the left". Or better yet, "the moving clouds cause the color of the light on the house to change". For him it is mostly unimportant which part of the image is seen first by the viewer. In this way, the painting is non-linear. The painter can work this way not only because of his tools, but the idea behind the tools. The simple analogy of brush-paint-canvas is based on the principle that ideas are created and perceived non-linearly. That means that the painter is not constrained when choosing a color, and may freely choose any spot on the canvas on which to paint. Everything is 'random-access'. This a model that should emulated when constructing a language for the multimedia Web.
The Present Situation: Content Creation
So, we have seen that there are (at least) two fundamental steps in current Web-design practice: 1) understand the nature of the text material, and then 2)'attach' images and multimedia. This schism comes from text-oriented style of HTML, and is essentially harmful to the creative process. Creativity thrives under flexibility. Art is at its most effective when the artist proceeds from a 'total picture'. The Web-designer today finds it difficult to get a 'total picture' because they are busying themselves with understanding the textual structure of individual documents, when their time could be more fruitfully spent constructing the Web site as a unified whole. Understanding the content is the job of the content creator not the Web designer. Very often today these roles are played by the same person. Returning to television again, one finds there a very clear division between the creator of the content and those charged to give it form. This is perhaps due to television's relative maturity as a medium.
Concerns over content presentation are the subject of a ongoing and often bitter discussion on USENET groups. Discussion has usually degenerated into political sparring between two camps, the 'programmer' and the 'des 'dner'. Due to this, comprehensive solutions have not been forthcoming. We have fragmentary stopgap measures instead. A considerable impediment in this area has been the concern over interoperability. Often those in the 'programmer' camp have maintained that full control of multimedia and presentation would limit the available target platforms. Working with today's tools, this is a almost certainly a true assertion. For example, I have often wanted to take advantage of Shockwave or QuickTime VR, but have always been held back by my doubts over the penetration of those technologies. Ideally, available tools should have near 100%; coverage. Today, the only possibilities are plug-ins and browser specific enhancements.
Plug-ins are inherently unreliable. First, they depend on the user's awareness of its existence. This situation has been partially addressed by some browsers, where one receives the message "this page contains media type xxx/xxx which can only be viewed with the appropriate plug-in... ", then one can choose to download the plug-in or view the page without it. This often involves a lengthy download, then time to install the plug-in, a process which can often include downloading still more components - - it is far from a direct process, so much so that one often forgets the page that needed the plug-in in the first place. And even once the plug-in is installed, the designer cannot be assured that the plug-in will be properly installed and configured (VRML plug-ins leap to mind here). As an architecture, plug-ins are naturally attractive; they have been successful in a range of other software environments where interoperability is not mission-critical. But plug-ins do not meet the needs of creative Web-design, or dynamic content delivery, as their distribution model cannot provide a reasonable installed base guarantee. I do not mean to condemn plug-ins outright; in certain applications such as intranets, they provide an ideal solution. In this transition period, plug-in architecture has allowed a great deal of healthy experimentation. But if we think in terms of a Internet-wide solution scalable with increasing multimedia saturation, the weaknesses of plug-ins become evident.
Also, while not exactly plug-ins, platform independent client-side scripting languages such as Java/JavaScript and Active X can be included here. The addition of client-side scripting has been a powerful addition to the designer/programmers toolset. However, client-side scripting shares the plug-in problem because it is dependent on class-libraries which often suffer from poor and inconsistent implementation. This situation could no doubt improve in time; until there were true'standard libraries', such as we have with the conventional object oriented languages. But to do this would mean compromising platform portability, since the libraries are client-side, they make calls to functions of the user's own machine. Of course, class-libraries are ported along with the browser for different platforms, but seen as a whole, the resulting libraries are so inconsistent that they cannot be really suitable for platform-independent applications. For simple functions this is not necessarily a problem. Simple data types, small data sets and calculations can all be expected to function with reasonable consistency across different client-side implementations. But the future of the Web is multimedia. The more diverse the mix of media is within the browser space, the more difficult it becomes to control within the framework of the current client-side scripting languages. Multimedia will be a vital concern when (and if) push-media reaches critical mass. With that kind of diversity, the inherent limitations of class-library implementations will be unworkable.
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The Primary Results
Tuesday's primary election had more than its share of surprises and close races. The voter turnout in the Savannah area - somewhere around 50 percent - was encouraging as well.
The biggest shocker on the local scene was Joe Mahany's upset of incumbent Chatham County Commission Chairman Robert McCorkle in the Democratic primary. Mr. McCorkle, who has served on the commission for 22 years, was beaten by Mr. Mahany by nearly a 2-to-1 margin.
The chairman's defeat by members of his own party is a clear indication that voters want a change in leadership. The victor, Mr. Mahany, will face one of two Republicans, Commissioner Julie Smith or Ray Gaster, who were the top vote-getters in the Republican primary. No matter who wins in the November general election, Chatham Countians will begin 1993 with a new commission chairman on board.
In other contests, the crowded fields in the 1st District and 11th District congressional races virtually guaranteed runoff elections, which will be held Aug. 11. Barbara Christmas, a Democrat, ran a strong campaign in the 1st District and will face either Buddy DeLoach or Bryan Ginn in the runoff. That winner will run against State Rep. Jack Kingston of Savannah, who easily won the Republican nomination.
In the newly-drawn 11th District, Cynthia McKinney and George DeLoach will vie for the Democratic nod, while Republicans Woodrow Lovett and Savannahian Michael Pratt will fight to carry their party's flag. All four have an unenviable task, since this crazily configured district stretches from Atlanta to Augusta to Savannah.
In various judgeship races, Charles Mikell handily won the election for Superior Court judge, proving that his experience on the State Court bench paid off. State Supreme Court Justice Leah Sears-Collins, a Savannah native, won her race to keep her seat, guaranteeing a measure of diversity on the high court.
One disappointment was the statewide race between Labor Commissioner Al Scott and challenger David Poythress for the Democratic nomination. Mr. Scott has been doing an admirable job as labor commissioner; Mr. Poythress has been manufacturing issues and tossing mud. Unfortunately, the below-the-belt tactics apparently had an impact in the three-person race (Savannahian Frances Bright Johnson did surprisingly well) and Mr. Scott and Mr. Poythress go into the runoff.
On a more upbeat note, local voters wisely chose to return Dorothy Pelote and Tom Bordeaux to the Georgia House. There, they will be rejoined by Diane Harvey Johnson, who had little trouble reclaiming her old House seat.
On the Chatham County Commission, Republican David Saussy turned back former chairman Bill Stephenson's bid to get back on the board in the 1st District. He goes on to face Democrat Marty Felser. Incumbent Deanie Frazier was the leading vote-getter in the 5th District, but Democratic challenger Clifton Jones Jr. forced her into a runoff. In the 7th District, Eddie DeLoach won his race and will follow in the footsteps of his father, outgoing Commissioner James DeLoach.
In school board races, congratulations are in order for incumbents Daniel Washington and Andy Way and former State Rep. DeWayne Hamilton. All three won their respective nominations, and Mr. Washington and Mr. Hamilton will join the board because they have no opposition in the fall. Mr. Way, a Republican, goes on to face Democrat K.B. Raut.
Credit is also due Tax Commissioner Barbara Kiley, who handily won the Democratic nomination. She meets Republican Bill Atkinson in November.
A final winner Tuesday was the voting public. Getting people to the polls for primaries isn't easy. Yet, half the voters in Chatham County did their duty.
That's a positive trend. It's also one that the public, and the politicians, should try to build on through November and beyond.
President Should Settle Up
Some local Democrats are getting some cheap laughs at the expense of President Bush, who still owes the city some $14,000 for a campaign visit here back in March.
Actually, that's not too surprising. Most politicians are notoriously slow in paying their debts. Sitting presidents are no exception.
Still, it would behoove the president if he settled up with City Hall sometime soon. While the delinquency isn't going to mean a thing to most voters, it has to be a little embarrassing to his supporters. Besides, it's not as if he's strapped for cash. Published reports say that his campaign is sitting on a $7 million surplus from his primary campaign fund that he has to spend before the Republican convention, so as to qualify for federal campaign funds in the general election.
Coming across with $14,000 for the city of Savannah should be painless. And while that's not a lot of money to the city either, local taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bills for political rallies, no matter which party stages them.
Thousands of area residents jammed the riverfront to see and hear the president. He got its money's worth for the pre-Georgia primary pick-me-up. Now he should finish the job and pick up the tab.
An Unpleasant Surprise
A month ago, Savannah seemed on its way to getting a 5-percent cut in federal flood insurance premiums. That was welcome news for residents and business owners who could use the discount.
But lately, representatives for the Federal Emergency Management Agency changed their mind. The agency says it won't cut rates because of "serious deficiencies" in flood control here.
Why the sudden turnabout? And more importantly, how can it be resolved? Taxpayers are spending millions of public dollars to improve drainage in the community. Not so long ago, FEMA was applauding Savannah for some of the measures it was taking to improve flood control and reduce the risk of flood damage. Happily, it looked as though the investment would soon be paying off through reduced insurance premiums. Now it appears the anticipated rate cut may be headed down the drain.
The feds are faulting the city for allowing five buildings - four private homes, scattered from Coffee Bluff to west Savannah, and the Goodwill Industries building - to be built below the nationally designated flood plain without adequate protection.
They also contend that several structures were given certificates of occupancy before the elevation was formally established, as required by FEMA regulations.
City Manager Don Mendonsa says this is the first he has heard about any problems. He says all previous contacts with the agency had been positive. But Glenn Woodard, who works for the state Department of Natural Resources and serves as FEMA's representative, tells a different story. He contends that trouble was spotted last November, and that state and federal officials have unsuccessfully prodded the city for months to make corrections.
It's clear that a breakdown occurred somewhere. But what's most important is to correct what's wrong so Savannahians can save a little money on their premiums.
Mr. Mendonsa says he will send a detailed explanation to FEMA about the buildings constructed below the flood plain. That's a start. Perhaps the agency can be persuaded to change its mind. After that, city and FEMA officials need to do a better job of comparing notes so that such unhappy surprises don't happen again.
Ugly Campaign Tactics
Responsible voters in Georgia have reason to be concerned about the tone and direction of the state labor commissioner's race.
Al Scott, the incumbent labor commissioner, is the target of a barrage of ugly charges from challenger David Poythress, who has wound up opposing the incumbent in a runoff set for August.
A Savannahian and a former state legislator, Mr. Scott has performed capably at the Department of Labor, but you wouldn't know that if you listen to his opponent.
It is fair for a candidate to question his opponent's qualifications and competence. But Mr. Poythress goes well beyond that. He exceeds the limits of fairness. He emphasizes at every opportunity the race of Mr. Scott. This is blatant. There's nothing subtle about it.
A black, Mr. Scott was appointed to his post by Gov. Zell Miller. He is the first person of his race to hold the statewide office.
In addition, Mr. Poythress claims Mr. Scott took a bribe. This is an unsubstantiated charge that is not borne out by the FBI tapes Mr. Poythress claims are supportive of his allegations.
The tapes were made by an undercover agent operating a'sting' against another state legislator. The legislator, Rep. Frank Redding, has not been convicted. A mistrial was declared in his case. Al Scott was a government witness at the trial. He was not a co-defendant.
If the investigators had evidence that Mr. Scott took money for his vote, why wouldn't they have sought his indictment along with Rep. Redding? If they had suspected Mr. Scott, wouldn't they have gone to him and tried to trap him the same way they set up a trap for Mr. Redding?
Mr. Poythress also complained to the State Ethics Commission about Mr. Scott, claiming the incumbent broke the rules on raising campaign money. The commission dismissed the complaint.
Ironically, Mr. Poythress is supported by the forces of former Labor Commissioner Sam Caldwell, who was forced to resign his office under a cloud of scandal and wound up spending time in jail. Mr. Poythress obviously is not as sensitive about his support as he is about Mr. Scott's alleged conduct.
Political contests should be settled at the polls by citizens who are not confused or misled by unconfirmed rumors and charges. We deplore this type of political attack whenever and wherever it is made. We hate to see it happening in Georgia.
Jones Falls; Newt Hangs On
Among those who got jolted in the Georgia primary voting was Democratic Rep. Ben Jones, the former TV actor. Among those who got scared but escaped defeat was Republican Rep. Newt Gingrich.
Rep. Jones fared poorly in a Democratic race won by state legislator Don Johnson. Mr. Johnson, chairman of the state Senate Appropriations Committee, accused Rep. Jones of working for perks and privileges, voting against voluntary prayer in school, and being out of touch with voters in eastern Georgia's 10th District.
" The commercials and the rumors and things like that are as tough as we've e 've faced," Mr. Jones complained. Yes, they were tough. But they summed up his House stint pretty well. He has been doggedly liberal.
Mr. Johnson, however, is not home free. He must still survive a fall contest.
Newt Gingrich, the House minority whip and Georgia's only Republican in Congress, edged Herman Clark, a former state legislator who ridiculed Mr. Gingrich for writing bad checks, voting himself a pay raise and using a limousine. In this case, the criticism was also fair because Rep. Gingrich did all those things. But he was not a major culprit in the House overdraft scandal, he apologized for having been involved, and he voted to publicize the names of all those who had written overdrafts. He redeemed himself somewhat by properly supporting openness and reform of the system that brought about the scandal. He also has given up his limousine.
One of Mr. Gingrich's prime virtues as a congressman is his ability to put burrs under the saddles of the Democratic House leadership. For that reason, Democrats will work hard to beat him in the fall. But the minority whip's abrasiveness doesn't void the fact that what he says often needs to be said. Washington wouldn't be quite the same without him.
Keeping Up With Crooks
The days of the police six-shooters became numbered when more criminals started packing semiautomatic pistols. The Chatham County Police Department is the latest to modernize.
County police officers are being issued.45-caliber pistols, which hold 8-shot clips, to replace their 5- or 6-shot.38 revolvers.
It's good that officers will be less likely to be out-gunned. With more sophisticated hardware on the market, those who protect and serve shouldn't be put at a disadvantage.
Still Needed: Great Orators
Great oratory is still missing from the presidential election campaign. Most of us who like it are still smarting from President Bush's lackluster State of the Union address in January.
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W2F-018-0.txt
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Facing Myself in the Dark
Carla Brumble
Teachers can open young minds to new ideas.
That's what makes being one a dangerous proposition.
On April 1, 1957, Anne Millicent Cooper gave birth to the only child that ever managed to survive the toxic environment of her womb. As she sat in her hospital bed, aching, tired and drugged, holding that squinched-up piece of human flesh that was at once all-Anne and not-Anne, she searched her daughter's face for some sign. Grandma Cooper always said that a person had their name written all over their face, and a wrongly given name was a tragedy that could twist someone's personality into improper and disastrous proportions. After the horrible events of November 1963, Grandma Cooper claimed that Lee Harvey Oswald's mother hadn't read his face right and so was to blame for the events that had led him down the path to assassination.
Anne sat, cranky from exertion, and marveled at the fact that her baby had not yet cried. Even when the doctor had whacked her a good one to give her breath, the baby had merely hiccuped with dignity and slowly turned from blue to pink without a sound. Even now the baby lay quietly, her steely eyes focusing on Anne with such intensity that it gave her the creeps.
Years later, when Grandma would scold Anne for naming that changeling baby wrong, Anne thought back to that Fools' Day and remembered the grayness that belonged to the baby's face, as if the sun had set and impressed shadows over her features to leave a darkness that never lifted. That shadow had moved Anne, when presented with the birth certificate, to carefully print Twilight Cooper. No middle name. No father's name.
Anne had killed three children. Least, that's how Grandma Cooper had seen it, though she'd never actually use 'dthe word murder. Three children, all boys, had been conceived, nurtured, then poisoned by some agent in Anne's blood. As Anne sat numbly before the doctor while he explained the situation again, sat wearing a sanitary pad and belt in order to stop the gush from her uterus, she envisioned some thief, some spy, sneaking around her body, hiding in shadows and ducking out of sight until it saw its chance and pounced upon its prey. She was impressed by its cunning and tenacity. She did not mourn for these sons, sons that would have grown big and strong and masculine. She didn't see the need.
So once Anne had her Twilight, she and her baby and her mama and her grandma settled back into their house, on the outskirts of Mason, North Carolina, and tried to ignore the stares and whispers. Nights, Anne would sit by the window, listening to the radio, and wish for the big city, where a person could get lost in the crowd. Who would know who the bastards were?
Grandma Cooper said the word bastard referred to those who used it, not those at whom it was aimed, but Anne noticed that Grandma stopped going into town in the company of her family of women after Twilight was born. Grandma seemed slightly afraid of Twilight, as did others. When she grew older, Twilight could enter a room and the waves would part as they did for Moses. Grandma would stand in her kitchen, scrubbing the dishes and watching that spook child do her homework at the table, but if Twilight looked up or spoke, Grandma would avert her eyes. Twilight was born with that witchy color of blonde-white hair, which silvered as she grew. Anne read up on hair colors and dyes, but Twilight simply shook her head as if that dismissed the subject. Anne supposed it did.
Anne's mama, Ruth, was the only person in all of Mason who was not the least bit afraid of Twilight, who could look her in the eye, could tell her no, could raise her voice to her. Then again, Ruth wasn't afraid of anybody, said fear was a waste of time that didn't serve anyone except them that wanted to be feared. Anne wondered if that included her daughter, if Twilight liked the effect she had on others. Anne never had the nerve to ask, and Twilight never offered. When Twilight was ten years old, she left home. She and Grandma Cooper were watching a game show, and Twilight simply got up from the couch, crossed to the front door, and left.
Grandma didn't bother to sound the alarm until the next morning, when Anne went to wake Twilight for school.
" She ain't here. Ain't no sense calling for her."
" What? Where is she, then?"
" Walked right out the door yesterday afternoon."
Grandma Cooper sounded so calm that Anne almost forgot to be upset. "Where'd she go?"
"="" "didn't="" "excuse="" "she="" "that="" "yes,="" "you="" 'd=""'s="" 'through="" 40.="" a="" about="" about,="" act="" acts="" admonishment="" after="" again="" aggravated="" agreed="" ain't="" air="" all="" almost="" also="" although="" american="" among="" amount="" an="" and="" angles="" anne="" annoyed="" another="" any="" aren't="" around="" as="" ask="" asked="" at="" away="" be="" be,="" beat="" becky="" been="" behave.="" behind="" being="" being.="" belief="" belongings,="" berth="" better,="" between="" bewildered="" bible="" bible,="" big="" bigger.="" bird,="" blake,="" blood="" boarding="" boast="" bone="" bones,="" bra,="" break.="" breakable="" bright="" brought="" bullied="" busybody,="" but="" by="" cajoled.="" calm="" caring="" carlson,="" carpenter,="" catalyst="" caught="" chance="" cheerleader="" chest="" child="" children="" city="" class,="" clinical="" color.="" come="" come.="" committing="" comprehend="" connected="" cooper="" couch.="" could="" counter,="" couple="" daddies,="" dark="" dark.="" darkly.'="" daughter="" daughter.="" day="" day,="" decide="" desire.="" despite="" did="" didn't="" differed="" difference="" differences="" different="" dirt="" disappeared="" disrespectful="" disturb="" do="" do.="" doing="" door="" door,="" doors,="" down="" drawn="" drug="" ebony="" either,="" elders.="" else="" else.="" ethel="" even="" ever="" examining="" exasperated="" extended="" exuding="" eyes="" eyes,="" face="" fact="" facts="" fall="" family.="" far="" far,="" fascinated="" father="" father,="" father.="" fathers,="" feel="" fellow."="" first="" fixed="" flesh="" fluttery="" for="" force="" foreign="" former="" found="" fourteen,="" fragile,="" from="" front="" genetics,="" girl="" glass="" god,="" gossips="" got="" grandma="" grandma.="" gray="" gray.="" green="" grew,="" had="" hair="" happenings="" happy="" hard="" have="" having="" he="" head.="" hear="" heard="" hearing="" heart="" held="" helms="" helms.="" her="" her,="" her.="" her."="" her;="" herself="" highway="" him="" hints="" his="" home="" hot="" hotel.="" hound-dog="" house="" housekeeping,="" how="" hub="" human="" hunched="" i="" if="" in="" increased="" inside.="" intensity.="" into="" invited="" it="" it,="" its="" job="" just="" kept="" kin?="" knew="" know="" know,="" land,="" lap,="" last="" learned="" life="" like="" listened,="" lit="" little="" live="" lived="" living="" longings,="" looked="" loud="" made="" magnets.="" mama="" man="" managed="" mason="" mason,="" matter="" matter.="" me?="" mean="" meant="" meet="" meeting="" men="" messy="" met="" microscope.="" miles="" milton="" mirror="" more="" more.="" mother,="" motors,="" move="" moved="" movement="" name="" nature="" never="" new="" newcomer,="" next="" night,"="" no="" nosy="" not="" nothing="" of="" on="" once="" one="" only="" or="" other="" others'="" out="" over="" owned="" paler="" paramecium="" parted="" penetrated.="" people.="" perky="" physical="" place="" pleased="" point="" policemen="" pretending="" proper="" propulsion="" quoted="" rage="" reacted="" reactions="" read,="" reading="" really="" really.="" reinforced="" relating="" religion="" relish="" removing="" resembled="" rest="" reverend="" ridden="" right="" road="" rocking.="" room,="" rosemary="" ruth="" ruth,="" safe,="" said="" same="" saying.="" school="" scrutiny="" seated="" see="" seem="" seemed="" senior="" sense.="" sent="" seventeen,="" sexual="" shadow.="" shadowed="" she="" she?"="" should="" shrugged.="" shunned="" simply="" since="" skin="" skin.="" small="" small.="" smithfield.="" snubnosed="" so="" soda="" somehow="" somehow,="" someone="" something="" south.="" sperm="" start="" started="" steel="" steely="" still="" stopped="" store="" strangeness.="" stranger,="" strength.="" sturdy="" suitcase!"="" suitcase.="" suited="" sun="" supposed="" sweaty="" talked="" talking="" tall="" teenager,="" temperament="" testimony="" than="" that="" the="" their="" them="" there="" there.="" thick-boned,="" thin,="" thing.="" things="" things,="" things.="" think="" thinking="" those="" though="" three="" to="" together="" tough="" toward="" town="" travel="" truly?="" turned="" twenty="" twilight="" twilight,="" twisted="" under="" underneath="" understanding="" usually="" verses="" voices="" walked="" was="" was,="" wasn't="" watched="" watched,="" watching="" wave="" way="" ways="" weeks,="" well="" were="" when="" where="" while="" whispered="" white-blonde-gray,="" who="" whose="" wide="" wife.="" willfulness.="" william="" wilson="" wind="" wings="" wire="" with="" within="" women="" women.="" words="" words.="" work.="" workhorse="" world="" would="" year.="" years="" yes="" yes,="" yet="" you="">
From her seat, Twilight could hear Rosemary's murmur, and she strained to listen.
Ethel continued. "Yes, I know. Charming young man, too. So handsome. And you know it's rare that a young man would want to teach. I mean, women have limited paths, but a man--"
Rosemary spoke again, and though Twilight tried, she could not hear the woman's words. Mrs. Smith boasted a much softer voice than poor squawky Ethel.
" Well, yes, I guess you're 'reht, but it would be different if he was older. Twilight wondered where Ethel supposed older male teachers came from, if sixty-year-old businessmen suddenly got the urge to teach Algebra to pimply-faced junior high kids. "Or at least married," Ethel continued.
" Well, there's still time for that," Rosemary said, speaking more clearly. And Twilight silently praised her: Atta girl, Rosemary, project that voice. Ethel grumbled. A gossip had more fun if the recipient of what-might-turn-out-to-be-scandalous news agreed with her. The conversation dwindled as the women began to speak of the upcoming church bazaar, and Twilight tuned them out. A new man. A teacher. Probably the lower grades, and probably a math teacher. Twilight wished she had caught his name.
The next day, her English teacher, Miss Turner, did not show. After ten minutes of no supervision, the class was becoming restless. Twilight read her book and ignored them, until she heard a deep voice above the din. "Excuse me. I didn't realize that a teacher's absence was permission to run amuck."
The class grew silent, staring at this man, the young face that could have passed for one of theirs. He dropped his briefcase on Miss Turner's desk with a loud thump that even startled the unshakable Twilight. "My name is Mr. Carpenter. I have been assigned to this class for the rest of the semester. Miss Turner will not be returning."
Twilight, by carefully listening to Ethel, had learned that Miss Turner was now resting comfortably in Raleigh, in a bed in a minimum security ward of Dorothea Dix hospital. She had had some kind of "nerve thing," according to Ethel. Twilight figured it must have been a nervous breakdown and wondered if it had been student-induced.
" Old Turner's gone loony," one of the boys in the back called out, and there were uncomfortable giggles throughout the room.
Mr. Carpenter fixed the room with an icy stare. "I will not have such talk in my classroom. You will show as much respect to Miss Turner as you will show to me. If any smart-aleck thinks he can best me, then he may leave right now. I will not play a game of wills with this class, and anyone who attempts to rattle me will find his own cage rattled. Is that understood?"
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W1B-008-1.txt
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1/17/90 My dearest, sweetest, darlingest Ann:
My mother was hysterical with laughter after reading the back of your envelope last night... PEANUT BUTTER LOVE... an interesting concept to say the least. She was absolutely convinced that you will someday become a writer. I actually hadn't ever envisioned you in that profession, but after she said that last night, it really makes perfect sense, my dear. You have a gift!! I wish that I could be one iota as self-expressed through writing that you are. But anyway, it's just a thought. And if you don't decide to pursue a career in written expression, just keep writing to me. Someday one of our grand-kids-nieces-nephews will make a mint publishing the complete correspondance between - - - and - - -. That's life, right! Figures.
Anyway. Your letter was quite timely, considering the current mess in the Middle East. I think that you and I are again on the same wavelength concerning this issue. (How surprising). Now that they've begun 'vee fighting, I just want it to be overwith as soon as possible. And from what "they" (related to "the guy") say, our forces are only taking out strategic military-related stuff in Iraq. Hopefully, "they" are right. I don't see the need for massacre or anything. But like I was saying to - - - (remember her!) last night, I feel generally ignorant to all the details and twists in this conversation about the "war" so I'd rath 'd not contribute to meaningless discussion, know what I mean, until I'm adequa 'mly versed enought to be truly meaningless.
So. I'm glad t 'mhear that the hatemongers have eased up on you and that things are going well for you and your woman. Smitten. A good word. Sounds as though you may be falling... I'm very h 'mpy for you. Glad to hear that you got some good - - - - out of it, too.
Well, anyway... I'm workin 'mat A. in the I. Building at [- - ] and [- - - ] (you know, the building with the funny looking bolt thing on top... a sort of bluish building)... I'm workin 'mon the 31st Floor that overlooks West Philly and beyond. It's quite an impressive view. I can see the Commodore Barry Bridge from here.
Well, the security in the building has been beefed up considerably. Lots of men in uniform looking skeptical... at me sometimes, being a temp and all, I'm not a 'm that familiar looking around these parts. I haven't been stopped, though, which is good. I always get nervous in those situations... a paranoia that maybe I am actually doing something wrong... Catholic upbringing, I'm sure. 'm/p>
Speaking of doing something wrong, well actually right (makes a lot of sense I realize)... - - - - had its first public demonstration at C's inauguration on Tuesday. They (" they" as in related to "the guy") broadcast the inauguration on ACTION NEWS Tuesday at lunch (I was watching) and they were being so loud that he actually asked them to be quite and that he got their message and he wanted to give his message to the State. It was really cool. I was really bummed that I couldn't be there. It's too bad that all the gulf stuff was going on the same day because they probably would have interviewed the protestors, etc. Oh well. C. GOT THE MESSAGE. I'm rea 'my psyched. Of course - - - and I were both at work, but some of the other - - - - staged the whole thing. A! I'm rea 'my proud of those guys. The news reporter said there were about a hundred demonstrators!! I sent them a thank you note yesterday. What a good feeling.
I wrote - - - a letter yesterday. I wonder how long it will take to get there. (A fleeting thought)
I'm lea 'mng for - - - on Saturday. - - - is taking me back in the FIREBIRD. Ooooooooooo! Like, cool, man... We are bringing - - - -'s old IKEA desk back in the FIREBIRD. That oughta be fun trying to fit it in the FIREBIRD. We're 'reking it apart and all. I have an office at - - -'s house (it's off my bedroom) and I want to have a desk, so my ma said I could take - - -'s old one. Pretty nice, eh!
I cannot wait to go back to the studio and throw!!! My hands are aching for the clay... Everytime I think about it I go crazy. I told - - - that I' 'mgoing to mix up about 1000 lbs. Of clay and roll naked in it. Of course he found it arousing - - as a matter of fact, so do I, for artistic reasons of course. I can't wait.
Well, anyway, I 've been typing for about a half an hour so I better get back to sitting around waiting to file stuff. Besides, they won=' be too happy about me using up all the typewriter ribbon.
Thanks for the great letter! Keep in touch. I love you.
Love always,
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W2C-006-2.txt
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Golf: Lopez's availability remains iffy for Great Lakes Classic
GURNEE, Ill.-- LPGA Hall of Famer Nancy Lopez remains uncertain that she'll be able to 'llay in next month's ShopKo Great Lakes Classic at Green Bay Country Club in Bellevue.
Lopez said Tuesday that she hasn't resolved child-care problems that would prevent her from playing in the inaugural event on the Women's Senior Golf Tour.
" I really do want to play in Green Bay," Lopez said before a practice round for the U.S. Women's Open at The Merit Club. "I'm going to try a 'm work things out, but I'm still not sure 'm
The Great Lakes Classic, which will be Aug. 16-20, is already missing Hall of Fame members Pat Bradley, Beth Daniel and Betsy King.
If Lopez - - who is officially committed to play - - withdraws, it would leave the tournament without the marquee player among LPGA members age 43 and older.
" I really think we're going t 'ree there," said Lopez's caddie, Lane Kjeldsen, who was at Green Bay Country Club last week to work on a yardage book of the course that players and caddies will use during the tournament.
" I think that it's a good sign that her caddie was up here," Great Lakes Classic spokesman Mark Kanz said.
Lopez learned earlier this month that her longtime nanny had given notice that she planned to take another job. Lopez and her husband, former major league baseball player Ray Knight, have three daughters.
The search for a replacement nanny will intensify early next month. After this week's Open, Lopez will play the LPGA stop in Warren, Ohio, and then return home to Albany, Ga., to interview potential nanny candidates.
" I really haven't had time to interview anyone because I've been 'velaying so much," Lopez said. "Hopefully, I can find someone that I'm comfortab 'm with because I really want to play in Green Bay. It would certainly be a thrill to win the first (WSGT) tournament."
Time is running short for Lopez to hire a new nanny in time for the Great Lakes Classic. The $500,000 tournament begins four weeks from today.
" Unless we get definite comfirmation otherwise, we're expe 'reng her here," Kanz said. "I think the Lopez name gives instant credibility to the event, but that's not to say it wouldn't be credible without her."
Kanz said support for the tournament has gained momentum as the date nears. Volunteers and tournament workers were here at the Women's Open handing out Great Lakes Classic pamphlets to fans as they entered The Merit Club.
" We've got 've a very warm reception," Kanz said. "So we're ve 'reexcited about how things are going."
What's next
The Lambeau Field stadium board is tentatively scheduled to meet at 7 p.m. Monday to consider setting Sept. 12 as the referendum date on the 0.5 percent stadium sales tax.
The Packers moved closer to a Sept. 12 referendum on a stadium renovation sales tax with the Green Bay City Council's vote Tuesday to pass a naming-rights and maintenance agreement.
The council's 8-4 vote to approve the agreement with the Green Bay Packers followed more than 11/2 hours of heated debate.
" This was a crucial step," said John Jones, Packers senior vice president of administration, after watching the vote. "It was required under the law. We made many, many significant concessions to reach this point."
The vote paves the way for the Lambeau Field stadium board - - created by the Legislature this spring - - to set the referendum date on a 0.5 percent sales tax in Brown County. The tax would help fund a $295 million stadium renovation.
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W1B-010-0.txt
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Date: September 16, 1991
Dear Clare,
I just went out today to look for a birthday card from you, but I was a little worried because I didn't know if you would still be at your old address. Lo + behold, when I got home, there was a letter from you! Well, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Now you are as old as I am again.
It's kind of difficult to find nice birthday cards-- I just don't like looking through all the mushy cards with rhymes inside. I liked this one, though. It reminded me of Nora, too. Did you visit her on your way home? How was she?
Congratulations on your job! I think it was Ashley who said, when I told her you might be working in North Dakota, "North Dakota's far away from everything! It's even far from South Dakota! "But there should be lots to do, (concerts, lectures, people, etc.) at a university (it is a college or university, right?). I hope it goes well!
Ashley had an interview with WWF for the year long position, but I haven't heard whether they have officially offered her the position or whether she accepted. She isn't too happy about staying in D.C. and says she wishes she knew someone who wanted to move to Wash. (state.) Why she wants to move so far away, I really don't know. But she is more likely to accept the WWF job since they told her it was okay if she only wants to work there until next June. She says she really doesn't want to spend next summer in D.C.
Our beach trip was fine. We stayed in a motel apartment with Ashley's parents, right on the beach. I was very lazy + just read + slept. I think I was still tired because I had been sick. Remember my bladder infection (which I'm paranoid I haven' 'mgotten rid of.)? It turns out I had a severe allergic reaction to the antibiotic I had started taking the Thursday before I went to Boston. On the way home, my back ached so much I could barely stand it, + I let Larna drive the last 45 minutes home. On Tuesday on the way home I also developed a rash. I couldn't eat much of anything all week + lost 6 pounds (which are back now). For a couple days, I was congested + had a runny nose + fever. Then my joints all ached so much that I couldn't sleep + my gums swelled! All in all it's a good thing I went home when I did. Our doctor even made a house call, but I'm fine now. I was very disappointed that I wasn't able to stay on Tuesday, but I guess we got to talk a lot on Monday. Well, I'd better get a 'dob with benefits-- health insurance SOON. Ashley said, "Clare, it's really stupid not to have insurance." Gee, I think I KNOW that. Her parents are paying for her insurance, though, + she doesn't have loans to pay back. Actually, I shouldn't complain because my parents are paying my loans.
Oh-- Ted called me while I was in Bethany Beach-- he got the phone number from my parents! He said he was sorry for not letting me know that he couldn't come to Boston, but he had been very busy, + he said he would call me at home to talk at greater length. He has moved again, so I don't have his current address or phone number.
Maybe I am starting to drag myself out of my rut. For 2 Sundays in a row, I have looked through the Post help wanted ads-- all 36 or 38 pages of them. It takes a few hours + I don't find too much. Actually, last week I only applied to one job because it took several days for me to successfully produce a letter quality resume + letter. I finally gave up on my computer (until I have more time)+ used my mom's. This week there wasn't too much interesting. I applied for 4 jobs locally, though, one as "technical asst." at St. Mary's College English dept. in the hopes of getting free tuition (I'm still vaguel 'mconsidering trying to get certified to teach H.S.)+ the others with M.-type orgs. director of in-home services to disabled, etc.) My mother pointed out the local jobs, + the point is valid that if I lived here for a year or so, I could save up some money. Ashley's mother just read in the Post that Wash. is the 3rd most expensive city in which to live, as far as average rent goes!
Next I will try for jobs dealing w/ the USSR, but I'm not sure if 'm I should phone the orgs. first, or send a letter + resume + then phone.
Things seem to be going downhill with Taylor. He says I am stressful to deal with because I am moody + don't tell him how I feel. It pisses me off that he says these things when he is still dragging things out with Hannah. He told me to call him yesterday after I got home from work, so I called him at 4 pm, 6 pm, + 10 pm. He never answered, + I'm pretty sure 'me was talking to Hannah the last time because the phone rang + rang-- + he has an answering machine + call waiting. If he's on the phone with someone, the machine doesn't pick up, but you get a ringing tone because of the call waiting. I guess instead of breaking off suddenly, like with Nick, this relationship is going to drag on as it gradually gets worse + I get more + more irritated. But it's really hard to break it off when I basically have no other life-- no friends I see regularly, + no interesting job.
Saturday, my parents, Taylor, + I went sailing with my aunt + uncle. T. was annoyed because I didn't talk much - - but during the 1st half of the trip I was nauseated until I threw up, after which I was extremely tired because of the Dramamine I took. He isn't very sympathetic. You may wonder what I find so attractive about this man.! I have no good response at the moment.
Ashley + I haven't talked any more specifically about moving in together in D.C. since her lease goes until the end of October + she hasn't even officially accepted a job in D.C. I wonder if she has had a depressing year-- I don't think she sees friends very often + didn't seem too happy with her job-- but she doesn't talk much about it.
Thanks for the Oberlin sticker. Let me know as soon as you get a new address + phone number. And have a great birthday!
Love,
November 29, 1991
Dear Clare,
What a nostalgic feeling to be writing on loose leaf! I don't think I've done th 'vesince college. How was your Thanksgiving? I assume your family all got together in Olean. As soon as I saw this NY'er cover, I decided to send it to you. I always think of you when I see Roz Chast cartoons!
I worked 11/2 hours on Thanksgiving-- we have to work all holidays (including Christmas + New Year's), or they say they will fire us. I didn't really mind, though, since I got off at 5:30 pm, + my family always eats around then or later. Also, the money I made, made up partly for how slow the restaurant's been the past 2 weeks. About 450 people came to eat Thanksgiving dinner. All the employees of the restaurant kept saying how they would eat at home if they could, + they couldn't believe how many people would WANT to eat out.
I had one woman who ordered raw oysters + a crab cake-- she said that's what she was thankful for. Yuck! Not a day at work goes by that something doesn't piss me off. For example, 3 servers had to be at work (me included) at 6:30 AM. We didn't even have any customers until 7:30 or 8 AM, so we sat around talking to some of the kitchen workers. Then "Chef Chad" came out + told us either to clock out or help him in the kitchen. I asked if we could clock in at $4.25, since waitresses only get $2.28. He said no. The restaurant wasn't even paying us extra for working on a holiday! This guy Chad is really slimy, though. He once asked where I went to school, + I said "Oberlin," with that omnipresent qualifier, "in Ohio." He said, "Oh, were you datin' a guy from Eaton? "I said, "huh? "He said, "or were you eatin' a guy from Dayton? "
Enough of that. I would have walked out of that restaurant yesterday because I was so angry, but I didn't want to give up my health insurance. I figured out that, before I got my insurance, I had spent $1000 in medical bills, mostly because of the drug reaction I had. I don't think my problems have completely cleared up yet, either. At least now I don't have to worry about expensive tests, + if anything horrible happens, my parents won't lose our house to help me.
Taylor was in Arizona the week before last, + for some reason, I finally decided to break up with him. When he came back on Friday he called, but I wasn't home. I didn't call him back until Sunday, + that evening I went over to his house with any empty bag to collect all my stuff. "Did you come here to tell me you don't want to see me anymore? "he asked, making it easier to leave. Now it's Friday, + I don't feel that upset. I can't believe I'm not 'ming to see him again-- it feels like he's just away on travel still. I asked if he wanted to talk about it or if he just wanted me to leave, + he said he would think about it this week + call me later. I'm afr 'md I will see him again, + the whole stressful thing will just resume. But 2 ways REALLY to turn me off FOR GOOD would be if he said he didn't want to see me again or if he got back together with Hannah, even temporarilly. He didn't argue with me at all, so maybe I really WON'T see him again. It just seems so sad, right before Thanksgiving, Christmas, + his birthday, which is Dec. 24. I had several things I wanted to give him. Also, he gave me a really nice pair of earrings from Arizona-- the only thing he's ever given me, besides the rose + that ugly shirt! Maybe I should have waited for an occasion when I was mad at him to try to break up.
I just got a nice letter from Wally. I hadn't written him for months + finally sent him a Halloween card as a belated B-day card. He's a great letter-writer-- I guess he has a lot of sympathy for people who are depressed about their jobs or relationships. He sounds like he has a pretty good, though challenging, job now, after being out of work for 2 month. Both my parents are now looking for new jobs. My dad is now on "idle time"-- he's getting paid + must go to work, although they have no assignments for him. My mother is more serious about job-hunting, + said that if she finds something in D.C. she would share an apartment in D.C. with me until my dad sold our house. This plan sounds distant + unlikely, but I guess it's a possible way of moving to D.C. I bought the new "What Color Is Your Parachute," + now that I suppose I 'll have more free time, I 'll do the exercises in the book that are supposed to help one find a career.
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W2A-003-0.txt
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BODIES AND TECHNOLOGIES:
DORA, NEUROMANCER, AND STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
High technology networks make possible the deluge of texts surrounding us. We swim in the flow of information, and are provided with (or drowned within) interpretations and representations. High technology has changed the way capital functions, and makes possible the electronic format of this journal. A new relationship between bodies and technologies is, seemingly, unprecedented in modern capitalism. Donna Haraway, in her "Manifesto for Cyborgs"(1985), writes of a post-natural present in which "Late twentieth-century machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural and artificial, mind and body, self-developing and externally designed, and many other distinctions that used to apply to organisms and machines. Our machines are frighteningly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert" (152).
After all, the human capacity to generate or make sense of information has been surpassed by computers, and challenged by the deluge of texts (literal, aural, visual) that surround us. Baudrillard's response to this deluge is triggered by a quick spin of the radio dial: "I no longer succeed in knowing what I want, the space is so saturated, the pressure so great from all who want to make themselves heard" (132).
Theorists from many disciplines are engaged in the process of articulating the function and effects of high technology; many have argued, as Baudrillard has, that the human condition has been transformed by the encounter with the unique and unprecedented power of high technology. Assuming a material uniqueness in the encounter with high technology is dangerous; this assumption obviates important precedents that may help us to strategize some resistance to a "gradual and willing accommodation of the machine" (Gibson, 203). Freud's clinical methods, and his construction of the relationship between patient and therapist, for example, are strikingly similar to the current encounter between bodies and technologies. A look at Freud's account of his treatment of Dora makes obvious this decidedly low-tech version of a "deluge of texts," and shows the way in which this therapeutic construct incorporated resistance. What are the possibilities for resistance to this new deluge? This question has provided the impetus for a vital, and absolutely necessary, discussion of strategies. As I will show in this essay, these responses are symptomatic of the failure of resistance to technologies of the early twentieth century. Strategies of resistance are often incorporated into systems, strengthening that which is being resisted. Juliet Mitchell has described the function of this resisting space: "[Resistance] is set up precisely as its own ludic space, its own area of imaginary alternative, but not as a symbolic alternative. It is not that the carnival cannot be disruptive of the law, but it disrupts only within terms of that law" (Mitchell, 1982).
I hope to provide some strategies, and historical warnings, that may help one actualize and resist power at a time when the possibility of doing so seems dismal. Haraway reminds us, with hope and pragmatism, that "we are not dealing with technological determinism, but with a historical system depending upon structured relations among people" (165). This "historical system" includes the interaction between bodies and technologies and the implications of these encounters, which are referred to in this essay as "cyborg politics." The origin of cyborg politics doesn't begin with the late twentieth century, however, but with the broad tradition of positing scientific and technical solutions to free humans from pain and to solve problems of the human condition, particularly problems that originate not with the machine or technology, but within the body. Foucault has given us a description of the emergence of bio-technical power in the seventeenth century; his description of this power maps onto our twentieth-century concern with bodies and technologies:
Discipline may be identified neither with an institution nor with an apparatus; it is a type of power, a modality for its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets; it is a "physics" or an "anatomy" of power, a technology. (206)"
Within an early twentieth-century Foucaultian formation, Freud emerges as the mental technologist and industrialist, producing the truth of mind and body within the critical tools of psychotherapy. Freud constructed a method whereby the mind, largely abandoned to the world of religious therapies, was treated by empiricists, and built upon the work of the psychiatrists of the French school: Charcot, Georget, and Pinel (Goldstein, 134-166).
Psychotherapy was a new disciplinary technology, unique unto science because it treated the mind as a machine (a method previously visited upon the body). Freud ushered in the Western twentieth century with this industrialist approach to the soul, fracturing the inner self in two: "conscious" and "unconscious" drives. Within this new science, and in Freud's clinical approach, the Cartesian dualism of mind/body breaks down: "mind" has been divided into conscious/unconscious. As a result, "mind" is no longer one unitary term that can correspond to its binary opposite, "body." This disruption could be promising: mind/body corresponded to male/female, and it would seem that this pair of binary oppositions would no longer be able to function with respect to gender. Yet this deconstruction of oppositional pairs serves to strengthen others, and raises some thorny questions for Freud's treatment of Dora.
What, then, becomes of the relationship between mind and body within the Freudian construct? If there is a disruption of the mind/body dualism when the "mind" has been fractured into two distinct entities, how does this affect clinical practice? Freud changed these pairs or, at the least, expanded the way they function: the patient's experiences, as described by the patient, were informed by the unconscious mind in a way that was not evident to the patient. In deconstructing the mind/body separation, Freud constructed a new oppositional pair in its place, that of the conscious/unconscious. The relations between the conscious mind and body were obvious to the patient, but those were less important for fixing the machine than was the relationship between the unconscious mind and body. If this relationship was the arbiter of the body's functions and of the conscious mind, how could one go about fixing it? One couldn't; a therapist had to be called in for repair. The "unconscious" drives were given over to the interpretation of the therapist. In treating the machinery of the mind, Freudian therapists were given the interpretive duty of constructing desire and representing the inner self. Philip Reiff, in his introduction to Dora, captures the perfect circularity of Freudian psychotherapy as enacted in clinical practice:
By presuming the patient incapable of an impartial judgment, the therapist is empowered to disregard the patient's denials.... A patient says: "You may think I meant to say something insulting but I've no such intention.... < 've-USA:W2A-003#X45:1> From this the analyst may conclude, "So, she does mean to say something insulting...." (15)
It is also evident in Reiff's description that resistance against a therapist is incorporated, and neutralized, within therapy. The Freudian therapeutic situation is a cybernetic network in which resistance functions to support the system. It is in this clinical practice that any potential disruption of dualisms promised in Freudian theory were recuperated. That Freud has constructed an impenetrable defense for the therapist is obvious. In retrospect, it's easy (albeit reductive) to view Freud's incorporation of resistance into therapies (as a prerequisite for therapy) as a frustrated empiricist's attempt to fit the mind into the structure of empiricism.
The patient/therapist opposition was constructed in place of the mind/body opposition, and re-enacted as male/female. Perhaps Freud's construction of an impenetrable position for therapists, and an utterly penetrated position for patients, created a backlash against the material moment when male/female became disengaged from mind/body. At any rate, the context is utterly changed for a patient of psychotherapy. The beginnings of an answer to the question of gender difference in the therapist/patient relationship lie in asking the following question: Who is treated and why? Men were rarely caught on the penetrated"side of the therapist/patient relationship. Although male/female no longer enacted mind/body, another structure excluded men from needing this interpretive therapy: the impetus for treatment is resistance on the part of the patient. Philip Reiff characterized the category of patient in his introduction to Dora when he wrote that, "the neurotic makes too many rejections" (16).
Although men were no longer excluded from the category of patient, having unconscious drives themselves, the prerequisite for treatment was often hysteria or neurosis. Hysteria was a term used to categorize actions seen, historically, as being particular to women, although Freud and the Paris school's characterization of hysteria did not expressly exclude men. Jan Goldstein has documented that hysteria was flirted with by most of the nineteenth-century French male novelists, and she argues that the literary interest in such a disease "included as one of its components a fascination with this 'otherness,' a tendency to recognize in it aspects of the self and to enlist it in the service of self-discovery" (138). Goldstein's theory would also explain why Flaubert never entered into therapy, despite identifying himself as an hysteric. In his fiction, Flaubert wrote of hysteria only through female characters, as did all the other French novelists mentioned in Goldstein's essay.
Dora's treatment, after all, was not in the interest of self-discovery, but in the interest of her father. Dora had been brought to Freud in an effort to get Dora to accept her father's affair with Frau K. The father also needed Dora to respond to Herr K so that he could get his game of partner-swapping to continue to go smoothly: he attempts to swap "partners" with Herr K by offering his daughter, Dora, to Herr K, in exchange for Herr K's wife. This play of substitutions, begun by the father, certainly asks to be seen as a machine. This is a desiring machine in which substitutions can be made: there are slots to be filled (so to speak) that eclipse an individual desire to be in that position. This is particularly true in Dora's case. When Dora was put into treatment, Freud writes that "[s]he objected to being pulled into the game entirely, at the same time she was fascinated by it and wanted to play" (34). By the time treatment had begun, Dora was suicidal, and had been resisting Herr K.'s advances, the first of which occurred when she was 14 years old. "He suddenly clasped the girl to him and pressed a kiss upon her lips. This was surely just the situation to call up a distinct feeling of sexual excitement in a girl of fourteen who had never before been approached. But Dora had at that moment a violent feeling of disgust and tore herself free from the man..." (43).
Freud writes that "the behavior of this child of fourteen was already entirely and completely hysterical" because she did not have the "genital sensation which would have certainly been felt by a healthy girl in such circumstances" (44). Dora's resistance to Herr K.'s advances provided Freud with the cornerstone of the psychology of the neuroses: reversal of affect. Without Dora's bodily resistance to Herr K., Freud would never have been able to treat her in the first place. Without Dora's repeated verbal resistance to Freud's suppositions, he couldn't have written in the "repressed" desires for nearly everyone in the "game."
Interestingly enough, in his interpretation of Schreber's Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, Freud didn't perceive any indications that this approach could inhibit treatment by negating the patient's interpretations. Freud's textual analysis of the Memoirs, titled "Psychoanalytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia (Dementia Paranoides)", ignores the obvious: Schreber is able to treat himself via his own process of writing and interpretation.
Schreber writes of his "gratitude" toward Professor Fleschig, his doctor, for helping Scheber to recover, but in a manner "so hedged with doubts and reservations that it subverts the expressed appreciation" (Chabot, 16). Schreber doesn't give credit for his recovery to the doctor who was in charge of his treatment, and blames this on the doctor's inability to recognize his patient as "a human being of high intellect, of uncommon keenness of understanding and acute powers of observation" (Memoirs, 62). What does this tell us about Freud's understanding of Schreber's treatment? Freud didn't extrapolate Schreber's therapeutic process to his own clinical method; he ignores that Schreber's experience points to the healing power of a patient's interpretation. The patient's story, moreover, must not be systematically negated, as in the treatment of Dora.
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W2B-019-0.txt
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A few years ago, when Sara Franklyn's phone rang before 8 A.M. or after 9 P.M., she often wouldn't answer it. Why bother? She knew it was a just another creditor calling about her unpaid bills.
Though she made an impressive salary as a telecommunications consultant, Sara, now 32, just couldn't control her spending. "I'd go into a store," she 'dys, "and spend five hundred dollars on clothes when my rent wasn't paid." Finally, she got help from a financial counselor and started paying off her $10,000 debt. Today she spends very carefully and is much happier. "Nothing I'd ever bought," she says 'd" was worth that panicky feeling."
Salary: $100,000
Take-home pay: As a freelance telecommunications consultant, Sara nets about $8,000 a month. After taxes, that comes to about $4,500 a month.
Credit cards: American Express (because it must be paid in full every month)
Average balance on card: $800 a month
Method of payment: She pays the bill immediately.
Loans: $10,000 student loan ($200 a month at 7-percent interest)
Rent: She recently moved from a $1,600-a-month apartment to a $1,300-a- month apartment in Manhattan. "It makes a huge difference."
Balances checkbook: Once a month with Quicken, a computer software program. "It computes everything for you."
Average checking-account balance: $3,000
Average savings-account balance: $15,000 in a passbook savings account. "It only earns three percent interest."
Other investments: $2,000 certificate of deposit
Average phone bill: $100 a month
Other expenses: She pays for her own health insurance; cost: $250 a month with $170 annual deductible.
Who pays for dating: "Men and women who make similar money should share expenses. But on a first date, a man should pick up the tab."
Amount spent on clothing: "I recently bought a summer suit, but that's very rare these days. I even avoid window-shopping because I still get those urges to go in and buy a million things."
Where she shops: She shops discount outlets for big purchases or when she needs a lot of things.
Most ever paid for an article of clothing: $800 for a leather jacket. "It was back in the old days. I spent years paying it off. I wouldn't do that now."
Amount spent on restaurants: She eats out about four times a week. "Restaurants are really my main source of entertainment. I'll spend up to twenty-two 'llllars on an entree."
Amount spent on movies and entertainment: She buys theater tickets six times a year, but she always buys discount tickets.
Where she gives money: $200 a year to cancer research
Haircut: $50, and a $10 tip
Makeup: Clinique, Lancome and Biotherm. She spends $60 on a Biotherm cream. "It might be irrational, but I love it."
Where she is most extravagant: "These days, I can't think of anything."
Where she scrimps: "I used to just jump on a plane when I got bored. Now that's rare, and I no longer get on the phone and make a million long- distance calls."
Purchase she most regrets in the last six months: "None, but recently I almost bought a two thousand-dollar Persian rug. In the end, I'm glad I didn't do it. I'd rather save money fo 'dother things - like buying a place to live."
Best purchase: "I recently bought a two thousand two hundred-dollar computer so that I can work at home. I paid for it all at once. If I can't afford to buy things that way, I don't buy them."
Top price she would pay for: Blouse: "I start sweating at sixty dollars"; cocktail dress: $250; jeans: $30 at the Gap
On a $12 lunch tab, she would leave: $15.50
She dines out with a group of people who have entrees and wine, while she has soup and salad. Someone says, "Let's split it." what does she do?: "I might say something if I spent six dollars, and I was going to have to put in twenty-five dollars. Some might think that cheap, but most would understand."
Five-year plan: "I'd like to buy a home, 'dnd have savings in a retirement fund that are accessible."
When it comes to money, most of us can probably see a little of ourselves in these four women. Whether it's buying an expensive jacket on a whim, watching unopened bills gather dust (and interest due) or keeping savings in a checking account, many women have been there. So how do these typical women stand up to the scrutiny of financial experts?
" Ann Marie, like a lot of women at twenty-six, just isn't paying attention to money, says Shelby White, author of What Every Woman Should Know About Her Husband's Money (Turtle Bay Books, 1992). "She has a good salary, but it isn't reflected at all in her savings." "Ann Marie needs to make a lifestyle change," says Frances Leonard, author of Women & Money. An Independent Woman's Guide to Financial Security For Life (Addison-Wesley, 1991). "She simply must learn to say, 'Maybe I'll skip that potte 'llclass this year.'"
Because she clearly has no real interest in bargains--"She didn't want to go out of her way to get those cheaper tights, and that was a real savings," Leonard notes-Ann Marie should find out if her company offers a voluntary long-term savings plan. Under these plans, called 401(k) s, companies automatically deduct savings from a weekly paycheck and then match that money with their own.
" These are a very smart idea for anyone," Leonard explains, "because the money isn't taxed. If you earn eighteen thousand dollars a year, and contribute two thousand dollars to the savings plan, you'll only be taxed f 'lla sixteen-thousand-dollar income."
Many young people avoid these plans because the money is not supposed to be touched until the age of 591/2, at which time the money is taxed. "But," as Leonard points out, "even if you pay the ten-percent penalty to withdraw money early, you've still saved a great 'vel over the years in tax breaks."
If Ann Marie's company doesn't offer a 401(k) plan, Leonard suggests opening an IRA(Individual Retirement Account). They are a good way to start long-term savings (also not to be touched until retirement), but the money that's invested isn't always tax-deductible.
Everyone worried about Ann Marie's tendency to pay bills late, and suggested she obtain a copy of her credit report (as of May, anyone can get one free report annually from TRW, a national credit reporting agency, 800-392-1122). "Ultimately, she could be hurting her ability to borrow money for a house," warns Leonard. The only way to fix a bad credit history is to keep a perfect record for seven years, so the sooner Ann Marie finds out if there's a problem, the better.
" I love the way she did her homework' and read that money book," says White about Maggie Drucker. "She's frugal," agrees Leonard, "and it helps her." But even Maggie's finances could he improved. At $1,200 a month, her rent far exceeds the rule that only a quarter of monthly take-home salary go toward housing. "She pays for that rent by never buying clothes," says Leonard.
If Maggie's parents don't greatly need the tax break, Leonard suggests that she take over her own mortgage. "That tax savings would be the money that she's now having trouble putting away," she says.
But most importantly, Maggie should change the way she has invested her savings. Currently she has $8,000 in money market accounts and $8,000 divided among three mutual funds. "Maggie's being much too conservative," Leonard says, citing the low interest most money-market accounts pay. Instead, she recommends Maggie keep only 10 percent of her savings in money-market accounts. The rest should be in relatively safe mutual funds, and a quarter should he in a more risky stock fund. "That might be tough for her psychologically, because you have to ride the ups and downs of the stock market," says Leonard, "but she's young, she should be aggresive and steel her heart to do it."
For women like Maggie who have some money to invest, the experts suggest no-load mutual funds, which don't require any fees to join. For information about no-load funds, the experts recommend a highly readable $5 booklet published by Mutual Fund Education Alliance, 1900 Erie Street, Suite 120, Kansas City, MO64116.
Everyone agrees that Melissa Waksman is doing a good job of paying off a formidable $35,000 in student loans, but they also think she could be saving a lot more. Anita Jones-Lee, the author of Women and Money: A Guide for the'90s (Barrolls Educational Series, Inc., 1991) suggests melting some of those five credit cards she now holds. "Ideally, she should just keep one and pay it off every month," she says. "In general, store charge cards are redundant they charge higher interest rates, and the stores usually take bank credit cards anyway."
Melissa should also shop around to make sure she's getting the best possible rate on her credit cards. Right now, she's using one that charges 19-percent interest when she could find one that charges 12 percent. Jones-Lee suggests calling the Bankcard Holders of America, 703-481-1110, a nonprofit organization based in Herndon, Virginia, for a list of banks and the rates that they charge.
Nobody found fault with Melissa for her $2,500 Tahitian vacation. In fact, they admired her for realizing that she needed it. Leonard thought she might cut down on the impulsive weekend trips, but otherwise the experts found her spending habits to be under control.
At least two of the experts compared Sara Franklyn's relationship with money to that of a dieter who can't control her eating. Sara is the high earner in the group, but she needs to resolve her conflicts about discipline and spending. As one expert put it, "If you're mak 're one hundred thousand dollars a year, you shouldn't be afraid to window-shop."
Everyone agreed, however, that Sara's biggest concern should be avoiding taxes. If she bought a house, as she says she would like to, she could write off her mortgage interest, but the experts were surprisingly cautious about real estate as an investment. While it's true that real-estate prices have dropped and interest rates are low, there's still no guarantee that your investment will appreciate in the long run.
A far better investment for a self-employed person with a high income is a Keogh savings plan, where taxes can be deferred until she reaches 591/2 years of age. As a self-employed person, Sara also needs to be especially careful about putting money aside in case of an emergency. Once again, everyone suggested mutual funds for growth.
If telling someone with minimal savings to spend less on eating out or clothing doesn't sound like a revelation, the financial experts are the first to admit it. The hard part, they say, isn't understanding their advice, but convincing women to follow it. But money isn't always a rational subject. "Look at Ann Marie," says White. "You would think someone who works as a financial researcher at a bank would pay the same attention to her personal balance sheet."
" Many women act as if real life hasn't really begun, as if what they're 'reng is just temporary," Leonard says. "I realize it's very difficult in your twenties or early thirties to think about how your finances will be when you're 'refty-nine, but you will be that age someday." And Leonard points out that women on average spend one third more years in retirement than men, still don't make as much money as men do and often end up having to take care of themselves.
If those facts are dreary, there is a more positive incentive to begin saving now. Assuming a return of 9 percent, a woman who invests $l00 every month starting at the age of 25 will have $66,790 by the time she's 45. A woman who starts saving the same amount every month at 35 wilt have only $19,350 by the same age.
" It's as if they feel that by taking charge of money issues, they' 'readmitting failure, that they won't meet someone or ever have help," Leonard says. Most single young women are betting they 'll get married, and they probably will, but either way, making financial plans for the future today is crucial.
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W1A-006-0.txt
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Historical Flashbacks
I never thought history would invite me for a grand gala of the 1800's. I could not believe that I would be in the midst of hoop dresses, tailored suits, servants, and home-drawn, black leather carriages. Finally, history had decided to reveal its wonders to someone of the present. No longer would history be a book of musty pages and mildew travel chests. For the first time, history wasn't my enemy, but an acquaintance.
I stood in the valley among elderly Walnut trees whose branches bent lifelessly against the ground waiting patiently for a kind Samaritan to relieve them of their agony of age. As I looked around the grove of trees, there among the Walnuts stood graceful Willow. These Willows hide their mournful souls for the causalities of the unforgiving wars behind their graceful limbs. They seem to dance in the gentle winds as they are performing an elegant ballet respectfully for their audience, all of the trees and the forest creatures. The elder members of the grove watch over the young chipmunks, rabbits, and birds which playfully entertain them. (They do not seem to mind the youngsters climbing on their trunks and limbs; often throw them into the air like a first time father carefully and playfully throws his child into the air, then anticipating their descent into their secure and protective arms below) The wild flowers, Violets, Black-Eyed Susans, Dandelions, and Lilies, are carefully placed within the grove as the beautiful floral patterns often used in the fashion of this time.
As I begin to turn my attention away from the grove, I catch a glimpse an even greater wonder. I look beyond the eight flights of cobblestone steps to see the most beautiful sight I have ever witnessed. Before I realized what was happening, my feet was already carrying me toward this vision of historical beauty. As I reached the top of the worn down and uneven brownish- red stairway of stone, I stood motionless, overwhelmed by amazement. Cold, vigorous chills raced up my spine, as my brows became filled with the sweat falling from my forehead. My petite pink silk shirt and navy cotton shorts clung to my clammy skin, leaving no curve of my figure to the imagination. The long hike up the stairway had filled my entire out of shape body with pain and had stolen my oxygen from my lungs. I felt ever vein in my brain pumping and my ears were filled with only one sound, the rhyme of my irregular heartbeat. My legs, unstable like that of a newborn calf's, could not carry my weight any longer and finally gave out. It was at this moment I decided to rest and enjoy the wonder in front of me.
My eyes follow the towering Gothic giant from its sturdy legs to its beautiful face. It stands on a well constructed foundation made out of mortar and hand fired bricks. Its body is also handmade, but is not completely parallel. Yes, this is an imperfection, but doesn't cause its beauty to be relinquished. This giant's body is crowned with a copper weather vane, which offsets its reddish complexion. It is definitely the most exquisite site I have ever seen in my life.
This mansion sits proudly on the green hillside as it protects the sleepy little township below. The view of the township is lovely. The rolling, well- groomed pastures and the brown, fertile fields protect the colorful and various sized homes from the surrounding counties. From the mansion's view, the entire scene reminds me of a dazzling homemade quilt: all of the stitches sown carefully by hand, and each piece of material selected with great consideration and the entire quilt made with care. The mansion is the last stitch added to the most important piece of the traditional Wedding Ring pattern.
I notice that the mansion greets the steamboats, leisure boats, and barges with a firm wave hello as its black shutters flap in the whirling, yet refreshing wind. The boats, life long friends with the mansion over countless years, return the warm greeting with a heart felt blow of the foghorns. The entire valley is filled with the exchange of salutations between life long friends, who time will never separate and who do not keep account of wrongs. It is a friendship built on understanding and compassion, not blame or spite.
I decided to venture inside and become more acquainted with my new found friend. As I walk on the tall, white porch and look at the front door I am very excited about what I see. The eight feet tall door's panels form into the shape of a cross. The cross is used to let visitors and soldiers to know Christians live in the household. I opened up the immense wooden slab, only to find a world of dated relics and memories.
The Parlor's red velvet curtains; green handwoven tapestry; imported cherry card table from England complete with clawed feet; porcelain vases and a horse-hair, high backed sitting couch elegantly set the mood of this warm, friendly room. As I stand in the middle of the room, I shut my eyes and remain silent. Suddenly my mind is flooded with images of tall, dark-haired gentlemen dressed in suits dancing, talking and engaging in old-fashioned games, such as checkers, cards and dominos, with the company of well groomed, fair completed ladies whose social graces are the very finest. I envision waltzing and classical romantic music filling this beautiful room. I also see young ladies andd gentlemen courting according to the social ritual of the time as their parents watch them very carefully as the mother works on her needlepoint and the father smokes a cigar and exhales the circular puffs of smoke in the room.
I am abruptly taken from the Parlor into the Music Room. I stand amazed as in front of me on small metal rollers proudly sits a Piano Forte. Beethoven and Mozart would be in a musician's Heaven. Before me, sits an instrument made of fruitwood which consists of part piano and part harpsichord. As I glance around the remaining room, I see a Lincoln backed chair which is exactly like the one in White House. I also see a crimson, turquoise and frosted rug. But what grabs my attention to this rug is that it is handmade from one-hundred percent wool fibers and consists of three, three feet sections which are stitched together. The bright colors light up the rarely used somber room. My gracious and knowledgeable hostess explains that this room is only use when important guests, such as Mr. and Mrs. Abraham Lincoln-first cousins of House master, and George Washington a family friend, arrive for what usually becomes a brief, yet exciting visit. This room is full of romantic music, freshly cut flowers, and interesting intellectual conversation.
The Informal Dining Room leaves me emotionally drained; however, very intrigued. This spiritless room touches my heart. As I silently stand in the room's archway, I glance up a steep, perilous stairway that leads upstairs. The oak steps are only four inches wide and contain twenty steps total. It is the historical reference which causes me concern; this is the stairway servants were made to climb while carrying heavy food platters and porcelain chamber pots above to the bedrooms. I can not imagine how the servants could scale the narrow "death trap" without having any rope or rails to hold onto and not spill anything in fear of getting punished for any catastrophe.
The Formal Dining Room is the most stunning chamber in the lower level of this historical home. It is decorated with century old, brass oil lamps; powder-puff blue china dishes; red velvet curtains, which are draped back with golden, twisted rope tie backs. The cherry dinner table seats twelve persons and still offers plenty of elbow room for each guest. A large screen door ventilates this colossal vision of historical beauty and splendor. A mirror designed from Bird's- Eye Maple offsets the formality of the dark- colored cherry mantle, which secure the safety of valuable China and porcelain figurines. This room fills my mind with images of Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, engagement announcements, and birthday celebrations.
As I remain stationary in the hallway of the lower level, I notice the oil chandelier dangling lifelessly from the pale, plaster ceiling above me. Its immense flame reflects through the glass doom and casts reflections of shadow puppets on the dim hallway walls. And in the midst of all this, lies a gracefully bent, cherry and white pine stairwell. This long, thirty stepped stairway leads to the mysteriously hidden second level, better known as the bedroom level.
I reluctantly ascend up the broad stairway upon my hostess's request. To my surprise, there is an ebony, mink- haired couch. Inquisitively I ask my hostess the nature or purpose of this exquisite piece of furniture. "Leisure reading, conversation between mother and children concerning school or the family, and quilting and needlepoint gatherings among local women" is the response I was given. This upper level is pretty as a result of its simple decor. There are four bedrooms total within the upper level, all complete with high- rise, walnut beds; cherry chiffaros; wash basins; chamber pots and homemade quilts for warmth and a comfortable night's rest.
, which creates the atmosphere for this part of the house. The window offers an overlook of the green, rolling extended lawn in front of the house. This lawn, as it is explained to me, is better known by the townspeople "Butler's Grove". It is a common meeting place for the local socially elite to play crochet; gather for church picnics; wedding ceremonies; political rallies and a temporary battlefield for local disagreements; gun fights, often over ladies; card games, or money. It is at this window, out on the black shingled, extended porch ledge which General Orlando Butler, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and other famous persons addressed the small township of Port Royal in the 1800's.
This house amazes me because the history of decades past silently anticipate the presence of a gracious and mannerly guest as it hides fragments of interesting stories in the nick and crannies of both levels. The lower hallway rings with shouts of battlefield victories, as the Master of the house rides in on his horse through the tall front door and stops his horse in the middle of the hallway and shouts, "We've 've. It's finally over. We've 'ven". This hallway receives its guests with the utmost respect and a very warm welcome, complete with the stern handshake and gentle hug as to follow the 1800's rule of social etiquette.
I open the door to the house and step onto the front porch. I sit down on the steps of this small but cozy porch and look down at the green, fertile lawn below me. I hear the echoes of children laughing as they roll up into firm little balls and they roll down the rolling grassy hillside. I can hear the gunshots of the century's gentlemen settling disagreements with the weapons of the time. I can hear the sound of large groups of people laughing, telling stories and reminsing over time gone past. I smell the scent of Spring flowers and feel the cool breeze softly rubbing against my pale, youthful skin- a result of Oil of O'Lay. I see the image of children playing old-fashioned games, such as Hoop Rolling, Red Rover, and Simon Says, as the older generation enjoy maze, created from hay bales formed into various shaped lines and angles, solving.
I am sitting in the presence of historical elegance, social grace, and dated furniture and traditions. I don't think I will ever be able to swallow all of this history; however, I would like to try. Today is the first time I have been introduced to this mansion, but I have all summer to become better acquainted. I have just met my friend for the next three months. I saw today what will be my historical home where I will conduct public tours, carefully clean, and protect under the title of Recreation Department Staff of Kentucky State Park Systems- Head Tour Guide. I am excited about the flashbacks to history to come if they 're like the one I experienced today.
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W2C-020-1.txt
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Power given 8 to 12 years and warning;
Globe staff writer Tom Coakley contributed to this report. BYLINE: By Patricia Nealon, Globe Staff
In a courtroom haunted with ghosts of the Vietnam era and heavy with the pain of children who lost their father to a revolutionary action gone horribly awry, Katherine A. Power was sentenced yesterday to 8 to 12 years in prison for her part in the 1970 Allston bank robbery in which Boston Police Officer Walter A. Schroeder was killed.
Superior Court Judge Robert Banks, in an extraordinary move, also warned Power that, once she is paroled after serving her term, she might be sent back to prison for life should she try to profit from her role in the celebrated case.
During an emotional hearing in Suffolk Superior Court, the former student revolutionary who drove the getaway car apologized forcefully, tearfully - and briefly - for her role in the murder, saying she could not find the words to express her sorrow for Schroeder's death.
Schroeder's eldest daughter, Clare, meanwhile, found eight pages of words, detailing her family's two decades of loss and bitterly denouncing Power as a member of an "armed criminal gang," whom time had transformed into a celebrity.
" While Katherine Power was fleeing across the country - spending the money she stole from the State Street Bank, smuggling sawed-off shotguns through the St. Louis airport, and plotting to weld railroad cars to the tracks to disrupt military shipments - my mother was burying my father in Evergreen Cemetery," said Schroeder, a sergeant in the Waltham Police Department and the oldest of Schroeder's nine children.
" While Katherine Power was establishing her new life in Oregon - learning to cook, establishing a restaurant, and hunting game birds with her husband - my mother was struggling every day to care for us, to provide for us, and to give us a loving home... on a Boston police pension.
Banks, too, had harsh words for Power as he imposed sentence.
" I reject the proposition that your criminal activities were justified, excused or even mitigated," Banks said. "You were a criminal in every sense of the word.
Clare Schroeder's latest worry - that Power could make a "small fortune," by selling her story - was allayed yesterday by Banks.
In a unique addendum to Power's sentence, Banks placed her on probation for 20 years on one of two armed robbery charges with the proviso that her probation would be revoked and she would be jailed for life if she engaged in any activity that would permit her to profit from her crime.
" I will not permit profit off the lifeblood of police officers... That is repugnant to me and I could not live with myself," said Banks, who adopted the 8- to 12-year sentence recommended by Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Walter Shea. Power will be eligible for parole after serving five years and four months of the sentence.
Power, a former Brandeis University honors student, still faces one federal charge of theft of government property for her role in a raid on a National Guard armory in Newburyport three days before the bank robbery. Federal prosecutors are expected to recommend a five-year sentence to run concurrently with the state sentence she received yesterday when Power is sentenced on Nov. 24.
Her decision to surrender brought to an end 23 years on the run for Power, who waited in a getaway car while fellow Brandeis student Susan E.Saxe, former prison inmates Stanley Bond, then 25, and Robert J.Valeri, then 21, robbed the Allston branch of the State Street Bank of $ 26,000 on Sept. 23, 1970, reportedly to finance revolutionary antiwar activities. William (Lefty) Gilday shot Schroeder in the back as he approached the bank. The officer died the next day.
Valeri confessed within hours. Gilday was captured within days after a shootout with police and is serving a life sentence.
Bond was arrested in a Colorado motel several days later. He died in 1972 when a bomb he was constructing in his prison cell in Walpole exploded.
But Saxe and Power went underground, sheltered in a feminist underground network. They lived and worked in Connecticut and Pennsylvania until Saxe was arrested on a Philadelphia street in 1975.
After stopping in New Jersey to fashion a new identity - Power settled on Alice L.Metzinger, the name of an infant who died shortly after birth in 1949 - she headed to Oregon. There she started two restaurants, had a son, now 14, and married Ronley Duncan last year. Duncan, a slight man with a braided, gray-flecked ponytail, was in court yesterday with their son, Jaime, whom he adopted last year.
" Katherine participated in a criminal act 23 years ago," Duncan wrote in a letter to Banks. "But the Katherine I love and cherish is no criminal.
Power's attorney, Rikki Klieman, had asked for a more lenient sentence of 6 to 12 years, saying Power took full responsibility for her actions and was penitent. During her time in Oregon, Power had become "a woman of substance" who cares for others and was charitable, Klieman said.
" But it must be unequivocally stated that Katherine Power is not a hero and Katherine Power is an accomplice to a crime," Klieman said.
" No question about that," retorted Banks, who rejected suggestions that Power suffered from clinical depression during her years as a fugitive or that her actions were somehow excused by the tenor of the times.
Klieman had submitted more than 100 letters supporting a lenient sentence, including one from Robert O.Muller, the executive director of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, who asked for leniency "in the spirit of reconciliation and healing.
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W2C-012-3.txt
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Key Sox adviser jumps ship on ballpark: Menino pal's departure may jeopardize project
In a potentially devastating blow to the Red Sox' plans for a $665 million ballpark, development consultant Bob Walsh has bolted the project as the team enters a critical juncture in its two-year pursuit of a new field of dreams.
The surprise departure leaves a huge void between Sox CEO John Harrington and Mayor Thomas M.Menino, since Walsh served as a critical go-between in the often-stormy relationship.
" It seemed to be in the best interests of our company," said Walsh, who notified Harrington two weeks ago that RF Walsh Inc. was severing its relationship with the Sox. "We' 'rein the project management and construction business, not government relations."
But it was Walsh's relationship to Menino and his familiarity with the machinations at City Hall that were invaluable to Harrington.
The Sox chief angered the mayor more than once during delicate talks over a massive $313 million public subsidy package.
" We totally appreciate his involvement in this," said Red Sox spokeswoman Kathryn St. John, adding that Harrington and Sox General Manager Dan Duquette have open lines of communication with the mayor.
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W2B-015-0.txt
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YOU BET YOUR LIFE
American medicine is by many measures the best in the world- so why is it generally agreed that the system is 'in crisis'? And how do we cure what is wrong without ruining what is right?
THE CLINTON PLAN AND OTHERS
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON and her Task Force on National Health Care Reform are attempting to design a health-care system for the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, key elements of the emerging plan look more like twentieth-century collectivist experiments in Eastern Europe and Asia than a futuristic model for America.
Bill Clinton's campaign promises on this subject seemed so appealing: Health coverage would be extended to 35 million uninsured people in the United States. All Americans would get full coverage at a reasonable cost, regardless of their medical history. All plans would offer preventive care as well as protection from catastrophic expenses. Government would help to streamline administration, reduce paperwork, and lower costs. The money saved on Medicare and Medicaid would be used to help balance the federal budget.
For the last three months, more than five hundred academics and government bureaucrats have been mired in the complexities of figuring out how to make these utopian campaign promises a reality. The outline of the plan, scheduled to be unveiled this month, is fairly clear. The centerpiece is "managed competition," a depersonalizing scheme embraced by big corporations, insurance companies, and bureaucratic organizations. Under the plan, large networks of doctors and hospitals, organized primarily by insurance companies, would offer budget-priced health-care services to collections of consumers for a fixed monthly fee. Regulators would prescribe the services to which patients would be entitled through their "core benefits package," and "gatekeepers" in these big networks would control access.
In other words, beyond the mask of "pro-business, pro- entrepreneur language" ordered up by White House strategist James Carville lurks a system characterized by price-control agreements, rationing, and centralized government decisions over how much health care consumers will get, how they will get it, and how technology will be used and constrained.
Here are some of the elements of the likely proposal:
Core benefits package. A new National Health Board will define the basic doctor and hospital services that would be available to all of us, from preventive care to catastrophic coverage. This is tricky, however: If the package is all- inclusive, it will be impossible to fund, but if it rations care, the political fallout will be tremendous.
Purchasing cooperatives. New organizations called "health insurance purchasing cooperatives" or "health alliances" would be created. These quasi-public groups would represent employers and perhaps individuals in negotiations to buy hospital, doctor, and laboratory services from newly formed "super HMOs." The big health-maintenance organizations would compete with one another to offer the lowest price for providing the core benefits package. The networks would be prohibited from denying anyone coverage and would be required to charge everyone basically the same monthly fee to receive health-care services.
A global budget. One of the trickiest issues is whether to require the new National Health Board to set a budget for how much the nation would spend on health care. If a global budget were set, some inflation adjusted version of current annual expenditures--currently about $900 billion--would become the new ceiling, and states would probably be required to enforce the limits. The task force may require private insurers to abide by new, lower reimbursement fees for doctor and hospital services for Medicare patients. A debate on whether to impose mandatory price controls has been raging at the White House.
Employer mandates. All employers would be required to offer health insurance. Ninety-seven per cent of companies responding to a recent National Association of Manufacturers survey already provide health insurance. The National Federation of Independent Business says that two-thirds of its members provide health insurance, and of the third that don't, 92 per cent said they would if they could afford it. Those that don't are primarily small, start-up, and marginal firms; the Clinton plan may call for a phase-in with tax breaks to help make the coverage more affordable. However, small-business organizations have warned the President that requiring employers to provide coverage will mean a loss of up to five hundred thousand jobs.
Even before it is unveiled, the Clinton plan is being modified to respond to political practicalities. Patients are being told that they will be able to buy extra services if they are willing to pay more, and they are being assured they will be able to choose their own physician. Big companies can opt out of managed-competition networks if they want. And the task force is considering asking industry for "price-control agreements" as a substitute for mandatory price controls.
Managed competition is tailor-made for a President who professes support for the private sector but whose political nature compels him to devise complex new government programs. While passage of the proposal is far from assured, the Clinton team already has scored one significant victory. It has engaged the nation in debating how much and what kind of control the government will have over the nation's health-care system, preempting discussion, at least for now, of alternative free- market solutions.
The Cold Reality
NOW the hard work and cold reality of paying for the promises has begun. Task Force czar Ira Magaziner estimates that the plan would cost $100 to $150 billion in new spending. The White House has tried to squelch the number and put the estimate at $30 to $90 billion--a more politically salable figure.
The list of problems with managed competition is endless. Internal Task Force documents concede, "The plan would be cumbersome. Consumers would have to deal with new and unfamiliar agencies ["health alliances"] and choose from among plans they feel ill-equipped to evaluate. Unanticipated barriers to service would be erected when people are sick." Because managed competition theoretically offers patients unlimited access to doctors and hospitals, the length of lines at the clinics, not pricing, would regulate demand. Bureaucrats would continually ratchet down the services in the "core benefits package" as costs escalated. Most importantly, technological innovation would decline as cost concerns take priority over quality of care. "High-tech medicine" frequently is cited as the culprit in rising health-care costs. While medical technology may be expensive, these advances almost always lead to more cost-effective total care and a better quality of life. In no other industry is less technology considered progress. Unfortunately, restricting access to new technologies is now seen as part of the solution. The ethical question over access to expensive treatments by those unable to pay is one of the most difficult to address. But restricting access to innovative treatments and new technologies because they are too costly to be included in the "core benefits package" will quickly diminish the quality of patient care for everyone.
The Root of the Problem
THE CURRENT SYSTEM does need fixing. It distorts pricing and demand, is inequitable, and is alternately wasteful and miserly. Too many people are locked into jobs they don't like because they are afraid of losing their health insurance, and millions more don't have coverage at all, forcing them to go untreated or obtain care in crowded hospital emergency rooms.
Unfortunately for Mr. Clinton, 75 per cent of Americans are reasonably satisfied with their own health care, according to pollster William D. Mclnturff of Public Opinion Strategies in Alexandria, Va. "They clearly are not ready for massive changes in the way they get care for themselves and their families, even though they may say that changes are needed to fix the system for everyone else," Mclnturff said.
One reason they are happy is that the great majority of the more than two hundred million Americans with coverage is insulated from the true costs of medical services. Imagine that every time you went to the supermarket you paid only 20 per cent of your grocery bill, because your "food insurer" picked up the rest of your tab. You and other insured shoppers would have little incentive to be cost conscious, and you would likely buy caviar and prime steaks instead of potato chips and hamburgers.
Luxury items eventually would push moderately priced goods off the shelves, and people without food insurance would find the price of food prohibitive. The cost of food insurance would rise, and more and more people would be left standing outside the supermarket.
This is precisely the system that has fueled the inflation of health-care costs in the United States. Inflation is the inevitable result of shielding consumers from the costs of their purchases. And as prices increase, fewer people can afford coverage, accelerating the spiral.
Who are the uninsured today? Of the estimated 35 million people who lack access to health-care reimbursement at any given time, many are young people in entry-level jobs, the self- employed, the working poor who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, or workers who are between jobs. Half of the uninsured lack coverage for four months or less. Only a small minority, about 15 per cent of the 35 million, are uninsured for more than two years. Even with this group, hospitals rarely deny emergency treatment to injured or seriously ill patients.
Managed competition will not help the chronically uninsured. But rather than target solutions to this entrenched group, policy makers are ready to impose extraordinarily cumbersome top-down "solutions" that will dramatically alter a segment of the economy that employs ten million people and constitutes one-seventh of the U.S. economy.
A Better Idea
THE QUESTION that is central to the problem but which is not being asked is this: How can we change the behavior of the buyers and sellers of services so that the health-care sector functions more like a competitive market? Here are some options:
Incentives. Americans are sophisticated consumers who decide what they need in many fields, and they can use the same skills in making purchases from their doctors, given the proper incentives. But U.S. medical-payment systems seldom require them to employ these skills, partly out of a paternalistic belief that medical care is too complex for most patients to understand. More than 90 per cent of all medical decisions are made in a non- crisis situation; if consumers were motivated to be more financially responsible about health-care purchases, information markets would spring up to help them make choices.
Tax deductibility. Nowadays few question the connection between health benefits and employment. But Milton Friedman says this makes no more sense than the early industrial ploy of paying employees with vouchers that could be spent only at the company store. The reason Americans expect their employers to buy their health coverage for them is misguided tax policy that makes premiums deductible for companies but not for most individuals. The vast majority of employees are precluded from making individual choices in an open and competitive market to select the kind of health coverage that best suits their needs. Managed competition promises choice, but it will offer only those choices mandated by government in a highly regulated environment--hardly an atmosphere for viable competition.
Furthermore, employer-based insurance encourages over-use of health services. Employees have given up wages to get health coverage, and they want to get value from the wage substitute. As a result, health insurance increasingly has evolved from catastrophic to first-dollar coverage. After employees pay their deductible for the year, they expect to get all the health care they want for 20 cents on the dollar. This overuse in turn increases the costs of coverage. It is highly indicative that more than 97 per cent of individuals to whom tax-free insurance is available are insured, while only 33 per cent who must buy health insurance without a tax deduction are insured. Further, the code discriminates against the lowest-paid workers in favor of the highest-paid. For a typical family earning $20,000, the tax break for health insurance is worth $366. For some one earning more than $100,000, it's worth $1,463.
Allowing individuals to purchase their own health insurance with tax-deductible dollars would do more than anything else to bring market incentives to the health care system.
In this transfer of deductibility, employees would expect assurances that the money that their employers had been spending on health coverage would now come to them directly so they could buy their own coverage. Most employers would be happy to arrange this so as to get the monkey of rising health-care costs off their backs.
Restoring true insurance. The great fear of the middle class is not that they won't be able to pay the bill for their flu shot: it is of bankrupting medical bills in the event of catastrophic illness. But in virtually all developed countries, the concept of using health insurance as a protection against financial risk has been lost. Instead, health insurance has become a plan for pre-payment of routine medical expenses.
Those who want the predictability of a pre-paid plan for routine care should be able to buy such coverage to simplify their access to physicians. But those who would rather save money and pay out of pocket for routine bills should be able to buy policies that provide them insurance only for major bills. This would discourage people from over-using health services. It would reward cost-consciousness. And it would encourage people to be more responsible for their own health. Just as they realize that reckless driving makes their car insurance more expensive, disregard for their health could increase the costs of their medical insurance.
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W2D-002-0.txt
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PERMANENT HOUSING RESOURCES
Public Housing
Housing Assistance Programs
Private Market Housing
Helpful Agencies and Organizations
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts subsidizes thousands of housing units through a variety of programs. These units are available for renters within certain income limits. They can be found in new apartment complexes, rehabilitated buildings such as row houses, townhouses, garden apartments, or even converted buildings such as former schools or warehouses. Some of these developments may have only a certain percentage of the units subsidized. Some are available only for elderly or handicapped households; others are not restricted in this way.
There are developments which are publicly owned; that is, they are controlled by a local housing authority, such as the Boston Housing Authority, Worcester Housing Authority, Springfield Housing Authority, and authorities in smaller towns such as Medway, Rockport and Wareham. There are developments which are owned by private housing developers but are publicly subsidized and therefore available to low income persons.
WHAT IS PUBLIC HOUSING?
Public Housing is owned and managed by the approximately 258 local housing authorities and 4 regional housing authorities in Massachusetts. Not every community in the state has a local housing authority or is served by a regional housing authority. Most of the larger cities and towns do have housing authorities, however. The housing authorities are public agencies, governed by state and/or federal laws. The members of the authority's Board of Commissioners is elected or appointed by the city or town. they are separate from local city or town government.
WHO IS ELIGIBLE FOR PUBLIC HOUSING?
Housing authorities operate several different programs for families, elderly and residents with disabilities. If you have a disability, you may also find units with accessible features in either a family or elderly-oriented development. You must be at least 62 years of age or handicapped to be eligible for state funded elderly housing.
There are developments that have a mixture of all types of households. Many of the smaller authorities have only one type of housing, so you have to call to find out if they have the type of development you are seeking.
There are maximum income limits for different size households wishing to apply for public housing. These income limits are set separately by the federal and state governments for their respective developments and will vary slightly.
Income limits change over time and vary for different areas in the state, so you have to ask about these limits at the housing authority, or authorities, where you might be interested in living. For example, in 1996 for state-funded public housing in the Boston area, a single person household could have an income up to $29,100; and a four person household could have an income up to $41,600. Larger households, of course, could have higher incomes.
Families and individuals who qualify for public housing pay a rent which is up to 30% of their adjusted income.
%;2:1> Persons whose annual income exceed the limits established by either federal or state regulation are not eligible for public housing. Likewise, persons who have a consistently poor record of meeting their rent payments, or who have a history of disturbing people, destroying property or involvement in illegal activities may not be housed by the local public housing authority.
WHERE CAN I APPLY FOR PUBLIC HOUSING?
You should contact your local or regional authority to find out where they take applications. You can fill out an application for more than one authority, depending on where you would like to live or how immediate your housing need is. First, you should call several authorities to see what might be available and how long you would be on their waiting lists. Then you should go to those authorities where you have your best chance and fill out an application, even though the location of the housing may not be your first choice. Applications are also available by mail.
Once you have turned in your application you will be placed on the authority's waiting list in chronological order (according to the submission date of your completed application). Every housing authority has a tenant selection plan which provides priority categories to determine the order applicants are offered housing. At the time you apply, you should be sure to inform the authority of any special circumstances you or your family may face so that you may be placed as soon as possible.
In certain housing authorities you will be given a preference if you choose to be housed in a program where your race is substantially under-represented.
Since the waiting lists vary in length at each authority, you should inquire about the approximate waiting time when you apply. It is VERY IMPORTANT to keep the authority informed about any changes in address or status while you are on the waiting list, so that they can send you notices, and contact you from time to time about mailing list updates, changes in program regulations, etc. They must know how to contact you when your name reaches the top of the list. At that time, the authority will contact you in writing.
You can ask to be placed on the waiting list for every program of the authority for which you are eligible and qualified, which will minimize the waiting time for a unit to be offered and help you make the choice about where you want to live.
IN WHAT ORDER ARE TENANTS SELECTED FROM HOUSING AUTHORITY LISTS?
DHCD has Tenant Selection Regulations for public housing effective as of October, 1986. These prescribe the way housing authorities are required to select tenants for state funded housing. The following are particularly significant:
Tenants are to be selected in chronological order, on a first come, first served basis, within priority and preference categories, such as for families or individuals who are victims of fire, floods, or natural disasters.
The regulations contain provisions for emergency access for homeless individuals and families, in certain circumstances, to state-funded housing.
The regulations establish affirmative action requirements for those communities in which minorities are currently under-represented in the housing authority's state-funded housing programs. The regulations require those housing authorities to establish affirmative action placement rates for minority applicants.
The regulations provide preference for veterans for admission to Chapter 200 Veterans Housing or for Chapter 705 Family Housing when no Chapter 200 housing exists in the particular community.
The regulations allow preference for local residents of a given community. This does not affect local preference being given provided that the housing authority provides access to minority families in accordance with its affirmative action goal.
For more detailed information on these regulations you should contact your local housing authority.
A list of all authorities administering public housing programs in Massachusetts is provided in this handbook starting on page 11.
WHAT TYPE OF HOUSING IS AVAILABLE FOR PEOPLE WITH SPECIAL NEEDS?
Most LHAs have some units in their elderly developments that were built to conform with Architectural Access Board standards of accessibility. LHAs also have some units in family housing with limited accessibility features. Be sure to note on your application whether you require certain design features in a unit.
People with physical or mental disabilities are eligible for special housing programs as long as the eligibility requirements established in the regulations are met. Applicants with disabilities are then placed on the Elderly- Handicapped waiting list. State housing programs for the disabled are referred to as Chapter 689. Units may also be available in Chapter 667 and Chapter 705 developments.
WHAT OTHER TYPES OF SUBSIDIZED HOUSING ARE THERE?
In addition to public housing, there are other types of subsidized housing developments. These housing complexes are owned and managed by private companies around the state. Some developments may have subsidies attached to only a certain percentage of their units, others may have all their units subsidized.
Like public housing developments, these apartment complexes can be large or small, built on one site or scattered on different sites. They serve families, the elderly and/or handicapped residents.
These various housing developments have no one particular name. They may be financed through the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency, the Farmers Home Administration (in rural areas), or through a private bank or a community development agency. A list of properties that include some of these programs can be obtained by calling the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency at (617) 854-1000.
You should also check your local, regional and community newspapers for apartments for rent or for SRO/single rooms for rent.
WHO IS ELIGIBLE FOR THIS HOUSING?
There are maximum income limits according to family size, which govern these subsidy programs. These income limits vary by the type of program and they may or may not be the same limits that apply to public housing. You may be eligible for one program, but not another. In general, the income limits of these programs are very similar to public housing. You should contact the management office of the development to receive more information. The list available from MHFA will provide the names of subsidized developments and designate whether they are family, elderly or mixed units, their locations, and the management agent's telephone numbers.
WHAT OTHER HOUSING ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS ARE AVAILABLE?
There are some rental assistance subsidies which are not attached to a specific unit or development. Eligible applicants are issued a rent certificate or voucher and then they must locate their own apartment in the private rental market.
WHAT IS RENTAL ASSISTANCE?
The most widely used rental assistance program is the Section 8 Existing Program which is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In this program, you pay no more than 30% of your adjusted gross monthly income for rent, and%;the Section 8 subsidy pays the difference between that amount and the full rent for the apartment. The total housing costs cannot be higher than the maximum rent limits set by HUD, called Fair Market Rents (FMRs), for the size of the apartment. In addition to the rent limits, the apartment must meet basic housing quality standards and pass inspection by housing agency inspectors.
Another form of rental assistance funded by HUD is the Section 8 Voucher Program. The difference between certificates and vouchers is that there is no maximum rent set by HUD on the Voucher Program; the tenant may choose to rent any apartment, regardless of how much rent is being charged provided that the rent is reasonable as determined by the housing agency. However, the housing agency determines the subsidy amount the tenant is entitled to receive based on a payment standard established for the family's size. This amount is fixed and the tenant must pay the difference between the subsidy amount and the rent which can be more or less than 30% of the tenant's income.
%;100:1> The Department of Housing and Community Development administers a Section 8 program funded by HUD and a state rental assistance program (formerly the Chapter 707 Program) called the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program (MRVP) funded by the Massachusetts legislature. The MRVP program is similar to HUD's Section 8 Voucher Program. The subsidy amount is based on geographic location, family income, and the number of bedrooms needed for the household.
WHO IS ELIGIBLE FOR THE SECTION 8 PROGRAM, OR THE MASSACHUSETTS RENTAL VOUCHER PROGRAM?
Like public housing, there are different income limits, determined by your household size and the geographic location of your current residence. Under the Section 8 Program the maximum income in 1996 in the Boston area ranged from $19,800 for a single person household to $28,250 for a family of four and more ` for larger families. For some parts of the state the maximum income limits are somewhat lower. The income limits for the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program (MRVP) are the same throughout the state, which in 1996 ranged from $15,480 for a single person household to $31,200 for a family of four. These limits increase for larger families. In most cases the MRVP program provides a flat grant amount towards your rent depending on income and the bedroom size required. With a flat grant subsidy, the tenant must pay the difference between the subsidy amount and the rent charged by the owner. The amount of the MRVP voucher is determined by income categories in increments of $1,500, (i.e. 0-$1499; $1500-1599; $1600-1699, etc.), geographic location and bedroom size.
For the one third of the MRVP Program which is project-based (the subsidies are attached to specific units), the tenant share is either 35%; of income if heat is included, or 30%; of income if it is not.
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W2B-034-0.txt
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The week the last Internet porn scandal broke, my phone didn't stop ringing:? Are women comfortable on the Net??? Should women use gender-neutral names on the Net??? Are women harassed on the Net?? Reporters called from all over the country with basically the same question. I told them all: your question is ill-formed.? The Net? is not one thing. It's like asking:? Are women comfortable in bars?? That's a silly question. Which woman? Which bar?
The summer I was 18, I was the computer counselor at a summer camp. After the campers were asleep, the counselors were allowed out, and would go bar hopping. First everyone would go to Maria's, an Italian restaurant with red-and- white-checked table cloths. Maria welcomed everyone from behind the bar, greeting regular customers by name. She always brought us free garlic bread. Next we'd go to the Sandpipe 'd a disco with good dance music. The Sandpiper seemed excitingly adult--it was a little scary at first, but then I loved it. Next, we went to the Sportsman, a leather motorcycle bar that I found absolutely terrifying. Huge, bearded men bulging out of their leather vests and pants leered at me. I hid in the corner and tried not to make eye contact with anyone, hoping my friends would get tired soon and give me a ride back to camp.
Each of these bars was a community, and some were more comfortable for me than others. The Net is made up of hundreds of thousands of separate communities, each with its own special character. Not only is the Net a diverse place, but? women? are diverse as well--there were leather-clad women who loved the Sportsman, and plenty of women revel in the fiery rhetoric of Usenet's alt.flame. When people complain about being harassed on the Net, they've usually stumbled in 'vethe wrong online community. The question is not whether? women? are comfortable on? the Net,? but rather what types of communities are possible? How can we create a range of communities so that everyone--men and women--can find a place that is comfortable for them?
If you're looking for a res 'rerant or bar, you can often tell without even going in: Is the sign flashing neon or engraved wood? Are there lots of cars parked out front? What sort of cars? (You can see all the Harleys in front of the Sportsman from a block away.) Look in the window: How are people dressed? We are accustomed to diversity in restaurants. People know that not all restaurants will please them, and employ a variety of techniques to choose the right one.
It's a lot harder to find a good virtual community than it is to find a good bar. The visual cues that let you spot the difference between Maria's and the Sportsman from across the street are largely missing. Instead, you have to? lurk?- enter the community and quietly explore for a while, getting the feel of whether it's the kind of place you're looking for 're Although published guides exist, they're not always ver 'reseful--most contain encyclopedic lists with little commentary or critical evaluation, and by the time they're published they 're already out of 'rete. Magazines like NetGuide and Wired are more current and more selective, and therefore more useful, but their editorial bias may not fit with your personal tastes.
Commonly available network-searching tools are also useful. The World Wide Web is filled with searching programs, indexes, and even indexes of indexes (? meta-indexes?). Although browsing with these tools can be a pleasant diversion, it is not very efficient, and searches for particular pieces of information often end in frustration. If you keep an open mind, however, you may come across something good.
Shaping an Online Society
But what happens if, after exploring and asking around, you still can't find an online environment that suits you? Don't give up: start your own! This doesn't have to be a difficult task. Anyone can create a new newsgroup in Usenet's? alt? hierarchy or open a new chat room on America Online. Users of Unix systems can easily start a mailing list. If you have a good idea but not enough technical skill or the right type of Net access, there are people around eager to help. The more interesting question is: How do you help a community to become what you hope for? Here, I can offer some hard-won advice.
In my research at the MIT Media Lab (working with Professor Mitchel Resnick), I design virtual communities. In October of 1992, I founded a professional community for media researchers on the Internet called MediaMOO. Over the past three years, as MediaMOO has grown to 1,000 members from 33 countries, I have grappled with many of the issues that face anyone attempting to establish a virtual community. MediaMOO is a? multi-user dungeon? or MUD--a virtual world on the Internet with rooms, objects, and people from all around the world. Messages typed in by a user instantly appear on the screens of all other users who are currently in the same virtual? room.? This real-time interaction distinguishes MUDs from Usenet newsgroups, where users can browse through messages created many hours or days before. The MUD's virtual world is built in text descriptions. MOO stands for MUD object-oriented, a kind of MUD software (created by Pavel Curtis of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and Stephen White, now at InContext Systems) that allows each user to write programs to define spaces and objects.
The first MUDS, developed in the late 1970s, were multiplayer fantasy games of the dungeons-and-dragons variety. In 1989, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University named James Aspnes decided to see what would happen if you took away the monsters and the magic swords but instead let people extend the virtual world. People's main activity went from trying to conquer the virtual world to trying to build it, collaboratively.
Most MUDs are populated by undergraduates who should be doing their homework. I thought it would be interesting instead to bring together a group of people with a shared intellectual interest: the study of media. Ideally, MediaMOO should be like an endless reception for a conference on media studies. But given the origin of MUDs as violent games, giving one an intellectual and professional atmosphere was a tall order. How do you guide the evolution of who uses the space and what they do there?
A founder/designer can't control what the community ultimately becomes--much of that is up to the users--but can help shape it. The personality of the community's founder can have a great influence on what sort of place it becomes. Part of what made Maria's so comfortable for me was Maria herself. She radiated a warmth that made me feel at home.
Similarly, one of the most female-friendly electronic communities I've visited i 'veew York City's ECHO (East Coast Hang Out) bulletin board, run by Stacy Horn. Smart, stylish, and deliberately outrageous, Horn is role model and patron saint for the ECHO-ites. Her outspoken but sensitive personality infuses the community, and sends a message to women that it's all right to speak up. She added a conference to ECHO called? WIT? (women in telecommunications), which one user describes as? a warm, supportive, women-only, private conference where women's thoughts, experiences, wisdom, joys, and despairs are shared.? But Horn also added a conference called? BITCH,? which the ECHO-ite calls? WIT in black leather jackets. All-women, riotous and raunchy.?
Horn's high-energy, very New York brand of intelligence establishes the kind of place ECHO is and influences how everyone there behaves. When ECHO was first established, Horn and a small group of her close friends were the most active people on the system.? That set the emotional tone, the traditional style of posting, the unwritten rules about what it's OK to say,? says Marisa Bowe, an ECHO administrator for many years.? Even though Stacy is too busy these days to post very much, the tone established in the early days continues,? says Bowe, who is now editor of an online magazine called Word.
Beyond the sheer force of a founder's personality, a community establishes a particular character with a variety of choices on how to operate. One example is to set a policy on whether to allow participants to remain anonymous. Initially, I decided that members of MediaMOO should be allowed to choose: they could identify themselves with their real names and e-mail addresses, or remain anonymous. Others questioned whether there was a role for anonymity in a professional community.
As time went on, I realized they were right. People on MediaMOO are supposed to be networking, hoping someone will look up who they really are and where they work. Members who are not wi11ng to share their personal and professional identities are less likely to engage in serious discussion about their work and consequently about media in general. Furthermore, comments from an anonymous entity are less valuable because they are unsituated-- "I believe X" is less meaningful to a listener than "I am a librarian with eight years of experience who lives in a small town in Georgia, and I believe X." In theory, anonymous participants could describe their professional experiences and place their comments in that context; in practice it tends not to happen that way. After six months, I proposed that we change the policy to require that all new members be identified. Despite the protests of a few vocal opponents, most people thought that this was a good idea, and the change was made.
Each community needs to have its own policy on anonymity. There's room for diversity here too: some communities can be all-anonymous, some all-identified, and some can leave that decision up to each individual. An aside: right now on the Net no one is either really anonymous or really identified. It is easy to fake an identity; it is also possible to use either technical or legal tools to peer behind someone else's veil of anonymity. This ambiguous state of affairs is not necessarily unfortunate: it's nice to know that a fake identity that provides a modicum of privacy is easy to construct, but that in extreme cases such people can be tracked down.
Finding Birds of a Feather
Another important design decision is admissions policy. Most places on the Net have a strong pluralistic flavor, and the idea that some people might be excluded from a community ruffles a lot of feathers. But exclusivity is a fact of life. MIT wouldn't be MIT if everyone who wanted to come was admitted. Imagine if companies had to give jobs to everyone who applied! Virtual communities, social clubs, universities, and corporations are all groups of people brought together for a purpose. Achieving that purpose often requires that there be some way to determine who can join the community.
A key decision I made for MediaMOO was to allow entry only to people doing some sort of "media research." I try to be loose on the definition of "media"--writing teachers, computer network administrators, and librarians are all working with forms of media--but strict on the definition of "research." At first, this policy made me uncomfortable. I would nervously tell people, "It's mostly a self-selection process. We hardly reject anyone at all!" Over time, I've 'vecome more comfortable with this restriction, and have enforced the requirements more stringently. I now believe my initial unease was naive.
Even if an online community decides to admit all comers, it does not have to let all contributors say anything they want. The existence of a moderator to filter postings often makes for more focused and civil discussion. Consider Usenet's two principal newsgroups dealing with feminism- alt.feminism and soc.feminism. In alt.feminism, anyone can post whatever they want. Messages in this group are filled with the angry words of angry people; more insults than ideas are exchanged. (Titles of messages found there on a randomly selected day included "Women & the workplace (it doesn't work)" and "What is a feminazi"?.) The topic may nominally be feminism, but the discussion itself is not feminist in nature.
The huge volume of postings (more than 200 per day, on average) shows that many people enjoy writing such tirades. But if I wanted to discuss some aspect of feminism, alt.feminism would be the last place I' 'dgo. Its sister group, soc.feminism, is moderated--volunteers read messages submitted to the group and post only those that pass muster. Moderators adhere to soc.feminism's lengthy charter, which explains the criteria for acceptable postings--forbidding ad hominem attacks, for instance.
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W2C-001-1.txt
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HOLE IN YARD TURNS INTO MOUNTAIN OF PROBLEMS
Nobody wanted to see it turn out this way for the old man. They all say so now.
Orange County officials didn't think they'd have to p 'dce 74-year-old Omer St.Pierre in handcuffs or take him to the mental health crisis center.
They didn't think his elderly wife would develop chest pains and they would have to call an ambulance. They didn't even know they would cost him nearly 30 percent of his yearly income. But rules are rules, and the old man didn't follow them. Omer St. Pierre didn't clean up his yard.
Instead, the eccentric French Canadian kept collecting. In a deep hole beside his Orlo Vista home, he layered refrigerators, shopping carts, clothes, two car engines, books and heaven knows what else. He covered the hole with boards.
" I pleaded with him to clean the property," said Benny Roberts, the county's chief code enforcement officer.
When he didn't, the county hired a contractor with a big scoop and a tractor-trailer to haul the stuff away.
" It was just - just junk," said Hoke Dorough, code enforcement officer. But not to St. Pierre.
It is hard to grasp the logic of an old man who carts home dozens of dead Christmas trees. What use are they? Why would he want such stuff?
The answer is that having the trees isn't the point. Collecting them is. Collecting fills his time.
St. Pierre brings home bags of shoes, for instance, and sits placidly sorting them on the porch of his cement block and tin roof house. He's done that since he built the place in 1960.
So he doesn't take it kindly when the county describes his things as junk. After all, no one likes to think his labor has been for naught. And perhaps there is yet another twist here.
Perhaps worn-out shoes look valuable when your income is less than $4,500 a year. Maybe you want a small stock of refrigerators in case yours quits. Maybe the bags of clothes are a kind of imagined insurance against poverty.
St. Pierre's next-door neighbor, A.J. Rowe, said St. Pierre gives away many of the things he collects.
" He thinks he's helping people," Rowe said.
St. Pierre was still hauling things by his neighbors' small block houses and sparse yards - some of them also littered with trash - when one of them complained.
Rowe said he can't understand the complaint.
" What gripes me is that I was here and he was here before any other houses. He's been doing this for 40-some years. That hole is not an eyesore," Rowe said.
Code officer Dorough said he didn't even see the hole during his first visit in August until he walked up on it.
" What I saw blew my mind. I told him he needs to clean up the property and stop bringing things home that way," Dorough said.
" He kept mentioning somebody with a truck who was going to take things away - that's the best I could understand him. He kept putting me off."
Did Dorough ever think of getting a French translator?
" No. He understands. Sometimes I don't think he's got all his oars in the water, but I can communicate with the old man," Dorough said.
St. Pierre said someone from the county came out several times and talked to his wife, Elaine, while he was in Jacksonville having a hernia operation.
She told him she thought the county was going to take away their house and repeated the word "lien" a lot.
Then they got two letters about something called a public hearing.
Did St. Pierre understand the meaning of public hearing?
" Little bit.
Who is there? What happens?
" They ask questions.?
St. Pierre doesn't always understand the questions, and he often doesn't want to answer when he does, so he didn't go.
The county's code board took its vote: If Omer St.Pierre wouldn't clean up his property, then the county should hire someone to do it and bill him. If he didn't pay, the county would place a lien against his house and collect when it was sold.
Contractors rolled onto St. Pierre's property on March 4, knocked over the shed containing his library, and scooped up the remains.
" I have 600 French books. Now I got nothing more to read," he said.
He said they hauled away a brand-new 1960 Buick motor in a crate, a riding lawn mower and a big pile of dirt he planned to use to level his lot.
St. Pierre was beside himself. A report by the Orange County Sheriff's Office says he stood on his porch at 6505 Chantry St. and cranked off a couple of rounds from his shotgun. St. Pierre says he never fired.
" When blood leaks and you'v 'veot a hole in your head, that's what counts," St. Pierre said.
Deputies wrote that they heard St.Pierre screaming gibberish from the porch of his residence. His tone was very angry, the report said, but "The words were unintelligible. That's because he was yelling in French.
The deputies surrounded the house. Then St. Pierre seemed to calm down, so they walked up.
St. Pierre said, "Three, four police. We all talking nice. They know I wasn't doing no harm. They told me so. They look all over my house."
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W2F-014-0.txt
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" Getting Better"
Al Divver
Instead of decently dying, or at least disappearing into my adoptive metaphor, I took to wandering all over the North Shore. Sometimes I'd walk for hours 'dn Peabody. On these walks I imagined myself trying to find signs of real life.p>
Occasionally I'd stop and look 'dry hard at the little box homes in my neighborhood, as though they contained some mystery to be explored, but one day, as I was examining a little pink house on a street of identical little pink houses, three cop cars pulled up. Before I could say a word, the drivers jumped out and rousted me. I tried to explain that I was only trying to find signs of life, but they handcuffed me and brought me to the station. Camella, of course, rescued me. She told them, in so many words, that I was pazz', but harmless. As I was sitting on the reception area bench, waiting for my release, I heard the desk sergeant say, "You'd better keep th 'd bird in a cage, lady. He's scaring the tax payers around here. After that unpleasant incident, I began to borrow the Cadillac, which was unregistered. I supposed that if I were stopped by the police I could plead innocent on the grounds of invincible pazziness, but, remarkably, those vigilant, fancy-town cops never spotted me. Day after day I would drive over to Manchester by the Sea, or Magnolia, or Ipswich, and laze on the beaches all day. I think the absorption of my mind into the mindless meeting of sky, sand and water did me some good. The regular rhythm of ocean waves pounding on the rocky shores had a powerful narcotic effect on me as I lay inert on the sand. Strangely, I almost never fell asleep. With my eyes six inches above sea level I watched sandpipers hopping around looking for food and gulls screaming their desires as they battled for scraps. Occasionally, a least tern would materialize before me in one of its swoops to the water. Cormorants appeared and disappeared on the swells.
Memory, desire, despair; all of them gave way to a rhythm that seemed to me an endless repetition of the same, both meaningless and reassuring.
There were plenty of young women on those beaches, but I had no interest. On days when I did not relish being narcotized, I would sit on the sand and watch the surf for hours, convinced that it had a message for me. None came. After a few months, neither ecstasy nor self-hypnosis any longer satisfied me, so I bought running shoes and ran on every shore road I could find. In the golden autumn afternoons, I especially loved to be framed by the blue ocean on one side, with its honored guests, the flocks of migrating birds, and the riotous red, orange and yellow of the trees, as they began to lose their summer inhabitants, on the other. Running in the midst of this glory made me feel like a mellow fellow, but it didn't give me the message I was seeking. The trees, the birds, the ocean, all spoke, it seemed to me, but their message was general and untranslatable into the language of introspection. Almost every day I would go into the little eateries in Manchester or some other coastal town, drink coffee, and chat with the people working behind the counters. These were rich towns, but the rich were always elsewhere, it seemed. The coffee shops and breakfast places were largely populated by elderly people, who had lived long lives in these towns years before the yuppy boom, lived as vassals to the old money in the magnificent houses along the coast, or as fishermen for whom the sea meant something other than it did to the owners of the many yachts moored in the harbor, or to me, for that matter, as I dozed on the regenerative beaches. I especially liked Fowle's, a funky place in Newburyport, where the old men of the town hung out. One side of Fowle's was devoted to everyday items like magazines, newspapers, cigars and supplies, the variety and number of which rivaled anything in Cambridge. The middle of the large, long space was lined with booths, which made a sort of room divider. On the other side ran a long lunch and breakfast counter with pole mounted stools. I got in the habit of having breakfast there, mostly so that I could chat with the old men. It seemed to me that these old codgers knew a secret that I did not. They talked a lot about baseball and the weather and other concerns of the day, of course, but they were also a treasure-hoard of information about the town and its past. They talked about their wives, their children, their grandchildren, even their great grandchildren. They had stories about their families several generations back. They remembered Plum Island before it got crowded, and the town itself before it underwent gentrification. They told me stories about friends who had drowned, spectacular sea rescues, disasters, triumphs. They described the harbor of sixty and more years ago. They remembered all the eccentric characters on both land and sea. Some even remembered how they met their wives. A few cried unashamedly at the memory of lost loved ones. Most of them were lonely, and had little more than their memories to comfort them. Even though, at their age, memory usually meant recollections of loss, they made of it a kind of presence, reassurance that they belonged somewhere in the world. Whatever their stories, they all carried on uncomplaining.
I made a good friend of one denizen of Fowle's, or, more accurately, he adopted me. His name was Sam Amaro. Sam had owned a fishing boat for a while and had fished the local waters for more than fifty years before a heart problem and a bad back forced him into retirement. He had lost his parents to influenza after the Great War, when he was ten years old, and his brother eight. Much of his childhood had been spent in orphanages and foster homes. One of his foster parents happened to be a fisherman. When Sam was fourteen, the fisherman took him out on an expedition. From that time on, Sam was a fisherman. He remained close to his brother all those years, even though they spent most of that time in different foster homes. When Sam turned eighteen, he applied for guardianship of his brother. In those days, before the rise of social workers, nobody much cared to inquire into the details. If a relative signed for a child, the judge let him go. Sam told me that his joy at having his brother with him was like nothing he had ever experienced, and since has been matched only by the birth of his two children. When Sam married Maria Albiani, a Gloucester fisherman's daughter, in 1931, - - he said that was joy, too, but of a different kind - - his brother continued to live with him. Apparently, they were very happy. Sam and his brother, whose name was Antonio, like my father's, worked very hard to save money for a boat, a task made more difficult by the birth of Sam's son and daughter. Tony had decided, said Sam, to forsake looking for a wife until Sam's family was a little more financially secure, so he stayed resident in a tiny room off the back hallway of the ramshackle apartment they had rented. In 1935, the brothers bought their dreamboat. They christened it with an elaborate name: Santa Maria della Buona Fortuna.
A token of their desire to express, through Maria's namesake, their joy in the present and, in their evocation of the goddess, their hope for the future. Life went along very smoothly for a few years. Tony had fallen in love, and, now that the brothers were solvent, had decide to get married. Much to everyone's satisfaction, he found a place to rent only a block away. The wedding took place on the boat. Then, one night in 1938, Tony, with a small crew, was returning from an unusually long fishing trip. Sam had stayed in Gloucester to help tend his son, who had contracted scarlet fever. About twelve hours from Gloucester, the hurricane hit the Santa Maria della Buona Fortuna. The coastguard later reported that they had received a distress signal from the vessel, but that the message had been cut off before they could fix its position. The family barely survived that disaster, which crippled them both economically and emotionally. Tony's wife moved in with Sam and Maria. Both women took jobs in fish packing plants, Maria at night, Tony's wife during the day. They shared care of the children. Sam barely survived. Only the thought of his children, he told me, kept him afloat.
Sam had to go back to working on another man's boat. The pay was poor, because the smaller boats were losing out to the big trawlers that came out of Boston. Somehow, and Sam, looking back on it, professes not to know how, the three adults managed to feed and clothe the children, and send them to school. Both children were good students and both won college scholarships. The daughter, Maria, went to Smith, where she studied literature. She now teaches at Berkeley. Tony, the son, went to Boston College. He was interested in the law. While there, he joined the R. O. T. C., to help defray costs that his scholarship didn't cover. In 1952 he graduated summa cum laude. Three months later, on a muddy hill half way across the world, a rain of artillery shells exploded in the midst of his platoon, killing him and most of the men he was leading. Oddly enough, according to Sam, he was not destroyed by the news. By that time he had learned to expect such things from life. When his wife died of cancer, in 1988, Sam did not cry. He had cried too much during the long months of her suffering, he said. Now, he looked forward to the times when he could see his daughter and her children, although he was not yet ready to move out to "cuckoo land," as he put it. He had too many memories along the streets and shores of Massachusetts to give them up just yet. This was the man who befriended me at the counter of Fowle's everything store in Newburyport.
Many days we would walk the beaches together. Sam never said much on these walks, except to comment on the clams, or plants, or salt-water marshes, as we went along. He knew everything about them, it seemed. Once, he took me clamming. He had borrowed a pair of hip boots from a friend for me, but they were much too big. We hadn't sloshed out into the mud flats very far, when I got stuck. The green-black ooze caught hold of me and sucked me in high over my knees. The more I struggled, the more I sank. Sam, standing safely away from the carnivorous mud, was enjoying the spectacle mightily. Finally, after he had had enough entertainment, he threw me a line from a boat beached nearby. I grabbed it and began pulling with all my strength. As I pulled, my too big boots remained in the muck, and, when my feet finally got free of them, the force of my pulling twisted me around my clamming pail and caused me to go sprawling face first in the stinking stuff that formed the world's most complex ecosystem. All around me, I could see jets of water sent up by indignant bivalves. Sam, standing at some distance, called out to me, "That's a way, son. You shua found them clams. Now all you gotta do is dig ` em up.? Once out of the boots, I managed to pull myself to safety. I was painted green black and smelled like low tide at the point where salt water marsh meets the ocean. For those who have smelled that smell, no explanation is necessary; for others, no description is adequate. Against the ribbing of the old boys at Fowle's, I presented myself as Swamp Thing, just off the set of the third sequel, "The Red Tide of Swamp Thing." I guess I owed them a little entetainment in exchange for their stories. I was happy to believe that sticking my nose into the tidal eddies of the salt marsh shoreline showed me an angle on life I would otherwise never have seen, or smelled, because I had reached the stage of looking at all my experiences as lessons. Especially those taken at shore level.
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W2C-019-0.txt
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Prices were mostly higher at the close on the Chicago Board of Trade.
Corn was boosted by forecasts for rain that could hamper the harvest and possibly lead to stalk rot. Many producers have given priority to harvesting soybeans to allow corn to dry in the field.
Soybeans staged a slight rally to close with fractional gains. November beans, however, remain just a few cents from last season's low of $6.04 per bushel posted Monday. Late pressure was tied to commercial selling. Early support came from private crop forecasts trimming USDA estimates.
Wheat closed near session highs on scattered commercial and commission house buying. Trading was light and limited to a narrow range.
Corn was up 1, soybeans were off to up 1, wheat was off 1 to up 3 and oats were unchanged.
Cash prices pushed live cattle futures sharply lower and live hog futures were lower at the close on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
Cattle futures selling was linked to lower wholesale beef prices, with packers offering discounts on a wide variety of beef cuts to boost sales. Reports indicated Southern Plains fed cattle prices topped out at 50 cents to $1 lower at $71 to $71.50.
Steep cash advances Monday and Tuesday coupled with rain forecast for Thursday spurred producers to market hogs again and the increased marketings were expected to pressure hog prices further Thursday.
A controversial plan that would allow so-called''piggyback'' options trading in the agricultural futures pits is under consideration at the Chicago Board of Trade.
Corn traders voted 2-1 last week in favor of the proposal but soybean and wheat traders have indicated opposition to the measure.
CBOT Chairman Patrick Arbor said he is in favor of the proposal as a way of increasing trading opportunities.
Some full members, however, said they fear allowing options trading in the futures pits would have an adverse impact on the value of their memberships. The last time a membership changed hands it sold for $429, 000, compared with options memberships, which normally sell for about $42,000.
The options pits currently are separated from the futures pits by walkways.
The MidAmerica Commodity Exchange is moving its rough rice futures and options contracts to a larger pit.
The markets will move to the northeast corner of the Chicago Board of Trade agricultural trading floor, to a spot formerly occupied by Major Market Index stock index futures.
Rice prices are at their highest levels in more than one year and trading interest has soared since Japan agreed to accept imports.
The MidAm is the only exchange in the world currently handling rice contracts.
Fresh-frozen green soybean pods from a new specialty variety developed by University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers are bound for Japan and if they pass muster, a new international specialty market might emerge.
The pods are called edamame (eh-DAH'-mah-may). The Japanese boil the pods in salt water and snack on them with beer or tea, shelling the beans from the pod much like Americans shell peanuts. The Chinese cook shelled beans and mix them with other foods for added protein.
Edamame soybeans look like other varieties in the field. They are harvested in the pod while still green instead of at maturity.
Japanese farmers grow edamame and its premium price spurs some greenhouse production but demand outstrips production. Japan imports frozen podded beans to satisfy its year-round appetite for the sweet, nutty-flavored snack.
Taiwan and China supply most of Japan's frozen edamame beans but some Nebraskans think the state's growers and food processors could enter this Market with high quality beans being developed at UNL.
Japan is the world's largest consumer of soybeans for food, buying 49 million bushels in 1991.
The U.S. agricultural attache in Sao Paolo, Brazil, says the South American nation likely will harvest 23 million tons of soybeans this season.
The report says Brazil harvested 22.3 million tons last year.
The increase reflects the better financial shape of farmers as a result of higher soybean prices in the past two years and good export prospects.
University of Nebraska experts are reminding farmers to give their combines extra attention before harvest.
Agriculture machinery specialist Robert Grisso recommends combines be cleaned, either by using air or a high pressure washer, to prevent insects, disease and spoiled grain from ending up in the bins and spreading a possible insect infestation to the next crop.
Grisso said before starting up the engine, farmers should make sure to check all fluids, including the radiator coolant, oil and hydraulic fluids.
Tire pressure is another important factor. Grisso said that the correct air pressure can redistribute the weight of the combine to reduce the effects of soil compaction.
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W1A-017-0.txt
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1a) In class, we defined language from a nativist/Chompskian point of view as, "a universal grammar that all humans have," that is learned through an innate language acquisition device and exposure. It is impossible to fully determine Beth's linguistic competence (her unconscious knowledge of linguistic structure and rules) from a single language sample, but I am able use this particular linguistic performance (how she uses her linguistic competence in speech) to say something about her current language usage. I believe that Brown would place Beth just past the two-word phase, perhaps at the beginning of "later combinatory speech" due to the way she is combining functors like my and that to string together simpler 2-word phrases (Lindfors). For example, rather than saying "Peggy baby" (agent + object), Beth says, "That Peggy baby." Rather than saying "I find" (agent + action), Beth says, "I find yours." Beth has some working knowledge of possessives (" my" and "Peggy baby") and simple syntax. While pure nativists would only be interested in these child utterances and word structure, Brown (who was already expanding nativist language theory) would insist that we look at the mother-child interaction as well. Beth is not yet using inflectional endings, but if Nora's numerous imitations and expansions (e.g. "That's my baby."; "It's Peggy's baby?") really scaffold her verbal progression as Brown suggests, this might be expected soon in Beth's linguistic performance.
1b) Interactionists like Clark and Halliday view language as "meaning potential." For them, social interaction is both a component of and goal for language construction (Halliday). Clark's use-based approach would insist that we look at both the acquisition of structure (see number 1) and function of language. For example, I notice that Beth's speech often functions in a regulatory or instrumental capacity. Beth says, "My," when Nora threatens to take her baby in order to regulate Nora's behavior. She responds, "I find yours," when Nora asks where her baby doll is and proceeds to go look for it. She is attempting to get something done. Nora's speech, on the other hand, is heuristic- she is "teaching" Beth about teasing. In this respect, Nora's role as "teacher" might be to enact a teasing schema through her interaction with Beth. Even though Beth fails to understand that her mother is teasing her, and this could be "thought of as failed attempt to construct the adult world view (Halliday, p. 122)", Beth is learning through language to construct her own reality. For example, in this interaction, she seemed to learn something about sharing and pretending. She also responding to commands and questions and takes turns speaking with Nora.
1c) When I consider Beth's communicative competence (or her situational ability to effectively convey meaning), I need to think about her linguistic competence, cultural practice, and the particular communicative event, which are all demonstrated through her linguistic performance (Class Notes 9/23/09). It becomes important now to know that Beth is part of a working class European American family. Heath's research found differences in the way white working-class communities, black working-class communities, and middle-class communities talk to their children. This communicative event between Beth and Nora could be seen as a teasing event or a caregiver socialization event, which I suspect are more popular cultural practices in working class homes than in middle-class homes. Through play, Nora is teaching (and Beth is learning) about what it means to be a caregiver, and how to effectively engage in teasing.
2a) The interactionist theory of language could potentially judge Cindy as "verbally deprived" in language because in the school language sample she uses very short sentences (e.g. "A dog", "I dunno"), doesn't demonstrate mastery of the concept of what a dog is (the teacher doesn't understand why he doesn't have legs), and doesn't convey logical thoughts (Adger, pp. 74-75). When the teacher asks Cindy to tell her about a part of the picture (" What's this bit here?") Cindy simply responds with, "I dunno." You can trace this line of thinking to interactionists reviewing single interactions in school settings, particularly between teachers and minority students, without a consideration of socio-cultural factors.
2b) Possible reasons for Cindy's varied language behaviors include that she has learned avoidance techniques for speaking in school, where her language can be held against her and/or that there is a mismatch between Cindy's and the school's interaction styles (Adger, p. 76). Since, "schools generally align with the cultural traditions associated with the middle class" (Adger, p. 73) and Cindy is from a working class family this is likely to be the case. For example, the purpose, channel of communication, and interaction rules are different in this school speech event than in the home speech event described (Hymes). The purpose of this school event is to quickly describe Cindy's drawing, the channel of communication is written and oral Standard English, and the interaction rules follow a traditional teacher question-student response format. On the other hand, the purpose of this home interaction is inquiry driven and purposeful- Cindy wants to figure out how to make the water in her garden stay in the ground. The channel of communication is an informal oral Standard English. The interaction rules are different too. Cindy is allowed to ask questions and talk through her thinking, rather than answering directed questions. When these differences in the elements of the communicative events are examined, it is not surprising that her language behavior varies so dramatically in these situations.
2c) Cazden et al. might advise Cindy's teacher to improve the quality of her talk by, "shifting [her] role and behavior"from that of an interviewer to that of a resource for children to draw upon" (p. 120). The teacher should be at the center of a free exchange of ideas, rather than a requester of information she already knows. She might also encourage the teacher to develop a warm and trusting relationship with Cindy, and to design a curriculum focused on cultural pluralism that draws on what children already know and that allows for authentic inquiry into meaningful tasks (Cazden, pp. 120-124). For example, she might use her knowledge that Cindy loves gardening to design science inquiry experiments or let Cindy and the other students teach each other about their areas of "expertise."
3a) As discussed in question 2b, the nature of communicative events has the power to optimize learning and language opportunities, particularly if it matches students' home/cultural interaction styles and expectations. In this ESL module, the teacher is both building on and expanding familiar language practices for her students- she asks them to move from writing their opinions about a topic that matters to them (a familiar writing task) to eliciting information from others and reporting on what they have to say about it (a new writing task). She asks her ESL students to interview other native language speakers (familiar interactions) and students and teachers who speak English as a first language (likely unfamiliar interactions). She carefully scaffolds the entire module to build on familiar language activities in order to expand students' repertoire to include the unfamiliar. I also thought the purposes and mood of the communicative events in this module were critical to enhancing learning opportunities. Some of the purposes included capitalizing on students' experiences and creating an authentic and meaningful writing project. The mood was positive and celebratory of bilingual identities and experiences. The teacher clearly sought to capitalize on students' languages and cultural competence to enhance learning when she structured this module.
3b) In this ESL module, students learned language by constructing meaning (rather than acquiring structure) throughout the entire research and writing process. As the students spoke and wrote in English they concurrently built all parts of the three-level system Halliday described where "meanings are coded into wordings and wordings are recoded into sound" (p. 115). Students learned through language (or constructed reality) as they built positive bilingual identities, and discovered new methods to gather information and structure writing. They learned about language (" coming to understand the nature and function of language itself", p. 16) by explicitly exploring various functions of language and bilingualism.
4a) The first thing I would suggest to middle school teachers responsible for crafting a language policy is to create their own definition of language based on research. To do this, I would ask them to explore the differences in language beliefs in the linguistic and teaching communities. I think it is important that teachers (like students) are allowed to create meaning, rather than having it pushed on them by "experts." That said, I would try to ignite a discussion about language in schools. I would let them know that while prescriptive grammar (a cultural construction that often involves explicit teaching of the grammar "rules" of Standard English) is often taught in schools today, it has no linguistic basis. The "standard" English that they were likely taught, is really just the "socially preferred dialect" (a social or geographical variety of language) of American society (Adger). However, there is nothing that makes this particular dialect (or any language, for that matter) inherently better than any other. I would also point out to them that everyone speaks a dialect, and that spoken and written languages vary greatly in formality. I would expect some push back from Mr. Clark at this point, who would likely claim that Standard English is actually better than other languages because it has rules and we read it in books. He might cite technology as the current culprit of the degradation of Standard English. I would respond by telling him that linguists are interested in language rules, and that all dialects have rules that people adhere to when they speak, even "nonstandard" Englishes (socially unacceptable dialects; e.g. AAVE). I might refer him to the Ebonics debate and remind him that published writing has traditionally been maintained by the same elite group that uses standard English. I would tell him that linguists, who study descriptive grammar (objective analysis of language structures and differences), would be interested in analyzing the structure and function of the language of technology rather than judging it.
4b) Linguists believe that language is primarily learned through interaction, not direct instruction. To help teachers understand this idea (that "implicit" teaching occurring through interaction is more effective than "explicitly" teaching sets of syntactic rules) I might ask them to recall their own experiences diagramming sentences and "learning" grammar. Chances are, they have forgotten everything and/or have very strong negative reactions to experiences with direct grammar instruction. "Explicit" grammar instruction is often not effective, enjoyable, or functional. "For educational purposes we need a grammar that is functional rather than formal, semantic rather than syntactic in focus, oriented towards discourse rather than towards sentences, and represents language as a flexible resource rather than a rigid set of rules" (Halliay, p. 124). I might direct them towards resources such as Writing in Rhythm by Maisha Fisher or The Power of Grammar by Mary Ehrenworth, where the authors show possibilities for learning the "rules" of Standard English (i.e. "grammar") through modeling, interaction, and inquiry rather than the traditional direct instruction approach. I would expect Mr. Clark and other middle school educators to bring up the valid point that inquiry and discussions take time, and time is something in high-demand during NCLB-era teaching. My best advice on this is that the quick and easy way is rarely more effective or worthwhile than the long and difficult one.
4c) Finally, I would focus on the great language debate in schools today, which concerns the speech practices of particular non-mainstream cultural groups (Genishi & Dyson). I would remind teachers that their implicit and explicit beliefs about language affect children's identity development, interactions, and opportunities to use and learn language. I would urge teachers to "embrace the normalcy of difference" (Genishi & Dyson, p. 237) and to view students' languages- whatever they may be- from a capacity, rather than a deficit, framework. To help teachers understand the competences their students bring, I might suggest that they plan varieties of "recurrent, interactive events" where they can really listen to students (Genishi & Dyson), that they listen to students in both classroom and non-classroom settings, and/or that they conduct research in their own classrooms to gain insight into their students' language patterns (Adger). The teachers will likely notice that their students, particularly minority students, have amazing communicative flexibility (ability to adapt their dialects to communicate effectively in varying situations).
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W2C-003-3.txt
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Suspect arrested in minutes
Police arrested a Topeka man minutes after he allegedly robbed a downtown fast-food restaurant late Saturday.
Daniel R. Gonzales, 20, was arrested shortly after a robbery at Wendy's, 728 S.W. Topeka Blvd. Gonzales was booked into jail less than an hour after the robbery occurred, according to police and jail records.
At least two employees and one other person was inside the restaurant during the robbery, which began at 11:35 p.m. and ended seven minutes later, reports indicated. The robber gained entry into the restaurant when he broke a glass door with a blunt object. He then left with an undisclosed amount of cash.
No one was injured in the robbery, but one employee told officers the robber threatened him with the weapon, reports showed. Officers arrived four minutes after the burglary was reported and apprehended Gonzalez, who reports indicated was suspected of using alcohol, near S.W. 8th and Topeka Boulevard.
Gonzales, who listed an address of 1834 S.W. Clay, was booked into the Shawnee County Jail at 1:20 a.m. in connection with aggravated robbery, aggravated assault, aggravated burglary and criminal damage to property, all felonies.
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W2B-004-0.txt
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A yellowed clay-splattered poster hangs on the wall in Tim Ludwig's high-school ceramics classroom: "A good pot, like a person, reveals itself gradually through continual contact over long periods of time." Thousands of students have pinched, rolled, coiled and thrown pots under the spell of that Warren MacKenzie quote and the teacher who believes it. Most of them undergo a change during the 18 weeks spent in Ludwig's class at Spruce Creek High School. Some become potters for life; others never touch wet clay again, but they all gain the understanding that art and life are inseparable, that a good pot can represent a person.
Ludwig (" Lud," as past and present students call him) gets through to Kids with his own brand of humor mixed with mutual respect. He is drill sergeant, surfer dude, sage, stand-up comic, surrogate parent and artist wrapped up in a loud shirt.
The bell rings and 20 or so students snake their way through the equipment- packed classroom to a table or a potter's wheel. They take the initiative and place themselves where they will need to work. Several voluntarily begin wiping down clay-covered countertops and tables. What would their parents give to be a fly on these walls?
Ludwig, wearing Levi's, a bright T-shirt and surfer sandals, closes the door to the hallway and walks to the middle of the room. His still-blond wavy hair styled in the current "do" frames his bespectacled face, belying his 48 years. His appearance makes him unobtrusive in a roomful of teenagers who notice these things but never admit it. The "Lud Show" is about to begin.
" Listen up, boys and girls and anything else I might have missed," Ludwig says loudly, before announcing a guest. The students giggle. One girl mutters something to her neighbor and they both roll their eyes.
" Are we buddies again, Allison?" he asks her.
" I don't know," she says coolly, munching from a bag of cheese puffs and checking her fingernails.
" Well, you let me know when we are," Ludwig says. As he begins to walk away, he makes a sound with his mouth like a duck's quack. He spins around, points at Allison and bellows "Well, excuuuuuse youuuuu!" The class erupts in laughter. Even Allison cracks a smile. This is one of Ludwig's tried and true panaceas, but it never gets old.
" That's better," he says, almost to himself as he makes his way around the room to help the next student with work or with life. "I had one girl in class who was so rude, it took me 18 weeks to teach her that she couldn't go through life that way or everyone would just hate her," he recalls. "At the end of the year she gave me a note that said, 'Thank you, Mr. Ludwig. I don't think I'm so rude anymore.'
'mICE-USA:W2B-004#30:1> "I'm a kid person," Ludwig admits. 'm "I can play with them and tease them and do weird things. That's very entertaining for them. Everything is very loosey-goosey and they like that. And I like it, too.
" It disrupts what they think life's about, and it makes them think a little bit more. Maybe they'll pay more attention to 'llings around them, then tie it into their work."
Ludwig's ceramics program at this secondary school in Port Orange, Florida, just south of Daytona Beach, is better equipped than many university programs. He was hired when the school opened in 1975, so he was able to plan the space and procure the equipment needed to run a proper ceramics program. Students who get an early start in Ludwig's program might spend four years seriously working in clay before entering college. More than one has been disappointed when forced to make mugs in college Ceramics 101 after throwing intricate teapots in Ludwig's class.
" A lot of kids say that they want to be a pottery teacher after taking my class," he says, "but I had to work very hard for what we have here at Spruce Creek. It's not the normal situation."
Ludwig came into the ceramics world through the back door. After completing a bachelor's degree in fine arts from the University of Florida (U.F.) in 1968, he needed a job to support himself and his wife. He was offered a job teaching elementary art at South and North Ridgewood Elementary Schools in Daytona Beach. He had never thought about becoming a teacher, but the offer was enticing. The pay was $6400 a year, and he jumped at it. "We were living on nothing, and that was a lot of money to me at the time."
By 1970, he was teaching art at Daytona's Mainland High School. He sensed the students were frustrated with traditional painting and drawing so he decided to try something a little unconventional.
One day, he "loaded them all on a bus and took them to the St. Johns River. We dug our own clay from the riverbanks, made a bunch of pinch pots and fired them over an open fire. We brought some clay back to school and started making pots. It was so spontaneous and the kids loved it. They almost burned the schoolhouse down. They thought that was really neat."
Ludwig's previous clay experience was limited to a mixed-media class at Stetson University. His U.F. major had been printmaking and lithography.
" So while I was teaching the kids about pots, I was learning about pots. I try to avoid showing them how to do things, but still I want them to see what people have done with clay and how expressive they've been," he sa 've "I want them to feel the impact that a piece of pottery can have. I always talk to them about the favorite cup thing: How Mom or Dad has a favorite cup, and how upset they would be if it got broken. This little clay object, this little materialistic thing can mean so much. That's an important fact of life that a student can connect with."
He interrupts his conversation and yells across the room to a boy coiling a long piece of rolled clay around the lid of a half-finished jar. "Hey! Does your mother know you left the house wearing that shirt? Man, that is one uuuuuugly shirt!"
The startled boy looks down at himself, then at Ludwig. They are wearing the same orange and yellow striped shirt. Again the class bursts into laughter.
" He's the funniest teacher I've ever had," Am 've Boye says quietly. "He always tells really corny jokes.
" But he's not just our teacher," she adds, looking around to be certain Ludwig can't hear. "He's our friend. He gives us the option to think for ourselves. Other teachers tell us what to think."
" I tell them that whatever they do to their pots, that's what they are," Ludwig says. "If they copy that's what they are. If they are technical and precise, that's what they are. Nobody is going to change what they are. That's why I constantly stress this honesty thing to the kids. I tell them, 'Don't worry about what you do; just be honest about what you're doing. 're
Effie Pappas looks up from the lidded jar upon which she is carefully applying streaks and lines of colored slips. "You don't just learn about pots in this class," she says. "You learn about yourself from the way you make pots. And when you break a pot, it's like you break a piece of you."
The students are assigned various projects to be completed during the semester. Some are specific vessel forms, such as pitchers, vases, bowls and teapots. Others are more ambiguous, such as the slab project that usually leads to some large geometric shape, or a drapemold project that requires students to disguise their pots so that the original mold shapes cannot be determined. More esoteric projects required in a recent Ludwig class included a teapot that had to resemble a vegetable, fruit or plant, and a "collaborative cup" where each student started a basic cup shape then passed it on to a neighbor for completion.
Occasionally, there will be a project on a grander scale that requires the cooperation of many students of different skill levels. Every year, for example, they participate in the "Empty Bowls" project, a national program for which potters make bowls, then local restaurants donate soup to fill the bowls to raise money to help the homeless.
Another large project recently undertaken by the students was a commission from a local delicatessen owner whose daughter was one of Ludwig's students. He needed 200 jar lids to replace the chipped and cracked ones that were covering his table jars of mustard and relish, plus he ordered 48 new lidded jars. The money raised bought art books, videos and a new clay mixer to replace the school's old mortar mixer, which frequently deposited metal scrapings into the clay.
Three years ago, during the summer, Ludwig and his students designed and constructed a gas-fired salt kiln. After gathering information from potters throughout the United States who were using such kilns, they decided to adjust a common design in an attempt to avoid possible hazardous situations (such as burns and back injuries) in a school environment.
Although some of the potters using a two-burner Big Bertha system said they were not fully convinced of its success, Ludwig and his students believed that bringing the burners in through the back of the kiln on either side of the chimney-rather than from the front or sides-would provide a more natural draft while maintaining a safe distance between kiln-loading teenagers and red- hot burners. They also included a short bag wall against the side walls-in addition to the normal bag wall positioned between the firebox and the ware chamber-to prevent the salt from deteriorating the hardbrick. The result is a 40-cubic-foot, downdraft, sprung-arch kiln that performs faithfully every two weeks, reaching Cone 8-10 in about nine or ten hours.
Spruce Creek is also fortunate enough to have a 36-cubic-foot, wood-fired kiln. Built by Ludwig and his students during the 1985-86 school year with the help of former Florida potter George Lowe, it fires to Cone 10-12 in about 14 hours. During the first couple of firings, the students experienced a few problems, but they quickly learned that the loading and the placement of the pots in the kiln were essential to the success of the firing.
Ludwig teaches a full school year and offers a short summer program on his own time for students who want to learn more or who need to make up work, but he still finds time to create his own art as well. His vigorous flash-fired vessels and low-temperature salt-fired "parodies of pots"--watering cans that don't water, for example--have been featured at the Daytona Beach Museum of Art, the Harris House Gallery at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, and the Albertson/Peterson Gallery in Winter Park, Florida.
Ludwig says working in his home pottery studio has helped him grow as a teacher because he is enthusiastic about making pots and "students pick up on that. I wanted to make sure that whatever I was doing at home, I was still carrying it back to the classroom.
" The kids understand I'm being 'monest about what I want them to do because I go home and practice what I preach. I think they sometimes have trouble believing teachers when teachers don't practice what they preach. That's not to say those aren't good teachers. What makes a good teacher? Did he/she get you the information? Did you learn that information? Were you then able to apply that information? If a teacher can do that, then maybe that's a good teacher. But I think they have to go beyond that. A teacher has to be a role model. So I'm a r 'me model. I'm a f 'mher figure. I think it's important that what I say that I do and say is really what I do and say."
Ludwig is a real father figure to his own two daughters, Gretchen and Meagan. Gretchen took his class last year to experience it from the outside. "So many students have stayed in touch and come to the house over the years I think she wanted to see what it was like. But I don't think she has a future in pottery," he laughs.
Last year, his peers voted him Teacher of the Year--the award of which he is most proud. "The best part was walking through the halls and being congratulated by students who weren't even mine."
It used to be that kids would pass the word to their up-and-coming high-schooler siblings that Ludwig's ceramics classes were the smart scheduling choice to make. And with each September, the children of the children he taught early in his career are appearing almost as frequently.
" I'm w 'mking a lot harder than I've 'veer worked. After 24 years of teaching, you' 'dthink I' 'dhave this thing down. But I do not. I want to learn so much more, because I' 'mso involved in my work. I' 'mexcited about it, and I want my students to be excited about it. I think that's one of the keys to my success with them. I 'm going to be teaching at least another 10 years and I sure as hell don't want to sit for that long and not progress. It would be unfair to the students and to me.
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W2D-013-0.txt
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How to Lucid Dream
Lucid dreaming is being aware of the fact that you are dreaming. This awareness can range from very faint recognition of the fact (which is often too brief and nebulous to be considered truly lucid) to something as momentous as a broadening of awareness beyond what has ever been experienced even in waking life. What a dreamer does with lucidity reflects personal tendencies and levels of skill attained usually through experience and practice. Although a lucid dreamer can influence the dream's structure, characters, course, etc., it is not a given that a lucid dream is about what the dreamer wants it to be about. Seasoned lucid dreamers who are more often lucid than not will continue to encounter psychological and developmental challenges in the dreamscape. The agreeable and the distressing, the easy and difficult, beautiful and horrifying, are all occasioned much as they are in regular dreaming. But whereas a regular dream is filled with the convoluted subtleties of the subconscious mind enumerating its issues before a largely unconscious dreamer, a lucid dreamer has the opportunity to consciously explore at any level.
Lucid dreams usually occur while a person is in the middle of a regular dream and suddenly realizes that he or she is dreaming. The person is then said to be "lucid", and may enter one of many levels of lucidity. At the lowest level, the dreamer may be dimly aware that he or she is dreaming, but not think rationally enough to realize that events/people/actions in the dream are not real/pose no threat. At the highest level, the dreamer is fully aware that she or he is asleep, and can have complete control over his or her actions in the dream. However, with low mental control your decisions could be biased not by your opinion, but by your brain. You can control your dreams using the lucid dreaming methods that follow.
During the day, repeatedly ask 'Am I dreaming?' and perform some reality checks whenever you remember. With practice, if it happens enough, you will automatically remember it during your dreams and do it.
Keep a dream journal. This is perhaps the most important step towards lucid dreaming. Keep it close by your bed at night, and write in it immediately after waking. Or you can keep a recording device if you find it easier to repeat your dream out loud. This helps you recognize your common dream elements (people from your past, specific places, etc.), and also tells your brain that you are serious about remembering your dreams! It will also help you to recognize things that are unique to your dreams. You will be able to recognize your own "dream signs."
These will be recurring things or events that you may notice in your dreams.
Learn the best time to have a lucid dream. By being aware of your personal sleepschedule, you can arrange your sleep pattern to help induce lucid dreams.
Studies strongly suggest that a nap a few hours after waking in the morning is the most common time to have a lucid dream.
Lucid dreams are strongly associated with REM sleep. REM sleep is more abundant just before the final awakening. This means they most commonly occur right beforewaking up. (Sleep-onset REM is a symptom of narcolepsy. If you have lucid dreams right after falling asleep, you may wish to consider seeking medical advice from a sleep medicine specialist. However, there are studies which show people can recall dreams after being awakened during non-REM sleep).
Dreams usually run in 60-minute (Weiten Psych book 2004) cycles during sleep. If you are working on dream recall, it may be helpful to try waking yourself up during one of these cycles (interrupted dreams are often the ones we remember).
Try Stephen Laberge's mnemonic induction of lucid dreaming (MILD) technique. Set your alarm clock to wake you up 4 1/2, 6, or 7 1/2 hours after falling asleep. When you are awakened by your alarm clock, try to remember the dream as much as possible. When you think you have remembered as much as you can, return to your place of rest, imagining that you are in your previous dream, and becoming aware that you are dreaming. Say to yourself, "I will be aware that I'm dr 'mming," or something similar. Do this until you think that it has "sunk in."
Then go to sleep.
If random thoughts pop up when you are trying to fall asleep, repeat the imagining, self-suggestion part, and try again. Don't worry if you think it's taking a long time. The longer it takes, the more likely it will'sink in,' and the more likely you will have a lucid dream.
Attempt the WBTB (Wake Back To Bed) Technique. This is the most successful technique. Fall asleep. Set your alarm clock to 5 hours after you fall asleep. After you wake up, stay up for an hour with your mind focused on lucidity and lucidity only. Go back to sleep using the MILD technique.
Try attempting the WILD (wake initiated lucid dream) technique. Basically what it means is that when you fall asleep you carry your awareness from when you were awake directly into REM sleep and you start out as a lucid dream. The easiest way to attempt this technique is if you take an afternoon nap or you have only slept for 3-7 hours.
Try to meditate into a calm but focused state. You can try counting breaths, imaging ascending/descending stairs, dropping through the solar system, being in a quiet soundproof area, etc. Listening to Theta binaural beats for an amount time will easily put you into a REM sleep. See the warnings at the bottom, as these are very important.
Another technique for overall "dream awareness" is the Diamond Method of meditation, which can shortcut the overall learning curve, of Lucid Dreaming. When one meditates, try to visualize your life, both awake and dream-life as facets on a diamond. Some choose to call this "diamond" the Universe, others God, and even "your Spirit."
The point here is to begin to recognize that life is happening all at once. It is only our "Perception" that arranges our dramas into linear or "timed" order. So just as a diamond just is, each facet if viewed as an individual experience, still is going on at the same time the "Dream Body" experiences as well. This method is also known by Remote Viewers. Remember it is just a slight shift in awareness that this exercise calls for.
Immerse yourself in the subject of lucid dreaming. For example, you can look on lucid dreaming websites, watch movies with lucid dreaming (eg. Waking Life, Vanilla sky, Inception), read books about it, etc...
Try marking an "A" (which stands for "awake") on your palm. Every time you notice the "A" during your waking hours challenge whether you are awake or asleep. Eventually you may see the "A" in your sleep and become lucid.
Get into the habit of doing reality checks. Do at least three reality checks every time something seems out of the ordinary, strongly frustrating, or nonsensical, and that habit will carry on into your dreams. In a dream, these will tell you that you are sleeping, allowing you to become lucid. In order to remember to do reality checks in dreams, you need to establish a habit of doing reality checks in real life. One way to do a reality check is to look for "dream signs" (elements that frequently occur during your dreams, look for these in your dream journal), or things that would not normally exist in real life, and then conduct the reality checks. When these actions become habit, a person will begin to do them in her or his dreams, and can come to the conclusion that he/she is dreaming. Frequently doing reality checks can stabilize dreams. This is also known as DILD (Dream Induced Lucid Dreams). Some tactics include:
Looking at a digital clock to see if it stays constant; looking at a body of text, looking away, and then looking back to see if it has changed; Flipping a light switch; Looking in a mirror (your image will most often appear blurry or not appear at all in a dream). However, your figure can be horribly disfigured in a mirror, frightening you into nightmare or a dream. Pinching your nose closed and trying to breathe; Glancing at your hands, and asking yourself, "am I dreaming?" (when dreaming, you will most often see greater or fewer than five fingers on your hand); Jumping in the air; you are usually able to fly during dreams Poking yourself; when dreaming, your "flesh" might be more elastic than in real life; a common reality check is pushing your finger through the palm of your hand; Pinch/poke your arm. In a dream, you shouldn't be able to feel your pinch/bite. However, this may not work since in a dream, actions can still have effects on your body. Try leaning against a wall. In dreams, you will often fall through walls.
Prolong lucid dreams by spinning your body or falling backwards in the dream (suspected of prolonging REM), and rubbing your hands (prevents you from feeling the sensation of lying in bed). Take care while spinning. Remind yourself even as you spin or fall that you are dreaming, as you will find yourself in a completely different location when you stop spinning or hit the ground and may lose lucidity otherwise. If you feel a dream'shakes' or is about to fade out, look down to the ground and visualize your surroundings, reminding yourself you are dreaming. Be Pro-active about your dream. Have a goal in mind and try to accomplish it.
Listen to Binaural Beats. Binaural Beats are often used to induce lucid dreams, and many assure this method dramatically improves success rate. Theoretically, listening to Binaural Beats lowers brain frequencies, triggering different effects such as relaxation and dream induction. Look for Theta binaural beats, as they use the same brainwave frequency used in dreams. You may also want to listen to Alpha and Delta binaural beats as they help you relax and fall into non-REM sleep.
" 'Look through previous dreams in your Dream Journal"'. If you start to notice patterns in your dreams, you will notice dream-signs, or certain things that continue to reappear in your dreams. This may be as basic as all dreams are in your backyard, or all your dreams have fans in them. Get into the habit of doing dream checks every time you see your dream sign, and eventually you 'll see your dream sign IN a dream, do a check and realize you 're dreaming..
Modified Look at Hand Method
As you prepare for sleep each night, sit in your bed and take a minute to relax. look at the palms of your hands for 30 minutes, and repeat to yourself, "I will dream about", "your own dream."
Continue to repeat this phrase, "I will dream about", "your own dream" as you look at your hands. After the thirty minutes, or whenever you get tired turn off the light and go to sleep.
When you wake during the night, Look at your hand, and say the same phrase. If you did not see your hands, remind yourself of your intent to see your hands in the next dream.
With consistent practice of this phrase each night before sleep, you will suddenly see your hands pop up in front of you when dreaming, and consciously realize, "My hands!" Oh my gosh! This is a dream.
Lucid dreaming may be helpful for people who frequently experience nightmares, as it gives them a chance to take control of their dreams.
It is fun to fly in lucid dreams. To start flying try bouncing higher and higher after each step (while "walking" in the dream.) Some find that they need to train themselves, while others can just think that they want to fly, and therefore lift off the ground, and start to hover. You can also try walking on walls or the ceiling, as flying for the first time can be intimidating if you are not totally convinced that you are dreaming. Many people experience flying as being very natural and very exhilarating.
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W2B-025-0.txt
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The pipeline for geoscience professionals, men and women, begins well before the first employment and before the first undergraduate college course. It begins some time during pre-college education. Motivation supporting the choice of geoscience as a career varies from rocks, fossils, and other collectibles gathered in childhood exploration, to fascination with abstract concepts of Earth, such as the K/T boundary, plate tectonics and global-climate change. Yet, for women this often is not enough.
To develop that gleam of interest in earth science into a career, those elements or concepts must be polished by formal training. But even at the middle- or junior-high level, when most earth-science courses are taught, only 23 percent of students are exposed at all to earth science in their academic curriculum. So the problems experienced by women students begin with the dearth of pre-college experiences in earth science. Females face more problems because they experience science education in a negative learning environment that may result in diminished self-esteem and minimal opportunities for experiencing positive role-models.
Studies on the classroom environment have led many researchers to support the thesis that classroom socialization has a significant impact on the self-esteem of students. Problems include teacher bias against girls in selection of girls as activity leaders, equitable treatment in question-and-answer sessions and, generally, in the low expectations of high-quality performance by girls in science. Parents of girls also show these biases.
The term girl-friendly science describes a learning environment that supports female students. Some factors contributing to such an environment include individual and small-group activities, student-directed inquiry, cooperative rather than competitive student arrangements, equal access to physical tasks (especially equipment use), and opportunities for successful learning experiences. The goal is for all students to be encouraged to take part, to respond, and to encourage each other.
Bud Chipman's model indicates participation in higher education is affected mainly by an individual's expectation of success, which includes such factors as self-perceived ability (self-esteem), social stereotypes, and prior experiences. Chipman's model provides a clear schematic for addressing relevant factors to improve the educational--or professional--environment.
Another problem is the image of scientists portrayed in science textbooks. Surveys, even quite recent ones, show that illustrations of white male scientists are predominant. Without exposure to women scientists, young women do not usually perceive themselves in that role. In one study of five major biology texts (1983 and 1985) from major U.S. publishers, illustrations of females were 30 percent, 35 percent, 34 percent, 49 percent, and 32 percent of all depictions (Kahle & Matyas, 1987). Note that the percentage of female Ph.D. recipients in biology in 1988 was 35 percent. That corresponds closely to the percentages of women shown in the textbooks, perhaps a positive element for students. Similar studies of geoscience texts have not been reported.
Another analysis compares students' self-perception of their skills to their grades. Girls usually perceive themselves to be less successful than their male peers, although their grades indicate that they perform as well as or better than their male counterparts (Widnall, 1988).
Negative socialization practices are also evident in graduate education, where it may have its most clearly measured effect on the participation of women in science. Although standardized text scores indicate that women have superior achievement in verbal and analytical test areas, and males have superior achievement in math, surveys indicate that women enter graduate school at a rate about equal to men relative to their participation in baccalaureate degrees. The preparedness of women students is also about equal to males as shown by grade-point average. Yet women seem to have less success at achieving graduate degrees, particularly doctoral degrees, despite entering the programs as well prepared as their male counterparts (Widnall, 1988).
Anecdotal surveys suggest that this difference is the result of the poor quality of interpersonal support of women students by faculty and by men students. Women indicate that they receive less information about internal processes, such as opportunities for financial and research support, participation in department meetings and informal news-sharing activities, and anecdotal information on handling qualifying exams. Also, women students report that they have fewer meetings with thesis advisers, less useful feedback from faculty, fewer opportunities for responsibility within a research group, and problems with peer acceptance in student networks and study groups (Widnall, 1988). Many aspects of successful graduate education require mentors, since learning the non-academic aspects of a profession is based largely in supportive guidance.
Mildred Dresselhaus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, suggests, "If the practices of those departments that have been most successful at retaining women could be adopted by those experiencing serious problems, it should be very easy to double the number of women degree recipients. Good climates for women tend to have more women role models, well-established equal-opportunity environments, career-development networks, and, most important, the commitment of their top officers."
Many of these problems also surface in the professional ranks of women in geoscience. The lack of female geoscience faculty, particularly at the full-professor level, has been reported by Maria L. Crawford and others in several papers. Barriers for women academic professionals include many of those for women graduate students, but also include problems of access to promotion and tenure, minimal support for family care situations, and even questions of credibility and quality of work, despite proven track records of research and publications (Brush, 1991). Women geoscientists in other employment sectors reflect similar problems.
The chilly climate for women in science is not restricted to the geosciences, but it does seem more exaggerated. A recent survey of starting salaries for baccalaureate geoscientists shows that women in geoscience have the least equity in compensation (68 percent) compared with their male counterparts and with other scientific disciplines (Committee on Professionals in Science and Technology, 1990).
Despite the high percentage of women students considering geoscience as a career, (as high as 42 percent of freshman/sophomore enrollment) the number is diminished to a mere 19 percent of the doctoral degrees awarded in geoscience. However, the leaky pipeline is not a hopeless fixture. By reinforcing support across transition points, that is, at high school-to-college, undergraduate-to-graduate school, and graduate school-to-professional population, much of this wasted human resource can be retained. The chief effort must be to improve the quality of the educational experience. Improving professional opportunities is even more crucial; without that improvement all other efforts are likely to have little effect.
FOR OIL: Effects on land, air, and sea
Iraq invaded Kuwait Aug. 2,1990. During the eight months that followed, preparing for and conducting war in the Persian Gulf (known by Arabs as the Arabian Gulf) region caused much degradation to the air, land and sea. Environmental impacts on the atmosphere resulted from the burning of oil wells, on the Gulf water from several oil spills, and on the land from disturbances of the desert surface.
Wanton explosion of 732 oil wells resulted in oppressive pollution of the air as it carried chemicals and soot particles, s well as droplets of unburned oil. Sulfur oxides combined with water to form acid rain that with other products increased the acidity of soils, suffocated desert plants and locally caused severe respiratory problems to humans.
Early predictions of a global meteorological disaster proved wrong. The forecasts of a "nuclear winter" over Europe and the rest of the world were not based on knowledge of the wind directions in the Gulf region. They also did not take into account the fact that particulates from the burning wells are too heavy to rise to the stratosphere and spread around the globe. These particulates remained mostly below 8,000 feet and did not rise much above 22,000 feet. Thus, their effects remained in the region of the Arabian Peninsula and nearby areas of northwestern India and East Africa.
Thanks to unprecedented efforts of 27 teams of firefighters, the last oil-well fires were capped in November 1991. However, trails of the fire plumes remain etched on the desert surface as a deposit of soot and oil droplets up to two inches thick. These trails betray the prevailing wind direction of the winter and particularly summer Shamal winds from the north/northwest.
The coastal and marine environments of the western Gulf were drastically affected by oil spills estimated at eight million barrels. The slow counter-clockwise water currents of the Gulf moved the oil along the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, endangering marine life, polluting hundreds of miles of coastline and threatening water desalination plants. Nearly two million barrels of oil were skimmed off the Gulf water at two locations near Dhahran and Jubail in Saudi Arabia.
As the light components of oil evaporated from air exposure and the high temperature of the Gulf water, heavy components found their way either to coastal areas or sank to the bottom. At the northern tip of Qatar 300 miles south of Kuwait, more than 10 feet of coastline are covered with heavy oil. In many places, this tarry layer was superimposed on remains of the 1983oil spill that was a result of the Iran/Iraq war.
Skimmed oil from the coastal water and beaches is stored in large pools or in heaps in the open desert. One major concern is whether some of it might seep through fractures to pollute ground-water resources that are used in agriculture.
Effects on the land surface of Kuwait and northeastern Saudi Arabia are even more serious. In Kuwait, hundreds of oil lakes stud the desert surface. These were formed from wells that were destroyed but did not catch fire, as well as from burning wells that had to be kept flowing so as to cool after the fires were put out. These lakes, up to eight feet deep, remain a death trap for insects and birds, emit noxious gases, and may also seep to pollute the ground water.
Changes to the contours of the land by building trenches, berms and other sand walls, and hiding places for military equipment, personnel, and ammunition, destroyed much of the desert pavement. This pavement is usually a one-grain thick layer of pebbles that protects fine-grained soil from wind action. The disruption of this layer resulted in whirling fine particles as dust by the Shamal winds, and the accumulation of sand-size particles into dunes. These dunes have already blocked roads in northern Kuwait and their continued movement threatens farms and other installations in the open desert.
Efforts have now begun to assess the damage to the region from the Gulf War and to plan environmental monitoring in the future. As a first step, a joint research project is being planned between Boston University and the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research to use satellite imagery to assess the damage, followed by field confirmations. It is believed that although the damage to the atmosphere were short-lived, the impact on the Gulf water may persist for decades and the effects on the desert surface may last for centuries.
SYNTHETIC QUAKES MODEL FOR LONG-TERM PREDICTION
By Steven N. Ward
Long-term earthquake prediction is one of the major goals of seismologists, like myself. Long-term predictions are couched in probabilities. For example, "There is a 30 percent chance of a magnitude 7 or greater quake occurring on a certain section of a fault within the next 30 years." The staple of long-term predictions is, of course, the statistics of earthquake recur-rence.
Most simply, the statistics reduce to a probability function containing two parameters: (formula), the mean repeat time of a certain size quake at a given place; and (formula), the variation of the recurrence interval about the mean. Naturally, forecasts developed from probability functions are only as good as the observations that constrain their parameters. In the past, the observations have been restricted almost exclusively to the repetition intervals of large historical earthquakes. Unfortunately, well-documented repetitions rarely number more than about five, so the fitting of even two parameters to these intervals entails considerable uncertainty, and confidence in the resulting prediction suffers. Consider the pattern of this century's large earthquakes along the Middle America Trench in southwest Mexico. From this data, imagine trying to determine(formula) or (formula) of the probability function controlling earthquake recurrence at any position along the coast. It's nearly impossible. Simply, there are not enough samples to say just how regularly or irregularly earthquakes strike.
In view of the fundamental restrictions in sampling earthquake recurrences, it seems to me that refinements in long-term earthquake prediction will have to spring from more innovative approaches. Here, computer simulation comes into play. Suppose that I can build a "credible" synthetic model of seismicity. If so, the sampling problem would be eliminated. Synthetic seismicity has an advantage over the real thing in that computer histories can be extended indefinitely to collect a statistically significant number of earthquake recurrences, whether it takes 500 computer years, or 5,000 or 50,000.
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W2C-010-1.txt
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Drug abuse is still tearing at families.
Officials say drug abuse is still tearing at families Reports of abuse, neglect are down, but still severe.
Rampant drug abuse among parents continues to tear apart thousands of Milwaukee County families, although authorities reported a reduction this year in the number of families whose children suffer from abuse and neglect.
The county Department of Health and Human Services will have investigated about 8,500 cases of child abuse and neglect by the end of this year. That compares to an all time high of about 9,100 cases investigated last year, department spokesman Jeff Aikin said.
" This will probably be our second biggest year of referrals ever," Aikin said.
Department records show that nearly 80% of al%; child neglect cases involve parents who are drug abusers. A smaller but significant number of child abuse cases also involve parents who abuse drugs, he said.
Social workers said that aside from drug abuse, high-risk indicators of child abuse and neglect included poverty, teenage parenthood and single parenthood. And despite the decline in the number of cases, the seriousness of child neglect and abuse incidents continue to increase.
One extreme example cited by Aikin occurred / 1.20, when 10 Milwaukee children, including three who authorities said were severely malnourished, were removed from their 38-year-old mother's home. The woman, who told police she uses cocaine, was charged Friday with Three counts of child neglect and one count of child abuse. All the children were turned over to the county's Department of Social Services and are residing in foster agencies to dehomes.
The woman's 3-year-old boy weighed 20.2 pounds, a 28-month-old girl weighed 17.7 pounds and a 16-month-old girl weighed 17.9 pounds, a criminal complaint says. Police and social workers sent to the home Dec. 20 found belt marks on the chest and back of the 3-year-old boy.
The mother said the marks were caused by a belt she used for toilet training. In addition the 16-month-old had two infected ears and a perforated eardrum and the 28-month-old had inflamed membranes in her ears caused by dehydration and malnutrition, the complaint says. The children were taken to Children's Hospital of Wisconsin for treatment of malnutrition and dehydration.
Hospital personnel said the weights of the three were far below normal. Normal weights for healthy children of average height aged 3 years for boys, 28 months for girls and 16 months for girls should be about 32 pounds, 27.5 pounds and 23 pounds, respectively, hospital officials said.
Authorities, who reported there was ample food in the house, said the woman's other children were not suffering from malnutrition. The woman acknowledged that her three youngest children looked ill police said. "All the cases we' 'reseeing are more aggravated now than they were 10 or 15 years ago," Aikin said. "We' 'rehoping that a number of initiatives put into place by Milwaukee County and various private agencies to deal with child abuse are having an impact.
1 MILLION SPENT IN PREVENTION PROGRAMS
To help curb such incidents of child abuse and neglect, Milwaukee county spends about $1 million in tax dollars a year for prevention programs. In the past five years, Aikin said, the number of programs initiated through area hospitals and private social service groups has increased. First-time parent programs provide services for new parents. Teenage parent programs offer education to teenagers, regardless of how many children they have. Abuse counseling is available for parents who were victims of child abuse. "There are a number of efforts underway. Aikin said. "We' 'rehoping it is having an impact. It's always difficult to measure success. But if we measure it in the number of cases we 're seeing, then we 're having some impact.
The proposed Rail Energy prices is no longer a good one for struggling businesses like Ash Grove Cement of Montana City. The cement making business, which earlier in the year used diesel generators to make its own power because it could not find cheap electricity, now has an affordable contract, said Ash Grove environmental manager Joe Scheeler.
The cement plant dismantled its generators at the beginning of the month.
" We latched onto a contract for three months, enough to get through the summer," Scheeler said. "Then we got a deal on a four-to-six year contract."
Rail Energy also planned to locate six more power producing locomotives north of Three Forks at Trident. The fate of that project is also pending.
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W2F-005-0.txt
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Spring Tide
Vulma and Me
by Wayne Rhodes
My father, who grew up on a Pennsylvania farm, loved the ocean and thought every boy should have his own boat. So one spring, he spent several evenings by our seaside home working under a lantern late into the night. Eagerly, I fetched the tools and held the tape measure while he marked carefully with the flat carpenter's pencil he kept tucked behind his ear. Each night after putting the baby to bed, Mom came outside to watch. "It's going to be a beautiful boat," she said as she stood in the lantern's glow, wind pressing her skirt to her knees, blowing her dark, wavy hair into her eyes.
The boat was a sturdy ten-foot skiff, a three-seater with a small keel that caused it to pitch slightly when ashore as if riding the crest of a wave. Each spring I sanded the peeling paint, caulked the seams, primed inside and out, then chose new colors. The first year, I painted it emerald green, the second, navy blue. But the year my boat drifted off, it was scarlet with white trim and a waterline outlined in black.
When we heard it had washed ashore on the other side of the harbor, anchoring itself in a tangle of marsh grass, I was relieved. I hadn't notice the new moon, and the spring tide had lifted my boat from it's perch. As my father and I drove across town in his pickup to retrieve it, I felt like his foolish child.
The town was quiet and fall-like that July day. Whitecaps rose on the deep water like goose flesh. On such days you can taste salt on your lips and later when you try to comb your hair, you find it hopelessly matted and snarled and gritty with sand.
As we passed Egg Island, men with waders and long-handle rakes combed the flats, leaving deep, purple scars in the smooth, brown silt while gulls wheeled expectantly overhead. A few sunbathers dotted the shore, most lying between dunes or beside the breakwater seeking shelter from wind and sand. In the channel, two or three outboards surged onward like salmon.
That day, I had more on my mind than weather or lost boats. While surveying the empty landscape, my thoughts turned to my mother who for the second time in two months was gone without warning--once to visit her sister, this time her mother, or so I was told. Before she left, my parents talked in their bedroom late into the night. I heard no words, only voices, intermittent and foreboding, like waves before a storm. The next morning, my mother stood by the door in her blue travel dress with the small, white polka dots. She kissed my sister and me good-bye and said, "Behave for your father. I watched my father who stood holding Mom's suitcase, one hand on the doorknob. As though caught in a lie, he never looked up.
Always my father had been quiet, but during that spring and summer he seemed lost. Some days, he sat at the breakfast table resting his forehead in one hand, a cigarette smoldering in the other, its cool white ashes falling silently on the table. Other times, he stirred his coffee absently, the cup ringing softly like a tiny bell.
Mom busied herself in the kitchen washing out coffee cups, mixing pancake batter, struggling with a can of frozen orange juice. "Eat your breakfast," she told Kristen, "and you'll be big an 'll strong like your brother."
Even Kristen seemed to know something was up: "What's the matter, Daddy? Are you sad?" she asked kneeling on her chair, rocking back and forth in her Rocky and Bullwinkle pajamas, stirring her Lucky Charms.
After Mom left, Kristen and I were on our own most of the time. Dad usually came home from the fish market at 5:30 and handed me a bag of groceries. While he showered and I scrubbed the potatoes, Kristen asked, "When is Mommy coming home?"
Soon," I told her.
After dinner, Dad kissed Kristen good night, said, "Mind your brother," and left. Often, I waited up all hours listening from my bedroom window for his truck. Always, he turned off the headlights before turning into the darkened driveway. He closed the cab door softly and walked slowly across the gravel surface. Once inside, he took off his shoes and, in his stocking feet, crept up the creaking stairs and past my bedroom door where I lay still, quietly cursing him for his silence.
My father and I traced the shoreline around the harbor, past dunes and beach grass, past the marina, the bait shop, and the Tastee Freeze. Dad had the truck radio tuned to a country-western station. There was one song--the name escapes me, but sometimes even now when it's late at night and everything is still, that deep, trembling voice and the soft sighs of those steel guitars, they all come back to me just as if they had never stopped.
When we spotted the grounded boat, Dad backed the truck into a clearing beside the road. We let down the tailgate, then walked through beach grass and over deep sand. The boat sat about twenty yards beyond a shallow tidal pool.
" We'll have to 'llde out," my father said.
" I'll go," I 'lld him as I took off my sneakers and rolled up my jeans. While my father waited, he lit a cigarette, turning his back to the wind and cupping the match in his hands.
Cautiously, I stepped over the rocky shoreline to the cool water's edge. When I neared the boat, fiddler crabs scurried into their holes, and terns, protecting nearby nests, swooped toward me and screeched warnings. I grabbed the boat and wrenched it free, eventually tugging it into the water. I looked up, but Dad didn't see me. He stared across the harbor at the rows of cottages and the eroding dunes.
Once I reached shore, Dad took the bow and I the stern as we trudged through the sand toward the truck. We loaded it stern first, each taking a side, lifting it up and sliding it onto the truck bed. Dad handed me my shoes, and I sat on the tailgate with my back against the boat while I brushed the sand from my feet and laced my sneakers. Again he stared across the bay, lingering briefly before stepping into the cab.
At first, we rode in silence. Finally, about halfway home, my father spoke. He said my mother was at the hospital--not my grandmother's, not my aunt's. The first time for tests, this time, surgery. I listened calmly to my father's calm words: "We didn't want to worry you," he said. "The doctors say there's this new treatment, some new medicine. Who knows? If things haven't gone too far--"
As he spoke, my mind wandered: I lay in a lawn chair on the front deck, eyes closed as the sun warmed my face. Overhead an airplane droned, miles off and fading, and from an upstairs window came my mother's voice as she sang the baby to sleep.
By evening the wind had stopped. After dinner, I left Kristen with the neighbors and took the boat out, rowing in long, smooth strokes, oarlocks rumbling, oars knifing the surface, leaving faint whirling ripples in the glassy sea, propelling me farther and farther over the deep, blue water, past the jetty, out where you can see everything--draggers tied to long, jagged rows of marina pilings, scattered sloops moored in the harbor basin, gray shingled cottages clustered along the shore, white clapboard houses with their tall peaks and dormers perched on higher ground, and the tarnished copper steeple of the Congregational church towering above all else. Finally, I put up the oars and sat adrift, my wake quickly swallowed by the stillness. A heavy silence hung over the town and covered the bay. I heard no surf, no wind, no voices, only distant sighs from the whistle buoy and water dripping from my oars.
My mother lived barely two months more. A few weeks before Mom died, Dad took Kristen and me to see her. Shrunken and childlike, curled beneath her hospital sheets, she moaned for the doctors to leave her alone. After that one visit, Dad never took us again.
It was over three years before I really understood what it meant. The moving men had finished loading the tractor trailer. My father, his second wife, and Kristen had already left for their new home in Florida. Since I was staying with friends for the rest of my senior year, it was my job to close up our house.
After the huge truck pulled away, I walked through our home for the last time. The rooms looked spacious and unfamiliar. Gone were the things that had surrounded me my whole life--the wicker rocking chair, the camelback sofa, my mother's carnival glass, the set of Funk and Wagnalls on the mantel, the wedding pictures on the den wall. As I walked through each room, across the bare wood floors, my footsteps echoed.
Before leaving, I opened the cellar door, pulled the light chain, and found my way down the narrow stairs to the concrete floor. The musty smell of old clothes and newspapers lingered. The tool boxes, cabinets, wardrobes, and chests had all been packed away, making the cellar appear cavernous in the dim light.
Off to one side by the window wells sat my boat, belly-up beneath a naked light bulb, resting on the same spindly, paint-speckled saw horses my father had used when he built it. Seeing it there all by itself made me realize how, in a sense, my family too had been swept away and left adrift unprepared for the coming tide.
Lingering briefly alongside the boat, I chipped away at its peeling paint and ran my hand over its worn keel. For a moment, I saw my father sitting beside me in his truck on the day we recovered the boat, his hair windblown, his face taut. I felt the cool north wind and the salt's sting.
Then, I saw my mother and father standing beside my unfinished boat, arm in arm under the lantern light, both of them smiling like newlyweds. Vulma and Me
Although Vulma did wonders for my vocabulary, words to describe her remain elusive. Onomatopoetic comes to mind, though that one might take some explaining.
Vulma and her mother had just bought a small cottage near my house, and her arrival did not go unnoticed. Everyone, including myself, considered her a kind of goddess. Auburn hair, chestnut eyes, long legs. The works. Wherever she went, heads turned. The joke around town was that her reputation preceded her... by several inches. To add to her mystique, Vulma was from Quebec and spoke with a French accent. But perhaps what bewildered people most about Vulma was the crush she had for me.
By all accounts, this should have been welcome news. After all, I'd 'deen the toothpaste ads, the chewing gum commercials, the new car calendars. I knew what was expected of me. However, there was one problem--I couldn't stand to hear her talk. You see, Vulma used words like phenomenal whenever she got the chance--as in, "Isn't this weather phenomenal?" or, "That's a phenomenal song!" Thoughts of how she learned to talk like that gave me chills. To me, Vulma's English was a foreign language. Granted, a lot of guys would have found ways around that. Believe me I tried, but I knew if she didn't have that long, wavy hair, or if her Levis didn't behave that way when she walked, she never would have crossed my mind.
When people asked why I didn't jump at the chance to be with her, I shrugged. This was the seventies, mind you, and sex was a breeze. At least it was supposed to be. After all, we had The Pill and Roe vs. Wade. Barring allergies to penicillin, you were home free. Apparently, I just wasn't with it. "You 're crazy!" guys said. A couple of them flat out wanted to punch me. If they couldn't have her, they at least wanted the benefit of some play-by-play.
As you might expect, my sexual preference quickly became a source of speculation. While I could have spent my time with Vulma, instead, I spent most of it with two guys who, to my great misfortune, happened to be named Peter and Paul. This naturally inspired someone (Peter, I think) with the brilliant idea to start calling me Mary, which by itself wouldn't have been such a big deal. But the singing--that was too much. Seeing Vulma, then, only reminded me what a phenomenal disappointment I was to my gender.
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W2C-008-0.txt
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Four times in the last five innings Wednesday, the Bozeman Bucks AA baseball team got their leadoff man on base against the Billings Scarlets. But the Bucks managed to score only once in those five frames as the Scarlets beat Bozeman 5-1 in Class AA conference action at Legion Field.
Both teams got solid pitching from their starters, but the Scarlets scored once in both the second and third innings before posting two runs in the fourth and adding another run in the fifth off Bozeman starter Mark Bolin. Bolin went the distance for the Bucks in the losing cause while Billings starter Casey Reichenberg gave up one run on five hits in seven innings of work for the victory.
Despite the loss, Bozeman coach Shane Miller wasn't too disappointed with his squad's effort against the defending AA state champions. The Bucks beat the Scarlets 9-8 Tuesday night on Josh Huey's ninth-inning solo home run to earn a split.
" I thought our pitching was pretty effective although we did make a few errors in the field," Miller said. "I mean it's not like they came in here and pounded us today.
" I'm pretty proud of m 'mguys and the way they played against the state champs these last two days."
Bozeman (20-9 overall, 6-3 conference) threatened in the bottom of the ninth when shortstop Jesse Miller led off with a single to center and advanced to second on a wild pitch with no outs. But Billings reliever Kyle McBride retired the next three Bozeman batters in order to secure the victory for the Scarlets (36-7, 10-3).
Billings coach Paul Hatzell felt his team could have put the Bucks away early in the game, but credited his pitchers and team defense for holding Bozeman to just one run.
" We went 1-2-3 in the first inning, but then left eight guys on base in the next four innings, so our hitters didn't produce the way I would have liked," Hatzell said. "I told our guys they have to maintain their focus through all nine innings. We weren't very disciplined at the plate, but we had good pitching and defense and that was the difference."
Reichenberg's offspeed pitches gave Bozeman batters trouble all day. Bucks third baseman Adam Lawson tripled in the bottom of the first, but Reichenberg retired the Bucks in order in the second, third and fourth frames.
Bozeman's leadoff batter, second baseman Jake Phillips, scored the Bucks only run in the bottom of the sixth after singling to right field and advancing to third on a wild pitch and a fielder's choice. When Zach Weidenaar hit a soft grounder to third, Lawson, who reached on a fielder's choice, got caught in a rundown between second and third. Phillips scored before Lawson was tagged out at second to end the inning, making the score 5-1 Scarlets.
Despite giving up hits to the leadoff batter in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings, Reichenberg was confident he and the Scarlets could work out of those jams unscathed.
" I felt good; I was switching up my pitches pretty well and once we got the lead, I felt really comfortable," Reichenberg said. "Once we scored some runs, I just wanted to throw strikes and let the defense do the work."
Billings' big inning came in the top of the fourth when the Scarlets got two runs on two hits, a walk, a sacrifice fly and two Bozeman errors.
However, after the Scarlets posted a run in the fifth, Bolin shut Billings down over the final four innings. He retired the Scarlets in order in the sixth, seventh and eight innings, before giving up a harmless infield single in the ninth.
Mike Wardell led the Scarlets at the plate, going 2-for-4 with a run scored and a run batted in while Huey went 2-for-4 to lead Bozeman's offense.
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W2C-003-4.txt
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Mental intensity helps Bottalico regain edge By KEN CORBITT
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - - Relaxed intensity.
That was the contradictory mindset Kansas City Royals pitcher Ricky Bottalico took to the mound in the 11th inning of a tie game Saturday night.
Confusing as it may sound, Bottalico had the right frame of mind to shut down the Pittsburgh Pirates for two innings as the Royals won 2-1 in 12 innings at Kauffman Stadium.
" It's weird that I say I was relaxed but I was intense at the same time," Bottalico said. "They are two different things, but I definitely went out there with a lot more intensity than I have in the past."
The Pirates tied the game 1-1 in the ninth inning when Adrian Brown's single drove in Kevin Young from second base after Royals starter Mac Suzuki was one out away from a shutout. But Mike Sweeney delivered the victory in the 12th with a single that scored Johnny Damon, who led off the inning with a single and advanced to second base on a sacrifice by Luis Ordaz.
" Suzuki pitched a great game and came one out away (from a win)," Bottalico said. "It was (the bullpen's) job to keep them where the game was. Dan Reichert did a great job and Sweeney came through at the end. It was a complete team game."
Bottalico, whose troubles cost him the closer's job, earned the victory. He (5-1) gave up two hits and one intentional walk with three strikeouts after taking over for Reichert at the start of the 11th inning.
" Ricky's probably a little upset that he's not getting the ball in certain situations, but he pitched awfully well," manager Tony Muser said. "He was, to me, very determined when he came in that game."
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W2C-004-0.txt
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Longer records, special jails, 'zebra' plates might be in future for offenders
If you are caught drinking and driving in the future, you might be sent to a special prison, be forced to attach a license plate to your vehicle marking you as a chronic drunk driver and have a record that will haunt you for a long time.
The Wisconsin affiliates of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, a national lobbying group with chapters in 48 states, hopes such legislation will be passed this year to help keep drunk drivers off the highway.
" One measure we would like to see passed is the zebra stripe license plates," said Mardy Meacham, president of the group's southeastern Wisconsin chapter. "Drivers caught the second time would be forced to drive with these plates on their car, marking them as repeat offenders."
In addition, Meacham said, her organization wants to see a special minimum security prison set up for repeat offenders. Such a prison would be tailored to meet the rehabilitation needs of chronic drunk drivers.
The organization also is lobbying the state Legislature to pass a bill that would lower the legal blood alcohol level for a driver who has been drinking.
Under the law, a driver is considered drunk when his or her blood alcohol level reaches 0.10%. Backers of a tougher s%;andard would like the Legislature to pass a bill lowering the limit to 0.08%.
" Right now,%;a 169-pound man can have three or four drinks per hour and still drive," Meacham said. "Under the new law, that same person could only have two or three drinks per hour."
Efforts Praised
Mothers Against Drunk Driving has been widely praised by law enforcement authorities for its efforts to reform drunken driving statutes.
" Their efforts have [had] a tremendous effect," said Lt. Richard Krizan, a 23-year veteran of the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department. "They have made the average Joe more aware."
But Krizan said that, as for the repeat offender, "I think it's often a case of substance abuse rather than a lack of awareness."
Meacham said indications that it is a positive sign that the incidence of drunken driving has decreased. But the failure of the system to successfully bring repeat offenders to the curb needs to be addressed, she said.
" But it's not only drunk drivers - criminals of all types are being let out early," she said. "Also, in the case of repeat offenders, so little is being done to rehabilitate."
Meacham, whose son was severely injured in a crash in 1983 that involved a drunken driver, said that many repeat offenders are not identified as such because of the way the legal system works.
" In court, the records presented only go back five years," she said. "If you had an offense six years ago, you're treated as a fir 'retime offender."
Meacham said that repeat drunken drivers who are from out of state are also treated as first-time offenders because their out-of-state offenses are not part of the court record.
Common Sense Urged
With New Year's Eve upon us, foes of drunken driving want their sobering message to come through loud and clear.
Veteran law enforcement supervisors say that a little common sense before and during a night of New Year's Eve revelry can save lives and money.
" Many drunk driving crashes are double-edged tragedies," he said. "When the drunk driver sobers up, they have to live with what they've done."
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Officials recommend the designated-driver approach to avoid getting into a drinking and driving situation.
" Pick the designated driver before the festivities," Lt. Dennis Drazkowski of the Milwaukee Police Department said.
Drazkowski is a supervisor of traffic officers and 1st District patrol officers on the night shift.
" Don't think that because it is New Year's Eve that a copper will give you a break," he warned. He said that being alert for drunken drivers was something that would be stressed in roll call.
Krizan said that in the past few years, fewer drunken drivers had been arrested on New Year's Eve.
" I think that sometimes people are so aware that time of the year, they are more apt to follow the rules," he said.
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W2A-033-0.txt
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ABSTRACT
Information aggregation is a pervasive issue in the field of decision making. In this paper we begin an attempt to develop a comprehensive theory of this process. We investigate the use of a penalty function to help guide in the aggregation process. Ii is suggested that an aggregated value which violates a given piece of data is charged a penalty. The problem of aggregation can be seen as finding the aggregated value with the least penalty. We show that logical inference systems are characterized by infinite penalty functions. This implies that deviation from the data are not easily accepted. Probability theory is characterized by equal finite penalty costs. Nonmonotonic logics appear to be characterized by a case in which we have at least two different levels of penalties of differing magnitudes. We discuss the relationship between the relevance or bearing a piece of data has on the problem and the penalty cost associated with it. We see the central role of the intersection operation.
INTRODUCTION
A problem that is pervasive in decision making is that of information aggregation. In this problem one is supplied with information and is required to combine this knowledge to some purpose. The derivation of probabilities from statistics, the process of logical deduction and inference and many types of inductive learning fall into this category. Pattern recognition, multicriteria decision making and medical diagnosis involve this process. Artificial neural networks are based upon the aggregation of incoming signals to a neuron to provide the strength of the outgoing signal.
Central to this process is the methodology used to combine the data. In this paper we attempt to develop a format and a comprehensive theory for the problem of information aggregation. We look at the potentialities of using a penalty type function to help in this process. We investigate the case where the penalty is made up of two components. We show the central role played by the set intersection operation.
2. A PENALTY APPROACH TO AGGREGATION
Assume that V is some variable whose value we are trying to establish. V can be a numeric value such as a person's age. It can be a nonnumeric value such as the city of residence of a particular individual. It can also be a logical value such as the truth of a proposition. Whatever the denotation of V, we shall let X be the set of allowable values for the variable. We call X the domain or universe of discourse for V.
The process of getting the value for V involves gathering information and knowledge which we feel is useful to this purpose. Assume D1, D2,....,Dq is a collection of information which we feel in some way convey knowledge about the value of this variable. We desire to use this knowledge to help in the process of determining the value of the variable V.
A concept we would like to introduce is the degree to which a piece of data Di bears on the value of the variable V. In trying to establish a person's age the information contained in that person's birth certificate has a strong bearing to the process. If we are trying to determine tomorrow's sales of our product we would say that yesterday's sales have some degree of bearing but perhaps not as strong as the birth certificate does on the determination of age. In introducing the concept of bearing we do not mean to raise issues in regard to the correctness or validity of the data being discussed but simply how directly it bears on the problem at hand. In the independent (random) tossing of a coin, previous tosses have some relevance. However, since the toss is independent, the previous throws in no way constrains the new toss, except in the fact that the previous throws contribute to our knowledge of the probability distribution associated with this new toss. Figuratively speaking one can envision a whole series of planes. The information, the variable V, lies in one of these planes. Each piece of data as well lies in one of these planes. Some of the data may lie in the same plane as V. The closer the plane is to the plane in which V lies, the more bearing the data in that plane has on the determination of V: of course those data lying in the same plane as V have the most bearing.
One would expect that any reasonable process to determine the value of some variable would use all the information which is available and that has bearing on the problem at hand. This condition becomes somewhat onerous and difficult to satisfy in situations in which relevant information becomes conflicting.
We are interested here in suggesting a structural framework for looking at the issue of aggregating relevant knowledge. What appears to be central to this process is some mechanism for introducing information with different degrees of bearing. Some information directly bears on the problem while some other information bears less directly. In an attempt to provide a structure to analyze this important issue of knowledge aggregation we shall allow the degree of bearing or relevance of a piece of information to the process at hand to manifest itself with the idea of a penalty cost. We shall associate with each piece of data Di some cost or penalty we must pay if we disregard it by concluding as a result of our aggregation process some value for V that conflicts with Di. In this spirit one way to view a piece of data Di is as a subset of X consisting of the values of V that are supported by the data. Thus the selection of the aggregated value for V is driven by a desire to incur the least overall penalty from the relevant pieces of data.
We formalize this in the following manner. For a fact D and any x "X we let Ci(x. Di) indicate the amount of penalty we incur in saying that x is a good value for V. We shall discuss this function in more detail subsequently. The intuition here is that if x conflicts with the data Di we pay a penalty, because essentially we have disregarded what Di says. Furthermore, if we have q pieces of data, Di,...,Dq, then the total penalty incurred by indicating that x is the valid solution is
We define Ci to be non-negative and such that if x doesn't conflict with what Di advises, then Ci(x, Di)= 0.
Given such a penalty function, a reasonable way to aggregate the information provided is to select as acceptable aggregate values of V those values in X which minimize the penalty C(x). Thus if we denote by G this set of reasonable values, then we have
A first important observation is that if we have no data, then for any x X
C(x)= 0.
This implies that every element in X has the same penalty value associated with its support; thus
G=X.
Thus in the situation where there is no data, any x is an acceptable solution.
In a given situation the acceptable set G is dependent upon the structure of Ci(x, Di) as well as the actual data Di. G is dependent upon what the piece of data says and how relevant it is to the problem at hand. In the following we shall look at the process of formulating the aggregation of data as a function of its relevance as manifested by the structure of the penalty incurred in disregarding the data.
3. BINARY DISTINCTION WITH INFINITE PENALTY
As we indicated, in the process of determining V, the term Ci(x, Di) is the penalty we pay for supporting x in the face of the data Di. Thus Ci(x, Di) captures the relevance of Di to the process of determining the value of V. An important class of these kinds of penalty functions are those that can be viewed as composed of two components:
Ci(x,Di)= KiTi(x,Di).
In the above, Ki is some constant, and Ti(x,Di) is a function measuring the degree of conflict between the solution x and the data Di. Both terms are assumed to be non-negative.
We now consider a form of the function Ti(x,Di) that takes its value in the binary set { 0, 1}. In this case we define Ti(x,Di) such that if x and Di are in agreement, then
Ti(x,Di)= 0
and if x and Di are not in agreement, then
Ti(x,Di)=1.
It is noted that here we make no distinction about how much disagreement there is; just any disagreement is enough to cause a penalty of 1.
In this section we shall assume that all Ti are of this form. This allows us to suppress the subscript in Ti. Thus in the remainder we simply use T(x,Di).
In regard to the Ki, we can see this as some measure of the bearing of the data Di on the determination of V. The larger the Ki, the more directly the piece of data Di relates to the problem at hand. One can view 1/Ki as the degree to which we can diverge from the observation Di. If 1/Ki = 0, then no disagreement is allowed and Di has an absolute bearing on the problem at hand. If we assume that all Ki are the same, we are essentially saying that all the data have the same hearing on the determination of V. We shall assume in the following that this is the case, i.e., Ki = K.
6. NON-BINARY DISTINCTION
In this section we shall still assume that the penalty for saving that x is a good solution is
where Ci(x, Di) is the penalty incurred by disagreeing with Di in regard to x. We shall still assume that Ci(x,Di)= KiTi(x,Di). In this section, however, rather than assuming for Ti(x,Di) the all-or-nothing format of the previous section, we shall allow some measure of proximity between x and Di.
We assume that there exists on X a function M called the measure of disagreement
such that
In some cases we use [0,1] instead of [0, infinity]. If X is the set of real numbers, a possible measure for M is (x-y) 2.
We need to extend M to measure the disagreement between an element x of X and a subset A of X. For our purposes, it is reasonable to use
that is, the measure of divergence or disagreement of any value x from a set A is its measure of disagreement with the element closest to it. In the following we shall use Ti(x,Di)= M(x,Di). The T of the previous can be viewed as a special case of this situation. In that case
We recall that we select the set G of acceptable solutions to be the subset of the X which have minimum C(x). The following theorem is of importance.
THEOREM. If M is a measure of disagreement and if then G = S.
Proof. If, then there exists at least one x such that T(x,Si)= 0 for all i and hence C(x)= 0. Therefore, the minimum occurrence penalty is 0 and only those elements incurring this penalty are allowed in G. The only ones having this zero penalty are those in S.
Consider the special case where [equation] and Ki = K = [infinity]. In this case
The problem becomes rather intricate because of the infinities involved. It is not at all clear how to do the arithmetic in this environment. What is at issue is the following. While it is clear that, [equation] on the other hand it is not clear what this product is when a lies. For example [equation] lies in the unit interval. Similarly [equation] when either a or b is greater or equal to one. When both are less than one the situation becomes unclear. We can state some properties of this operation. The first condition is that of commutativity. The second condition is that of associativity. Thus the order of the data does not matter. The third condition is that of monotonicity; if [equation] for all i, then [equation]. The fourth condition is our requirement that if [equation] for at least one i, then C(x)= K. These properties are essentially those satisfied by the t-norm operator [3] which is used to implement the multivalued logic and operation. It appears that the fuzzy logic introduced by Zadeh [4.5] is based upon this penalty situation; infinite K and [equation]. In particular the Min/Max operator is based upon the following implementation of infinity arithmetic. Let and be contained in the unit interval and let K= [infinity],
We feel that a particular choice of t-norm operator is a manifestation of the choice of a particular infinity arithmetic. The investigation of this conjecture, although interesting, will not be pursued here.
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W2B-029-0.txt
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For 160 million years reptiles flew above the Earth. For just over 200 years we humans have known something of their existence. But only recently have we really begun to understand their lives--or their looks.
THE FOSSIL SKULL sitting on Alexander Kellner's worktable makes no sense. Usually fossils are spark plugs in the engine of the imagination. One look at the long, gently curved bones of a spider monkey's arm and you see a graceful swing from branch to branch; one glance at the weighty leg bones of a mastodon and you hear the rumble of a heavy stride. But this skull greets you with cognitive dissonance: all you see is essentially a flat triangle of bone. "A paleontologist once came in here and said, ` What is that?'" says Kellner, himself a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Slowly, though, with Kellner's guidance, the details that will give this triangle meaning emerge. There is a pair of large eye sockets midway along the skull, staring out of a braincase the size of a child's head; the straight, smooth daggers in front now become a set of jaws. Most prominent on the skull is a crest of bone that starts at the tip of the creature's beak; it rises above the upper jaw, passes over and behind the eyes, and shoots out behind the skull like an oar. The crest doubles the length of the skull, from two feet to four. How could any creature support such a burden? "It was hollow," Kellner says simply, picking up a piece of the crest to show how the bone is only a few hundredths of an inch thick in some places. While the crest's interior is now filled with rock, in life there was only air. It's all a little less confusing now but no less bizarre.
This skull belonged to a pterosaur--an extinct flying reptile--named Tupuxuara, and it is one of the latest additions to an inventory of more than 100 pterosaur species known to paleontologists. Tupuxuara lived 110 million years ago in what is now Brazil. It had wings measuring 18 feet from tip to tip, over 6 feet longer than the wings of the largest living bird, the albatross. Yet since many of its bones were as thin as its crest, it weighed no more than 45 pounds.
For the most part, Kellner says, Tupuxuara soared, but from time to time it would flap its wings to stay aloft. With its sharp eyes it would scan the broad lagoons below for food. The fern-and-pine-lined shores of these lagoons were home to many other species of pterosaurs, as well as dinosaurs, turtles, crocodiles, birds, and amphibians. Most important to Tupuxuara, the lagoons were teeming with fish. With a few precise adjustments to its wings, it would dip down to the surface of the water, pluck a fish, and gulp it as it flew away.
If, in Kellner's telling, this pterosaur's behavior comes off as remarkably birdlike, it is no accident. According to much of the newest research by the small number of pterosaur enthusiasts worldwide, these extinct reptiles in many ways mirrored the habits of their far more familiar successors in the sky. Pterosaur flight, the researchers say, was like that of birds down to subtle details; pterosaurs played many of the same roles birds do in today's ecology, and pterosaurs may even have had birdlike social structures and child-rearing techniques.
Pterosaurs haven't always been seen this way; they weren't even originally seen as denizens of the air. In 1784 the Italian zoologist Cosimo Collini, trying to make sense of the first pterosaur fossil ever found, guessed that he was looking at a sea creature--an amphibious mammal. Early in the nineteenth century the French anatomist Baron Georges Cuvier saw drawings of this fossil and quickly interpreted the animal as a flying reptile, but his colleagues found that concept hard to swallow. Throughout the 1800s researchers suggested pterosaurs were everything from extinct bats to flying marsupials. Eventually they seem to have reached consensus on the image of a lizard that, while it didn't actually fly, did glide through the air on batlike wings.
Part of their confusion stemmed from the pterosaurs' bones. Hollow and thin, they were perfect for flight but not for preservation. Only a few sites scattered around the world have yielded many pterosaur fossils that aren't badly damaged. Generally they are found in slabs of limestone, greatly flattened and most often fragmented.
Now, however, beautiful pterosaur fossils are emerging from a scrubby plateau in northeastern Brazil called Chapada do Araripe. The site itself isn't newfound. Two wandering naturalists discovered it in 1817, and paleontologists have been hauling out fossil fish, amphibians, insects, and plants ever since. But not until 1971 was the first pterosaur discovered at Araripe, and most of the other pterosaur fossils there have been uncovered within just the past ten years. Fourteen new species, including Tupuxuara, have now been found at Araripe, each dramatically different from all previously known pterosaurs.
The Araripe pterosaurs are miraculously preserved. For reasons geochemists still don't fully understand, animals that died in the lagoons of Araripe sometimes began to fossilize unusually quickly. In other ancient lagoons, bones that sank to the bottom were covered in mud and gradually crushed as the mud accumulated and turned to stone. But when an animal died in the Araripe water, it was quickly coated with a layer of sediment. Layer after layer of limestone built up on the bones, encasing them in large, round nodules. How quickly the nodules formed is hard to say, but judging from the presence of fossilized muscle and sometimes even bacteria on the skin of Araripe animals, it could have happened within hours. It's as if nature were packing away fine china for 110 million years. When paleontologists unearth these pale lumps, crack them open, and soak away the limestone, they often find fossils with unprecedented three-dimensional detail.
Kellner is one of the world's experts on the Araripe pterosaurs, and he doesn't conceal his pride in them. "Paleontologists always like to say ` My fossils are the best,'" he says, "but these really are the best. Stafford Howse, a paleontologist at the University of London, recently finished a study of a pterosaur skull from Araripe that is preserved down to its ear bones. "If the thing had died six months ago," he says, "and been buried in the soil for the worms and maggots to get to and had then been exhumed, this is the condition it would be in. It's perfect in every respect.
As far as paleontologists can now determine, pterosaurs descended from a small, lightweight bipedal reptile that lived perhaps 250 million years ago, an animal that also gave rise to dinosaurs (and thus, most paleontologists believe, ultimately to birds) at around the same time. How pterosaurs evolved toward flight is unknown; they may have made their first faltering attempts by leaping from the ground or by tumbling out of trees. All researchers can say with certainty is that 225 million years ago there were pterosaurs, which were fully qualified fliers.
THE FIRST PTEROSAURS were small, ranging from robin to sea gull size. They generally had long, narrow heads filled with teeth. Most notably they possessed a finger on each hand--their "pinkie"--that was longer than their entire body; this outsize appendage supported a wing. Their other three fingers were perfectly normal and tipped with claws. Trailing behind them was a long tail that, like the tail on a kite, stabilized their flight. They probably ate fish as a rule, although some may also have eaten insects. At some point on the evolutionary path from their cold-blooded ancestors they must have become warm-blooded, because otherwise they wouldn't have had enough sustained energy to fly. Bolstering this notion, and giving strong hints of what they looked like when alive, is a pterosaur fossil found in Russia in 1970 that shows signs of a thick coat of fur.
This standard pterosaur model persisted for 45 million years. But around 180 million years ago a new version made its appearance. These newer pterosaurs are called pterodactyloids (from the name given to the first member of the group found, Pterodactylus, or "wing finger"; the older pterosaurs are referred to as rhamphorhynchoids). Pterodactyloids manifested some significant changes: Their long head grew still longer, yet, because it had lost some bones in the skull, it became even more lightweight. Their neck became flexible and birdlike. They lost some or all of their teeth. Most important, their tail shrank to a stump, making it useless for stabilizing flight. The only way that tail loss can be explained, say paleontologists, is by pterodactyloids' having developed more sophisticated brains capable of stabilizing flight with quick, small changes to the wings.
For more than 30 million years pterodactyloids remained relatively rare. But 144 million years ago, for reasons unknown, their primitive relatives vanished, and at that point the pterodactyloids exploded into a strange diversity of species. Some became enormous--one late species named Quetzalcoatlus was 39 feet across, making it by far the largest animal ever to fly. Other pterodactyloids developed extremely peculiar heads: one species had hundreds of bristles for teeth; another had a duck bill, another a spoon bill. Many pterodactyloids had bizarre crests like upuxuara's; some had crests shaped like swords, others like keels.
For all the hallucinatory appeal of pterosaur heads, however, it is the creatures' method of flight that remains the central question for paleontologists. Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to fly, and only two other animals have since joined them in the air: birds and bats. By comparing the bones of all three creatures, paleontologists have tried to draw analogies that might suggest exactly how pterosaurs flew. Judging from the bones in the shoulder region, researchers have concluded that the extinct reptiles could have flapped their wings as powerfully as a bird or a bat.
Yet the analogies can go only so far. Bird and bat wings themselves are very different from each other. In birds, the wings are made of feathers with stiff shafts that are rooted in the arms and the fused fingers of the hands. The wings of bats are made of elastic membranes that run between four elongated fingers and reach all the way down to the feet. By moving their feet and fingers, bats control the shape and tautness of the wings.
Pterosaur wings, supported by that single outlandish finger, could not have been really close to either of these models. Something had to give the wings support, to keep them from flapping uselessly in the wind. Either the wings had to be stiffened internally or they had to be tied down to legs or feet. But we have no perfectly preserved soft-tissue fossil to tell us. The best clues come from 80 fossil impressions of wings left behind in the mud. Unfortunately these tracings do not provide researchers with any definitive answers. Usually the wings became distorted and were pulled into unnatural positions in death, and without exception their impressions are maddeningly ambiguous. In many of the fossils it's not even clear if the impressions were made by a wing or by some other soft tissue folded into a provocative position by accidental events. But since the nineteenth century, paleontologists, observing that pterosaur wings looked as if they were made of a membrane like that of a bat, have assumed that the creatures did in fact sport leathery wings that ran, like a bat's, from finger to feet.
For more than a decade paleontologist Kevin Padian, of the University of California at Berkeley, has been vigorously fighting this view. "If you' 'rechoosing between the bat and bird analogy," he says, "there are many more reasons to draw comparisons with birds. Batlike pterosaur wings would show a clear attachment to the foot, he says, perhaps with a notch in one of the bones, but he has seen none. A bat's wing also has a tendon running along its trailing edge, but there is no evidence of one in pterosaur fossils.
There is evidence, however, of a different sort of structural component. Paleontologists have long noted that some pterosaur fossil wings bear thin parallel ridges. Peter Wellnhofer, the curator of the Bavarian State Museum in Munich, argued in 1987 that these ridges represent tough fibers, possibly made of the protein collagen, sandwiched inside the wing to provide stiffness. Recently, Padian and Jeremy Rayner, a zoologist at the University of Bristol in England, found that the tips of pterosaur wings support this idea. Since bats have an elastic membrane that they pull tight, their wing comes to a sharp point. But while studying a particularly well preserved pterosaur in Germany, Padian and Rayner discovered that its wing tip forms a blunted curve. Such a shape requires some internal stiffening, such as could have been provided by fibers.
This pterosaur had been preserved in a belly-up position, exposing the underside of its wings. Padian and Rayner found that at the trailing edge some of the fibers had apparently separated from the wing and were lying on top of it at an angle, leaving behind corresponding grooves on the wing itself. The way the fibers had frayed indicates that rather than being sandwiched inside the wing, as many paleontologists had imagined, they lined the underside like the ribbing of an umbrella.
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W1B-020-0.txt
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June 6, 2008
Ms. Linda Cvrkel, Branch Chief
Securities and Exchange Commission
Dear Ms. Cvrkel:
In response to your letter date May 12th, we are forwarding the information requested and our comments and responses to your review of our 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007.
We acknowledge that we are responsible for the accuracy and adequacy of the disclosures in the filing. The filing must include all of the information required under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. We are responsible for providing all the information investors require for an informed investment decision.
We further acknowledge that the Commission's staff comments or changes to disclosures in response to their comments do not foreclose the Commission from taking any action with respect to the filing. We know that we may not assert staff comments as a defense in any proceeding initiated by the Commission or any person under the federal securities laws of the United States.
The following are the staff comments and our responses for the annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007
In future filings, please designate Hotel Casino and Resort (" San Remo") as a "Predecessor" company. Also, if the historical San Remo consolidated financial Statements are required to be filed in the future (e.g. in a "33 Act Filing), please provide this designation as a "predecessor" in their historical consolidated financial statements.
Response:
In the future filings, the Hotel San Remo Casino and Resort consolidated financial statements will be designated as a "Predecessor" financial statements. Additionally, any supplemental financial information presented in regards to Hotel San Remo Casino and Resort will also be designated as "Predecessor" company financial information.
Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, page 31 Comparison of the Year Ended December 31, 2006 (155 East Tropicana, LLC) with the Year Ended December 31, 2005 (Combined), page 37.
We note your non-GAAP measure, Operating expenses before depreciation, pre-opening expense, related party royalties expense, and loss on disposal of assets on page 38 and 29. As this non-GAAP measure includes items that are reasonably likely to occur or occurred within the time period prescribed in Item 10(e)(1)(ii)(B) of Regulation S-K, it appears that a non-GAAP performance measure of this nature should not be included in the filing with the Commission. Please advice and revise in future filings, accordingly.
Response:
We were attempting to give the reader a clearer picture of cash flow generated from ongoing operations. We are privately owned, but we have public bond debt. We have had to borrow against our line of credit in the past to cover the interest on our bond debt. Because of this, the bondholders have continued to monitor our cash flow from operations against the cash flow required to service debt. By discussing Operating expenses before depreciation, pre-opening expense, related party royalties expense, and loss on disposal of asset?, we were providing them information on the cash generated by ongoing operations between the two periods. We chose to exclude related party royalties expense because we are restricted against paying the royalties under our debt covenants. We also excluded depreciation and loss on disposal of assets because of their non-cash nature. Pre-opening expense was associated with opening of the new facilities and will not reoccur. I believe that it does provide the reader with valuable information and insight into the company's ability to cover debt service, but I also understand the hesitancy of the SEC to allow filers to use non-GAAP measures. In the future, we will not use terms such as Operating expenses before depreciation, pre-opening expense, related party royalties expense, and loss on disposal of assets in our financial filings.
Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates, page 42
We note that your critical accounting policies disclosure is substantially similar to your accounting policy footnote 2 and is solely a duplication of all your accounting policies included in that note. In this regard, we believe that not all of your accounting policies are critical in a similar or equal manner. Specifically, accounting policies contain different levels of uncertainties associated with their respective methods, assumptions, and estimates underlying their critical accounting measurements. Therefore, please limit the disclosure to the specific policies where the nature of the estimates and assumptions is material due to the levels of subjectivity and judgment necessary to account for highly uncertain matters and the impact of the estimates and assumptions is material to the consolidated financial statements. Furthermore, this disclosure in the MD&A should supplement, not duplicate, the description of accounting policies disclosed in the notes. In this regard, please ensure that your critical accounting estimates disclosure (i) provides greater insight into the quality and variability of information in the consolidated financial statement; (ii) addresses specifically why the accounting estimates or assumption bear the risk of change; (iii) analyzes the factors on how the company arrived at material estimates including how the estimates or assumptions have changed in the past and are reasonably likely to change in the future.; and (iv) analyzes the specific sensitivity to change of your critical accounting estimates or assumption based on other outcomes with quantitative and qualitative disclosure, as necessary. Refer to the guidance in Section V of FRR-72 (Release No. 33-8350) please revise future filings accordingly.
Response:
Our disclosures for future filings in regard to critical accounting policies will be modified to comply with this request.
Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk, page 46
It appears that current disclosures regarding your exposure to interest rate risk do not comply with the requirements of Item 305 of Regulation S-K. Please revise your disclosure in the future filings regarding your exposure to interest rate risk to provide these disclosures in one of the formats outlined in Item 305(a) of Regulation S-K.
Response:
Our disclosures for future filings in regards to interest rate risk will be formatted per Item 305 of Regulation S-K. In our recent filing for March 31, 2008, the disclosures were corrected to comply with Item 305 of Regulation S-K.
The following is an excerpt from our company's March 31, 2008 10Q filing: The following discusses our exposure to market risk related to changes in interest rates, equity prices and foreign currency exchange rates. We do not believe that their respective exposure to market risk is material.
Market risk is risk of loss arising from changes in market rates and prices, such as interest rates, foreign currency exchange rates and commodity prices. At March 31, 2008, we had $130.0 million aggregate principal amount of the Notes, slot equipment purchase agreements of $1.7 million carrying an imputed interest rate of 3.327%, and hotel equipment purchase agreeme%;ts of $0.1 million carrying interest rates averaging 11.72%. The Note%; carry a fixed interest rate of 8.75%, provided no events of default%;have occurred. Since the Notes and equipment purchase agreements have fixed interest rates, there is no market risk associated with these loans other than fair value market risk, which we believe to be insignificant. We have market risk associated with funds that may be borrowed on the $15.0 million Credit Facility, due to an interest rate that floats with the LIBOR or prime rate. The term of the Credit Facility will mature on March 30, 2009. At March 31, 2008, $6.4 million was outstanding under the variable rate Credit Facility, carrying interest at 6.52%.%;7:1> Assuming a 100 basis-point change in LIBOR at March 31, 2008 and assuming no change in the funds borrowed on the $15.0 million Credit Facility, our annual interest cost would change by approximately $64,000.
We do not have any significant foreign currency exchange rate risk or commodity price risk and do not currently trade any market sensitive instruments.
Note 2. Participation Fees, page 57
With respect to your participation fees paid to slot machine manufacturers, we note that you classify these payments as reduction of revenue. However, it appears that industry practice is to recognize these participating fees as an expense, rather than a reduction of revenue. Refer to the guidance in Section 2.11 of the AICPA Audit & Accounting Guide for Casinos. Please advise us or revise this classification in the future filings, accordingly.
Response:
We will revise the classification in future filings as suggested. The argument for recording these fees as a reduction of revenue is not without merit, however.
In addition to the AICPA audit guide there is other literature that addresses "gross vs. net" presentation of revenue. Staff Accounting Bulletin 101, Revenue Recognition provides guidance on determining whether a "gross" or "net" presentation is appropriate. The literature indicates that the staff will look to both risk of loss and principal vs. agency relationship as indicators of the appropriate presentation. Per 101, in assessing whether revenue should be reported gross with separate display of cost of sales to arrive at gross profit or on a net basis, consideration should be given to whether the registrant; (1) acts as principal in the transaction, (2) takes title to the products, (3) has risks and rewards of ownership, such as the risk of loss for collection, delivery, or returns, and (4) acts as an agent or broker. If the company performs as an agent or broker without assuming the risks and rewards of ownership of the goods, sales should be reported on a net basis.
The AICPA audit guide indicates that most casinos show a gross presentation for the participation revenues. However, it does not specifically require this presentation. Additional, this literature was published in 1994. Since that time the nature of participation arrangements have changed substantially. Those changes are summarized below: In the past, many casinos had only a few participation machines on the floor. We have over 15% parti%;ipation machines on the casino floor and participation fees represent about 10% of sl%;t revenue.
The average participation term is flexible and we can move and replace machines at will. This indicates that some of the risks of ownership are not present.
Resent legislation in the State of Nevada has changes the tax burden related to participation revenues. In prior years, the casino was responsible for the tax burden on the gross revenue. Under the new legislation, the casino and slot manufacturer share the tax burden for the gross win gaming tax.
Many of the participation agreements have elements of a contribution to a wide-area progressive (based on a% of co%;n-in). This wide-area progressive jackpot, when hit, will be funded by the slot manufacturer out of this contribution. In addition, part of the participation fee has elements of a lease payment (because the machine is owned by the manufacturer) and elements of third party license arrangements (because the manufacturer owns the software for the game).
As a result of these facts, many casinos present revenues from participation on a net basis.
Currently the AICPA audit guide is being updated by a committee of ACSEC. According to one of the members, the new guide will be out in draft form soon. They will take the position that these elements should be treated differently based on circumstances. I believe that they will propose either net revenue or an expense depending on these three classes or elements of the arrangement.
We will present the participation fees as an expense in future filings until this updated guidance is released.
We note that your have recorded the value of the Hooters trademark as an indefinite lived intangible asset and that Florida Hooters LLC has assigned the right to use this trademark to the company. Please tell us the length of the agreement which permits the company to use the Hooters trademark. If the length of the agreement is not indefinite, please tell us why you believe it is appropriate to classify the right to use the trademark as an indefinite lived intangible asset.
Response:
The agreement with Florida Hooters LLC has assigned the trademark rights to our company for an indefinite period of time and the rights are appropriately classified as an indefinite lived intangible asset. In accordance with SFAS 142, "Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets", the Company tests for impairment of the asset on an annual basis to maintain the accuracy of our reporting.
From a news article dated April 25, 2008, it is our understanding that Moody's downgraded your public notes to junk bonds status. Therefore, please expand future filings to completely and clearly discuss and analyze the impact and consequences of this matter on the company's cash position, liquidity, and its external financing abilities as a result of this material change in credit rating. Refer to the guidance in Section IV (B)(2) in FRR-72.
Response:
We will discuss the impact of Moody's downgrade in future filings. Certainly the rating (or more importantly, our failure to generate sufficient cash flow from operations to cover debt service) could affect the cost of capital in the future. Currently it has no effect on our ability to borrow against our $15 million line of credit or the interest rate we currently pay on the bonds.
Thank you and please call me with any comments or questions. Dana Price can be reached at 702-597-6052.
Sincerely,
Dana Price
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W2F-009-0.txt
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Sue and Frank>/h>
MARK SMITH
Some people keep on smiling, even as their dreams are shattered. Other people never quite pick up the pieces. Finding your way between those two extremes might be the toughest choice of all.
" What do you mean you lost your wedding ring?" said Sue Davidson to her husband Frank. Their car idled beside the arrivals curb at terminal B of Newark Airport. Two minutes before, Frank had emerged from the sliding doors, tossed his tidy suit bag into the back seat of their Accord, piled into the front and announced without so much as a prologue that he had lost his wedding ring somewhere in Washington, D.C. sometime during the last four days. Now he sat looking across at his wife, the thin angular lines of his red face heightened by the crisp folds of his London Fog raincoat. The bustle and excitement of travel which he brought into the car was at odds with Susan's mood.
" Yeah, it was the damnedest thing. Right in the middle of my big meeting with Thompson, I looked down and it was gone. He held his left hand up, fingers outstretched in a number five gesture. Sure enough, there was no ring, though Sue fancied she could make out the indentation in the skin of his finger as though he had just now taken it off.
" I can't believe it!" she said.
" Well, you don't have to look like that. I didn't mean to lose it. Frank had adopted the managerial tone he had acquired through years of supervising large office staffs.
" It's just that, well, I just can't believe you didn't notice something."
" Honey, do you, ah, think we could get going? I'm kind of tired and I'd like 'm s 'dwer before bed."
Sue jammed the gear shift into drive and lurched away from the curb. Instinctively, Frank glanced over his left shoulder to check the traffic. Fine, thought Sue, he goes away for four days on a business trip - - which seemed to be getting more frequent all the time - - and now he was going to shower for thirty minutes and then pile into bed with a report or some fat, slick trade magazine. No doubt about it, an hour after they got home he'd be snori 'd away. Never mind what she might want once in a while.
" Strange as it sounds," he said, "I didn't notice it until I was in that meeting with Thompson. I said 'Jesus, I've lost my wedding ring 'veand she said - - "
" She?" said Sue.
" Yeah. Thompson. Janet Thompson from our Washington office. I'm sure I've told you abou 'mher b 'vere."
" Oh, well," she muttered. "I guess you did. Big fluffy snowflakes had started to fall, turning to water the instant they hit the windshield just in time to be swept away by the wipers. Sue felt her mind become clouded and jumbled. Her emotions swarmed and crowded together like an angry, volatile mob. Certainly she felt no jealousy about Frank's meeting with this Thompson. (Was it some new business convention to refer to female colleagues by their last names? It sounded so efficient and powerful.) He worked with women every day. No, what really galled her was the thought of this other woman, well- dressed, confident, successful, knowing something intimate about their marriage while Sue whistled away in her fool's paradise. She could imagine the show of sympathy and concern this hard-nosed, corporate-climbing career woman had displayed while to herself she laughed at the pathetic wife, off somewhere blissfully ignorant, powerless, forgotten.
Frank kept on blathering: "She said, 'Well, you have to find it, that's all there is to it.' "
" How kind of her," said Sue.
" I thought so," said Frank.
" So we got the check right away and - - "
" What, were you at lunch?"
" Dinner," said Frank. "And I went straight back to my room and searched high and low. I even went back to the bar where I had stopped for a cocktail that evening, and also the hotel restaurant. Nada. Of course, my room had been cleaned by then. I figured that if housekeeping had gotten hold of it, good luck ever seeing that ring again."
Good old Frank. When his pal Stan got caught cheating the IRS and went to that country club prison upstate, Frank had been really pissed. But when it came to hired help, they weren't to be trusted. To hear Frank, you'd think 'dhe blue collar of the world were just waiting to steal the dirt out from under your fingernails, though there'd be 'dlim pickings from Frank in that department.
" So that's it?" said Sue as they pulled onto the northbound turnpike. The snow was coming down harder and cars had begun to slow down. The landscape had begun to take on a steely gray aspect, and the mirror-like slickness of the pavement reflected the red tail lights of thousands of commuters headed home.
" What else can I say, honey? You know how much that ring meant to me. I wouldn't have lost it for the world."
He had dropped the managerial tone now and fallen back on his old standby Mr. Charm voice that he had always used to such advantage, especially with Sue. Frank could charm piss out of a snake when he wanted to.
" But you did lose it. I just can't believe it."
" What do you want me to do?" said Frank. "I'm sorry, okay? I lost the ring. I didn't want to lose it. It just happened. I'll get a 'llher, I promise."
Case closed. Debit recorded in the unrecoverable loss column. Dead letter file. Sue opened her mouth, then closed it again. What more could she say?
" Good thing we'll be ho 'llbefore the snow gets bad," said Frank with forced cheerfulness. "I hate to drive in the snow."
" You're not drivin 'reFrank. I am," said Sue flatly. They rode in silence the rest of the way home.
Lately, Sue had acquired the habit of waking in the middle of the night and wandering around the house poking into this and that, doing nothing in particular. She told herself that she delighted in the pleasant perversity of being awake when the rest of the world slept, but the truth was she felt more comfortable and secure in the wee hours. Sue found herself increasingly overwhelmed with the small things in life. She felt that she literally had to hold on for dear life as the Earth careened through space. When the world was quiet and still and asleep, at those times and those times alone, Sue felt like she was in control of something, that the progress of time was slowed down to a speed she could manage.
Also, the big modern house that Frank had insisted on buying over her objections seemed cold to the point of being alien during the day. (She would have preferred something more Victorian that she could decorate with baskets of potpourri, stencilled wall paper and lots of duck decoys and antiques.) But at night the house seemed softer and more comfortable.
She poured a glass of red wine and wandered into the study and looked until she found the photo album that had the pictures of her wedding. She took this into the living room, set her wine on the glass coffee table and burrowed down into the deep cushions of their sectional sofa.
Had it been ten years already? Of course, she had gained some weight. How could she not? Sitting around the house all day. Oh, well she kept busy enough between volunteering at the library, church activities, and with her friends. But there was no real need to work. Frank had discouraged it, in fact, not because he didn't feel it was proper but because it screwed up their income tax bracket or something.
She never had thought she would be a housewife. She always dreaded the thought of that. When she met Frank she had just gone back to school to work on a masters in psychology, but she never finished. Before that, she worked at a number of odd jobs that never seemed to amount to anything.
She found herself wishing idly for children, but the day for that had also come and gone. She married Frank when she was in her early thirties. There was still time then, and they talked about it often, but the time never seemed to be right and year had followed year and here she was in her early forties. Technically, she could still consider the possibility, but in truth, the idea had stopped appealing to her the way it once did. If things seemed too complicated without kids, what would it be like with? Anyway, she didn't want to be sixty with a child in high school.
As she stared one by one at the pictures, a thought began to present itself. Not a new thought to her, but expressed with more clarity and force than before: it wasn't supposed to be this way. She had agreed to a different set of conditions ten years before. She had signed onto a different agenda. Frank was a business major who was going to make enough to keep them fed and clothed and spend the rest of his time playing bass with a rock and roll band that he and his friends kept trying to start. That dream lasted exactly one month and one gig and then fell to pieces when Interworld had called and recruited him straight from college.
" Still up?" said Frank from the hall door. He stood in his pajamas and robe, well-dressed even in the middle of the night. He squinted into the lighted room, his eyes adjusting to the light.
" Up again," Sue answered. She took a sip of the wine. The crystal was cold against her lips, but the wine felt round and warm as it rolled across her tongue. She expected Frank would turn and go back to bed, but instead he crossed the white pile carpet and settled beside her on the sofa. Why did he seem to be growing thinner over the years as she grew more plump? The question mystified more than annoyed her.
" I'm sorry about t 'm ring," he said.
" Oh, it's okay. I made too much of it."
" No you didn't. It was stupid of me."
" Let's not talk about it anymore," she said. After a moment she said, "Frank?"
" Hmmm?"
" Let's get in the car and drive."
He looked surprised. "Where do you want to go?"
" Nowhere in particular. Everywhere. Don't you remember when we used to talk about driving across the country? Let's do it now. We could go down south. I've never b 've down there. It's slower and calmer there. We won't take any interstates, just country roads. We'll 'llp at every general store and main street diner we come to. We'll 'llz into each town, buy postcards and buzz out. We'll 'lly in tacky tourist courts and stop at the historical markers. We'll 'llto McDonald's and buy two coffees, fill up the thermos and then get refills for the road."
Sue became animated as she talked, but Frank just forced a thin half smile and said, "You're 'reding, right?"
" No," said Sue, shaking her head. "I'm n 'm."
" But, honey. I have a job. I couldn't just walk out. I have appointments. I have at least ten clients coming in this week. I' 'dlove to take a vacation. Really. How about next summer? I'l 'llut in a leave request now. But not on the spur of the moment."
Sue nodded and took another sip from her wine. For no good reason, she felt a sudden and overwhelming urge to ask her husband if he had slept with anyone else since they were married. She fought down the urge. Partly because she had made a promise to herself years before that she would never ask. Partly because she knew the answer would depress her no matter what it was. But mostly she realized that to even want to ask the question at all meant that some profound circumstance had changed in a way that made the answer irrelevant.
She nodded again and said, "Yeah, maybe in the summer. It's too cold now anyway."
The next morning, after Sue had dropped Frank at the station to join the other commuters who stood hunched in their long, thick clothes on the platform, their breath turning into tiny clouds in the frozen air, she went home and packed an overnight bag.
She made a pot of coffee and took it to the kitchen table. She gathered up paper and a pen and sat at the table under a heart carved in the high-backed, Dutch-style bench, the most old-fashioned furnishing in the house and her favorite place to sit. She drank coffee and wrote a note to Frank. She wrote that she was leaving and taking the car. He 'd get along without it and seldom drove it anyway. She also wrote that she would probably be back, though as she did, she wondered if this were true.
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W2C-017-2.txt
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Hundreds turn out for Relay for Life program
A mixture of smiles and tears - a celebration for survivors and a time to remember those who've pas 've on - filled the damp air with the warmth of ohana.
At the 7th annual American Cancer Society Relay for Life 2001 at Old Kona Airport field Saturday night, strangers became family through the common bond of cancer touching their lives - and no one went untouched.
Lifting up his shirt as his smile becomes a frown, 3 - year - old Jordan Wills, points to his catheter in his tiny chest.
" Jordan was diagnosed with leukemia in January," his father, John said. The medicine from chemotherapy is injected into the catheter because his small body wouldn't take the poking of needles, John said.
Jordan kept having fevers every other day, his mother, Eleu said, and they took him to get his blood checked.
When the doctor diagnosed their son, John said his immediate thought was of the worst.
" When you hear the word cancer you think of death," he said.
John and Eleu said they have kept positive.
" We have to for him," Eleu said, adding she and her husband have crying moments when they are alone together.
The family stays positive because Jordan is part of a nation wide study and the cure for leukemia has gone up over the years from a 40 percent cure to a 95 percent cure, Eleu said.
" He's a fighter," John said, noting there are days when Jordan gets tired of the chemotherapy treatments. One of the several medications Jordan takes also affects his emotions.
" It's like night and day," John said. "He'll 'llhis happy self and once he takes the medicine he's crying and screaming."
Cancer survivor, Mary Huebner, puts her "cancer survivor" button on her hand painted shirt with a rainbow leading to the pot of gold for a cure.
Huebner was diagnosed in 1997 with kidney and breast cancer and has lived her life to the fullest for the last four years with no reoccurrence.
" Your first thought is 'this is a death sentence,'" she said with tears welling up. "Then you think it's over and tell yourself, 'I don't want to die,' and you figure out what to do about it.
" I had way too much to live for and I fought it all the way down the line."
She said she learned you can't put off doing the things you want to do and now makes time to do those things. She makes time to spend with her children, grandchildren and 90 - year - old mother.
" My family rallied around me," she said, noting every time she woke up in intensive care, someone was in the room.
The physical side of radiation and surgery were hard on her, Huebner said.
During her kidney operation, which had a low probability of survival, doctors removed one and a half of her kidneys. After two months when she could finally role over, Huebner endured five months of radiation for her breast cancer following a biopsy, lumpectomy and removal of her lymph nodes. Financially, Huebner's cancer took its toll on her. She said her insurance couldn't cover everything and she was out of work for eight months recovering from surgery and radiation.
The relay also touches people who don't personally have cancer.
Lucy Pasco volunteers for the American Cancer Society and with her husband, Jerry, has coordinated the Relay for Life in Kapaau for the last four years in memory of her sister who died from stomach cancer.
" It was hard," she said as she excused herself for a minute to fight the tears. "It was hard to see her go through it and not understand why the doctor's couldn't help her."
Her sister lived two months after being diagnosed because she was already in the final stage. Her sister would talk about her "sensitive stomach" but did not go to the doctor until it was to late to treat.
" The only thing I could do for her was to say, 'Sis, I 'm here for you' and to rub her sore feet and let her know she is loved," Pasco said.
" And now, I give back to the American Cancer Society hoping there will be a cure someday - maybe not for me, but for my great - grandchildren."
In 1985, the first Relay for Life was held in Tacoma, Washington when Dr. Gordon Glatt, a board member for the American Cancer Society Tacoma chapter, pledged to run for 24 hours to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Today 3,000 relays are held every year in the nation.
The Big Island has four relays in Kapaau, Honokaa, Kailua - Kona and Hilo. "It showcases American Cancer Society, celebrates cancer survivorship and honors people who have passed away," Kona chapter executive director Tina Clothier said. "It is very healing."
Clothier said the 57 relay teams consisting of about 15 people each, has already given $63,000 to the American Cancer Society. The fund - raising goal for this event is $100,000.
The money benefits cancer patients in Hawaii, helps to fund national and local research and the American Cancer Society Web site and national call center, Clothier said.
Survivors started the relay at 7 p.m. with a "victory lap. The relay will end at 7 a.m. today.
During the event they had a luminary ceremony to remember those who did not survive. Hula, line dancing, a talent show with team participants, as well as food and game booths kept the teams going throughout the night.
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W1B-001-0.txt
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February 19, 1990
DearMike
Dr. Pickles pointed out that John argues in this passage that the evidence that we are indeed followers of Christ is that we love our fellow-Christians. (Read the passage for yourselves & see if you agree with him. I think he's right.) Also, if we live as a true family, loving one another, caring for one another, and supporting one another, that is the most powerful testimony possible to the transforming power of the love of Christ in a society marked by isolation, individualism, and superficiality. For both of these reasons, the relationships among the staff are crucial. He adds that he sees the main problems of our society, one of which is drugs, as stemming from lack of self-esteem and unfulfilled needs for love; thus, if people see that our self-esteem comes from Christ, and that our need for love is met both by Christ and by the community of Christians, they will sit up and take notice. I'm afraid I haven't captur 'm the power of what he said, but the raw bones of it are here.
Now for the frustrations--and I would really appreciate your prayers about these. First of all, disorganization is rampant here at Harambee. It's not as bad as it could be, but to be frank, if I'd been in 'dharge of our orientation, I could have easily cut out four or five hours of meetings. For example, in terms of teaching us the schedule, what was really needed was one comprehensive accurate schedule to be handed out, but instead what we got was several incomplete schedule handouts and several inaccurate word-of-mouth descriptions; there was lack of communication between Dick Pickles and Jim Wallace, the co-directors, which resulted in many mid-week changes; and the group of interns from Inter-Varsity were not with us until near the end of orientation, which resulted in a lot of repeating. There were also problems with not getting some information to some of the interns, so they were constantly asking questions that had been already answered. Also, most of the interns are not very punctual people, so that results in wasting even more time. I was anticipating some lack of organization, so at the beginning of the week I was pretty patient, but on Friday (today) I got really exasperated. I know that I'll be encoun 'lling more and more of this as the summer goes on, so I am praying fervently for patience. I also have a lot of bureaucracy to face; I can't start a bank account until I have a CA driver's license, and I want to be licensed to drive fifteen-passenger vans (to transport kids around), but in CA that is considered to be a commercial license with an exhaustive exam that's different from the regular driver's test and involves learning a lot of detail about auto maintenance (which I'm happy to do, but 'mght now when I want my license quickly is Spain). Coming on top of today's disorganization, this aggravated me further. Finally, the last straw at dinner today was being advised that it was unwise for me to be out walking or running alone after dinner (before dark, even) on a Friday night, just when I most wanted to just bust out of the house and really work off a lot of the frustrations. No one else was interested in going out, and I would have preferred to go alone anyway. So, I'm facing a lot rig 'm now, and of course it's all intensified by trying to adjust to a new place and new people on the heels of four very intense weeks. I know, I am convinced, that there is an element of spiritual warfare in all this, that the Enemy of God will use every little way of wearing me down possible, that I must not allow these hassles to distract me from the main issues.So, your prayers would be much appreciated. Prayer would also be really appreciated for the kids who are coming to the day camp, that they would acquire self-confidence, self-discipline, and self-esteem, a love of learning, and a love of God. That's about the most that can be asked for them. Please be praying for the staff too, that the eleven of us all packed into one fairly small house and cooking & eating together could really be a loving community,-that friction could be minimal and that mutual support and encouragement could be maximal.
Many of the same things are still issues, particularly building community in the house. Last weekend, this was a real problem. Three of the house residents are still teenagers (two high school seniors and one recent high school graduate), and their level of responsibility and maturity is on the low side compared to the rest of us. In addition, the ages here range from 17 to 30; there is also a married couple with a little baby. You can imagine that the lifestyles desired by the eleven of us vary greatly! However, things have been better over the last few days. It's easy to talk about how wonderful Christian community should be, and how nice it sounds to be working in partners hip, but most of us assume t hat we choose the people with whom we would live in such a community. The eleven of us did not choose each other, and probably would not have given the choice. For that reason, I think we're lear 'reg a lot more than we might have otherwise, and being challenged to love people whom we otherwise would not have. So, I'm excited abou 'mthat even though there are nights when I just want to take my dinner to my room rather than listen to Jimson and Solidad rag on each other. I 'm particularly 'mxcited about the way this effort to build community has brought me to my knees in prayer. I recognize that it is something that God has to do, that we can' t do by ourselves, and that demands faithful believing prayer. Ling and I have been praying together before going to sleep every night for half an hour or so, and it has been good. Prayer has knit us close together and helped us both keep our sanity, and seeing answers to our prayers has reminded us both how faithful and good God is. We've made 'vere to keep some of that prayer time for thanksgiving, and that has also been very good. There has been so much to be thankful for, too! Highlights of the week with the kids: the hardest thing, is to know how much to be strict with them and how much we can just let them be kids without their getting out of hand. They definitely have to be kept under tight rein, but, for example, can they be allowed to run around playing tag without having it turn into a pushing, shoving, and hitting free-for-all? These kids have a much lower level of self-discipline (as a whole group, that is) than any of the kids I'm familiar wi 'm. Also, can they be allowed to just explore stuff that we put on the tables during science class time--i.e. rocks, plants, shells, magnifying glasses--without pushing and hitting each other, grabbing, not taking turns, and so on? Achieving this balance has been tough, and I certainly haven't done a perfect job. I think I'm making prog 'mss, though. I would really appreciate prayers for two of the kids, Matthew and Daniel. They are two of the brightest kids in our (second grade) class. They are also the two least disciplined, at least so far. Daniel is just plain disrespectful; Matthew has a really quick temper and no attention span. With Matthew it seems that rather than deliberately flaunting authority, as it seems that Daniel does, he just doesn't remember what the rules are. I've had 'vediscipline them both a lot, and I've had 'veot of encounters with Matthew's mother and two uncles. I'm very hop 'mul with Matthew,, because his two uncles are both involved in his growing up to some extent (both are Christians, married, with kids of their own) and want to see him gain the self-discipline that he hasn't been taught by his mother or his mother's boyfriend. Both have disciplined him this week, which has helped. Daniel I'm less su 'm of. I Im not sure what it will take to get him to respect me. Anyway, God has made me able to really love these kids, at least most of the time. I really want to see them turn around this summer, and I hope that they will. Other issues: I 'm not sur 'mif tljoki (my co-teacher) and I are doing a very good job with planning lessons. Holding the kids' attention has been very tough, especially with f if teen of them. lie' ve been trying to do as much hands-on stuff as possible, and we've be 'vedividing them into two smaller groups and each working with one. Some things have worked, some haven' t Please pray that we could learn from our mistakes and learn to plan lessons that would be exciting for the kids. Also, I'm findin 'mthe (expected) difficulty of really fitting into the black community here as more than a respected outsider. I certainly didn't expect that it would have happened already; I expect it to take quite a bit of time. Nevertheless, it's tough being aware of this cultural divide, particularly between me and Dirk. Jake Wagner (J.W.), who directs the day camp, is easier for me to relate to, I think because al-though he is black he is also from the East rather than the South, and, as he himself says, there are ways he has been "whitewashed." Lingand I have had no problems at all getting along, which has been a real blessing - - and I thank God so much for making us room-mates--but I think at least part of that is that she goes to a small liberal-arts college and thus we have that in common. Further reasons for thanksgiving: First of all, thank you all so much for your letters. I've b 've getting mail almost every day--it's been great! Many of the kids do seem motivated to learn and to grow, so if we can just eliminate the disruptions, I think they'l 'llave a really fun and productive summer. Also, I am very hopeful that we'l 'lle able to make a significant difference in a lot of the kids' lives, particularly those whose parents or relatives have been involved in helping discipline them (such as Matthew). We interns have been meeting twice a week to discuss issues in Christian community development, such as racial reconciliation and the nature of Christian community, and those discussions have been challenging and exciting. Finally, my two outside friends, Jim Stipe (who comes and volunteers with my class Wednesdays) and Soyoun Min, have been a welcome refuge when I'v 'veeeded to escape. Jake has also loaned me a guitar to use with the kids' singing in the mornings (he brings his bass guitar and plays on Wednesdays), and so I'v 'veeen able to play a lot, both with the kids and for sanity's sake. I' 'mtemporarily without my tape player, so I' 'mlearning to get along without it (which is good) and enjoying being able to accompany myself to make music. I could write lots more, but I think it's about time to stop. I am definitely growing, and being stretched and purified by fire here! Philippians 1 has been very meaningful to me lately. I know your prayers are lifting me up, and I 'm very grateful for all of that. I 'm praying for all of you folks as well. "Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy--to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen." (Jude 24)
In Christ,
Sarah
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W2A-012-0.txt
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His knees are bent and his arm curls beneath his head as he "goes to the ground." "Bueno?" he asks; "Is this alright?" "Yes." He does moforibale to show his respect to the oricha that he has just received and to the oricha that "lives" in his godfather's head. His godfather touches his shoulders with his fingers and helps him up. The aleyo crosses his arms across his chest and is drawn to his elder's cheek, first on one side and then on the other. His padrino says softly, "Santo, Ocha, Alafia." (Lu. and Sp. "Saint, Oricha, Peace,"). This gesture is repeated as he greets all of his elders and receives their blessings. He now belongs to their ritual family.5
A young man in an Eastern city of the United States enters a new religious community; he is receiving a group of important deities and entering into fictive kin relationships with his initiators. He must have his head washed and his body cleaned by animals, and must perform the moforibale; to enter this tradition, he uses his body in ways that are new to him. As he receives the gods, he learns new patterns of body use. The creation of these new bodily patterns in the Guerreros initiation ritual presents an interesting case: The signs used in the ritual have meanings that can be communicated verbally, but here the signs are experientially apprehended through the body; they are not simply understood but are also enacted.
In recent years, studies of cultural performances have demonstrated clearly that meaning is not latent in ritual signs and awaiting discovery; instead people involved in ritual performances engage signs and activate them (Schieffelin 1985:107). Through performance, people communicate cultural meanings; by employing the various culturally relevant and available communicative resources, including specific generic and gestural forms, people produce their culture. This production takes place in all cultured behavior, and ritual--any ritual--effectively opens the door to understanding the entire culture (V. Turner 1967).6 Cultural performances "are occasions in which as a culture or society we reflect upon and define ourselves, dramatize our collective myths and history..." (MacAloon 1984a:1). Although communicative resources such as ritual do carry specific expectations for all involved, only through enactment and negotiation can meaning be established and understood. As Richard Bauman has written: Performance, like all human activity, is situated, its form, meaning, and functions rooted in culturally defined scenes or events-bounded segments of the flow of behavior and experience chat constitute meaningful contexts for action, interpretation, and evaluation [1986:31]
Cultural performances--performances of cultural forms--can only have meaning and functions when enacted (Abrahams 1977:95), and enactments often produce heightened experiences for participants.
Because this initiate, whom I will call George Carter, was not born into Santeria, these experiences are new to him. These new bodily activities, quite common to the tradition, represent a change for Carter. To enter the tradition fully, he must learn to use his body in new ways; he must master certain gestures and series of actions. As he experiences himself enacting new gestures and cultural forms of behavior, he realizes that his body is both a sign communicating meanings in a new way and simultaneously a locus of new experiences (Cowan 1990:4; cf. B. Turner 1984:1). His body is not simply a constructed sign that links him to the group; instead, the individual's body mediates all of the ritual signs, for he can only act by employing his body (Douglas 1978:87; cf. Ekman 1977). The enacting of these forms by the body represents the "modes of construction" of a culturally specific and useful body (Feher 1989:11). Carter needs to be able to enact each of the three gestures that I will explore in order to enter the religion more fully. He must understand and experience the importance of his head, he must learn the detailed gestures of sacrifice, and he must show respect by prostrating himself in front of his elders. Carter learns to be a part of the community by using his body in specific ways.
This initiation ritual begins the establishment of new "habitual body sets, patterns of practical activity, and forms of consciousness" (Jackson 1989:119-120). The activities of the ritual and the meanings therein are inseparable. In social action, an essential communicative form in Santeria, pragmatic and semantic dimensions fuse; ideology is not an explicit discourse but an embodied, lived experience (Comaroff 1985:5). Because meaning merges with actions, the ritual represents the creation of a new habitus in the initiate; it is an enactment of some of the "principles of the generation and structuring of practices and representations" (Bourdieu 1989[1977]:72). Practitioners do provide detailed evaluations of social actions and ceremonies. An effective ritual is called linda (Sp. beautiful), and this choice of language suggests that the sought-after quality is aesthetic and nonanalytical. The manipulation of physical objects--those used on altars and in sacrifices, as well as bodies-produce the elusive but beautiful ceremony.7
This habitus represents a new historical position for the neophyte in the case described above. This ritual is an important initiation on the road to the priesthood; it creates new bodily patterns for the initiate and thus inscribes the body into the new discourse. Previously abstract verbal knowledge is enacted and incorporated. Never before has he had his head washed in omiero; never before has he been cleaned by the sweepings of birds' wings; never before has he performed the moforibale. The giving and receiving of the Guerreros. repeated many times and in many places each year, assimilates people more fully into the community and gives them limited access to the supernatural world, and this example is no different. Here, however, the medium for assimilation is Carter. He must enact respect and embody the tradition.
This embodiment of tradition in the ritual context structures Carter's experience. As he uses his body in new ways and places it in new positions, he makes physical certain relationships and experiences them bodily; the initiation, then, regulates experience "through its capacity to reorganize the actor's experience of the situation" (Munn 1973:605). In spite of the fact that initiations vary according to the performers involved and that these variations affect the structure of the ritual (Hanks 1984:131), the aleyo's body always structures the experience.
In Santeria, the teaching of ritual skills and moral behavior happens informally and nonverbally; thus embodiment is especially important. Ritual elders tire quickly of answering questions and suggest that the best method of learning is involvement. By paying attention and attending many rituals, an aleyo becomes known as serio (Sp. a serious student of the religion; see Friedman 1982) People learn this religion not through the exegesis of important concepts but primarily through observation and enactment. Since learning centers on practice and entering actively into this tradition, the body naturally emerges as central to any analysis of this kind of ritual (cf. Wafer @991). This learning takes place slowly, and so it is extremely difficult to document. I have focused here on the body but it exists in a complex relationship with social knowledge and interpretation. The informal learning style of Santeria makes social knowledge a kind of esoteric power. People who know certain ceremonies exercise power in the community. My analysis reflects the social realities of this community. Ritual focuses on the body and its manipulation, and personal experience represents the primary method for understanding. When a practitioner integrates experience with more commonly held, culturally produced expressive forms, like divination stories, social knowledge is expanded. "The essential part of the modus operandi which defines practical mastery is transmitted in practice...without attaining the level of discourse" (Bourdieu 1989[1977]:87). Carter clearly grasps this emphasis on practice and the use of the body:
Although I had never done too much in Santeria before, I...I guess I wanted to be part of the community which I was joining, to act like they do. I wanted to be involved and do what they did so I would learn the religion.
Involvement must be physical to be complete; although Carter knows a great deal about the beliefs and sacred stories of Santeria, he greatly values entering the habitus of the community and expects to learn from his experience.
Washings and the Head
Because no expressive body activity happens without real bodies and no meanings can be assigned to gestures without reference to an historically specific event (Poole 1975:101), the specific example at hand best reveals Carter's bodily practice. The community of ritual specialists washes Carter's head as he prepares to enter the community. He leans over with eyes closed to receive their attention and blessings. The herbal mixture "cools" and "refreshes" him. His head is washed over a basin and then again in the bathtub. Each time, the padrino rubs the omiero, and the herbs floating in it, into his skin and scalp.
In the bathroom cleansing, which I have witnessed many times, the gestures of the ritual are highly stylized. The aleyo leans over the tub and places the chest on the edge; the hands rest on the bottom, one on top of the other. I have seen this priest, whom I will call Jose, demonstrate to people how they should position themselves as they receive the despojo (Sp. cleaning). Through this instruction in how properly to perform the gesture, Jose shows that he has an aesthetic by which he evaluates it. Similarly, Jose washes the head with a specific pattern of movements. He takes the omiero from its basin in a small gourd and pours it first over the crown of the head and then over the neck. Again starting at the crown, he lathers the soap by moving it around the head in growing circles until he reaches the neck, which he scrubs vigorously. He then rinses the head with more omiero and squeezes the water from the hair with a motion similar to the one with which he lathers it. These highly stylized gestures reveal a culturally structured pattern of bodily movement, and although they are performed by the padrino, they suggest that the despojo does contain gestures that the aleyo learns and experiences through his body.
The head, which receives most of the attention in the cleaning, carries complex and multiple symbolic meanings in Santeria. First, the head, called either ori or eleda, is the spiritual faculty and central being of a human (Murphy 1981:287) Before birth, each ori goes before the Creator and receives its essential character. This character, which people closely associate with an individual's destiny, can be either "hot" or "cool" (Cabrea 1980:121). While practitioners disagree about how mutable the head as character is, the ritual washing here in refreshing herbs and water helps to cool a hot head. The head also idiomatically refers to the oricha that rules a person; an individual and the deity also establish this relationship in front of the Creator before birth (see Bascom 1991:115).
This central deity, often called "the owner of the head," represents an important part of the individual's character. For example, the white, calm, and generous oricha Obatala rules the head of Carter's padrino, and so people assume that Jose is slow to anger, relatively intellectual, benevolent, and, others might add, "big-headed."8 In fact, at times practitioners confuse the "owner of the head" and the individual; "an Obatala" refers to a child of Obatala and in ritual may act in the role of that oricha. The eleda can be identified through various divination systems, and a growing relationship between an individual and the eleda often leads to initiations, after which the ache (Lu. power. essence) of the oricha literally resides inside the initiate's head; after a full initiation, the oricha can "mount" the initiate in trance possession and thus take control of the body that they share.9
In the Guerreros initiation, the aleyo, with the help of the oloricha (Lu. priests), cleans and refreshes his head. Thus, the ritual attention to the head marks it as socially and religiously important. The omiero is both an empowering and a cleaning agent; when applied to the head, it strengthens the spirit that dwells of the mixture, entwined in his hair, often begin to scratch and cause itching Carter recalls:
I felt a little estrange scratching my head after Jose [his godfather]had spent so much time attending to it. He prayed and I scratched; it...it seemed so...so strange to treat what had been made sacred as something annoying, but my scalp really itched. Later, I said a prayer to my head [ruling oricha] in thanksgiving and slept with a white cloth over it.10
He pays special and prolonged attention to his head; this attention, focused on his body and the part of it representing his destiny, lasts through the ritual and beyond. The man attends to his head and thus experiences its cultural importance in a bodily way.
This attention to the head, moreover, represents the beginning of a new cultural pattern. Many culturally prescribed forms of behavior, which specific other members of the religious community validate and encourage, reiterate the centrality of the head. People entering Santeria often start their affiliation when they need healing, and frequently the first ritual they undergo is the rogacion de la cabeza, in which coconut, water, and cotton are applied to the head to feed it. If they eventually undergo initiation and they almost always do (Rogers 1@73:28-29)--their heads will receive still more attention.
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This paper is concerned with Aristotle's account of primary substances (ousiai) as presented in the Categories. It is argued that one of his criteria for primary substances--the existential criterion--impales Aristotle on the horns of a dilemma: either Aristotle must admit substantial kinds as primary substances or he must countenance the existence of bare particulars. However, the former alternative contradicts Aristotle's remarks concerning the nature of primary substances. While, the latter alternative cannot be squared with the ontology found in the Categories. It is my belief that it was his awareness of these problems that lead Aristotle to drop the ontology of the Categories and develop the more complex ontology of the Metaphysics.
In order to supply a perspicuous rendering of the dilemma, it is necessary to first outline the basics of Aristotle's ontology in the Categories, and then to closely examine his criteria for primary substances. Only then can we proceed to a detailed examination of the dilemma.
1. Basic Ontology
1.1 Properties and Particulars
Two entities found in the ontology of the Categories are (a) individuals or particulars and (b) properties. Examples of particulars are "a man," "the individual man," "an animal," "the individual horse," "a picture," and "an ox.? Whereas examples of properties are "four-foot," "grammatical," "has armour on," "white," and the relational properties, "double," "half," and "in" (for example, in the market place and in the Lyceum).
It appears to be a clear and uncontroversial point within Aristotelian scholarship, and one that I am in agreement with, that Aristotle holds some version of a substance-attribute theory of particulars (as opposed to a bundle theory of particulars). It is also clear that so far as properties are concerned, Aristotle is a realist, as opposed to a nominalist. That is, he allows that there really are such things in the world as properties and relations. What is less clear is whether he holds properties to be universals or tropes (understood as property instances). I side with the view that Aristotle takes properties to be universals.[1] However, this issue, while of intrinsic interest, is of minimal importance to my thesis, because the soundness of my argument that Aristotle is faced with a dilemma is independent of the question of whether or not Aristotle holds properties to be tropes or universals. Therefore, I will attempt to employ the neutral term "property" rather than "universal" or "trope."
The next step is to determine whether properties are immanent or transcendent. To claim that properties are immanent is to assert that they exist wholly in space and time--that the world, which includes properties, isa single spatio-temporal manifold. (Such a view is compatible with naturalism.) Immanent properties must be instantiated (in a particular)--there can be no uninstantiated properties. It follows that the property x exists if and only if x is instantiated in a particular. This position may be contrasted with a transcendent theory of universals, as attributed to Plato's middle dialogues. A transcendent theory of properties allows properties to exist independently of their instantiation in any particular. Thus the property x may exist even if there are no particulars that instantiate that property. That is, x may exist even when no particular is x.
There is little doubt that Aristotle wished to contrast his theory of properties with that propounded by Plato. And it seems farily clear, while not absolutely certain, that, in the Categories this contrast leads us to conclude that Aristotle accepts an immanent theory of properties.[2]
1.2 Metaphysical Predication
We now move deeper into Aristotle's ontology and examine the nature of the relation between particulars and properties. That is, we examine his theory of predication. For Aristotle there are two forms of metaphysical predication: a. the said-of relation b. the present-in relation
This amounts two metaphysically distinct manners in which properties are able to be predicated of subjects. For example, both the property of man and the property of pallor may be predicated of Socrates. Yet, each quality bears a distinct type of relation to the subject Socrates. Man is predicated of Socrates by the said-of relation while pallor is predicated of Socrates by the present-in relation. These two relations combine in four possible ways, yeilding four types of metaphysical entities.[3]
a. Substantial individuals. Substantial individuals are neither present-in nor said-of anything. Examples are Socrates, the individual man, Phar Lap, and the individual horse. A substantial individual, such as Socrates, is not predicated, by either the present-in or the said-of relation, of any subject. As such, nothing is subject for a substantial individual.
b. Substantial kinds. Substantial kinds are said-of something, but are not present-in anything. Examples are species and genera; such as man, horse, and animal. A substantial kind, such as horse, is predicated by the said-of relation of a subject, such as Phar Lap, but is not predicated by the present-in relation of any subject.
c. Non-substantial individuals. Non-substantial individuals are present-in something, but not said-of anything. Examples are midnight black and pallor. A non-substantial individual, such as the shade of color midnight black, may be predicated by the present-in relation of a subject, such as Phar Lap, yet it is not predicated by the said-of relation of any subject.
d. Non-substantial kinds. Non-substantial kinds are both present-in and said-of something. Examples are color. A non-substantial kind, such as color, is predicated by the said-of relation of midnight black, and is also predicated by the present-in relation of Phar Lap (in virtue of the fact that Phar Lap is midnight black).
It should be noted that the notions of substance and non-substance, and both the present-in and said-of relations are undefined in the Categories. Lewis points out that the notions of substance and non-substance are specified in terms of the notions of metaphysical predication--in terms of the said-of and present-in relations.[4] At the same time, the notions of metaphysical predication are specified in terms of the distinction between substances and non-substances. The result is that neither can be taken as providing a definition of the other. Rather, Lewis suggests that we take both notions to be primitive in Aristotle.
2. Criteria for Primary Substances
Aristotle declares that of the four types of metaphysical entities identified above substantial individuals (such as the individual man, say, Socrates and the individual horse, say, Phar Lap) are ontologically basic and play the role of primary substances. Two criteria are employed by Aristotle for delineating the general patterns of ontological priority and dependency in identifying substantial individuals as primary substances. One criterion is predicative, while the other is existential.
a. Predicative: that which is neither said-of nor present-in a subject, and that which all other things are predicated of.
b. Existential: that which is such that "if it were not to exist, it would be impossible for anything to exist."
This section examines the arguments by which Aristotle attempts to use each of these criteria to establish the ontological primacy of primary substances.
2.1 Predicative Criterion
The predicative criterion consists of two parts: (a) that which is neither said-of nor present-in a subject, and (b) that which all other things are predicated of. The first part unequivocally picks out substantial individuals as primary substances. Aristotle states that:
A substance--that which is called a substance most strictly, primarily, and most of all--is that which is neither said of a subject nor in a subject, e.g. the individual man or the individual horse.[5]
This clearly identifies substantial individuals as primary substances, for the criterion for substantial individuals is simply the first part of the criterion for primary substances. So Socrates and Phar Lap, as examples of substantial individuals, are primary substances.
The second part of the predicative criterion states that a primary substance is also subject for everything else. Aristotle states:
It is because the primary substances are subjects for all the other things and all the other things are predicated of them or are in them, that they are called substances most of all.[6]
While elsewhere he declares:
It is because primary substances are subjects for everything else that they are called substances most strictly.[7]
This amounts to all the other three metaphysical entities identified above (that is, substantial kinds, non-substantial individuals, and non-substantial kinds) being predicated, by either the said-of or the present-in relation, of substantial individuals as primary substances. A primary substance is therefore the subject in every instance of predication. This second part of the predicative criterion for primary substances does not alter the extension of primary substances as determined by the first part of the criterion. In other words, like the first part of the criterion, this second part also picks out all and only substantial individuals as primary substances. Despite the fact that this second part of the predicative criterion does not alter the extension of what are to count as primary substances it nonetheless has the virtue of identifying a further attribute possessed by primary substances.
The fact that a primary substance is the subject in every instance of predication is accounted for by what Lewis terms the "monolithic theory of predication."[8]
An item is predicated of something other than an individual substance only if, and only because, there is some individual substance of which both items together are predicated.[9]
Aristotle provides a number of examples: Man is predicated of the individual man, and animal of man; so animal will be predicated of the individual man also--for the individual man is both a man and an animal.[10]
And: Animal is predicated of man and therefore of the individual man; for were it predicated of none of the individual men it would not be predicated of man at all.[11]
The predicative criterion succeeds in picking out a class of entities that are to be considered primary substances, namely substantial individuals. But does the criterion give us any reason to consider this class of entities to be ontologically primary? As noted, the predicative criterion identifies two attributes of primary substances: (a) they are neither said-of nor present-in a subject, and (b) all other things are predicated of them. It is hard to imagine how the first part of the criterion could be seen as providing a quality that gives substantial individuals ontological priority. In itself, the fact that an entity is not predicated of any other entity provides little clue as to its relations of ontological dependency on other entities. The second attribute appears more promising. This is because, with its assumption of the monolithic theory of predication, it is closely related to the existential criterion for primary substances (discussed in the next section) and makes substantial claims concerning the relations of ontological priority.
2.2 Existential Criterion
The existential criterion provides grounds for the ontological priority of primary substances. It states that a primary substance is such that:
If the primary substances did not exist it would be impossible for any of the other things to exist.[12]
This criterion picks out all substantial individuals as primary substances. Given the existential criterion, the monolithic theory of predication, and an immanent theory of predication, it follows that if substantial individuals were not to exist, then it would be impossible for anything else to exist.
The monolithic theory of predication contends that all instances of predication must involve a substantial individual as subject. For example, animal can be predicated of man if and only if both animal and man are predicated of an individual man (which is a substantial individual). In turn, an immanent theory of properties holds that a property cannot exist uninstantiated. That is, a property cannot exist if it is not predicated of a subject. And non-substantial individuals, substantial kinds, and non-substantial kinds are all properties. As a result, they can only exist on the condition that they are instantiated in, or predicated of, some subject. And, as the monolithic theory of predication points out, this subject must be a substantial individual. Therefore, it follows that if substantial individuals were not to exist, then neither would non-substantial individuals, substantial kinds, nor non-substantial kinds. In other words, if substantial individuals did not exist, then it would not be possible for anything else to exist. The ontological primacy of individual substances lies in the fact that everything else is existentially dependent upon them for existence.
3. Problems--the Dilemma
While the existential criterion manages to both pick out all substantial individuals as primary substances, and provides grounds for considering primary substances to be ontological prior, it also manages to confuse and muddy Aristotle's ontology. This is because the existential criterion forces Aristotle to admit that not only substantial individuals, but also substantial kinds are primary substances. And this runs contrary to Aristotle's intentions and explicitly stated remarks in the Categories.
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Molecular biology has revolutionized the study of protein structure and function. Not only has the microbial production of enzymes and other proteins in useful amounts become routine in recent years, but systematic alteration of protein sequence by site-directed mutagenesis is now a standard tool for dissecting chemical mechanism. The recent development of new methods for ligating peptides, however, promises to make chemical synthesis of large proteins an attractive alternative to biosynthesis, particularly for the construction of novel molecules containing non-natural amino acids or other structural modifications.
Attempts to synthesize proteins chemically have traditionally followed one of two basic strategies: stepwise assembly from their constituent amino acids on a solid support, or convergent coupling of peptide segments in solution. Although solid-phase peptide synthesis has been optimized to the extent that proteins over 100 amino acids in length can be prepared in favorable cases [l], such syntheses still represent heroic undertakings and the number of side products that accumulate over the many coupling steps that are necessary often makes purification of the final product laborious. Convergent coupling has the considerable advantage that synthesis and purification of peptide segments up to 30 residues long is relatively straightforward; since a variety of unusual amino acids can be introduced into each segment, this approach is also highly adaptable to the preparation of multiple analogs of naturally-occurring proteins. But broad implementation of the fragment condensation strategy has been limited by the poor solubility of protected peptide segments and the tendency of a-carboxy-activated peptides to racemize. Many of these difficulties can be circumvented by enzymatic coupling procedures. Proteolytic enzymes, particularly serine proteases, have been used extensively in peptide synthesis because of their selectivity, ability to function under mild reaction conditions, and minimal requirements for protecting groups [2]. Although it might seem counterintuitive to attempt to synthesize a protein using a protease, problems due to proteolytic degradation of the final peptide product by the catalyst can be minimized by manipulating the reaction conditions or through genetic engineering. For example, replacement of the active site serine in subtilisin with cysteine converts the protease into an acyl transferase: the modified enzyme is readily acylated by esters and subsequently deacylated by amines, but has greatly diminished amidase activity compared with wild-type subtilisin [3]. However, substitution of sulfur for oxygen engenders steric crowding in the active site, limiting the activity of the enzyme. Wells and colleagues [4] have relieved this crowding by mutating a second residue in the active site.The resulting double mutant, dubbed 0subtiligase,¡ eficiently couples unprotected peptides in water.
The acyl donor in a typical subtiligase-catalyzed ligation (Fig. 1) is a peptide whose carboxyl terminus is esterified with a glycolate-phenylalanine amide group. This ester efficiently acylates subtiligase because of the enzyme¡s preference for glycine and phenylalanine in the two positions directly following the 0cleavage¡ site, Pl¡ and P2¡, respectively. Deacylation of the enzyme by a fully deprotected peptide (or protein) corresponding to the desired acceptor fragment then yields the ligated product. Nearly quantitative yields have been obtained for reactions between model esters and dipeptide nucleophiles [4]. Such an approach has also been successfully applied to the post-translational modification of natural and recombinant proteins. For instance, biotinylated and heavy- atom derivatives of N-methionyl human growth hormone were prepared by ligating peptides that contain biotin or mercury to the hormone¡s N-terminus [5]. Wong et al. [6] have used analogous enzymatic methods to synthesize a variety of N- and Olinked glycopeptides. Blockwise assembly of large proteins by repeated couplings of long peptides is also possible. The enzyme RNase A (126 amino acids) was synthesized in good yield and high purity by subtiligase-catalyzed ligation of six peptide fragments ranging in length from 12 to 30 residues [7]. RNase A mutants containing the unnatural amino acid 4-fluorohistidine in place of the histidines at positions 12 and 119 were also prepared to examine whether the basic nature of these residues is important in catalysis [7]. Given that the incorporation of multiple unnatural amino acids into a protein backbone is not currently possible using recombinant technologies, this application of subtiligase illustrates the potential utility of chemical approaches to protein total synthesis. By expanding the set of possible changes that can be made, our ability to probe structure-function relationships in proteins with the precision of physical organic chemistry and to design new materials with novel properties will increase dramatically. Site-specific incorporation of NMR probes, structural constraints, and catalytic cofactors into proteins are only some of the exciting possibilities that spring to mind.
The utility of subtiligase-catalyzed peptide coupling is a consequence, in part, of its high reaction rates and relatively broad specificity.The glycolate esters used as acyl donors are stable and easily prepared by solid-phase methods, so that side-reactions, especially racemization, which are often problematic in the chemical coupling of activated peptides are suppressed. The fact that the enzyme tolerates a wide range of Pl, Pl¡, P2 and P2¡ amino acids also provides great latitude in the choice of ligation site. Site-directed mutagenesis has been used to broaden this specificity further [4,6] and to increase the stability of the enzyme [5,6]. The design of subtiligase variants capable of coupling peptides in 4 M guanidine hydrochloride may be particularly important [5], as highly-structured peptides and proteins are otherwise poor substrates for the ligase.
New non-enzymatic methods for coupling peptide fragments, including highly structured peptides, have the potential to complement and extend enzymatic ligation procedures considerably. Several research groups [g-10] have reported powerful chemical ligation strategies that can be carried out under fully denaturing conditions with high efficiency. In these reactions, unprotected peptide fragments are specifically brought together in such a way as to juxtapose the acyl donor and amine acceptor. The high effective molarity of the reactive groups then ensures facile intramolecular formation of the desired peptide bond. This approach, which bypasses the need for highly activated acyl donors, is illustrated by the recent work of Kent and coworkers [lo].
As shown in Fig. 2, native chemical ligation can be achieved by chemoselectively reacting a peptide bearing a thioester at its carboxyl terminus with a second peptide capped at its amino end by a cysteine. The resulting thioester ligation product undergoes a rapid, geometrically favorable rearrangement involving acyl transfer from the thiol to the amine, yielding a final product that contains a native amide bond at the ligation site. Both peptide segments are conveniently prepared by conventional techniques, and coupling is rapid and selective in aqueous buffer, occurring without significant side reactions. In fact, solubilizing agents such as urea and guanidine hydrochloride appear to enhance the chemical efficiency of reaction by concentrating and denaturing the peptide segments. The synthesis of interleukin- 8, a 72-residue cytokine that contains multiple disulfide bonds, demonstrates the utility of this approach for the preparation of moderately-sized polypeptides [lo]; the synthesis of larger proteins and protein analogs is limited only by the availability of larger, appropriately modified peptide segments. Although native chemical ligation strategies require a cysteine at the coupling site, this is not likely to be a significant limitation in the preparation of proteins with novel architectures.The thiol side chain is a useful catalytic group and/or metal ligand in many proteins. It is also readily converted through selective alkylation to a variety of anionic, cationic and neutral functionalities. Indeed, the high yields and comparatively easy implementation of the chemical approach are likely to render it an effective alternative to enzymatic coupling methods in many instances, and a successful marriage of the two techniques may dramatically increase the size range of polypeptides directly accessible by total chemical synthesis.
Of course, chemists wishing to synthesize proteins need not be bound by nature¡s choices. In addition to expanding the repertoire of amino acid side chains that can be incorporated into proteins, chemical synthesis makes backbone engineering possible: peptide segments and protein domains can be joined by linkages other than the amide bond. This point is illustrated by variants of HIV- l protease containing novel thiol ester linkages [11,12], which were constructed by combining a peptide fragment possessing a C-terminal thioester with a second segment bearing a bromoacetyl group at its amino end. Alkylation of the thiol occurs rapidly and in high yield. When the thioester replaces the natural peptide bond between Gly51 and Gly52, the alkylated product remains fully active [l 11, but when it is used to replace the Gly49-Ile50 peptide bond, catalytic activity is reduced [12]. This observation provided direct evidence for the notion that specific backbone hydrogen bonds from the enzyme active site flaps to the substrate are important for the catalytic function of the protease. Backbone engineering has also been exploited for the rapid assembly of a four-helix bundle on a ternplating peptide [13] and for semisynthesis of analogs of human granulocyte colony stimulating factor containing a single backbone acyl hydrazone bond [14]
In sum, versatile new methods for coupling peptides provide the basis for a general and modular approach to the chemical synthesis of large proteins. Accordingly, the field of protein chemistry is likely to experience something of a renaissance. For decades to come, wide implementation of these technologies will provide exciting research opportunities for chemists and biologists interested in exploring protein structure and function.
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Bridging the Computer Gap
By Susan Drenning and Lou Getz
" You can teach an old dog new tricks!," commented an 11-year-old "teacher" after introducing his 60-year-old "student" to computers in Computer Ease. When asked what he would add to the three- session course the enthusiastic 60-year-old said, "52 more weeks!"
Computer Ease is an intergenerational computer literacy program to increase utilization of existing equipment and staff. Computer Ease is a collaborative effort between the Upper Arlington Senior Center and Tremont Elementary School. Both agencies are located adjacent to one another in Upper Arlington, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. The senior center is sponsored by the city's parks and recreation department, under the direction of Ken Thompson.
In 1986, Senior Program Coordinator, Susan Drenning noticed a widening gap between her center participants and their grandchildren. Grandparents complained to her that their grandchildren were glued to computers when they visited. Meanwhile, the grandparents were developing a fear of computers. Even if the grandparents wanted to learn about computers, the only computer courses available to them were expensive and too fast paced or only available in the evening. Consequently, grandparents were having problems communicating effectively with their high- tech grandchildren.
Haven't we all had a fear of computers? Remember the day a computer was placed on your desk? You were expected to use it or lose it (the job that is). Some people close to retirement chose early retirement over computer literacy. Others simply avoided their computer for several months hoping it would go away. Meanwhile children were becoming computer literate in schools across our nation as schools responded to social expectations.
Computer Ease bridges the gap. Developed by teachers David Heigle and Lou Getz in collaboration with Senior Center Director Susan Drenning, Computer Ease is designed to ease older adults into the world of high tech through the patient, uninhibiting instruction of elementary school students.
Goals of the program include: * Providing a hands-on, uninhibiting computer experience for older adults. * Allowing students to switch from learner to mentor. * Creating an awareness of each other's attributes. * Increasing self esteem for both age groups.
Computer Ease sessions are held four times a year in computer labs at Greensview Elementary School as well as Tremont Elementary School. Older adults (60 to 96) and their young teachers (ten to 11) work one-on-one for one-and-one-half hours, three times per session.
In the first class, the older adults learn why and how schools use computers to teach geography, mathematics, spelling and social studies. They use computer software programs such as "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego," "Concentration" and "Oregon Trail. "
Next, participants learn to design their own personalized letterhead and greeting cards using Apple's Print Shop. They often create cards for their grandchildren. In the final meeting, the students use Appleworks to help their older buddy use the computer as a word processor. The older adults often write a letter to their grandchildren to show their new-found computer literacy and their appreciation for their student "teacher".
This program brings out the best in both age groups. Students seem to view the older adults as older peers who are also learners. They are on their best behavior and often invite their older friends to participate in other intergenerational programs between the senior center and the school, or to Grandperson's Day activities.
Comments from evaluation sheets prove that the goals of the program are right on target. In their evaluations the older adults say: * It was not as difficult as they thought it would be. * They didn't expect it to be as easy as the children made it for them. * They liked the hands-on experience (making something as opposed to observing). * They found a new friend and were pleased with their "teacher's" enthusiasm.
Many of the older adults offer to volunteer in the school computer lab.
The students say: * They like teaching people instead of having people teach them. * "All old people are smarter than you think. "* They like the additional opportunity to work with computers. * They like making new friends with an older person.
Now that these older adults are computer literate, they are purchasing their own computers, getting jobs using computers, requesting and receiving computer donations for their own senior center lab, developing follow-up word processing classes at their own center and returning to the schools to volunteer as a lab assistant in the school computer lab. It's a win-win- program for all.
Computer Ease in Upper Arlington is inexpensive--we use existing equipment and staff located in the adjacent Tremont Elementary School. To develop a similar program in your location you should consider the equipment and staff available, existing software and proximity between student and older adult groups. Then take the Computer Ease idea, combine it with resources available in your community, and help more older adults become computer literate.
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W2E-009-0.txt
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AS FOR FLIP-FLOPPING, COLIN POWELL IS AS ADEPT AS ANYBODY
The widespread encouragement that Colin Powell is receiving for making a run for the White House says more about some people's yearning for a messiah figure to deliver us from our collective sins, from racism to crime, than it does about reality. It also says something about our willingness (and the willingness of those who want Powell to be president in order to advance their own careers) to ignore unpleasant truths about the man with the golden image.
For instance, look at the memorandum that House Speaker Newt Gingrich requested from University of Texas Professor Marvin Olasky on "The Powell I Could Not Support - And The Powell I Could. "The memo is a triumph of wishful thinking.
Olasky, who has contributed much intellectual substance to the Republican plan to overhaul welfare, hopes that Powell may not be a closet liberal and, though pro-choice on abortion, (ITAL) could (unITAL) be persuaded to speak and act in ways that would reduce the number of abortions. He also believes that if Powell were to become president, he might use the "bully pulpit" and the Department of Education to push abstinence so that fewer teen-agers would get pregnant in the first place. But a pro-life candidate could do the same with far more conviction.
Why, it must be asked, would voters consider a man untested in politics to be their president? If Bob Dole or Phil Gramm announced they wanted to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs, would anyone take them seriously?
Five years ago, few outside the Washington foreign policy community had heard of Colin Powell. He was just another military bureaucrat. The Persian Gulf War changed that, but Powell emerged from that conflict with more stars than he deserved.
The record shows that in every Gulf planning session, Gen. Powell raised the possibility of an American blood bath and urged President Bush to use economic sanctions, not troops, to thwart Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. When Bush overruled him, Powell devised a plan of attack for the U.N. forces that was vintage World War I "over the top" stuff. Norman Schwarzkopf was so opposed that he threatened to resign if forced to implement it. Assistant Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger called the Powell plan the real recipe for an American bloodbath.
In an apparent attempt to cover himself, Powell called in The Washington Post's Bob Woodward on the eve of Bush's fateful moment. He told Woodward of his deep misgivings about the Bush strategy for repelling Saddam's aggression and relayed his own belief in economic sanctions.
Schwarzkopf and Bush were vindicated by America's finest military hour since World War Two. When Woodward's book, "The Commanders," was published, it told of Powell's opposition to Bush's military decisions. Worse, we learned that Powell had positioned himself so that he could have wiggled out of any responsibility should the war have gone badly. It would have been said that Bush overruled the professional advice of his Joint Chiefs chairman. But to liberals in congress, Powell would have been a hero. By speaking out of turn to Woodward, Powell was disloyal to his commander in chief.
Liberal journalists see Powell as the anti-revolutionary who could beat back the voters' intentions expressed in the 1994 election. Powell himself has called the Contract With America "harsh and punitive. "But who knows where this man who is so adept at flip-flopping really stands? As he writes in his book, he started out as a center-leftist. But, after declaring himself pro-choice and for affirmative action and for the Million Man March, within days he changed to "generally in line with the Christian right" and questioned the leadership of the march.
Powell could fill an important role as a racial healer while speaking out for abstinence and personal responsibility. He could do this in the House or Senate, as a governor, a university president, or in private life. But if he chooses to run for President and appears to be a front man for convictionless "Rockefeller Republicans," who lack a viable candidate, he will open himself up to attacks on his record in the military and his self-serving confessional to Bob Woodward. That will begin a battle he cannot win and he will be a candidate for whom most social conservatives cannot and will not vote.
HEADLINE: SEARCH FOR TRUTH, EXTRA VIGILANCE ARE PROPER RESPONSE TO DERAILMENT
FBI agents, police, politicians and the American people should beware a rush to judgment about what kind of person or group might have derailed a train in the Arizona desert, why they did it and what needs to be done about it. Leaping to conclusions can lead to miscalculations that threaten the innocent and hinder the search for truth.
Remember the widespread speculation blaming the April 19 Oklahoma City Federal building bombing on Arab terrorists from overseas? Careful investigation led to charges against a couple of disgruntled anti-government loners, both non-Arab Americans.
Congress should not let the derailment pressure them into approving any anti-terrorism laws that threaten civil liberties.
FBI agents and police must keep their minds open, uniting their full resources to bring the sick, cowardly perpetrators of this despicable, murderous crime to justice. To boost deterrence, Amtrak is rightly stepping up recautions at train stations and increasing surveillance along the tracks.
Americans whose sense of security has been shaken should take some comfort from knowing law enforcement agencies have a good track record in recent years in catching people who commit such crimes.
Could the derailment be organized anti-government terrorism? Possibly. The main clue, a note signed by "Sons of Gestapo" could be genuine. But it also could be a red herring to distract the FBI from the real saboteurs and their motives.
Could it be vandalism that got out of hand or a psycho's way of causing mindless destruction?
Or could it be a disgruntled Amtrak employee or ex-employee with a grudge against his bosses? The saboteur clearly had an insider's knowledge of how to avoid triggering an electronic warning signal.
Until more information is known, avoid leaping to premature conclusions.
So far, it's clearcut sabotage and murder, motivation uncertain. There's a big leap from that to organized terrorism, although the victims may find the distinction mere nit-picking.
MAKE STUDY OF LEGALIZED GAMBLING TO BE SURE REGULATION MEETS NEED
Congress should move swiftly to create a proposed national commission to study the enormously destructive impacts of legalized gambling and recommend ways to reduce that harm.
The major threat is a severe psychological illness called gambling addiction, no less real than addiction to alcohol or drugs. More than 10.6 million Americans (1.3 million teen-agers) are estimated victims, 400,000 in Florida.
Compulsive gamblers chasing elusive jackpots and an artificial "high" gamble away billions needed for rent, groceries, utilities, child support and other necessities of life. Some people write bad checks, engage in fraud or embezzlement, borrow from loansharks at exorbitant interest rates or steal to feed their habit. At the bottom, they destroy themselves and their families.
Research shows gambling generally has its most harmful impact on those who can least afford it, the poor. A steady increase in casino gambling by teen-agers, despite legal bans, is cause for alarm in part because it encourages them to regularly engage in illegal behavior.
Casinos promise huge economic benefits, then cannibalize the local economy because free or low-cost meals, drinks and hotel rooms force competitors out of business.
In gambling towns, rates of desertion, personal bankruptcy, divorce, mental illness and suicide are far higher than elsewhere.
Gambling erodes moral standards by fueling unhealthy attitudes: You can get something for nothing. You don't need the self-discipline to study or work hard to achieve success, just bet on random events, mostly beyond human control.
In places like Atlantic City, casinos have propelled a huge rise in property values, driving longtime business and home owners away. They also brought more crime such as prostitution, money-laundering, loan-sharking, mob infiltration and political corruption.
Gambling is big business. Nationwide, gamblers bet half a trillion dollars a year, and lose $ 40 billion. Legalized gambling, once rare, is now proliferating: 37 states, including Florida, have state-run lotteries and 23 states, not including Florida, allow casinos. Florida allows gambling at horse and dog tracks and jai alai frontons. Casinos are located on cruise ships that sail three miles offshore. A proposed state constitutional amendment legalizing casinos in Florida is heading for the November 1996 ballot.
<p. An honest, independent study of the true national impacts of legalized gambling could be a real eye-opener.
It is unlikely that the federal government would ever ban legalized gambling, given its popularity. At least, a study commission could provide guidelines to improve gambling regulation and offer some shocking public education to help gambling addicts and others learn to resist the siren's song of the sucker bet.
DURENBERGER, REYNOLDS FIND OUT HARD WAY THEY AREN'T ABOVE THE LAW
Among the many faults of Congress, in the minds of an increasingly annoyed public, is insufferable personal arrogance. Although some members of Congress maintain a level outlook, others fall under the self-induced spell they'r 'reither above the law or simply not governed by rules affecting everyone else.
When a couple of these arrogant scoundrels are brought to heel, as Dave Durenberger and Mel Reynolds were this week, public reaction can be mixed. The satisfaction of knowing they' 'llbe punished for their violations is dulled by the confirmation of long-suspected wrongdoing. We' 'reglad they were caught, but wonder how many of their colleagues are getting away with similar criminal or unethical acts.
Durenberger, of Minnesota, no longer in the U.S. Senate, has long insisted he committed no crime in his unusual expense account claims. Finally, in a transparent attempt to avoid a felony conviction and probable prison time, Durenberger admitted five misdemeanor charges of stealing public money by abusing his expense account.
" Stealing" is precisely correct. Durenberger would stay in a Minneapolis condominium he owned, then bill the taxpayers as if he had rented a hotel room. He admitted running up $ 3,825 in bogus expense items and expects to be punished lightly by getting probation.
Under federal sentencing guidelines, he could be imprisoned for 10 months, but why be vindictive? Durenberger, a Republican, has been cut down to his tiny size. The Senate denounced him, he lost his law license and was forced out of office.
That's enough. Durenberger, 61, never again will be a factor in public life, nor should he be.
Reynolds, a Chicago Democrat and current member of the House, almost certainly will spend time in prison after his jury conviction on 12 criminal charges. The conviction of criminal sexual assault alone requires a four-year mandatory minimum sentence.
The jury refused to buy his claim that he had "phone sex" with a 16-year-old girl, but nothing else. The testimony against Reynolds was too convincing, and the jury obviously was disgusted with a person in a position of authority using his power on a teen-ager, even if she consented to their sordid sexual relationship.
No role model for anyone despite his Ivy League and Rhodes Scholar background, Reynolds also was convicted of child pornography, sexual abuse and obstruction of justice. The jury concluded he tried to pressure the star witness against him to leave town.
Unless his appeal unexpectedly succeeds, Reynolds at 43 also seems destined to be a nonentity in public life. Shed no tears for him or Durenberger. In their rotten cases, arrogance brought its own reward by bringing them down.
It would be comforting to believe no one else in Congress is behaving in similar unlawful ways. Comforting but naive.
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W2F-013-0.txt
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We All Fall Down
Kristy Nielsen
One
Transcription of therapy session with Evelyn Luckenbach, September 28, 1981
Therapist shows Evelyn a picture and asks her to describe it.
The father plays ukelele, holds it near to his face and croons to his daughters, those with smudged faces and smiles of ignorance. He walks always on the sunny side of the street, he has no worries. But that girl in the yellow dress holding her knees, the one whose face, if we look closely, is tight with her smile, that girl already doesn't know how to drop her worries.
There are other songs, songs about railroad men, traveling salesmen, hoboes. All the men in the songs live happy and carefree, wandering the country with their pipes and bedrolls, leaving their worries on someone else's doorstep.
" Sing the song about Charlie," the girl in the yellow dress asks every time. This is the one where the man comes home to a family and brings gifts and sings of his travels. The chorus is something funny, something he makes up new every time just to make her laugh, and with this one, because he knows she likes it, he looks into her eyes and sings directly to her.
The breath is always warm and smells tonight of metal, as if he has eaten a chain link fence. The whorls and creases of his hands filled with grease, fingernails black with it, but his face is clean and unlined, he is young still and his hazel eyes are surrounded by absolute white.
If they knew where they were already heading, one step at a time, wouldn't they pause longer here? In this hollow moment with just the ukelele, the untainted voice of a young man dreaming, the love of the girls that shows in their eyes like something taken for granted.
The mother is in the kitchen making a batch of fudge. She is still trying. When her girls listen to their father sing songs about freedom, she paces around the kitchen in her pant suit, thumbs through a cookbook, tries to imagine what does a normal mother do now? "Make fudge," Betty Crocker tells her and the mother follows directions still.
Two cups sugar, two squares unsweetened chocolate. It says something that she even has these things on hand.
The pant suits were a gift from the father the same year that all the scarves and flowered skirts appeared in the ditch down the road. Walking around the block the two sisters come upon such familiar things: their mother's scarves, her blue silk kimono, the pastel nightgowns that always smell like her, bangles, flowered skirts, the blouse with all the animals of the zoo walking across its yellow background in black patterns.
What would an ordinary child do? Run home thinking their house had been robbed? Inform the mother that all her best clothes were in the ditch around the block? These girls do not think to question such an occurrence. If everything in the house were in the ditch, there must be a reason. If their mother herself were there, or if the girls woke up in the middle of the night covered in leaves, listening to traffic whiz by, what could they do but say their prayers, roll over, and dream?
The elder girl takes the blue kimono and stuffs it in her shirt as a memento. She will sleep with it under her pillow and smell it for years, even after the scent of her mother is only something she creates.
The mother is still trying, she has on the pant suit and her hair rises in a teased puff sprayed into place. Her cuticles have been removed. She has the purple pants with the green blouse and even the girls know that they should be worn in matched pairs, but she does try and that means everything tonight while the father sings and strums and the girls sit transfixed.
She stirs and cooks and waits for 234 degrees on the candy thermometer, not one degree more. She lets it cool to exactly 120 before beating in the vanilla. Then as the fudge lies hardening, she tries to remember to put softness in her face.
The mother poses for the picture with her pan of fudge in one hand and the house keys in the other. She is not getting ready to leave, but holds onto those keys because she loses them otherwise and the father gets angry and doesn't allow her to leave the house unlocked.
Her face is hard and wild, the smile a forced form like the hair and clothes, the hands still stiff at her side and she stands on tiptoes as if she is about to sprint. Her eyes aren't hard to read, even at this distance. They say 'here's your damn fudge' at the same time that they demand collaboration, expect the girls to participate in the myth of her great mothering.
But the secrets are beginning to come out in her face and she keeps her hands busy partly so they don't begin painting the walls, spreading the fudge all over the white kitchen walls in patterns and words. That won't happen tonight though. Tonight, she cuts the fudge, gives the girls each a piece, gives the man two.
This mother, I try to understand her. I can see how she struggles to hold herself there, to keep the hands from dropping boiling water on the children. This mother, when she finishes frying chicken, she leaves the hot oil in a pan at the edge of the counter where a curious young child could pull it towards her, looking for fudge, or dinner maybe.
I don't know what her secrets are, only that they demand something of her, they expect her to drop everything and pay tribute to what they say in tiny, squirrely voices.
This mother did not give any part of herself to her children, she let them come through her but she remained untouched. Now she feels no allegiance to them, no special compulsion to feed them, stroke their hair, give them something safe to dream on. Kiss me goodbye, her eyes are already saying.
This is home. A rented duplex on a dead end street with a train charging by every half hour at dinnertime and once or twice even in the middle of the night. The girl in the yellow dress can't sleep through the noise though she counsels herself every night not to be scared by the sudden roaring, by the silence afterward.
The girl in the yellow dress is easily frightened and the father enjoys scaring her. "You'll 'll a kick out of this," he tells his friends before sneaking up on the girl and saying "boo!" in his deepest voice. The girl always jumps, always gives a short squeal, and then stands with pounding heart in the circle of laughing men.
There are many ways to frighten her and when she cries he says, "You're s 'reensitive," in a voice of awe and confusion. She is sensitive, if that is the right word. That is why, even on this night when the father sings and jokes, when the mother works in the kitchen baking fudge, even tonight, the girl in the yellow dress reads something in her mother's eyes, feels the tremors as the train roars by and knows they convey more truth than anything else
They live in a duplex and the girl imagines in the other half of their house lives a mother and father, two daughters, a ukelele, a pant suit, a yellow dress. In every house she imagines the same family arrangement, the same mothers and fathers, always two daughters, but never one sensitive like her, one who scares so easily and feels alone even in a world populated by families just like her own, all up and down the street.
The father hands her a jar of peanuts and when she opens it a coiled snake on a spring pops out in her face causing her to scream and drop the jar. Her father laughs and laughs, wiping his eyes. "You should have seen your face," he says, "Jesus."
There are the girls in their Easter dresses, white hats, gloves, anklets and white shoes with buckles on the sides. The dresses are almost the same but the elder girl likes more lace and frill and the younger demanded a simple hat, one without ribbons. Standing side by side you can tell they are sisters by the features and the way they both incline their heads slightly to the side, as if even as they smile for the camera, they are asking a question.
I think they are asking who will be fooled by these photographs? Who will see us in our white dresses and hats, our flowery anklets and buckled Mary Janes and think we are ordinary children? Will they look at us and imagine bedtime stories, romps across the living room floor with Daddy, shopping and cooking with Momma?
Maybe they stand a little straighter thinking that at least in this frozen image they are two little girls, adorable, who couldn't love them? Look at the oleander in bloom behind them. You can tell it is a beautiful spring.
It is a shame I cannot feel more for them. Even the father is innocent still, but the girl and I know what is to come and knowing that, how can we forgive them this small happiness, this night of tender ukelele playing, hopeful fudge baking, innocent picture taking? The potential outcomes have not yet been narrowed, but none in this family is strong enough to hold off the train rumbling down its tracks to meet them head on.
I think he knew his wife wouldn't stay in the kitchen in the pant suits and teased hair much longer, so the father began snapping pictures of the mother almost every day, something for the girls to remember maybe. In the pictures where he has taken her off guard, I can see most clearly the pain on this woman's face, the future covering her eyes in shadows deeper than the flash could penetrate.
In one photograph, the image of the mother is blurred because she is still moving, caught in the motion of turning around to the photographer, her husband. The expression on her face is so angry, so hostile it frightens even me.
How it must have awed those two little girls. Imagine, their father merely says, "turn around, Honey," and the woman produces a look like that, like a trapped animal ready to kill.
The mother kept back a piece of herself when she gave birth to her daughters, she couldn't let go. Now she has too much inside, struggling to be spoken or painted or sung. And the girls are not whole. I wonder if they ever will be.
The mother moves through the world in such a way that the girls will only be ghosts following after, never filling in their own lives but trying to take the burden off her, hoping she will give them that piece they need, the missing information, the last drop to make them full, or if not that, then at least the fix they need to keep on a little longer: the small love-filled words she occasionally spoke, a moment when she truly saw them, then smiled, then pulled them close.
This is home, these rooms with perfectly white walls, the red stuffed chair and flat, hard, green sofa. The bedroom where the parents sleep in warm, soft sheets the color of skin, the side porch where the girls lie on twin cots watching the moon move shadows, listening to conversations so private they are hissed and whispered and wept.
This is home, where the mother is overfull and the girls feel empty, where the father's wandering feet are only temporarily nailed down. This is home: two girls overwhelmed by love for two imperfect parents who are still trying, still young and hopeful and innocent, still unaware of how quickly and easily everything could be broken, even the girls, even them.
" You know a lot about them. Yes, I do know a lot about them. It seems I can just look at the pictures and imagine, but I have always imagined too much. Maybe I am just making it up, pretending, make-believe. It's a great game.
" I don't think you are making it up. I think you are remembering. You havedone a lot of work today and we 'll continue tomorrow."
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W1A-020-0.txt
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Clinical Case Evaluation Final
I began asking by myself the question: "What is the best group intervention to treat test anxiety in graduate students?" I began my search by accessing the Social Work Library website. I conducted searches on a couple of different databases. The first database I searched on was ProQuest. I searched "test taking anxiety" and "graduate students" and "group interventions" and received no results. I then simplified my search to just "test anxiety" and "graduate students" and found some results; however, most of them were studies on test anxiety and not on treatment. I then added "treatment" to my previous search and found two studies on test anxiety and treatment. I decided to try and search ERIC. I entered "test anxiety" and "graduate students" and "treatment" in the search categories and found two articles that included that criterion. I then searched the PsychInfo database using the terms "graduate students", "test anxiety", and "treatment". I found many articles about the treatment of test anxiety. I then tried to scale down my results by adding "group treatment" and found studies that specifically had tested a group treatment approach. I attempted to add "evidence based practice" to this search but found no results. I only included articles from scholarly journals and attempted to look for more recent studies. When I could not access a journal article through the Columbia University Library I entered the title into Google Scholar to see if the text was available on the internet. After conducting my literature search I came up with my COPES question which asks "If second year social work graduate students who are experiencing test anxiety about the LMSW licensing exam receive cognitive restructuring or relaxation therapy or skills training in a group setting will they show reduced levels of anxiety after intervention?" I used this question to guide my reading of the studies found.
This study synthesized the results of 56 studies on text anxiety treatments. The analysis looked at studies that used cognitive-behavioral, skill focused, cognitive, meditation, and physical exercise based interventions. The most effective interventions were those that combined cognitive and skills training (E=1.22). The next most effective treatment was found to be behavioral and skills training (E=1.10). Behavioral interventions only were also found to be effective (E=.80). Other techniques like meditation and physical exercise produced a small effect size so were deemed less effective in reducing anxiety symptoms (E=0.15).
In terms of intervention techniques the analysis showed that cognitive restructuring has the largest effect size (E=1.10). Other techniques that also produced large effect sizes were combined behavioral and skills focused training, cognitive and skills focused training, other behavioral techniques, anxiety management training, CBT and skills focused training, and systematic desensitization. Behavior modification, study skills training, meditation, and physical exercise techniques were all shown to have small effect sizes.
This study reports the efficacy of cognitive restructuring on reducing test anxiety symptoms. The study consisted of three groups with a total of thirty-six participants who are college or graduate schools. One group received a cognitive restructuring treatment, one group received an exposure treatment, and the last group received no treatment. Based comparing the scores of questionnaires given to the group in the first and last session, the authors found that participants in the cognitive restructuring group experienced a greater reduction in anxiety symptoms.
This study looks at the effectiveness of the combination of cognitive and relaxation therapy and study-skills training in reducing anxiety symptoms and improving test scores. Forty-five undergraduate test-anxious students participated in the study. The study consisted of four different groups. One group received relaxation and cognitive therapy, one group was received study-skills training, one group received a combination of cognitive and relaxation therapy and study-skills training and the last group received no treatment. The authors found that the combined therapy of cognitive/relaxation therapy and study-skills training were significantly more effective than either treatment alone in reducing anxiety symptoms.
Many studies have found that a multimodal approach is more effective in reducing test taking anxiety. In Ergene (2003) results show that a combination of cognitive therapy and skills training is most effective in reducing test taking anxiety. Goldfried et al. (1978) and Denado and Diener (1986) supported the finding of the meta-analysis. The Ergene (2003) study has the highest level of scientific support for effectiveness because it is a meta-analysis of 56 other studies. Bloom, Fischer, and Orme (2009) state that in order to provide our clients with evidence based practices it is important to focus on studies that are able to synthesize many different studies to find the practices with the largest effect size. The quasi-experimental studies I found on test taking anxiety have small sample sizes, varying research settings, and conflicting results. Ergene (2003) was able to test the results from these different studies to answer the broad question of which interventions are most helpful in reducing anxiety symptoms in test anxious participants.
Based on research on test anxiety treatments I have decided to create a group that combines cognitive restructuring and skills-focused training. This group will address the psychological reactions that the students have around taking the licensing test as well as teach them skills to help with recall, organized thinking, and time management.
For students who are interested in joining the group the intervention will be a combination of cognitive therapy and skills-focused training. These treatments are based on the theories that negative cognitions and learning deficits cause test taking anxiety (Jones and Petruzzi, 1995). The cognitive therapy technique that will be used is cognitive restructuring. In the first thirty minutes of each session the main facilitator will ask for examples from the group of negative cognitions they have had about taking the LMSW exam. Examples of these cognitions include statements like "I am so stupid I don't even know where to begin studying" and "People like me never pass tests." The group will work together to challenge any negative cognitions and restructure them so that they are neutral or positive.
The skills training component will compliment cognitive restructuring because often students with test anxiety feel that they need better skills to do well on an exam (Poorman et al., 2009). The skills training component of the group will take place during the last half an hour of each session. The skills training will include these topics: goal setting, time management, improving study skills, and test-taking strategies.
At the beginning of each session, students will be asked to complete the Test Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, 1980) and take a 5 question test based on material covered on the LMSW exam. Homework will be assigned to practice both techniques. Students will be asked to keep a weekly diary card where they will record negative thoughts they have about taking a test while outside the group. Student will be asked to do a variety of different assignments in order to practice the skills-focused training techniques they learn in group. These will include creating a study schedule and time management chart.
The first strength of these operationalized versions of the outcomes are that the main outcome, a decreased level of anxiety, will be measured using a standardized measure that has been proved valid and has a set of norms for different populations.
The second strength of these measures is that they can easily be analyzed. Each measurement is recording one weekly numeric score.
The greatest weakness of these operationalized outcome measures is that they require a lot of work from the participants. This is especially difficult when the problem the group is addressing is related to performance anxiety. The amount of work needed for each measurement might trigger greater anxiety in some participants.
The target of the group intervention is anxious feelings around test taking. Jones and Petruzzi (1995) state that negative cognitions present in test taking anxious individual impair good performance. Poorman et al. (2009) adds that individuals often experience behaviors like difficulty paying attention, frequently getting off task, and increased distractibility. The intervention will address the different facets of test anxiety. The cognitive restructuring component of the intervention will seek to reduce negative cognitions by examining the students' cognitions and systematically altering these thoughts to promote positive thoughts around test taking abilities. The skills-focused training component will focus on the behaviors associated with test taking anxiety. Skills like time management, creating a study log, and various strategies for test taking will address learning deficits and negative behaviors. After the intervention students in the group will be able to alter their own negative cognitions and use the skills learned to prepare for the LMSW test, which will lead to lower anxiety.
Group participation will be measured by the verbal participation of the group participants. The co-facilitator will record the frequency of each persons' verbal participation during the group session. Verbal participation is defined in a broad way as meaning any time a participants speaks in the group. Participants will be expected to participate at least once a session. Without verbal participation one can assume that members are not receiving the full benefits of being in the group.
The strength of this kind of measure is its ease of use. No special equipment is needed and it is easy to chart change in behavior over time (Bloom, Fischer, and Orme, 2009). The weakness of this type of measure is that some participants might be uncomfortable speaking in front of the group. This is especially true since the participants are experiencing symptoms of anxiety that might make them feel too vulnerable to share their feelings.
Trends in the data will be examined in order to assess the success of the intervention. Each outcome measure will be graphed for a visual analysis of the trend. Since groups are made up of individuals whose scores vary there can often be outliers that might skew a mean or standard deviation of the data (Bloom, Fischer, and Orme, 2009). To avoid this all data will be plotted using a box plot that takes into account the median score of each outcome and range of the scores. The baseline will be collected from the measurements administered during the first session before the intervention.
Research has shown that there are gender and cross-cultural differences in the rate of test taking anxiety. Everson et al. (1991) found that women experience more anxiety around test taking and academic achievement than men. Some researchers hypothesize that this is because woman are socialized to express their emotions, while men are taught to suppress their feelings (Boda and Ollendick, 2005). Bodas and Ollendick (2005) also found that test anxiety differs cross-culturally. The authors feel that the variation in parenting styles accounts for much of this difference. In many non-Western cultures parents put excessive pressure on their children to do well academically. This pressure causes non-Western children to have more test anxiety but also more shame about that anxiety. Overall, Bodas and Ollenick (2005) suggest that there is a lack of theoretical background in test taking anxiety that is based on the understanding of the norms and beliefs of different cultures.
Research around test anxiety has also been done across different races. This research focuses on the achievement gap between white and Asian students and African American, Latino, and other students of color. Osburne (2001) cites theories that reveal that non-white students often suffer from a perceived stereotype around their academic achievement. This stereotype informs students that they will not do as well as Asian and white students because of the color of their skin or their cultural background. There is empirical support for this theory. Osburne (2001) notes that the implications of these theories and findings are that if stereotype threat is removed then the racial achievement gap will close. Further testing of this hypothesis has been encouraging and shows that without the stereotype threat that students of all colors perform relatively the same on tests.
Cognitive and behavior interventions have been used cross-culturally and with both genders (Bodas and Ollenick, 2005 and Ergene, 2003). These interventions have proven successful in reducing test anxiety in many different groups of people. I feel that a group intervention that uses cognitive restructuring techniques and skills-focused training will benefit a many different types of people. This group might be most helpful for women and students of color. As in the research stated above women often show higher levels of anxiety around academic achievement so this group will help them decrease that anxiety in order to perform well on the exam. I think that students of color will also benefit from this group because of the research on stereotype threat. Stereotype threat causes students think that they cannot do well on a test. The group will address this thinking with cognitive restructuring and through changing this negative thinking be able to decrease text anxiety. This group may not be the best fit for students who are from non-Western cultures. Though these students have been shown to experience similar levels of test anxiety they have been found to often feel shame around this anxiety. A group setting might not be the most optimal for them as they may feel ashamed to admit their anxious feelings. Men may also not be the best fit for the group because studies show that men have a harder time expressing their emotions around test anxiety. However, though these studies inform my understanding of who will best be served by this group I also feel that I should acknowledge my personal experience of being a student at CUSSW and my knowledge of my classmates. I feel that this program will be optimal for most students at CUSSW because as aspiring social workers most students are in touch with their emotions and are able to express them to others. I think that this group will adequately serve any individual who is experiencing test taking anxiety.
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W2C-006-1.txt
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De Pere residents may have to pipe down or face the music
Fines of up to $1,000 in effect in quiet zones
DE PERE - - Waking up the neighbors in De Pere could cost you up to $1,000 if you raise a ruckus in a designated quiet zone.
The City Council Tuesday unanimously approved an ordinance allowing residents to petition the city to create neighborhood quiet zones.
In quiet zones people would pipe down between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. or risk a fine of up to $1,000, City Administrator Kevin Brunner said.
The idea for quiet zones was born of meetings with residents in the St. Norbert College neighborhood.
People said they are bothered by noisy students, many of whom rent houses there.
" Jaybirds and magpies are what they sound like," Larry Roffers of Pleasant Place said. "They sit out on the porches... and make noise until two or three in the morning."
Once the city receives a petition for a quiet zone, a public hearing must be held before the area is designated, Brunner said.
In other council matters, city officials said Tuesday that no laws were broken by allowing use of two properties in a residential area as a parking lot before the area was rezoned.
The City Council on Tuesday approved 7-1 the rezoning of properties at 318 Fourth St. and 404 College Ave. from Single and Two-Family Residence District to Central Business District.
The properties had been used as a 35-space parking lot for about a month by the Nicolet Commons development on Reid Street, said Bill Patzke, the city's planning director.
Houses on the properties were torn down several months ago, he said.
Robert Zittlow, who lives on a Reid Street, accused the city of acting illegally by tearing down the houses and creating a parking lot before rezoning the area.
But Brunner and Patzke said the city acted in line with the laws.
Patzke said property does not have to be rezoned before demolishing a building on it.
Brunner said that a development agreement with Nicolet Commons, LLC that the council approved in December allowed a parking lot on the properties before they were rezoned.
Alderman Paul Kegel voted against the rezoning, suggesting that city laws should take precedence over agreements with private developers.
" If we have policies and procedures but don't follow them, aren't we being illegal?" Kegel asked.
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W1A-001-0.txt
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THE PAIN OF A YOUNG LOVE LOST
by: Shanaynay Morris
Spring time is here yet again. Outside the trees are green and luscious, the birds are singing a welcome song for the warm air and the blooming flowers. Everyone seems to want to be outdoors more than they did a few weeks ago, and they seem to be in more cheerful spirits. And, as the old saying goes, "Love is in the air.? But for me, when this time of year comes around an unstoppable sense of sadness always creeps upon me, and tears well up in my eyes for no apparent reason, and a lump occupies my throat causing my voice to break periodically. This happens every spring because I remember a time five years ago when love was in the air for me. I was on the verge of falling head over heels in love with a close friend I had known since I was three years old, when it all came to a screeching halt that changed my life forever.
I first met Eric in the church nursery when I was three years old during Vacation Bible School. He and I were the only "big kids" in the nursery class. We weren't big enough to be in the preschool class, but we were too big to be babies so we couldn't take naps and drink bottles. Instead, we had to rely on each other for companionship and entertainment. For the whole week, we would share crayons and color pictures of Jesus, Moses, and Noah together, and then argue over who had colored the prettiest. We would build huge castle out of stacking blocks and then knock them down. Every time he would crash through the walls, his reddish-brown hair would fall into his eyes so he couldn't see where he was going. And, I would get trampled. One time when we went outside to get cookies and Kool-aid, I was running and fell down. I looked down at my bloody, skinned knee and started to cry. Eric came over and while petting my hand, asked me if I needed him to call an ambulance to unhurt my leg. By the end of the week we were inseparable, and continued to play together all the time as he conveniently lived just up the road from me.
When we started first grade together, he was there to keep me from being scared according to my mom. But, I think I helped him more than he did me. I was ready to go to school, but Eric cried when his mom dropped him off. So, it was my turn to pet him on the head and call an ambulance to unhurt him. The next seven years of elementary school we spent together in the same class every day talking at lunch, playing at recess, borrowing pencils from each other, and letting him copy my math homework sometimes. He couldn't multiply to save his life at times.
Since the eighth grade was incorporated into the high school curriculum back then, I was apprehensive about our friendship remaining since there was a chance that we wouldn't be in the same classes. I was afraid that we wouldn't be able to talk very much or spend very much time together. I was also afraid that we would grow apart because we wouldn't have as much in common anymore. But, fate intervene and we had all six classes together our eighth grade year as well as our ninth grade year. We spent time together and was always there when we needed each other.
I made sure I was there for him the summer before our freshmen year when his dad died slowly of lung cancer. I watched him grow up so quickly. Almost overnight he went from being a thirteen year old boy to the man of the house. Everything about him changed. He became a much more serious person about life. He tried his best to make sure that everyone else had something to laugh and smile about whether he did or not. He grew four inches in height during our freshmen year, and for once was taller than me. His face began to take on the appearance of a young man, the chubby cheeks adorned with dimples melted away. The once carefree brown hair was now neatly in place, the shorter cut took away his red highlights. His green eyes in the past had been mischievously bright, but were now almost hard and serious due to the pain he had felt, and would never get over.
In public, Eric acted like he was coping with his father's long illness and death, but I knew how hurt he was and how much he wanted to be with his father, no matter what the cost. I knew that he was only being strong for his mother and little sister, and he did everything he could to fill his father's shoes for them. He took it upon himself to do without the normal materialistic "necessities" of the typical teenager. He saved his allowance in case an emergency ever arose and they needed the money. He was so noble and brave, yet he never felt like he was doing enough to make his dad proud. I tried to tell him he was doing the best he could and that was what mattered. I wanted him to understand he was just a kid and his father would not have wanted him to lose his youth because he had lost his father. But, his heart was so full of pain that he no longer seemed to be the friend I had once known.<./p>
When he turned sixteen during our sophomore year in high school, things began to get better for him. He bought himself a car with the money he had saved and got an after school job. He was slowly adjusting to the loss of his father. Once again, he became carefree and fun-loving. We would go riding around town together, and talk about everything. I helped to fix him up with another one of my close friend. Eventhough it didn't work out and he had the worst date imaginable with her, it gave us something to laugh about together. He told me it was too bad my friend hadn't been more like me, because I was the ideal girl he wanted to go out with. But, we were too good of friends to risk losing our friendship in case things didn't work out. And we both agreed to this, in words anyway.
We began to go out more and more, and everyone was asking us if we were a couple. We would just smile and say "We'r 'renly friends.? Yet, things began to happen between us and I felt this deep and close bond developing between us. I think he felt it too. We began to talk about our futures. Both of us wanted to be lawyers, and he said he would create his own firm, and that he would let me be a partner so he couldn't be accused of any sexual discrimination. We would spend all day at school together and then come home and spend all night talking on the phone, supposedly doing homework.
One night when we were riding around together, he was so quiet and distant. I kept asking him what was wrong, but he would say nothing. Then, out of the blue, he asked me if I thought that if he were to die tomorrow would his little two year old nephew (his older half-sister's son) remember who "Uncle Eric" was. And, he wanted to known if anyone would miss him, if he was gone forever. I told him that everyone would remember him and miss him, but I told him that he was being silly because nothing was going to happen to him. When he dropped me off at home that night, he leaned over and pecked me on the lips before I got out of the car. At that moment, I knew that we were on our way to becoming more than friends.
On May 11, this all came to a stop. That Friday afternoon, Eric had said at school that he would do anything to get out of taking his finals, and he got his wish. That Friday night, he went out with the guys and never made it home. At approximately 11:30 that night his truck went off the road and hit a tree. At 6:45 the next morning, he was found dead. My heart broke in two when I found out that he had laid on the side of the road for hours slowly bleeding to death. He had not been killed instantly, and because his truck was black and had went off the road on a decline into the woods, no one had seen it until the sun came up. My mind can not forget this image of him lying helplessly bleeding in pain, and no one came to help him until it was too late.
Three days later, on May 14 - my sixteenth birthday, Eric was buried. And along with him, my first love was covered with dirt and gone before it really had a chance to begin. So as those dates draw closer, tears and brushed aside pain fill my heart. It took me over four years to allow myself to care about a guy as much as I did Eric. I decided at his burial that I never wanted to feel that kind of pain again. I hated to hear the saying "it is better to have loved and lost, then to never had loved at all." then, but now when I think about Eric, I have something to remember that is very special. And that memory will never die eventhough Eric did. So now, once again I am falling in love, but I still can't help but wonder "what if...".
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W2A-008-0.txt
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Aristotle's God and the Authenticity of De mundo:
An Early Modern Controversy
IF HORSES HAD gods, said the Presocratic philosopher Xenophanes, they would imagine them as horses, and similarly for cows.1 And likewise, one might add, without the hypothetical qualification, for philosophers. Certainly Aristotle's God, the first unmoved mover of Metaphysics 12, is made very much in the philosopher's own image and likeness, for he is pure thought. Aristotle's philosopher-God not only outranks Plato's philosopher-king, he outphilosophizes "the philosopher," since the sole object of his thought is thought, in other words, himself. His thinking, in Aristotle's memorable if mysterious phrase, is a thinking of thinking.2
While Plato's gods have as their specific function the care for all things (Laws 900d), Aristotle's God, totally absorbed in self-contemplation and remote from the world he did not create and may not even know,3 is clearly unconcerned about the fall of a sparrow. But if there is no room in the Aristotelian universe for a special providence, controlling the fate of individuals, there might nonetheless be a general one which governs the eternal and regular motion of the heavenly spheres but does not influence the ephemeral and erratic movements of humans and sparrows in the sublunary realm. Or so it was generally believed around the second century A.D.4 This account, which clearly developed from the Aristotelian distinction between the perfect regularity of the heavens and the haphazard, unpredictable nature of sublunary events, was the version of Aristotle's attitude towards divine providence which the Church Fathers knew and reacted against.5 That most Aristotelian of Aristotelian commentators, Alexander of Aphrodisias, presented a somewhat different view of divine providence, which he considered to be more in line with his master's philosophy. Attempting to find an acceptable middle ground between the Epicurean belief that the gods were totally unconcerned with the world and the Stoic assertion that God took care of every humble detail in the universe, Alexander assigned the operation of providence to the sublunary realm. He maintained, however, that it was strictly limited to the influence of the regular motion of the heavenly bodies, which ensured the preservation and welfare of species, but played no rote whatever in the good or bad fortune ofindividuals.6 The patristic and, to a lesser extent, the Alexandrist interpretation remained the standard versions of Aristotelian divine providence until the nineteenth century.
pe(ì (ós(o(, usually known by its Latin title De mundo, is a brief cosmological, meteorological, geographical, and theological treatise, attributed to Aristotle and dedicated to his pupil Alexander the Great. It contains a number of Peripatetic doctrines, such as the transcendence of God, who is an unmoved mover, and the division of the universe into a supralunary world composed of incorruptible ether and a sublunary realm made up of fire, air, water and earth. But the treatise also presents providence as pervasive throughout the entire universe and as affecting all entities within it, a view in conflict not only with the self-absorption of the unmoved mover but also with the belief in a circumscribed divine influence which the doxographical tradition, the Church Fathers, and Alexander of Aphrodisias attributed to Aristotle. Thus, the author of De mundo defines the world as "the ordering and arrangement of all things, preserved by and through God" (391b11-12) and states that "the old explanation that we have all inherited from our fathers is that all things are from God, and were framed by God, and no natural thing is of itself sufficient for itself, deprived of the permanence which it derives from him" (397b13-16).7
We have no record of any doubts as to the authenticity of De mundo until the fifth century A.D., when Proclus, citing the work as evidence of Aristotle's views, added the proviso "if the book De mundo is by him."8 Unfortunately he gave no explanation for his uncertainty about its authorship. The twelfth-century Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides was equally uninformative when he dismissed The Book of the Golden House (the title given to the three Arabic translations of De mundo) as "idle talk" and said that it belonged "to those [works] which had been attributed to Aristotle but are not by him."9 Although the treatise was translated into Latin in the thirteenth century, it was not until the Renaissance that Western scholars began to discuss their reasons disbelieving or believing that De mundo was genuine. Among the grounds they gave for doubting its authenticity were: the highly rhetorical style, which seemed un-Aristotelian, as did its oratorical, as opposed to philos method; the apparently anachronistic references to Britain and Ceylon; and the preface, addressed to Alexander the Great, which was, like the flattering reference to "the worthy Plato" and the quotation from his Laws, highly uncharacteristic. The most important reasons for regarding the work as authentic were the ancient testimonia: Justin Martyr referred to an Aristotelian work that sounded like it in his Cohortatio ad Graecos; Apuleius stated in the preface to his De mundo (in fact a paraphrase of the Greek treatise) that he was following Aristotle and Theophrastus; Philoponus cited it twice as a work of Aristotle; and Stobaeus anthologized it in his Eclogae under the heading: "From the Letter of Aristotle to Alexander."11
But there was another, and for many scholars more compelling, motive for accepting the treatise as genuine. The God of De mundo, who framed the world and was responsible for the preservation of everything in it, seemed closer to Christian notions of divinity than the generally accepted interpretations of Aristotle's God, who had not created the world, whose providence extended only to the moon and who did not concern himself with the individuals. Those who believed that Aristotelianism was essentially compatible with Christianity were therefore inclined to support its authenticity.
The main purpose of Marsiho Ficino's Theologia platonica was to demonstrate that the Christian belief in the immorality of the soul could be proven on the basis of reason, above all the reason embodied in Platonic philosophy. But Ficino also drew on other ancient philosophical systems to make his points, as for example in Book 2, Chapter 13, entitled "God Loves and Provides," where he cites Metaphysics 12.10.1075a11-15 to show that, according to Aristotle, just as the order of an army lies with its general, so the order universe as a whole lies with God.12 Later in the same chapter, Ficino refers to an extended simile in De Mundo (398b16-22) in order to explain how God controls everything in the world like a puppeteer pulling strings. Here, in Ficino's view, Aristotle firmly asserted the existence of providence, just as he had in Physics 2.8-9, when be discussed the teleology of nature, and in Nicomachean Ethics 10.8.1179a24-30.14
In this latter passage, Aristotle gives the following argument to demonstrate that the wise man is dearest to the gods: "if the gods have any care for human affairs, as they are thought to have, it would be reasonable both that they should delight in that which was best and most akin to them (i.e. intellect) and that they should reward those who love and honour this most." This view of divinity does not fit with the Peripatetic tradition that limited providence to the celestial spheres, much less with the first prime mover of Metaphysics 12. It can perhaps best be explained as an example of Aristotle accommodating himself to the religion of his day. Another reference to the popular belief that God rewards good behavior and punishes bad (and hence is not responsible for mere chance events) occurs in Magna moralia 2.8.1207a6-11, where Aristotle asks: "Can good fortune...be a kind of divine providence This we cannot believe; for we look to God, as controlling good and evil things, to apportion them in accordance with desert; whereas fortune and its gifts are bestowed in very truth 'fortuitously'. If we attribute these gifts to God, we shall make him either an incompetent judge or an unjust one; and this is alien to his nature." Many Christian scholars saw in both these passages a positive attitude towards divine providence which appeared to be in line with that presented in De mundo. These texts were therefore frequently cited in conjunction with the treatise by those who believed it to be authentic.
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, for instance, in his treatise against divinatory astrology, alludes to both texts, along with Plato's statements about divine justice (Laws 715e and 73oc) quoted in De mundo (401624-29), a book he describes as "certainly worthy of Aristotle's wisdom." He uses these quotations to maintain that the philosopher had strongly affirmed his belief in a God directing us in all things.16 Pico's nephew, Gianfrancesco, in his treatise on divine providence, makes the same point about Aristotle, likewise quoting support Magna moralia 2.8 and several passages from De mundo, a book certainly worthy of Aristotle's wisdom, according to the testimony of my uncle Giovanni Pico."17
But De mundo was not always an unmixed blessing for those who sought to reconcile Aristotelianism and Christianity. Cardinal Bessarion, in his In calumniatorem Phitonis (1469), attempted to refute the arguments by which George of Trebizond had, in his view, made Aristotle into a Christian. One such argument, put forward by George in the second book of his Comparationes philosophorum Aristotelis et Platonis, was that Aristotle had believed that God created the world ex nihilo because, according to his philosophy, both the heavens and nature were dependent on God. For Bessarion, however, this dependence did not mean, as George maintained, that Aristotle's God was the efficient cause of the world, but merely its final cause. To emphasize the difference between Aristotelian and Christian notions of divine creatioti,Bessarion adduced Aristotle's own words in De mundo (397b2o-3o), where he said that although God is "the preserver and creator" of everything in the universe, he does not endure "the weariness of a being that administers and labours" but acts by means of an indefatigable power which extends "even over things which are far distant from him." Bessarion interpreted this to mean that Aristotle's God, unlike the Christian one, was not the efficient cause of the universe, for he himself had not directly created it, but had instead operated by means of a celestial force which made, administered, governed and preserved everything.18
The awkward implications which Bessarion found in this passage were conveniently ignored by those, such as Agostino Steuco, the scholarly bishop and Vatican librarian, who found in De mundo a mine of useful material for establishing the fundamental harmony between pagan philosophy and Christian theology. In his De perenni philosophia Steuco aimed to demonstrate how close many ancient thinkers were to Christian ideas of monotheism, the creation of the world, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of divine providence. In Book 4 Steuco drew heavily on De mundo as proof that Aristotle's God governed not merely the motion of the heavens but also the entire world.19 To justify his reliance on a work whose authenticity had been questioned, Steuco cited Justin Martyr's reference to it.20 He also claimed that its genuineness was proved by the fact that Aristotle had said many of the same things, albeit more obscurely, in his other works. Fake, for example, the statement in De mundo that "the favor of heaven bestowed especial honor upon the generation of the pious" (4ooa34-b1). The same sentiment could be found in Nicomachean Ethics 1o.8, where Aristotle says that the man who exercises and cultivates his intellect is most favored by God.21
Muzio Pansa borrowed this comparison of texts, along with much else, from Steuco, and put it in his De osculo ethnicae et Christianae philosophiae a similar attempt to show the agreement of pagan and Christian ideas, in which both passages are cited as proof of Aristotle's belief in divine providence.22 Pansa also used De mundo to corroborate his theory that the reason why Chaldaean, Egyptian, Arabic, Greek, and Roman philosophies were so close to Christianity was that they all derived ultimately from Hebrew doctrines. Aristotle implied as much when he stated that the belief that all things are from God is "the old explanation which we have all inherited from our fathers" (397b13-16), in other words, as Pansa put it, it is drawn from the Hebrews, whose doctrine is most ancient, going back in time beyond all Greek tradition."23
Pansa's theory was further developed later in the seventeenth century by Pierre-Daniel Huet, who in his Demonstratio evangelica of 1679 attempted to underpin the idea of an "ancient theology" stretching back to Moses by locating historical characters who could have acted as conduits for the transmission of Old Testament doctrines to the heathen. In Josephus and Eusebius, Huet found a reference to a Peripatetic named Clearchus, who reported that his teacher Aristotle had conversed with a Jew. The fruit of this conversation, Huet maintained, could be found in Metaphysics 12 and also in what Aristotle said in De mundo (397b13-16) about the ancient doctrine that God produced and preserved all things, "which certainly seems to pertain to Moses."24 But in his Alnetanae quaestiones, published eleven years later, Huet came to believe, for unspecified reasons, that De mundo was spurious. He now attributed the work to an anonymous author more recent than Aristotle; and the passage he had previously quoted as evidence of Mosaic influence on the philosopher was now used to show that certain Peripatetics had not followed Aristotle in denying the creation of the world.25
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W2B-012-0.txt
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"Miscegenation: marriage or sexual relations between a man and a woman of different races." - - from Webster's New World Dictionary
My parents grew up in segregated neighborhoods. Cynthia was raised in a small Texas town where everybody she knew was white and Christian. Marty lived in a Jewish section of the San Fernando Valley in California. His school was so Jewish-dominated that the team chant was "Hit 'em in the kischkes!"At some point during their courtship, which began during their days at a less segregated high school, my mother decided to convert to Judaism. And so she did several years later, studying Jewish history and culture with a reform rabbi and professor at UCLA where she was attending college. But her ethnic transformation, although legal under reform Jewish law, would never be complete. To my father's parents, she was still an interloper. It was as if Christianity were written into her very DNA, as unchangeable as blue eyes and blonde hair. And, I must admit, I have never thought of her as Jewish either. She is my WASP mother.
So I have come to be an ethnic hybrid: half-WASP, half-Jew, the product of two supposedly segregated identities. Such a condition lends itself easily to jokes. If you combine my heritage with that of my partner, you get one Jew and one Christian. If you combine my heritage with my partner and our friends up the street, you get 1.2 Jews, 2 British,.5 Scots-Irish,.5 Italian,.01 African American, and of course the inevitable imaginary.0001 Native American.
What this tongue-in-cheek laundry list of ethnicities manages to explain--in a quite serious way--is the extent to which all racial identities are already hopelessly miscegenated. Nevertheless, the terms "race" and "ethnicity" grow out of the old-fashioned idea that there are measurable, anatomical differences between such groups that make them obviously distinct. Even "multiculturalism," a concept which suggests racial plurality, takes for granted that racial groups can co-exist peacefully only by maintaining cultural separations and particularities. But I would argue that the "multiculture" might more aptly be understood as a series of cultures that are being experienced all at once, often in a single individual or group. The racial logic of multiculturalism should be conceived of as "multiple and hybridizing," not as "separate and plural."To acknowledge this, in my opinion, would simply be to admit what we've known all along 'vep>
Jewish Sandwiches
"Fetishes are only symbols, highly compacted stories that subliminally signal their fuller meanings." - - Robert Stoller
For my parents' and grandparents' generation, being Jewish meant being part of "the Jewish race."They were part of a not-quite-white racial category, caught between assimilating into dominant WASP culture and finding themselves cast out of it. Although most Eastern European Jews could "pass" as white, their religious and cultural heritage made them a breed apart, a group that would have to be taught the ways of American Christianity (implicitly, American whiteness) whether they liked it or not. Although my father's elementary school was 99 percent Jewish, they were forced to have a Christmas pageant every year. My mother's parents called Jews "clannish," accusing them memorably of "eating greasy food."Telling me this story, my mother bursts out laughing. "A Southerner saying that someone else ate greasy food!" she snorts, still incredulous after more than three decades. "I'm always amazed t 'mt Marty was able to like me," she adds, "because he hated Christians so much."Once, when they were first dating, my mother referred to Brazil nuts by the only name she knew, a name she had learned in Texas: nigger toes. Marty claims he intended never to speak to her again.
I used to ask them all the time what brought them together into the unlikely union that made me. It all came down to a sandwich. "I saw Marty eating these gigantic sandwiches for lunch. I'd only ever 'dd these white bread sandwiches, with one slice of meat and mayonnaise. Maybe there would be a layer of lettuce, but I don't think so. I had to find out why this guy was eating such huge sandwiches.?It's so American, that fetishization of the "other" through food. We avoid thinking about the way "difference" often means "subjugation" by trying to convert social identity into tasty, consumable objects. Foreign identities become synonymous with the restaurants immigrants build (or through their simulation). We come to know the other literally by consuming them.
But my mother was consumed. They come to visit me, and I ask her about it.
" I had always assumed, not knowing that there could be any other alternative, that Marty would convert to Christianity," she explains to me as my father watches her from across the room.
" But I would never have done that. Never," he cuts in, "That just wasn't an option. Christians were the enemy."
" But why did you want to be Jewish?" I ask Cynthia. "Was it a way of escaping your family?"
" Yes, my family was very narrow-minded. Jews seemed cosmopolitan, sophisticated. In Marty's family, people talked out loud, and spoke their minds. And they were a handsome family, not the stereotype of the wrinkled, hunched people my mother imagined."
" Cynthia's father thought that since I was a Jew, I must be a communist," my father remarks dryly.
" So you didn't want to be part of a group like that," I turn back to my mother.
" No, and I didn't want you to grow up with religious conflict. So I converted."
" You know, I don't think of you as Jewish," I remind her, "and didn't you think I might wonder why your mother celebrated Christmas?"
" Well no, I never thought of that," she replies, giggling. Then, seriously, "But I feel like a Jew, as if I have more in common with Jews. People see me as Jewish. Maybe being Jewish did allow me to see my own culture, Southern Christian culture, as somewhat alien. It seems alien to me now."
My partner enters the conversation. "People would definitely think you are a Jew," he says, "most Jews would."
It's true. Cynthia has been Jewish for more of her life than she has been white. I, on the other hand, have been white and Jewish for exactly the same amount of time. In fact, I have been white and Jewish simultaneously. One could argue that such an experience is the very essence of being Jewish in the United States today, especially if you have pale skin and blue eyes like I do. Looking at me, and many Jews, most people would think "white" rather than "Jew."Yet the not-quite-whiteness of being Jewish has never gone away. When I declare myself Jewish, or part-Jewish, people do respond to me differently. Because being Jewish is not usually something people see immediately, they can't prejudge me they way they would an African-American or Asian-American. But once they know that I'm Jewish, ma 'm of their preconceptions shift, and I seem suddenly strange. They have to gather more data to feel comfortable. "Are you kosher?" they'll ask, 'll "Are you religious?"Then there's my favorite, "Do you speak Jewish?"I wouldn't describe any of these questions as anti-Semitic, only as indicative of the way being Jewish somehow marks you as "other," as needing some kind of an explanation. When you're whit 'reit's far more rare that you're ask 'reto explain your identity. Most people don't regard whiteness as a race, only as the absence of it. However wrongheaded this attitude may be, it's the kind of "common sense" that constitutes our first impressions of one another.
Williamsburg
I go out to breakfast with my partner's family in Long Beach. His grandmother Dorothy, from the Jewish side of his family, is there with her boyfriend, Charles. We talk about the past.
" I'm fro 'mWilliamsburg. Do you know it?" Charles asks me. I don't. He is shocked, then amused. "It's the Orthodox section of New York."
" C'mon 'marles, they don't know about that," Dorothy teases him. But I'm in 'mrested; I'm al 'mys interested to hear about the past. I ask to know more.
" My father wanted me to be a rabbi; he was very religious," Charles says, "But I rebelled because I wanted to be an engineer."I try to imagine a scenario in which a Jew becoming an engineer would constitute rebellion. It's like watching someone eat a sandwich stuffed with some bizarre form of vegetable. You want to get up close and find out what it is.
" Wasn't it hard for Jews to get into college in those days? Didn't they screen you to make sure they weren't admitting too many Jews?" I ask, remembering my Ethnic Studies courses.
" Yes, that's what they did," Charles says, "so I became a teacher."
Several months later, we go out to dinner with them in Los Angeles. Charles and Dorothy have just been to see me give a book reading in which I talk about whiteness, and stereotypes of whiteness.
" I never had to deal with white people when I was growing up," Charles says. "It was Williamsburg. Do you know it?" He looks at me. This time I do know it, and I remember.
" Yes, I know Williamsburg. What you had to deal with was really horrible," I say, referring to anti-Semitism in the early twentieth century. But in retrospect, I realize what I'v 'veaid is ambiguous. Charles takes me to mean that growing up in a restrictive Orthodox environment was horrible. He couldn't agree more.
Miscegenation Blues
I think I must have tried, like every kid, to imitate my parents' relationship. When I started dating, I developed a predilection for people who came from a biracial or biethnic background. I also dated outside my race, usually ending up with Asian-Americans, who enjoy the dubious privilege of having inherited the "model minority" label once reserved for Jews. My first true love was Korean-American, and I was his ultimate "other."His Christian, traditional parents were more than a little reluctant to allow their only son to date a Jewish white girl. They referred to me as "that American girl."When I came to visit his family once, I was filled with shame when I awkwardly took off my shoes inside the door, nearly stumbling in my effort to demonstrate cultural sympathy. What was ridiculous was that I took off my shoes to enter my own house. I did it every day. And when we visited my parents' friends' houses, we did the same--Asian customs were ordinary to me. But I felt suddenly, stupidly white in that long-ago boyfriend's house. I was an invader, a son-stealer, grubby-fingered and clumsy. Later that same year, his older sister, a church-going woman, came home late one night to find him in bed with me. That clinched it. I was a slut, just like all the other white American girls.
Being Jewish was easy compared to that. It made me interesting, gave me a special angle on things. I knew how stupid Christmas was several years before the other kids knew it. As a Jew, I could do things in the name of Judaism that would have gotten someone else in trouble. I gave a book report to my ninth grade class on Philip Roth's novel The Ghost Writer, about a young man who is sexually obsessed with Anne Frank. Dressed as "the writer," I read a long soliloquy from the novel which praised the erotic magnetism of a dead girl, the seductiveness of the ultimate Jewish victim. What kind of teacher would risk forbidding me to read erotica out loud to a ninth grade class when I was doing it for Judaism? Anti-Semitism was not allowed at my high school, at least not out in the open. Once some boys in the hallway yelled, "Dirty Jew!" at me during lunch. I wheeled around, glowered, and screamed "FUCK YOU!" at the top of my lungs, giving them the finger too, just for good measure. A teacher tried to upbraid me for yelling obscenities in the hall. "They called me a DIRTY JEW!" I said. "But is that how you should respond?" he asked condescendingly. "Yes," I replied, and never heard another word about it.
When I think about race, fucking--even the word "fuck"--just seem to come to mind. And I think of family, which most psychologists would agree is a fairly typical connection to make. My sense of my own racial identity always comes back to my parents' miscegenated romance, which has isolated our family from their families for most of my life. Fucking, and worse, breeding, is what made their union scary during the early 1960s. Although there were other conflicts between my parents and their families, I know--having seen the way those purebloods looked at me, the mutant offspring of Jews and hicks--that they were disturbed by what I might represent. I was the hybrid corruption of their own segregated cultures, proof that Jews and whites could mate and even produce something pretty, something smart, something that could yell "FUCK YOU!" and not be sorry at all. I was the living embodiment of their racial and sexual transgression. And I knew it.
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W2D-005-0.txt
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The Library of Congress (LC) has been lending books from its collection to other libraries since 1902, when Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam first established LC "as the nation's library of last resort." This year, through its Loan Division, LC will respond to over 50,000 requests from libraries throughout the world for book loans and article photocopies. This page provides information about our services, what materials are available for loan, and how to send requests to us. Please feel free to contact us via e-mail at [email protected] with questions or comments, but do not send Interlibrary Loan requests to this address.
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Most monographs in the Law Library are available for loan. Loose-leaf materials, serials, serial sets, and material in micro format and microprint form are all non-circulating. Loan Division will provide complimentary copies of articles and other material whenever possible. For more information about legal materials at the Library of Congress, see the Law Library.
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Since 1979, the Library of Congress has received a full depository set of U.S. government publications in multiple formats. Many, but not all, government publications issued before 1979 are also available from the Library since they are part of the general collection. For basic information about U.S. government publications, please click here to view the home page for the U.S. National Archives or contact them at:
Sending a Request via OCLC, RLIN, Mail, or FAX
Interlibrary loan requests may be sent electronically through OCLC, RLIN, or by mail or fax.
The Loan Division does not future date requests for CIP, Not on Shelf, Lack, and In Process items.
The Loan Division does not photocopy articles from newspapers in any format.
Allow a minimum of two weeks for most monograph and journal article requests and a month, or more, for newspaper and serial microfilms, music items, maps, Near Eastern materials, or other requests that must be transferred to custodial divisions.
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W2D-009-0.txt
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States should start with the assumption that they may use their funds in innovative ways to achieve the critical goals laid out in the TANF statute. The following steps outline a simple step-by-step process to follow in determining how to best use the available funds.
The first step in the process of deciding how best to use TANF and MOE funds is to identify needs within the State and prioritize them. This step includes identifying needs, weighing alternative options and strategies that address these needs (e.g., for consistency with TANF purposes and requirements), selecting the most appropriate services and benefits, and designing programs or activities that reflect those decisions.
If the proposed program or activity achieves a TANF purpose, the second step involves determining the nature of the benefit. A State may choose to spend funds on activities that are considered "assistance" under the Federal regulations.
NOTE: See pp. 25-26 and á260.31 of TANF rule for additional information on "assistance." These activities are subject to a variety of spending limitations and requirements - - including work, time limits, child support assignment, and data reporting. A State may also choose to fund activities that are not considered "assistance." These latter activities would not have the same requirements associated with them.
Eligibility
The next step is to define individual eligibility criteria (which would generally be in the form of income and/or resource standards) for receipt of benefits. The first and second purposes of TANF concern only "needy families" or "needy parents," respectively, as defined by State criteria. Thus, a State must establish financial eligibility criteria for benefits under either of these purposes. For the third and fourth purposes, a State may use Federal funds to provide services to both needy and non-needy families that are consistent with those purposes.
• Use of Federal or State funds
The State must then decide how to fund the desired program benefits and services. This decision will determine what specific requirements apply and whether a particular use of funds is appropriate.
All State expenditures claimed under the MOE requirements must be made with respect to "eligible families." These families need not actually be TANF recipients in order to receive services or benefits funded with MOE dollars; they need only be financially eligible for the service or benefit (and have a minor child living with an adult relative in the home). The definition of "eligible families" is very similar to that of "needy families"; eligible families are families that meet the income and resource standards in the State plan. In addition, they must be either: (1) eligible for TANF; or (2) eligible for TANF, but for the five-year time limit on federally funded assistance or the restrictions on benefits to immigrants found in title IV of the 1996 welfare law (Public Law 104-193).
In addition, the State may count as MOE only the qualified expenditures that exceed its program spending in 1995. This limitation is referred to as the "new spending test."
A State may expend Federal funds, but not State MOE funds, for activities that were previously authorized under its IV-A or IV-F plans, but which are not otherwise allowable under TANF (including juvenile justice and/or State foster care maintenance payments).
• General limitations
The final step in determining how best to use the available TANF funds is to determine what requirements, limitations, and restrictions apply to the selected activities or services. The last two sections of this guide outline the statutory requirements, restrictions and cost principles that apply. For example, they address the requirements associated with "assistance"for certain clients, the administrative cost caps, the medical services prohibition, and general appropriations principles. Specific questions on these limitations can be directed to the ACF Regional Offices for clarification.
Federal TANF Funds
• Flexibility to meet program goals
The TANF program gives States broad flexibility to make program and funding decisions that they believe will best support the goals of the program and their individual circumstances. They may use Federal funds for a wide array of services and benefits that were previously allowable only through specific, categorical programs. States should view their Federal TANF grant as a source of funds that they may use creatively to support work and the efforts of low-income working families, promote marriage, and reduce and prevent out-of-wedlock childbearing. In support of these goals, they may use their funds to fill gaps in the service delivery system, integrate program services, and supplement or enhance the services available through other programs.
Key features of the TANF program include:
• Ability to tailor services
Under the prior public assistance program, all families in similar circumstances of need were entitled to a standard package of basic benefits and services. Under TANF, States have the ability to offer services to some, but not all, families and to tailor services and benefits so that they better address the needs of individual clients. They also have the ability to make adjustments in the services they offer, depending upon funding availability and other factors. However, under their TANF State plans, States must set forth the objective criteria for the determination of eligibility and the delivery of benefits and for the fair and equitable treatment of clients.
• State discretion about eligibility
States may set different financial eligibility criteria for different types of benefits in order to increase the number of families they help to become self-sufficient. For example, States may set higher income standards to establish eligibility for transitional benefits (i.e., for those no longer receiving cash assistance) in order to provide these families child care, transportation, and other job retention and advancement services. For instance, States may limit eligibility for TANF cash assistance to families with income below poverty, while making transitional child care and transportation services available to families with incomes up to 185%; of the poverty line. By adopting these different standards, States may provide work supports to a broader range of low-income, working families.
Under this principle, a State can set different financial eligibility criteria based on any number of categorical distinctions. For example, as we indicated above, States may apply different standards for "assistance" than for other types of benefits or services. Also, where appropriate, a State may deem specific groups financially eligible for particular services if there is a categorical, factual basis (for example, homelessness) for determining financial need.
• Continuation of waiver policies
A State that had a welfare reform waiver(s) approved before enactment of PRWORA may continue to operate its program under some or all of those waivers rather than the TANF rules. For States that elect this option, the provisions or requirements of TANF that are inconsistent with the waiver are not effective until the applicable waivers expire.
• Limited Federal rules
Under TANF, the Federal government may not regulate State conduct or enforce any provision except to the extent expressly provided by law. Consistent with the principle of State flexibility in program design, the final TANF rules regulate only where Congress specifically directed the Department of Health and Human Services to do so or where the Department is charged with enforcing penalties.
• Use of Federal TANF funds
State, local, and Tribal TANF agencies, or private organizations providing services under contract with the TANF agency, may use Federal TANF funds in one of three fundamental ways:
1. For the purposes of TANF
Under this provision, allowable expenditures for particular activities, benefits, or services consist of those that are "in any manner reasonably calculated to accomplish" any one of the four purposes of the TANF program. Activities, benefits, or services that are reasonably calculated to accomplish a TANF purpose are those that directly lead to (or can be expected to lead to) achievement of a TANF purpose. This language includes all activities that are obviously related to a purpose. It also includes activities whose relationship to a purpose may not be obvious, but for which there is evidence that it achieves a purpose. For example, there is a clear statistical relationship between staying in school and lower teen pregnancy rates. Thus, we would conclude that special initiatives to keep teens in school are reasonably related to the third purpose of TANF - to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies.
States may use Federal TANF and State MOE funds in accordance with this principle for a variety of eligible activities.
Under this purpose, a State could help any needy parent, including a noncustodial parent or a working parent, by providing employment, job preparation, or training services. Examples of potential services include job or career advancement activities, marriage counseling, refundable earned income tax credits, child care services, and employment services designed to increase the noncustodial parent's ability to pay child support. Activities that promote any one of the three objectives - job preparation, work, and marriage - - would be consistent with this purpose.
Like a needy family, a needy parent must meet the income and/or resource standards established by the State in its TANF plan.
The following example illustrates how some of the funding principles would apply in meeting this TANF purpose.
A State agency determines that there are insufficient child care services available for the pre-school age children of working needy parents. A Head Start facility can meet this need. The TANF agency could contract with the Head Start grantee to provide child care services for a number of TANF families who are not enrolled in Head Start or to provide expanded hours of child care services for TANF families whose children are enrolled in the Head Start program.
The State agency may pay for these services with Federal TANF or State MOE funds. (However, the Head Start grantee must account for the TANF and MOE funding separately from its Head Start funding and must also be able to identify the needy or eligible families served with the TANF or MOE funds.)
Neither this purpose nor the following purpose (related to family formation) is limited to needy families or individuals. Thus, a State may use Federal TANF funds, but not MOE funds, to serve non-needy families or individuals for either of these two purposes. However, the State must establish objective criteria for the delivery of services to the non-needy.
Potential activities that would be reasonably calculated to accomplish this purpose include abstinence programs, visiting nurse services, and programs and services for youth such as counseling, teen pregnancy prevention campaigns, and after-school programs that provide supervision when school is not is session. A State may also fund a media campaign for the general population on abstinence or preventing out-of-wedlock childbearing.
A significant share of TANF families consists of unmarried mothers with low skills who live with their children apart from low-skilled, underemployed fathers. Many of these fathers are involved in the lives of their children and provide some financial support, but would like to do much more. Historically, however, the fathers have found limited employment opportunities, and welfare rules have worked to discourage family formation and fuller involvement of these fathers in the lives of their children.
This fourth TANF purpose offers the opportunity to address these issues. Some activities that are reasonably calculated to accomplish this purpose might include parenting skills training, premarital and marriage counseling, and mediation services; activities to promote parental access and visitation; job placement and training services for noncustodial parents; initiatives to promote responsible fatherhood and increase the capacity of fathers to provide emotional and financial support for their children; and crisis or intervention services.
2.Previously authorized activities
This statutory provision allows States to use Federal TANF funds for specific activities that had been previously authorized based on an approved title IV-A or IV-F plan and using the same eligibility criteria contained in the approved plan. While the purposes of the TANF program are very broad, some activities that are not now permissible had been included in a State's approved AFDC plan, JOBS plan, or Supportive Services plan as of September 30, 1995 (or, at State option, as of August 21, 1996). Examples of such activities are juvenile justice and certain State child welfare and foster care activities that were included in many States' approved plans. A State may continue to provide these services or benefits that were previously authorized, notwithstanding the prohibitions in PRWORA (under section 408 of the Social Security Act). For example, if a State's approved AFDC plan as of September 30, 1995, allowed it to assist children in the juvenile justice system, then it may continue to use TANF funds for such activities even though the child is not living with a parent or other adult caretaker relative.
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W1B-017-0.txt
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November 8, 1995
To: College Section Committee, NCTE
Re: Annual Report, 1994-95
1. Content: Recent issues have included a pair of articles by Atkins and Harvey on personal writing; articles by Phillips, Kearns, and Fetterley and review essays Post-Lauria and Bailey in American literature; articles by Bannerjee, and Walzer and a review essay by Fay on British literature; review essays on forms of literature by Shoptaw and by Addison on prosody, by Dardess on the "graphic" novel, and by Nilsen on humor; a pair of essays on literacy narratives by Soliday and Brodkey; other literacy studies by Brandt and by Minter et al.;articles on professional discourse by Spellmeyer, Bassett, Herbert, and Fleishman; articles on theory by Dasenbrock and Peltason; articles on rhetoric by Howard, Gross, Liu, and Trail; articles on composition studies by France, Friend, Harris, a review essay by Flynn. We have published two symposia, on basic writing (Laurence, Rondininone, Gleason, Farrell) and on literature in the composition classroom (Steinberg, Gamer, Lindemann, Tate, Peterson). CE's first article on deafness, Lennard Davis's "Deafness and Insight: The Deafened Moment as a Critical Modality." will appear in December, 1996.
Editorial Advisory Board: The six original members continue to serve. 3. Staff. Associate Editor Gia Pattone W has resigned to devote his energies to his two publishing concerns, Cambridge Wordwright and Dipylon Press. Associate Editor Giles Johnson e, on leave from teaching, now works full-time for CE. Poetry Editor Tam Vuong
has moved to California, where he teaches full time at El Diablo Community College. Poetry Editor Agnes McDougal has become contributing editor, and we have welcomed two new Poetry Editors, Frank Beans (recipient of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for his music criticism) and Shawn Clay. Two graduate interns have finished their degrees; Jonas Pray now works as an Editorial Assistant at Bedford Books, and Siena Ford teaches secondary English in Great Barrington, MA. We welcome two new graduate intern.
4. Correspondence with authors: Every author continues to receive an individual letter from me, explaining the editors'--and for stronger manuscripts, the referees'--responses to the manuscript submitted. A form letter is used for poetry submissions due to their number.
5. Electronic production and data base: Both continue as in the last report. Omegatype typesets every issue from disks in one or two days, an efficient means of editing and a money-saving measure for NCTE.
Fila Awat, as Dean of Graduate Studies, has agreed to contribute $9,000 extra per year to support two editorial interns: $3,000 for the two semesters and $1,500 summer stipend for each intern. These may be awarded as supplements to the regular half-assistantships now used to support graduate assistants' research and/or teaching. A student who both taught and edited would, then, receive a full assistantship.
While we may be happy to have the additional financial support and the opportunity to offer students a unique opportunity for professional development, we need to be watchful--as Sue has already mentioned to me--that editing combined with teaching does not in the long run harm our graduate students by retarding excessively their completion of the M.A. To that end, I would be glad to talk with you about any policies you think we might need to establish about the awarding and duration of editorial internships.
At various phases of updating the ph.d. proposals, our Chairs have collected information paralleling your committee's interests. Janet would know if these updates could offer your committee a shortcut. Meanwhile, I hope some of the following sentences may be helpful in your project:
1) Through the study of literary genres and modes within their historical and cultural contexts, scholarship and teaching in English Studies at UMass/Boston prepares students for civic and professional life in two crucial ways. First, close reading and analysis of literary genres (such as epic and movel) and modes (such as satire and tragedy) takes place in literature courses and in creative writing courses. The habits of detailed reading and of attention to form acquired here carry over to students' understanding of oral and written genres in civic discourse--such as political speeches and debates, sermons, position papers, committee reports, journalistic reports and editorials--pertaining to educational, social, environmental, and other civic issues. The understanding of genre and mode prepares students for interpreting and constructing oral and written discourse in their professional lives; for example, genre study pertains to occupations as diverse as law (structures of codes and classifications), social work and medicine (construction and interpretation of the narrative "case study"), and education or business (planning of curricula or production as solutions to questions). Second, because genre always functions within historical and cultural contexts--ranging from a particular author's religious beliefs and friendships with literary patrons to the more general effects of gender, class, and culture (both intellectual and material) on who becomes and remains an "author" at all--students gain understanding of factors influencing the nature and extent of both an individual's and a group's participation in civic and professional discourse: who writes letters to the editor and who does not? why does one group become dominant in organizing a community literacy center, and how can other groups be encouraged to participate?
Composition Studies complements literary studies, enacting Paulo Freire's metaphor that "reading the word" is "reading the world.? Research in Composition Studies addresses many questions: what are the relations between reading and composing processes? what are the processes of language acquisition and change within the university's various disciplines and beyond in the discourses of various social, occupational, and professional communities? what can the history of rhetoric and of composition pedagogy reveal about how processes of oral and written composing have been understood? Undergraduate students can approach these and related questions through courses in advanced composition and professional writing as well as in the theory and pedagogy of composition. They can apply their learning through internships (in journalism, advertising, publishing, and other fields) and through tutoring writing one-to-one. Graduate internships are available at College English and in co-teaching with a faculty mentor, the latter leading to supervised teaching in the Freshman English program.
2) Since 1992, the English Department has housed College English, the journal of the College Section of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), with Louise Z. Smith as Editor-in-Chief. This scholarly journal has a wide readership, with a circulation of over 15,000 member subscribers (excluding "pass along" readers) of whom 11,000 are college and university faculty, 1500 are student members preparing to teaching in English Departments, and 3000 are college and university libraries; over 14,000 are domestic subscribers, and about 900 are international. The journal includes scholarly articles, book review essays, and other features comprising 900-950 pages per year (excluding advertising and announcements). College English provides a forum in which scholars working within any of the various subspecialties of English Studies can address a broad cross-section of the profession. Appropriate subjects are literature (including nonfiction), linguistics, literacy, ciritical theory, reading theory, rhetoric, composition, pedagogy, and professional issues. No area is more welcome than any other, as long as the topic is of general interest within the profession and the treatment is accessible to scholars whose particular expertise lies in other areas. Contributions add new knowledge, challenge received opinion, or simply inform a larger readership fo the implications of scholarship and research that would otherwise be known only to specialists. An important difference between CE and specialized journals in these fields is that articles in CE must have a broadly conceived significance for teaching.
As in October, I write once more as an individual and not as representative of the CAS Senate or any committee. The newly revised proposal and executive summary answer many of the questions I raised in my 10/22/96 memo, particularly my questions 2b, 2e, 3, 4, 6, and 7. Perhaps you can help me with one small and two larger questions, numbered to correspond to your December 9th memo:
2. Relation between Deans' memo of 5/16/96 and revised CJP 12/2/96: Your sentence, "The proposal now incorporates that memo," seems to me too broad a response to my October memo's #1 question. The revised proposal preserves the governance structure (4) described in the Deans' May 16th memo item #2. But the CJP alters and clarifies the credit/transfer policies that were so confusingly described in item #3.c of the Deans' memo. That alteration should be explicitly recognized. We don't want #3. c coming back to haunt us.
While I have always agreed with the philosophical justifications of the program and, through the clarified CJP, have come to understand the Sociology Department's "strategic" needs vis-a-vis the APR, as well as students' strategic needs for accredited programs leading to jobs, I still have one question: Why will the Commonwealth support two programs, one in CPCS and one in CAS, that are both accredited by the Police Career Incentive Pay Program (CJP I.A.? 4) and Massachusetts legislation (your 5th bullet).
The CJP now makes much clearer the reasons for CPCS's excluding what the earlier CJP proposal described as "younger students..." from CAS. I now understand that the CPCS students in Criminal Justice are already well-along in law enforcement careers and that CPCS's admissions requirements with regard to age differ from CAS's (by about 3 years). However, inasmuch as the CJP requires these two constituencies to study together in seven core courses (21 of the 39 credits), the difference in the CPCS and CAS admissions requirements becomes moot. Why can't CPCS just formally change its admission requirements for this program? I think you're 'rexing two different "strategic needs" here: those of the Sociology Dept., and those of the larger institution.
I realize that the CJP doesn't describe compensation, but that doesn't explain to me why the CJP Director, unlike other program directors, won't be compensated. As for the Trustee Dean, why doesn't extra work deserve and get extra pay?
You write that the new program is not "situated between two colleges" (#3, 2nd bullet) and that that CJP does not "introduce" intercollegiate collaboration (#3, 5th bullet). In other words, collaboration has been going on for some time, right? If so, why do we now need a new and complicated administrative structure described in the new CJP (III.B)--alternating trustee deans and directors--in which neither College's governance has prevailing responsibility and in which the Provost becomes involved in micro-managing disputes between the two deans? It is this 50-50 arrangement that places the proposed program outside either college (by placing it inside neither): besides the seven shared core courses, that 50-50 structure brings "between" and "inter-collegiate" mind.
The 50-50 arrangement leads to peculiar situations. For instance, CJP III.A says (good news!) a full-time CAS Sociology line is on the way; but III.B says the CPCS trustee dean will be in charge - - so a CPCS dean approves a new CAS hire?
The five-person executive committee (CJP III.B) could well include both CPCS and CAS faculty and still come under one or the other college.
The spirit of each college's governance body presiding over its own courses and faculty (CJP III.B) concerns might be hard to achieve when the 50-50 plan is in place. At the very least, it's an extra layer of complexity.
Isn't there a simpler way? Why not leave the CPCS program in CPCS and house the new CAS major in CAS under Liberal Arts Dean? By emphasizing the proposed CJ major as a CAS major but then providing a whole new administrative structure, the CJP seems to me self-contradictory. You should follow through with this as you see suitable; I trust you will let me know if you have any pressing concerns.
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W2A-004-0.txt
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Synderesis, the Spark of Conscience, in the English Renaissance
It is a remarkable fact that Jerome's single citation in his commentary in the year 415 on Ezekiel's inaugural vision led to a medieval transformation and redefinition of the European idea of conscience that would endure until the late seventeenth century. Although it has been argued that his reference to synteresis (later transliterated into Latin and English as synderesis or synteresis) was simply a scribal error, it is also possible that he appropriated the word from a now lost source when he added a fourth element to Plato's tripartite soul in his interpretation of Ezekiel's description of the throne of God. Whatever the origin of the word, however, the concept expressed by it appears to have filled a logical need, which probably accounts for its thorough development and elaboration during the Middle Ages by a series of commentators from Peter Lombard to Jean Gerson. Their treatment of synderesis over three centuries established its general definition, posed a set of attendant logical and psychological problems, invented a supplemental terminology, and expanded its rhetorical meaning hrough biblical exegesis. Synderesis played an essential role in the scholastic analysis of man's conscience, of his thinking about moral matters, and of his psychological response to conflicting impulses. Stoic and Patristic in its ancient origins and subsequently hedged about with safeguarding qualifications against its Pelagian implications, this paradoxical assertion of man's spark of deiformity was an elaboration, within the systematic abstractions of scholastic logic, of the revealed truth that man was made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27). Accordingly, despite his invariably sinful conduct, he knew better and was without excuse (Romans 2:15). The idea of synderesis was the expression, in terms of scholastic psychology, of man's postlapsarian recognition of the natural law through right reason. At the heart of the theory of synderesis lay an emphatic, if qualified, endorsement of the light of nature and a consequent assertion of the dignity of man.
The strength of this medieval tradition of thought about synderesis was such that it reappeared inevitably in discussions of conscience through the Renaissance. It slowly became clear, however, that the rational affirmations and implications of the concept were the Calvinist, skeptical, and fideist beliefs of the sixteenth century, and with the protoscientific, secular, and empiricist intellectual world coming to birth in the following age. As a result the term "synderesis" suffered a gradual eclipse, retaining what life it had only with the decadent scholasticism of the universities. It was then that the medieval association of synderesis with two synonymous terms, "spark" and "natural instinct," and with two descriptive biblical expressions, "the spirit of man" and "the candle of the Lord,"2 allowed a metamorphosis to take place. Thus an ancient idea that had initially received its definition as a technical term of scholastic anthropology survived in new guises and continued to play a role in late Renaissance thought until the time of Locke and Butler. The history of synderesis forms part of the background for seventeenth-century speculation about innate ideas and man's moral sense.
In two brief sentences in a passage that became a touchstone for later commentators Jerome analyzed the meaning of the man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle, that appear on each of the four creatures who support the throne of God in Ezekiel's vision:
Most people interpret the man, the lion and the ox as the appetitive parts of the soul, following Plato's division, who calls them the logikon and thymikon and epithymetikon, locating reason in the brain, emotion in the gall bladder, and appetite in the liver. And they posit a fourth part which is above and beyond these three, and which the Greeks call synteresin: that spark of conscience which was not even extinguished in the breast of Cain after he was turned out of Paradise, and by which we discern that we sin, when we are overcome by pleasures or frenzy, and meanwhile are misled by an imitation of reason. They reckon that this is, strictly speaking, the eagle, which is not mixed up with the other three, but corrects them when they go wrong, and of which we read in Scripture as the spirit which "maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered" (Romans 8:26)"For what man knoweth the things of man, save the spirit of man which is in him?" (I Corinthians 2:11)... However, we also see that this conscience is cast down in some people, who have neither shame nor insight regarding their offenses, and loses its place.3
Since no source has been found for Jerome's vague reference to a "Greek" (Byzantine?) original for his use of the word in this specific sense, his account remains the initial definition of "synderesis" to mean con science or a pan or an aspect of conscience. The word is derived from the Greek verb tereo (to watch over or preserve) and accordingly means preservation or the power that preserves.4 In identifying synderesis as a fourth, independent, and superintendent part of the soul, in placing it in apposition with the metaphoric "spark of conscience" (scintilla conscientiae), in citing the story of Cain to exemplify its inextinguishability, and in explicating it by referring to the biblical "spirit of man," as he proceeds to do, Jerome established a frame of discourse that dominated subsequent discussion.
Jerome's reference to synderesis might have remained a forgotten observation if two citations of it had not propelled it into the mainstream of medieval thought. Although he did not quote the word "synteresis," Peter Lombard made reference to Jerome's passage in his Sentences (1152), which became the standard theological textbook of the period.5 The context is a discussion of how the will can choose to follow an evil course of action while continuing to experience a simultaneous attraction to the good. In the numerous commentaries on the Sentences and in later discussions of the powers of the soul, a philosophic definition of the concept of synderesis evolved until both its existence and central importance become familiar assumptions in the philosophy of the Middle Ages.
Synderesis was eventually understood to be an innate inclination or habit of the first principles of the practical reason about good and evil. It was the source of infallible natural intuitions of the basic moral; of the natural law, principles recognized and embraced immediately, once their terms were understood. It exercised an inextinguishable authority in correcting the mistaken inclinations and judgments of the irascible, concupiscible, and rational powers of the soul. This "light of nature" and dictamen rationis was linked with the ratio sublimior of St. Augustine and was the source of the principles upon which conscience acted or failed to act; taken together with conscience, as John of Damascus pointed out, it had the force of "the law of our mind" in murmuring against inclining man to the good. Yet it was merely a relic or remnant of that original moral integrity that had been lost by mankind in the fall. Its paradoxical mixture of strength and weakness was well expressed in the metaphor of the spark, which suggested both the purity of essential light and heat in the midst of dead ashes and the fragility of weakness and threatened extinction. It was a vestige of man's original rectitude and as such an ironic and pathetic reminder of the image of God in which man had been created. Jeremiah (31:33) and Paul (Romans 2:15) were understood by medieval exegetes to be describing synderesis when they spoke of "the law written in the heart" which rendered man inexcusable.
Certain examples of the universal moral principles of the natural law recognized by synderesis were usually presented in discussions of its nature; these included: do good and avoid evil"; "God is to be worshipped"; and "do not do to others what you do not want done to you." Principles such as these, it came to be argued, served as the major premises of the syllogisms which logically underlay all human moral actions. These premises, recognized by synderesis in a non-deliberative intuition, always remained necessary, inviolate, and unchangeable, while the judgements of discursive reason and conscience in the minor premise were and could be mistaken; they introduced the possibility of error into the process of moral reasoning.
A second citation was of equal or perhaps greater importance in bringing the term "synderesis" into general use. Jerome's entire comment was incorporated in the Ordinary Gloss (1150) as part of its marginal explication of this notoriously perplexing book and passage of the Bible. The authority and influence of the Gloss is well illustrated by the fact that those who commented on the Sentences invariably mined the Gloss's quotation of Jerome for arguments in their discussions of synderesis. In fact, when we examine the widening circles of meaning that surround "synderesis," it is readily apparent that, almost without exception, their center remains Jerome's few sentences. The ambiguity arising from his apposition of the unfamiliar word "synderesis with the phrase "that spark of conscience" led to one of two conclusions: that synderesis was simply another name, albeit a Greek technical name, for conscience, or that synderesis was a distinct and specific part or aspect of conscience, called "the spark." The first view led to the indiscriminate use of "synderesis" for conscience by those who confused the Greek synteresis with the similar word for conscience syneidesis. The second view resulted in an independent semantic identity and history for the term scintilla or "spark. Jerome adds a fourth term to this confusion when, following the lead of Origen and Gregory Nazianzus, he puts both "synderesis" and "that spark of conscience" in further apposition with the biblical expression "the spirit of man." The uncertainties rooted in these ambiguous appositions flowered in the expanding definitions and varied use of "synderesis" well into the seventeenth century; these contrast with the aura of technical precision that has attended this term from its rebirth in Christian speculation in the Middle Ages.
Given these uncertainties, it is appropriate and prophetic that Peter Lombard, in the first notable quotation of Jerome's passage, ignored synteresis altogether and substituted superior...scintilla rationis for Jerome's scintilla conscientiae. Despite the new term, there is little doubt that Peter meant to refer to conscience, and that he was understood to do so. His use of the expression scintilla rationis, however, behind which almost certainly lay the influence of Augustine's identification, in The City of God, of the scintilla ration is with the image of God in man, behind which lay an earlier Greek tradition exemplified by Tatian's reference to the soul "retaining, as it were, a spark of its power" certainly promoted the substitution of scintilla, as a kind of shorthand, for "synderesis." There is also no doubt that scintilla continued to carry with it overtones of meaning derived from its association in Jerome's passage with con science and the spirit of man.
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries scintilla began to take on a life of its own as the most striking and prevalent metaphor among the alternative descriptive terms for synderesis. It was pressed into service by those who wrote in the mystical tradition. Bonaventure, for example, summarizes the six degrees or powers of the soul, rising from the external to the internal, from the temporal to the eternal, as "senses, imagination, reason, understanding, intelligence and, at the tip of the mind, the spark of moral discernment" (et, apex mentis, seu, synderesis scintilla).7 The idea of "the spark" or vunkelin was central to Meister Eckhart's explanation of his mystical experiences and teachings. The expression of his views in metaphorical language may have resulted in their condemnation as heretical by Pope John XXII in 1329, but his religious and philosophic ideas were in fact traditional and orthodox. For example, although he is the first to employ a vernacular equivalent for scintilla, the most recent study of Eckhart's thought maintains that he identified the vunkelin with the ratio superior and introduced into medieval psychology no really new factor regarding human cognitive capabilities."8 By the time of Jean Gerson at the end of the fourteenth century synderesis is afloat on a sea of metaphors and explanatory circumlocutions. In the definition of terms for the function and powers of the soul in Gerson's De Theologia Mystica, synderesis is followed by an acknowledgment that it is known by a variety of other names. Gerson understands synderesis to be the highest of the affective powers, corresponding to and interacting with the simplex intelligentia (pure intelligence) of the cognitive powers;9 and he defines it as "an appetitive power of the soul which receives a certain natural inclination to good immediately from God, through which it is led to follow a good motion presented to it from the apprehension of pure intelligence." He then conscientiously adds: We refer to synderesis, however, by other names: either a practical habit of principles, or the spark of intelligence... or a virginal part of the soul, or a natural stimulus to good, or the apex of the mind, or an imperishable instinct, or such other names as the first heaven among the affective powers."10 To this list might be added: recta ratio, superior pars rationis, vertex animae, scintilla intelligentiae, and the modicum lumen leading to God.11 The resemblance between what was meant by synderesis and what the Stoics called nous and to hegemonikon 12 was recognized at an early stage and repeated into the Renaissance. It was also obvious that synderesis was the discoverer and preserver of the koinai ennoiai (common notions), those prolepseis or anticipations of Greek thought.13
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W2D-011-1.txt
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How to meditate
Meditation is a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the conditioned, "thinking" mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness. There are many different meditation methods.
At the core of meditation is the goal to focus and eventually quiet your mind. As you progress, you will find that you can meditate anywhere and at any time, accessing an inner calm no matter what's going on around you. You will also find that you can better control your reactions to things as you become increasingly aware of your thoughts (letting go of anger, for example). But first, you have to learn to tame your mind.
1. Make time to meditate. Set aside enough time in your daily routine for meditating. The effects of meditation are most noticeable when you do it regularly and consistently rather than sporadically.
Some people will find a five minute meditation worthwhile, for others, the benefits of longer meditation are well worth the time.
You can meditate at any time of day; some people like to start their day off with meditation, others like to end the day by clearing their mind, and some prefer to find refuge in meditation in the middle of a busy day. Generally, however, the easiest time to meditate is in the morning, before the day tires your body out and gives your mind more to think about.
Don't meditate immediately following a meal, or when you are likely to be hungry. The body's digestive system can be very distracting.
Find or create a quiet, relaxing environment. It's especially important, when you' 'restarting out, to avoid any obstacles to attention. Turn off any TV sets, phone(s) or other noisy appliances. If you play music, make sure it's calm, repetitive and gentle, so as not to break your concentration. Meditating outside can be conducive, as long as you don't sit near a busy roadway or another source of loud noise.
Sit on level ground. Sit on a cushion if the ground is uncomfortable. You don't have to twist your limbs into the lotus position or adopt any unusual postures. The important thing is to keep your back straight, as this will help with breathing later on.
Tilt your pelvis forward by sitting on the forward edge of a thick cushion, or on a chair that has its back legs lifted off the ground 8 to 10 cm (3 or 4 inches).
Starting from your bottom, stack up the vertebrae in your spine, so that they are balanced one on top of another and support the whole weight of your torso, neck, and head. Done correctly, it feels as if no effort is required to hold your torso up. (A small amount of effort is in fact required, but with the right posture, it is so small and evenly distributed you don't notice it.)
Relax your arms and legs. They don't need to be in any special position, just as long as they are relaxed and don't interfere with balancing your torso. You can put your hands on your thighs, but it might be easier at first to let your arms hang at your sides - the hanging weight helps reveal where things are out of alignment.
Relax everything, and keep searching for things that aren't relaxed. When you find them, (and you will), relax them. You may find that you can't relax them unless you adjust your posture so that you are better aligned, and that place doesn't need to work anymore. This commonly happens with muscles near your spine. You may also notice that you are twisted a little and need to straighten out. Little muscles in your face often keep getting tense, too.
Let your attention rest on the flow of your breath. Listen to it, follow it, but make no judgments on it (such as "It sounds a little raspy...maybe I' 'mgetting a cold?"). The goal is to allow the "chattering" in your mind to gradually fade away. Find an "anchor" to settle your mind.
Try reciting a mantra (repetition of a sacred word) or short Bible verse. A single word like "aum" uttered at a steady rhythm is best. You can recite it verbally or just with the voice in your mind. Beginners may find it easier to count their breaths. Try counting your breath from 1 to 10, then simply start again at 1.
To circumvent images that keep intruding on your thoughts, visualize a place that calms you. It can be real or imaginary. Imagine you are at the top of a staircase leading to a peaceful place. Count your way down the steps until you are peaceful and relaxed.
Silence your mind. Once you 've trained your mind to focus on just one thing at a time, the next step is focus on nothing at all, essentially "clearing" your mind. This requires tremendous discipline but is the pinnacle of meditation. After focusing on a single point as described in the previous step, you can either cast it away, or observe it impartially and let it come and then go, without labeling it as "good" or "bad". Take the same approach to any thoughts which return to your mind until silence perseveres.
For some people, focusing attention on a point or object does exactly the opposite of what meditation is all about. It takes you back to the life of focus, concentration, strain. In this case, as an alternative to the above techniques, some meditators recommend un-focusing your attention. Instead of focusing attention on a point or an object, this type of meditation is achieved by attaining a state of zero. Take your attention above all thoughts to a point where you lose all attention and all thoughts.
What you do with a silent mind is up to you. Some people find that it is a good time to introduce an intention or a desired outcome to the subconscious mind. Others prefer to "rest" in the rare silence that meditation affords.
You should be comfortable enough to concentrate, but not so comfortable that you feel the urge to fall asleep.
Make some effort to be mindful of your mood and thoughts when not meditating. You may notice that you feel calmer, happier, and sharper on days when you have meditated, and notice a decrease in these qualities when you have not.
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W2C-012-0.txt
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The Menino Administration reached a tentative agreement yesterday with a Boston-based developer to build 715 rental units with underground parking near the convention center.
But the deal immediately was challenged by two of South Boston's elected officials.
Boston Redevelopment Authority officials and Cathartes Investments agreed on a $150 million project that will include 65 affordable units and land for an additional 65 affordable units, sources said.
The deal was completed after Cathartes, whipsawed by a battle for control of waterfront development, threatened to withdraw its housing proposal and seek a commercial development, sources said.
The BRA deal would preclude a controversial deal Cathartes negotiated last spring with the South Boston Betterment Trust, a nonprofit group whose role in waterfront development is being opposed by Mayor Thomas M.Menino.
Under the current deal, Cathartes will build 65 of the affordable units, while nonprofits, including the Betterment Trust, may bid for the right to build an additional 65.
The original Cathartes-Betterment Trust deal called for the developer to turn over 25 percent of its land and $750,000 to the Betterment Trust, which planned to build 130 affordable units.
But BRA spokesperson Susan Elsbree denied an agreement had been reached.
City Council President James M.Kelly predicted the new BRA deal with Cathartes will be opposed by South Boston residents and indicated he will continue to defend the original Betterment Trust deal.
" The units Cathartes originally proposed was more than the neighborhood wanted, but because there were benefits offered to the impacted neighborhood, a majority was prepared to support Cathartes," Kelly said.
The Betterment Trust may go ahead with its threat to sue Menino for breaking a 1998 "memorandum of understanding" empowering the Trust, Kelly said.
" There's a possibility that all development, or at least Cathartes, will come to a grinding halt," Kelly said.
State Sen. Stephen F.Lynch said there is "general opposition to the mass of the project" while questioning whether a 715-unit project could clear state environmental hurdles.
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W2A-025-0.txt
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New stripe and multifrequency techniques for Fabry-Perot velocimetry are incorporated into an analytical model for the entire system. Properties of striped interferometers (FP's) are derived. An understanding of energy flow in both striped and unstriped FP's is presented. Nine contributions to the velocity resolution are examined, and analytical approximations are provided for each of them. Formulas for the overall velocity and time resolution of each fringe are derived. Using brightness arguments to limit the maximum usable light acceptable by the system, we also derived analytical limits on the photographic writing speed of each fringe.
I. Introduction
Optical velocimetry based on Fabry-Perot interferometers (FP's) operating in the fringe mode is a widely used measuring technique in research with explosives, gas-propelled projectiles, and electrically accelerated objects.1 Since Ref. 1 was published, two recent new ideas providing more capability for this technique have emerged. Gidon and Behar2 have demonstrated an order of magnitude more laser power by using a pulsed dye laser followed by an FP filter set to the same spacing as the conventional analyzer FP. The interference patterns for each filtered frequency overlap almost perfectly at the slit of the streaking camera, effectively making all nonmonochromatic filtered power useful. In addition, McMillan et al.3 have applied a striped analyzer FP to use more efficiently the light reflected by a moving test object. In this technique, one removes a narrow stripe of the reflective coating on the upstream mirror to avoid the large losses (of the order of 90%;) that normally arise from reflection.
These two ideas are not without drawbacks, however. The multifrequency technique involves a slight broadening of most of the interference fringes caused by the imperfect overlap, and the stripe technique involves the problem of inducing the reflected light to enter the stripe. The latter issue is a function of the size of the illumination on the target, averaged over the target travel distance, and the solid angle of the collection optics.
Our purpose is to provide a set of fairly simple analytical formulas for users to compare the total velocity resolution, time resolution, and photographic writing speed of one striped velocimeter configuration with another. The major simplification in our approach is the treatment of the fraction of light reflected by the target that can enter the instrument. We have written a code (STRIPE) that calculates in detail the amount of light at each instant of time from a moving Lambertian target that enters an array of real collection fibers and illuminates the strip on the FP mirrors. To present the results as analytical formulas, however, we do not use STRIPE here.
Instead, we simply calculate the ratio of the emittance (or brightness) acceptance of the instrument to the emittance reflected by the target. This helps to determine, for any optical transport system between the target and the instrument, an upper limit on the amount of useful light. Work with STRIPE has shown us that it is not difficult for real systems to collect 30%; of the amount of light represented by the emittance-argument limit. The present work is intended to be useful in comparing various reflectivities, mirror spacings, and streak-camera properties to see how they affect the net time and velocity resolutions and the upper limit on the photographic writing speed for each interference fringe.
We derive a simple analytical result for the effect on fringe finesse of the angular divergence of light entering an FP filter. We also derive several properties of striped FP's. For example, we present a good simple analytical approximation for the total finesse of a striped FP with finite-sized nonflat mirrors. An explanation of some of the properties of normal as well as striped FP's with regard to energy flow is given. It is shown below that diffraction plays a key role in understanding energy transport in the striped FP, even for light beams several centimeters in diameter. Figure 1 shows the system being modeled. A dye-pumped laser oscillator beam2 is expanded by a telescope to reduce angular divergence. It then enters an FP filter and is transported to the target, reflected, and collected by a lens. This light is then converged in one dimension by a cylindrical lens and enters an analyzer FP with a stripe of its reflective coating removed. The exiting light is focused by a spherical lens onto the slit of an electronic streak camera.
II. Properties of Normal and Striped Interferometers
A. Striped Fabry-Perot interferometer
Figure 2 shows the striped FP.
The upstream mirror of intensity reflectivity R 1 has a stripe of half-width R st removed. The length of the stripe equals the mirror diameter. The entire downstream mirror is coated with reflectivity R 2. We first consider only light incident at a large enough angle that multiple reflection occurs, as indicated in Fig. 2 [OMITTED]. It is straightforward, by using the standard formalism illustrated for normal FP's in Ref. 4, to calculate the intensity at the focal plane of a spherical lens vs incident angle for perfectly flat mirrors. The sum of the transmitted beamlet amplitudes is [equation] (1) where the phase d is given by [equation] (2) h is the mirror separation, v is the frequency, and c is the speed of light. Here r 1 and r 2 are the amplitude reflectivities of the two dielectric coatings, and t 2 is the amplitude transmission of the second coating. The ratio of transmitted to incident intensities is [equation] where the reflectivity R is given by [equation] [equation]
The coefficient A is typically ~0.002 and accounts for absorption and scattering Peaks in the transmission multiple of 2p. In this paper, this peaks are due to variations in either frequency or angle. If we set R 1= R 2 = R in Eqs.(4) and (5), Eq.(3) agrees with expression (5.3.1) given in the text by Hernandez for a side-illuminated FP. A striped FP allows one to see fringes on both sides of the center of the pattern, as opposed to the side-illuminated FP. As pointed out in Ref. 1, the analysis of the pattern is much easier if fringes on both sides of 0º are available.
The resonant angles O j of Eq. (3) are [equation] where int means the integer part of, X is the wavelength, k is a positive integer (usually less than 5), and j is given by [equation] Here e is the fractional order of interference and has a value between 0 and 1. The index j is a real number. This notation is shown in Fig. 3. Our k - 1 is the j of Ref. 1. The second form of Eq. (6) is a good approximation to the resonant angles, since they are usually smaller than 0.01 rad.
The ratio of the separation of the transmission peaks to their full width at half-maximum (FWHM), when the phase, or the product v cos O, is varied, is called the finesse and is given by [equation] the latter form being the limit for large R, which is accurate to 0.1%; for R greater than 0.86.
If R 1 =1, the transmission of the striped FP can be written as [equation] For a given finesse, and thus for a given value of R, it will often be best to have R 1 = 1, since this produces about twice the peak intensity compared with R 1 R 2 = R. For example, Eqs. (3) and (9) show that a pair of 99.8 and 92.3%; reflectivity mirrors with A = 0.002 transmit ~1.95 times at much light as a pair of 96%; mirrors, but both have the same finesse or velocity resolution. The reason is that with R 1= 1, almost all the energy must exit to the right of the mirror pair. The advantage in doing this was not recognized in Ref. 3. An advantage of the stripe over the normal FP is shown by comparing Eq. (9) with the result for the normal FP: [equation] where R is the reflectivity common to both mirrors. For incident light that enters the stripe, when R 1 = 0.998, R 2 = 0.923, and A = 0.002, the peak intensity for the striped FP is 51 times as large as that for the normal FP with R = 0.96 and the same finesse. In most cases, part of this transmission advantage is canceled because only a fraction of the illumination can be made to enter the stripe. The stripe technique will be advantageous when the product of the illumination size on the target and the angular range of the collected light are small enough. Comparing Eqs. (9) and (10) shows that the absorption A decreases the peak transmission of the normal FP by a large percentage than it does for the striped FP with R 1 = 1. For A = 0.002 and R = 0.97, absorption decreases the normal FP peak transmission by 18%; but drops the striped FP transmission by less than 4%;. This can be understood qualitatively by considering just a single beam traversing the first mirror of the normal FP. Then absorption makes the first transmitted intensity equal to 0.028, rather than 0.030, for a 7%; loss in output. The averages over phase from 0 to 2p - that is, over one free spectral range- are important for the discussions below. They are [equation] for the striped FP with R 1 = 1 and [equation] for the normal FP pattern. B. Equal Reflectivity Mirrors for the Striped Fabry-Perot Interferometer Another mode of operation for the striped FP is to use equal reflectivity mirrors. One can compensate for the factor of 2 in peak transmission mentioned just after Eq. (9) for the light that enters the stripe by using some of the light that cannot enter the stripe. We normally set the angular divergence approaching the stripe just to cover four transmission peaks. Suppose that under this constraint the illumination cannot be made smaller than 25 times as large as the stripe. Then, for the example above for R = 0.96, the transmitted intensity is about the same regardless of whether R 1 = 1. One problem with this mode of operation, however, is that, if any light missing the stripe is converging toward the optical axis, some of the multiply reflected beams may eventually exit back through the stripe. This creates a fringe broadening owing to the limited number of beamlets created. For example, if the full width of the stripe were 0.7 mm, and the illumination 18 mm wide (so that the intensity would be equivalent), the mirrors would effectively be only 9 mm in radius for such rays. For 9-mm radius mirrors with h = 6.5 cm and R = 0.96, one finds that, using Subsection IV.E on walkoff broadening for these special rays, walkoff would degrade the finesse from 76 to 17. One might try to set up the illumination at the stripe so that the light diverges away from the optical axis, and reflection back through the stripe cannot occur. This could be ensured by using fiber-optic transport between the reflecting target and the optics just preceding the stripe. Thus, when the reflecting target moves, the light entering the stripe would not change from divergence to convergence, as it could for an air-transport system. To ensure divergence, one would set the waist of the illumination upstream of the stripe. The rays at the waist of spatially incoherent illumination usually have an angular distribution that is not significantly correlated with the radius of the ray. It is easy to show that the illumination at the stripe must be at least twice the diameter of the waist to eliminate convergence completely. Unfortunately, the angles of the rays entering the first mirror would then have a correlation with position with the large radii corresponding to large angles. If the illumination has a radius of 9 mm to match the transmitted power of an FP with R 1 = 1, the outer rays hitting a 25-mm radius mirror walk less distance before vignetting. These rays would have a larger walk-off broadening than would an FP with R 1 = 1. Thus, unless the mirrors are large enough, attempting to obtain more power transmission by using equal reflectivity mirrors necessitates broader fringes. There is one situation with an equal reflectivity FP that should be avoided experimentally. Suppose the position of the illumination waist near the stripe is allowed to move during the dynamic experiment, as would happen with an air-transport system. The system's velocity resolution would be tested with a static target (static waist position) for which we assume that all the rays diverge into the FP. Then, if the waist size is only a few millimeters, the walkoff broadening is minimal and the fringe sharpness appears to be good. During the dynamic motion of the target, however, the position of the waist may move toward the striped FP and allow converging rays to enter the nonstriped region. Then reflections back through the stripe will occur and make the fringes significantly broader than they were compared with the initial test. p>In summary, if the mirrors are large enough, there may be situations where more intensity at no loss of velocity resolution results from using equal reflectivities. But for our applications this is unlikely, because it is usually possible to make the waist radius only a few millimeters. Also, if the waist is this small, no significant broadening will occur with equal reflectivities if divergence of the rays is ensured, but more transmitted power would result from using R 1 = 1.
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W2E-005-0.txt
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RACE AND CRACK
The decision by the U.S. Supreme Court Monday to review whether black defendants are discriminated against in crack cocaine cases spotlights a legal issue that has simmered for a long time. It even boiled over briefly this month in a flareup of violence at federal prisons, including the facility in Greenville, Ill. The issue demands a closer look.
In a legal analysis last year, U.S. District Judge Clyde S. Cahill made a strong case for Congress to abolish an anti-drug law that imposes relatively harsh sentences against crack cocaine users. His is the kind of reasoned advice Congress should have heeded in its recent review of this law.
Judge Cahill isn't alone in raising questions about the law. For very good reasons, the U.S. Sentencing Commission recommended this year that crack and powder cocaine be treated the same for the purposes of sentencing. Though the drug laws were aimed at kingpins and major traffickers, those caught in the dragnet tend to be poor blacks and Latinos. They are prosecuted and jailed for possessing relatively small amounts of crack. Nationwide, 96 percent of all crack-related prosecutions involve blacks or Latinos.
Anyone convicted of possessing even 5 grams of crack automatically gets five years in prison. A person would have to possess 100 times more powder cocaine, usually abused by middle-class whites, to draw a similar sentence, even though the chemical makeup of both drugs is said to be the same Unavoidably, Judge Cahill's analysis raised the issue of racism. Between 1989 and 1992, he notes, only one of the 57 persons charged with crack violations in all of the Eastern District of Missouri was white.
The presumption that blacks in the Eastern District are singled out for prosecution is present, he argues, because the U.S. attorney's office has yet to explain the principles it followed in deciding who would be prosecuted for crack offenses.
President Bill Clinton used part of an Oct. 16 race-relations speech in Austin, Texas, to criticize the fact that black men were disproportionately prosecuted for drug crimes in relation to their use of drugs. On the same day, at the Million Man March in Washington, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan also appealed for a reversal of this unfair criminal-justice policy.
The Congressional Black Caucus later called this issue the first test following the president's speech and the march of whether society was serious about rooting out racially tainted public practices.
A week after the march, Congress provided the answer by voting overwhelmingly to uphold stiffer sentences for those caught with small amounts of crack. And Mr. Clinton decided to sign the bill.
After praising the principles behind the Million Man March, many in official Washington still seem to say prisons, not wider opportunities, are the answer to social problems afflicting black men.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION LIVES
Affirmative action programs were supposed to be among the first Democratic-sponsored government policies that would be overturned by the so-called Republican revolution.
For very good reasons, Congress has refrained from wholesale elimination of these programs. The continued survival of most of them is due in part to intense lobbying by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
Its efforts have helped to shift the debate away from bigoted and anti-black rhetoric toward a more rational discussion of how affirmative action works, why it's needed and who has benefited the most. It's no accident, for example, that the Leadership Conference has spread the word that women of all races, and white women in particular, have reaped most of the rewards of affirmative action in the workplace.
Still, the issue clearly is certain to be a big topic in next year's presidential campaign. GOP candidate Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas has all but made sure of that. Last spring, he promised to add an anti-affirmative action rider to all appropriations bills. Wisely, the Senate has spurned this backdoor effort to pass legislation to suit the views of one misguided individual.
The unsubstantiated notion among whites is that affirmative action is giving minorities unfair advantage - as if the absence of such programs hadn't given whites unfair advantage for decades.
At any rate, Congress eventually may draft new rules for determining who deserves special help. That seems to be the preference of the Clinton administration. Meanwhile, Sen. Christopher S. Bond of Missouri already is pushing the same concept in connection with federal set-aside contracts. He wants to limit them to businesses in low-income census tracts, on the assumption that the firms would hire people from the neighborhoods.
That premise is false for two reasons. First, federal contracts are no guarantee of job opportunities. If they were, Washington wouldn't need an Office of Federal Contract Compliance.
Second, just because a business is situated in a black neighborhood doesn't mean jobs automatically flow to the neighborhood residents. Mr. Bond and others need only look at the employment behavior of businesses already operating in or near low-income communities. These range from Asian-controlled beauty supply outlets to foundries to service industries in industrial parks. Many of them tend to give only token employment opportunities to community residents.
Nor should Mr. Bond and others forget that black Americans who live outside of low-income communities also feel the sting of racial and economic discrimination. That fact suggests that society cannot avoid taking race into account if it is serious about eradicating discriminatory policies.
BLACK CAUCUS' FOUNDATION UNDER ATTACK
You can bet something more than good government is behind the attacks by Republicans and conservative Democrats on foundations affiliated with various caucuses in Congress. One target is a $ 100,000 donation that Nigeria's military dictatorship gave to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.
Critics say this is an example of why foundations should be required to make full disclosures of their donations and explain how foundation money is spent to support Congress' 29 caucuses. The $ 100,000 check, the critics argue, is an example of loose controls over money and influence between caucuses and independent foundations.
In addition, some critics seek a law to forbid members of Congress from serving on the boards of foundations of caucuses with which members are affiliated. Rep. Alan Wheat of Kansas City happened to be the chairman of the Black Caucus Foundation's board at the time of Nigeria's donation. He sees no conflict between his work in Congress and service to the foundation, which, he says, has a $ 2 million annual budget and distributes more than $ 300,000 in scholarships each year and provides $ 200,000 annually for internships and fellowships.
There was nothing illegal about Nigeria's donation. Moreover the amount of money involved pales in relation to the sums that lobbyists give to influence votes in Congress. The caucus' executive director, Quentin Lawson, points out that it gets larger donations from corporations that have specific legislative interests, such as giant tobacco firms. Yet, conservatives do not get upset about these donations. Nor are questions raised about donations from multinational corporations that give money in part to influence the way Congress treats foreign countries in which the multinationals do business.
Perhaps these caucuses should open their books to show that they have nothing to hide - assuming they have nothing to hide. But the public also should know there's a lot more than questions of clean government behind these attacks. They are an attempt to undermine a major means through which many liberal caucuses have gained clout.
U.S. TROOPS IN COLOMBIA
Why are U.S. soldiers being sent to Colombia? To help build a road, school and hospital. That's the official answer. Congress should raise questions nevertheless.
One issue is whether the soldiers are laying the groundwork for an assault on the Cali drug cartel. It is the world's largest, now that Colombian government forces have killed Pablo Escobar and crushed his Medellin cartel. The Cali headquarters happens to be about 45 miles northwest of the region where U.S. soldiers will be assigned. That the U.S. soldiers will engage in a road-building project is hardly reassuring. Former President Ronald Reagan often sent units of the National Guard on similar "humanitarian" projects. The roads, in some cases, were being built to accommodate military vehicles.
This mission could well be part of now-discredited U.S. drug-interdiction efforts in Latin America. If so, it means the Clinton administration hasn't much of a fresh anti-drug policy. Drug cartels will remain plentiful as long as there is a demand for what they produce. In 1991, this nation spent $23 billion on interdiction and law enforcement programs. These supply-side initiatives were undertaken at the expense of much-needed treatment facilities and education programs.
Meanwhile, more and more people, out of frustration, are arguing that decriminalization might be the answer. U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders got into hot water recently when she sensibly suggested that the issue deserved study. Moreover, many Latin celebrities, including Colombia's own Nobel literature laureate, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, are calling for the legalization of drugs. Pointing to the crime and violent deaths that have been linked to the illicit-drug traffic, these artists say other solutions should be tried.
Mr. Clinton was quick to divorce himself from Dr. Elders' remarks. Just as quickly, he should divorce his administration from failed drug policies. If interdiction is the covert reason for the U.S. mission in Colombia, then it should be halted. The dangers of sending U.S. soldiers on loosely defined missions on foreign soil should be obvious. The time for Congress to ask some questions is now. Or, as usual, will it wait until a soldier returns home in a body bag
TO SAVE THE FISH, FISH LESS
The Atlantic Coast was once one of the great repositories of fish in the world - home to enormous numbers of sea weakfish, sea bass, flounder, blues, spot, croakers, shad and herring. No more. As a result of massive overfishing, catches of nearly every species are down 70 percent or more in the last decade. Catches have fallen also along the Gulf and Pacific coasts and Alaska. Congress has acted before to correct the problem, but its solution hasn't really succeeded. Now it will try again.
Just before Thanksgiving, Congress permitted a compact of states on the Atlantic Coast to set tough catch limits and short fishing seasons. In 1976, Congress did the same thing under the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act for deep sea fishing. But fishing close to shore went unregulated, and fish stocks there are now the ones most threatened. Congress has now empowered coastal states to focus on fishing close to shore. And this time there will be real teeth in their agreements.
Because past efforts at uniform enforcement of fishing and season limits have been defeated by lax enforcement by some states, Congress will now permit Washington to enter the picture and enforce limits on states reluctant to go along with the majority. The government is even empowered to declare a moratorium on threatened species in uncooperative states.
Fish experts say that the mandatory provision is essential and that it has worked before. In the early 1980s, it was used to compel cooperation in restricting fishing of striped bass in Chesapeake Bay. The species had nearly disappeared; now its population has substantially regenerated itself. Catches are good again, though fishing is still controlled.
Naturally, there is a price; the huge, efficient trawlers responsible for overfishing will make a lot less money. Some in the industry will even be forced out of business. That is an unhappy but necessary price to pay to stop the worst harm of all to the environment: reckless overuse.
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W2D-012-0.txt
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Beginner Fishing - - How to Fish
If You are a Beginner at Fishing, Here is How to Fish
New to fishing? Trying to learn how to fish? Here are links to lots of information on beginner fishing. Use this information to get you started.
Learning to Fish: What a beginner needs to know
Okay, so you decided you want to learn to fish. And you need to know who, what, where, when, and why on just about every aspect of fishing. There are a number of ways to learn, not the easiest of which is trial and error, although that method has a more lasting effect on your knowledge base.
If you are looking at saltwater fishing, there are some ways to ease your way into the sport, and painlessly learn the ropes. If I were advising someone who was just beginning, here is where I would point him or her:
We are assuming that you have opted out of paying for one-on-one lessons and that you have not hooked up with a friend willing to give of his time to teach you one-on-one. Given these criteria, we will proceed.
Step One
Go out and buy a package of seasick medicine. Nothing can ruin your day more than seasickness. You would be amazed at how easy a novice on the water can become ill. My recommendation is Bonine. It has worked in every case for the people I take fishing. If it's going to be a particularly rough day with heavy seas offshore, I have been know to take some myself.
Step Two
Buy a reference book for beginners. Fishing for Dummies is a good start and is available on all the online bookstores. It gives you simple instructions, terms, definitions, and generally points you in the right direction. Read the book! There may be things you don't understand, but read the book anyway! Learn to tie several of the knots they will show you. Contrary to popular belief, a double granny knot will not work with fishing line.
Step Three
Spend the money to go on a party/head boat. These are boats that carry from twenty to as many as seventy anglers. They provide everything - - bait, rod and reel, hooks, sinkers. They even help you fish and take the fish off your line for you. They will spot you if you are new and one of the mates will stay close to you to help. They will do this partly out of customer service, but also wanting to keep an eye on their rod and reel that they fear may accidentally go overboard. Remember the seasick medicine. This is where you will use it. Take a pill before you go to bed the night before and one when you wake up. Then take one as you board the boat. Trust me, you will thank me for this reminder. Head boats run from $30 to $60 a day, and you get to keep your fish!
Compared to the cost of a boat, fishing equipment, gas, and bait, it is a bargain for the beginner. You walk on empty handed and walk off with fish. What a concept!
Step Four
Assuming you have acquired the ability to operate a rod and reel from step three, you need to find a fishing pier. Most coastal cities have at least one public or pay-to-fish pier that goes out into the ocean. Some even have a pier that goes into a bay or river. These piers will often rent tackle. They do sell bait and terminal tackle (that's the hooks and sinkers and the like) and will help you rig the rod and reel if you did not learn either from step two or three above. From that point you may feel like you are on your own. But fear not; help abounds. If you ask nicely and appear to be struggling on the pier, there are any number of pier anglers that will jump in to help you and give you advice. They are a special breed of angler and some of the friendliest folks around. That's a major reason for sending you to a pier in this step.
Summary
At this point I would repeat steps three and four several times to make sure you are getting the hang of things. Up to this point you have probably been fishing with what we call a conventional reel and a boat rod. Conventional reels are the ones that wind the line on the spool of the reel similar to a winch. These are designed for heavy use and abuse. That's why the head boats use them. You may want to consider other sizes and types of reels and rods at this point.
Hopefully you have made a contact or two or even made friends with an angler or two who can help with the decision to try another reel. Don't be afraid to ask a tackle shop owner for advice. And don't be afraid to try something new.
Two Keys to Success
The key to becoming a successful angler is bound by two parts. The first is knowing the mechanics of the equipment and bait. Believe it or not, this is the easiest part. You can become very proficient at casting, knot tying, baiting, even without actually going fishing. The second part is the hardest and knowing this part can make your day. The second part? Simply knowing where to fish. I use the term simply with tongue in cheek. There are tens of thousands of anglers out there who have the mechanics down pat. They can cast, retrieve, bait a hook, and tie knots with the best of them. Only a small percentage of these anglers can be considered successful.
Statistics
In almost any organization it can be said with relative assurance that 20%; of the people are responsible for 80%; of the results of that organization. Those same percentages hold true in fishing. 20%; of the anglers catch 80%; of the fish. And there is a reason for these data.
Know the Fish
The successful angler, beginner and pro, know where the fish are located at any particular time. Most fish move from place to place and back again with the tide and current. Knowledgeable anglers learn these movements and are able to regularly catch substantial numbers of fish. Just wetting a line in any body of water doesn't work.
When you understand that the one of the differences between a weekend angler and a guide who is catching fish is that the guide knows where the fish are located, you begin to take heart. Now I know I will hear some heat from the guides out there, but honestly, folks, if you are on the water every day and can keep track of the fish, you can catch fish when others can't. It's a simple fact.
If you are planning to learn how to fish, maybe what we discussed here can help get you started Of course, I can help answer some questions for you as well along the way.
So I ask all you dads and moms, what better or healthier outdoor activity could you involve your kids in than fishing?
You help your overall catch rate by being prepared and knowing where to fish...
Do you fish the same areas over, and over again? Those same flats; that same channel cutting through the grass; the same ledge or wreck; you know all of the places you fish sometimes like the back of your hand.
You got to know those places over time by being familiar with them So how can you go to a completely new area and have a chance at catching fish the first time out? Try some of these tips to get you started.
First of all, buy a good chart of the area If its an inshore location, you will need it for navigation. If you are going offshore, wreck locations, bottom contours, and GPS numbers are on lots of fishing maps.
Stop at a good tackle shop and ask a lot of questions. Don't expect a lot of good answers in the early morning when they are busy. Come a little later in the morning when bait buying the rush has slowed, and simply tell the owner you are new to the area and that you would like his or her help in locating some fish. They will be eager to help you, because if you are successful, it is likely they just found a new customer! They will mark a chart up for you if you buy it from them, and that chart can end up being the best investment you can make.
When you get your chart, sit down one evening and study it. Find the cuts and channels. Locate the deeper holes or humps. Find the flats that will empty to a nearby channel at low tide. Chart study of this nature is basically eliminating large expanses of water rather than finding specific holes or places to fish. In any given area, there are literally miles of water that are not worth your while fishing. By simply eliminating that water, you can concentrate on more productive water.
Find out what the tides will be on the day you plan to fish. When you talk to the local tackle shop be sure to ask which tides to fish.
If all else fails and you have the funds available, hire a guide. One day of fishing with a guide can teach you the areas to fish, the bait to use, and the tides to fish. Granted, the guide may take you to only one location, but you will at least have that location on which to count. Lots of you guides may get angry at me for suggesting this, but let's face it, it's a paid trip and you'l 'llnly be giving up one location, not your entire black book!
Go to any tackle shop and look at their selection of hooks. In a good shop, that selection can be mind boggling to the novice angler. Online tackle shops can be even more daunting to anglers, because there is no one to answer questions about certain styles of hooks and their use. What's an angler to do?
Knowing the sizing and naming conventions of the major categories of hooks can help make your selection an easier task. Yes, Virginia, the type of hook you select does make a difference, and hook selection depends on the species of fish being sought.
There are five basic parts to a hook: the point, gap. shank, eye, and barb. Each of these parts can and will be different on the various types of hooks in use today. Shanks can be long or short; eyes can be round, needle, or welded; and the gap width can vary significantly. All of these parts work together in each hook design, and different hook designs are made for different fishing applications.
There is no clear history on how the current hook sizing came into existence. The measurements used today use a twofold numbering scheme that measures from the smallest hook to the largest hook.
The smallest hook readily available is size 24. This is a hook with a 1/16 of an inch gap and it's used for tiny trout flies. As the size number decreases, the width of the hook gap increases, all the way to a size 1. A size 1 hook has a gap about 1/2 inch in width.
At this point the numbering scheme changes and begins with 1/0 (" one aught"), which is larger in size than a number 1 and goes all the way up to 20/0, the largest commercially made hook.
Even with this "recognized" sizing method, sizes can vary from manufacturer and sometimes even within a manufacturer. There is no concrete standard.
Hooks are all made from metal. The type and size of the hook is a determinant for which metal. Saltwater hooks are generally made from a corrosion and rust resistant metal. Stainless steel is often used on the very large hooks. Freshwater hooks can be made from wire, as most of the smaller hooks are, or a cheaper less corrosion resistant metal.
Do not be totally guided by freshwater or saltwater labels on hooks. Many freshwater hooks are used in saltwater, and they work well if cared for properly.
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W1A-016-0.txt
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1. There is no best method.
Although novice teachers might think that a best method exists, they will be sorely disappointed. All language learners are different (see my response to #9, below), so an effective teacher must draw from a range of methods in a principled manner. Understanding the history of language teaching and identifying similarities and differences between methods can also help a teacher realize that each method is a reaction to a past method and can be useful in different contexts.
If there is no best method, how should a teacher proceed? Researchers have identified numerous principles for teachers to follow in the absence of a single best method. According to Celce-Murcia (2001), for example, a good teacher assesses students' needs; identifies "what can reasonably be taught" based on factors such as time constraints, class size, and materials; tailors activities to students' attitudes and learning styles and to the situations and genres in which students need to communicate successfully; and figures out how to assess students' learning in a fair manner (p. 10). Moreover, gathering information about one's teaching, whether through, e.g., student surveys, peer observations, or field notes, can provide important information on the effectiveness of one's teaching and the nature of students' learning (Murphy, 2001).
Kumaravadivelu (1994), however, advocates that teachers abandon the concept of method entirely. He suggests that we have now reached a "postmethod condition" that has resulted from our "heightened awareness" that there is no best method:
Having witnessed how methods go through endless cycles of life, death, and rebirth, we now seem to have reached a state of heightened awareness--an awareness that as long as we are caught up in the web of method, we will continue to get entangled in an unending search for an unavailable solution, an awareness that such a search drives us to continually recycle and repackage the same old ideas and an awareness that nothing short of breaking the cycle can salvage the situation. (1994, p. 28)
Kumaravadivelu argues that being aware that there is no best method is futile; despite this knowledge, we are still "recyl[ing] and repackag[ing]" in order to create the best possible combination of methods. The only solution, Kumaravadivelu argues, is to stop looking for methods and to abandon the concept entirely. He states that we need an alternative to method that empowers teachers to theorize from their practice and encourages them to listen to their "subjective understandings" (or "sense of plausibility")(1994, p. 31) that arise from their experience and education..
Kumaravadivelu's solution is to give teachers "macrostrategies," which, he implies, are the basis of all good language teaching. His strategies include maximizing opportunities for students to learn, privileging the negotiation of meaning, using inductive learning, contextualizing the linguistic input, integrating language skills instead of teaching them separately, promoting learners' autonomy, making the instruction relevant to the learners, and raising the learners' cultural awareness. These strategies, along with Celce-Murcia's (2001) suggestions noted above, could be considered good principles for language teaching that will help teachers and learners succeed"without reliance on (a) method."
4. It is important for teachers to understand the notion of top-down and bottom-up processing.
Proficient language users rely on both top-down and bottom-up processing when they read or listen. When we hear or read something, we draw on our schema and background knowledge to interpret and predict what is going on, such as when we make inferences about a character's behavior or predict the content and direction of a professor's lecture. Simultaneously, however, we are decoding what we hear or read at an incredibly fast rate. We may only notice our decoding processes when we are forced to slow down, such as when we read an academic text in an unfamiliar discipline or listen for specific pieces of information in, say, a traffic report.
Teachers should understand these concepts because students need help developing not just bottom-up processing but also top-down and interactive processing in listening, pronunciation, and reading instruction. How many of us actually think about what we are saying or hearing sound-by-sound" (Goodwin, 2001, p. 119)
Wilcox Peterson (2001) recommends activating students' top-down processing skills before every listening activity and building automaticity in bottom-up processing (p. 89); otherwise, students will get frustrated at the slow rate at which they decode what they see and hear. Reading rate development materials"which help students read in chunks, minimize regressions, and minimize the number of fixations"may be especially useful to develop automaticity in reading.
Moreover, curricula now reflect the understanding that students need practice at all leveles of processing. Goodwin (2001) reports that in pronunciation instruction, the bottom-up approach is being replaced by a more balanced approach in which "the sound system is addressed as it naturally occurs in the stream of speech" (p. 119). Suprasegmental features (e.g., thought groups, prominence, intonation) are taught first and segmentals (e.g., consonants, vowels) are focused on at various points, akin to a "zoom lens" (p. 119). Many reading researchers have reached a similar conclusion: teachers need to teach both phonics and whole language, a "whole-to-part-to-whole" approach (Ediger, 2001, p. 161) that stresses both comprehension and decoding.
When planning lessons, teachers should consider that that reliance on bottom-up or top-down processing often depends on several factors: the student's prior knowledge of the task or topic and the purpose, or function, of listening (Morley, 2001, citing Richards, 1990). Morley cites a few of Richards' examples: If the student is listening in order to interact and socialize with others, then top-down processing dominates; and if student is listening to a friend tell a joke, then bottom-up processing dominates. Yet if the student is listening in order to extract or convey information, bottom-up processing dominates; and if the student is listening to something he or she has heard many times before, such as a flight attendant's safety instructions, then top-down processing dominates (pp. 74-75). A teacher can use Richards' matrix of listening functions and processes to design lessons that develop students' listening skills in an appropriate way.
In addition, teachers should consider not just helping students develop these skills but also teaching them the metalanguage so that they can select levels of processing strategically. Wilcox Peterson (2001) recommends helping students to understand the different ways they process language and to "[n]otice how their processing operations interact with the text" (p. 89). Students can then choose listening strategies strategically.
5. Accuracy and fluency should receive equal emphasis in the L2 curriculum
xfIn the past, methods such as grammar translation and audiolingualism emphasized accurate output over meaningful, fluent communication. With the introduction of communicative language teaching, however, teachers and researchers agree that there should be a balance between fluency and accuracy. According to Lazarton (2001), "it is no longer acceptable to focus only on developing the grammatical competence of our students [...] Today, teachers are expected to balance a focus on accuracy with a focus on fluency as well." (p. 104). In reference to oral skills, Lazarton defines "fluency" as both attention to suprasegmental features and to the negotiation of meaning (p. 104). In reference to writing skills, fluency might refer to the ability to generate lots of text (e.g., through freewriting), and, as in Lazarton's definition, the ability to negotiate meaning.
Despite the consensus that there must be a balance, there are still misconceptions about the role of accuracy in communicative language teaching. According to Savignon (2001), "The perceived displacement of attention to morphosyntactic features in learner expression in favor of a focus on meaning has led in some cases to the impression that grammar is not important, or that proponents of CLT favor learner self-expression without regard to form" (p. 24-25). Savignon argues that the appropriate balance depends on such factors as the students' age, the curriuclum, and the students' opportunities for using the language outside of classroom (p. 25).
Additional factors affecting attention to form are the goals of the activity. In a communicative activity, explicit error correction would interfere with communication, so the teacher might merely want to make a note of form-related errors and give feedback later. During activities that focus on form, however, the teacher could point out the error when it occurs or could also bring it up later. An oral skills activity that develops both fluency and accuracy is the audiotaped dialogue journal (Lazarton, 2001, p. 109). The student records an impromptu reaction to a topic or prompt, and the teacher can then react to its content and/or to the student's grammar and pronunciation.
In a writing class, attention to grammatical correctness is best done when the student is working on a near-final draft, that is, once the student' content is set (Kroll, 2001, p. 229). Yet merely pointing out grammatical errors in a near-final draft is not enough to help students with accuracy; error feedback is most useful when the student has already learned about the error via a minilesson and has had practice identifying and correcting the error in his or her own writing or in a peer's writing.
For instruction that focuses on form to be successful, a teacher should be aware of "options in how to make a rule explicit or not; whether or not to isolate a rule; whether an explanation should involve a deductive or inductive presentation; who should give the explanation: the teacher, the text, or another student; whether the language is abstract or not; and whether the explanation is provided orally or in writing" (Crookes & Chaudron, 2001, p. 32).
6. A specific purpose approach to curriculum design is more efficient than a general purpose approach.
This statement carries two assumptions: that one approach to curriculum design can be more efficient than another and that there is such a thing as a "general purpose" approach. I will address each assumption in turn and then discuss ways in which a specific purpose approach requires substantial planning time.
First, different learners have different learning styles and strategies (Oxford, 2001), and there is no one-size-fits-all-approach for "efficient" learning. Yet according to Strevens (1988), one of the benefits of ESP is that it is "focused on the learner's need and wastes no time" (qtd. in Johns and Price-Machado, 2001, p. 44). The ESP curriculum may indeed "waste no time" because of its design principles or "absolute characteristics," which are that the curriculum "meets the specified needs of the learner"; teaches content and language skills appropriate to the "particular disciplines, occupations, or activities," and is not "General English" (Strevens, 1988, qtd. in Johns and Price-Machado, 2001, p. 44). The implications of these characteristics are that if the learners do not need to develop a certain language skill or function for their specific purpose--say, perhaps only reading knowledge of the language is necessary, or perhaps the learner will be communicating over the phone much more than in writing--then the specific purpose curriculum will reflect those needs. To the extent that the curriculum is tailored to learners' needs, the specific purpose approach may be more efficient in helping learners communicate successfully in their specific context, be it electronics assembly, nursing, or a graduate program.
However, what is a "general purposes" approach? I agree with Johns and Price-Machado's (2001) assertion that there is no such thing as "General English": "All language and language classes are specific to the learner, the context, and the content" (p. 54). I would qualify this by saying that all good language classes are those things, but even if a teacher teaches language and content that is irrelevant to his or her learners and their contexts, this curriculum design is not "General" English, just perhaps "off-target" English or English poorly specified to the learners' needs. A preemployment VESL class, which teaches job skills such as making requests and answering the phone, is still teaching skills for a specific purpose, even though Johns and Price-Machado note that it is a "modified version of a general ESL class" (2001, p. 51).
Although a specific purpose curriculum may help learners reach their communicative goals more efficiently than, say, a poorly specified curriculum, it may be more time-consuming to plan because it involves, among other things, a needs assessment. A true specific purpose curriculum, in fact, requires a needs assessment. Such an activity helps curriculum designers determine what students need to do in English in their specific context or occupation and how they do it. A needs assessment can be performed by asking students or other stakeholders to fill out questionnaires or participate in interviews, by observing or shadowing students on the job, by determining students' learning styles, and by analyzing spoken or written reflections by students or their supervisors (Johns and Price-Machado, 2001, p. 49). The ESP curriculum also includes continual assessment of "what types of content are central, how content is used and valued, and the relationships between vocabulary and central concepts" (p. 50). Additionally, the curriculum designers might analyze the discourses and genres of the specific context or occupation.
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W2B-005-0.txt
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St. John the Baptist 1139 Oretha Haley (Dryades) Blvd., 525-1726. Services: weekdays, 5:15 p.m.; Sat, 4 p.m.; Sun, 11 a.m., 4 & 9 p.m.
Dedicated in 1872, St. John was designed by the architect Albert Diettel after a church in Dresden and is considered one of the finest examples of brick architecture in the city. Its golden, cross-topped Baroque tower is well known, especially to commuters on adjacent Interstate 90. Inside, enormous stained-glass windows paint a colorful tableau. The altars were designed by Milo Piuz in Italy; the crucifix, tabernacle and candelabra are German designs.
St. Joseph's Church 1802 Tulane Ave., 522-3186. Services: Sat, 4:30; Sun, 9 & 11:30 a.m., 8:30 p.m.
This Romanesque-Gothic landmark is said to be the largest house of worship in the South, seating about 2,000. But imposing doesn't mean inelegant. The church is filled with fancy woodwork and plaster molded by a French artist, all made in a machine shop right on the grounds. Eight polished-granite columns support the wooden ceiling. Above the five arches on each side of the building are triple stained-glass windows by Mayer of Germany. Cornices, friezes and bas-reliefs in flower-and-leaf patterns rim the windows and arches. Reflecting the church's Romanesque design, the white-marble altar, installed in 1915, consists of a series of arches. The Crucifixion scene above the altar, painted in 1915 by Joseph B. Hann of Chicago, contains more than 30 life-size figures. Two rose windows flank the altar, representing the Lamb and a family of pelicans; the one above the choir loft depicts Christ and the 12 apostles.
St. Joseph's Church 610 Sixth St., Gretna; 368-1313. Services: Weekdays, 12:10 p.m.; Toes, 6:30 p.m.; Sat, 4 p.m.; Sun, 7:30, 9:30 & 11:30 a.m.
A Spanish Revival style with Romanesque accents, this is the third church building built on this site, located on the former Destrehan Plantation. It is noted for its cast-stone facade, which includes a bust of Jesus and two angels. Stained glass has two faces: Ground-level rows of windows depicting religious symbols are set in working French doors. Above, the church is circled by modem windows depicting the life of St. Joseph. Look closely for the Gretna ferry landing and several other local references. The historic building directly behind the church was built in 1899 as Infant Jesus College. Today it provides housing for senior citizens.
St. Louis Cathedral Jackson Square, 525-9585. Services: Weekdays, 7:30 a.m.& 6 p.m.; Sat, 6 p.m.; Sun, 6:30, 8, 9, 10 & 11:15 a.m., 12:30 & 6 p.m.; guided tours also available.
Built in 1727, burned in 1788, and rebuilt in 1794, St. Louis has a long and venerable history. Above the main altar and its Baroque 1852 centerpiece is a mural depicting St. Louis, King of France. announcing the Seventh Crusade. A ceiling mural shows Jesus surrounded by the apostles, plus Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Look above the organ for a painting of St. Cecilia, patroness of music. St. Anthony's Garden, directly behind tile cathedral, features the Sacred Heart of Jesus statue (a.k.a."Touchdown Jesus") as well as a small white obelisk. This memorial was originally erected in 1859 at the cemetery of the Louisiana Quarantine Station, 70 miles downriver from New Orleans, where it marked the spot where the crew of a French war ship were buried after dying of yellow fever.
St. Mary's Assumption 2030 Constance St., 522-6748. Services: weekdays, 7:45 a.m.; Sat, 3 p.m.; Sun, 8:30 & 11:30 a.m.
This brick building with German Baroque influences was dedicated in 1860 and boasts an unusual tower. It is thought that the architect was Albert Diettel. The grand interior is noted for its multilayered, intricately carved German altar, which was built directly over the previous altar. Rev. Francis Xavier Seelos, the Redemptorist priest who cared for yellow-fever victims, is buried beneath the altar. St. Mary's (formerly Our Lady of Victory and St. Mary's Italian Church) 1116 Chartres St., 529-3040. Services: Tues & Thurs, noon; Sat, 4:30 p.m.; Sun, 10:30 a.m.; guided tours also available.
St. Mary's was built in 1845 as the Chapel of the Archbishops. During its history, it has served successively as a church for French, Spanish, Creole, Irish, German, Slavonian and Italian' congregations, as well as Native Americans and the black Sisters of the Holy Family. Each of these ethnic influences is apparent in the interior. Exactly one century older than the church, the adjoining Old Ursuline Convent is the oldest building in the Mississippi Valley.
St. Patrick's Church 724 Camp St., 529-3040. Services: weekdays, 11:30 & noon; Sat, 3:45 & 5 p.m.; Sun, 8:15, 9:30& 11 a.m., 12:15 p.m.
St. Patrick's was built in 1838 by Irish immigrants as an alternative to French Masses at St. Louis Cathedral. Architects Charles and James Dakin planned the current Gothic-style building; however, the architect James Gatlief was called in to correct foundation problems caused by swampy' soil. Gallier also designed the altar and much of the buttressed interior. The ceiling is patterned after that of Exeter Cathedral. The trio of huge oil paintings (c. 1840) behind the altar by Leon Pomarede depict the Transfiguration, Christ Walking on the Water, and St. Patrick baptizing the princesses of Ireland. Stained glass made by the Emile Frei Co. is grand, particularly that of the vaulted ceiling that fans out above the altar.
St. Paul's Episcopal 6249 Canal (at Harrison), 488-3749. Services: Sun: 8 & 10 a.m., 6 p.m.
Although the congregation dates from 1836, St. Paul's Episcopal was built in 1957. Many furnishings from the previous church, an 1893 structure on Gaiennie Street, were brought to the present site, among them the lectern, an Italian marble communion table depicting the'Last Supper, the pews, pulpit, altar railings and marble baptismal font. Nine of the 14 windows are from the old church, including the Ascension window, which at 29 by 16 feet is said to be among the largest in the South. With the exception of a Tiffany Easter window, which is in storage, the Franz Mayer Co. of Munich created the glasswork. Damaged by Hurricane Betsy in 1965, its panes were sent back to Munich, where they were repaired by men who'd 'dpprenticed with the famous glassmaker himself.
St. Stephen 1025 Napoleon (at Camp), 899-1378. Services: weekdays, 6:25 & 8:15 a.m.; Sat, 8:15 a.m.& 4 p.m.; Sun, 8 & 10:30 a.m.
The second-largest Catholic church in the city, St. Stephen is a German Gothic structure built in 1871. The architect, Englishman Thomas Carter, also designed Our Lady of Good Counsel on Louisiana Avenue. Exterior points of interest include a six-sided tower- with the highest spire in New' Orleans - as well as a roof with six gables on each side. Inside, a cypress-framed ceiling soars high above parishioners, and cherubim gaze down upon the nave. The double row of stained-glass windows are by Myers of Austria. The interior focus is on the aptly named "Centerpiece of St. Stephen," an 1869 painting by Achille Perertl that replicates Raphael's "Stoning of St. Stephen." Other Peretti works on display include four panels and two frescoes.
St. Vincent do Paul 3053 Dauphine St., 943-5566. Services: Sun, 8:30, 10 & 11:30 a.m.(Spanish)
Established as a parish in 1838, the present building was designed by Louis Reynolds and built in 1866. The steeple and belltower were added in the early 1900s. Patterned in the Roman basilica style, the church contains 23 extremely detailed stained-glass windows of French and American make, murals painted by artist Achille Peretti, one fresco and many statues.
Salem United Church of Christ 4212 Camp St.(at Milan), 895-0392. Service: Sun, 9 a.m.
Built in 1905, this brick Gothic church was designed by Diboll and Owens. Memorial stained-glass windows created by German glassmakers Jacobi & Co. of St. Louis between 1907 and 1923 highlight this intimate space. Note the "drapery glass," spots of raised, wavy glass that replicate ripples in saints' robes in the texture of the window surface in a method developed by Tiffany. The fleur-de-lis window in the balcony, as well as the glass in the balcony stairway and above the entrances, created by Alfred Lipps Studio, were added in the 1950s.
Temple Sinai 6227 St. Charles Ave., 861-3693. Services: Fri, 8:15 p.m.; Sat, 10:15 a.m.
Temple Sinai, a Byzantine structure built in 1927, consists of a lovely chapel and an enormous yet elegant sanctuary. The chapel features an elaborate needle-point tapestry stitched by 24 women of the congregation and depicting the Ten Commandments, the Menorah, Hebrew verses and divine lights. Also in the chapel: a detailed stained-glass window made from glass salvaged from the original Temple Sinai at Lee Circle and Carondelet Street. The sanctuary soars upward into carved wooden ceiling panels accented by Tiffany-esque lamps and bordered by huge arched walls. Stained glass depicts traditional Jewish symbols and ceremonies.
Trinity Episcopal Church 1329 Jackson Ave. (at Coliseum), 522-0276. Services: Sun, 8:30 & 10:30 a.m, 6 p.m.
Built in 1852 by architect George Putyes, this pink Gothic Revival structure is a Garden District landmark. The present facade and tower were added in 1873. The stained-glass window above the altar was donated in memory of Leonidas Polk, first bishop of Louisiana, a brigadier general in the Confederate Army and rector of Trinity from 1855 to 1860.
Unity Temple 3722 St. Charles Ave., 899 - 0715 or 8993390. Services: Sun, 9:30 a.m.& 11 a.m.; Wed, 11 a.m.
Built in 1960, the distinctive Unity Temple is one of the best examples of Wrightian influence in New Orleans. The building was designed by Leonard R. Spangenberg, Jr., a student of Wright, with minister Ruth Elmer. The circular design within and without symbolizes eternity and echoes the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Entirely devoid of angles, the building is made of poured concrete and features circular skylights but no stained glass. Instead, the temple is illuminated by a band of Plexiglas windows. through a glass brightly Stained glass isn't "stained" by coloring agents at all. White light contains every color of the rainbow. To isolate co/ors, creating the stained effect, certain chemicals are added to the molten sand that is glass in its liquid form. The chemicals separate the colors - filtering out each color except that of the final piece of glass. Because the coloring process is done with chemicals instead of pigments, stained glass does not fade, even' over centuries. After the coloration process, the glasses blown into large cylinders, then cut in haft lengthwise, re-liquified and cooled in sheets. Artists and studios use these sheets to create stained-glass designs. When the subject for the window has been chosen, the artist makes a design from which a pattern is made showing the exact shapes and sizes of the pieces of glass to be cut. The glass is cut to fit, allowing spaces for leading between the pieces. Details of the design, such as facial features, drapery and ornamental motifs are then painted on with enamel mixed with ground glass and a temporary glue. then fired in a kiln. This makes the glass opaque, creating shadowy details such as facial features and drapes in fabric. The artist fits lead around the pieces and solders the joints, then waterproofs the work by applying putty solution beneath the leading.
PHOTOS (COLOR): Art at Myra Clare Rogers Memorial Chapel Includes a Tiffany rose window (above) and a hand. carved cypress angel (right)
PHOTOS (COLOR): Among Our Lady Star of the Sea's unusual offerings: a stained-glass window portraying the first radio broadcast from the Vatican (left) and gold-tinted engravings above the main altar (below).
PHOTO (COLOR): St. Augustine in Treme is one of the oldest surviving churches in New Orleans. German-made stained-glass depictions of saints, donated In 1926 by the French-speaking parishioners, rim the church (right). A tree trunk surrounded by inward-facing paws anchors the worship area today.
PHOTO (COLOR): Stained glass is colored by chemical reactions, not pigment., and so retains its brilliance over hundreds of years. This glasswork is at Temple Sinai.
PHOTO (COLOR): At Temple Sinai, traditional symbols of Judaism are featured in several media, including glass-work { opposite) and a tapestry hand-made by women of the congregation (above).
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W2C-009-0.txt
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KNOXVILLE - - The University of Tennessee football team's first practice in pads, the supposed tempo-setter for the rest of the preseason, was dragging horribly.
The anticipated extra-loud whacking of pads sounded instead like a stickless drummer tapping on cotton bales. The grunts and groans that accompany the strain and excitement of a Tennessee drill? Mice scurrying through the attic arouse more attention.
The pessimists shook their heads as head coach Phillip Fulmer halted the mano a mano Tuesday morning.
He too was looking for the feverish, heart-thumping pitch of a Tennessee team's first day in pads.
" We weren't where we wanted to be. We went through two or three shots there and it was obvious that the intensity wasn't there," Fulmer said.
" We were dragging," fullback Will Bartholomew said. "We needed somebody to slap us in the face."
Fulmer slapped, calling the team together to preach briefly about demands, desires and necessities for success.
" The Tennessee drill is something we take great pride in, and I was pleased with the response when we started the drill over," he said. "They're a young football team and it's up 're us as a staff to lead them and get them ready for different situations. It was what we expected and wanted."
The expected intensity flourished.
" It was welcome to the jungle, like you're a piece of meat thrown into a 'refight," said Victor McClure, a freshman defensive end from Soddy-Daisy. "It was rough on me. I got too high both times. But it was exciting. I love putting on the pads. I love going one-on-one."
Winning the one-on-one battles will be a recurring theme throughout the season, Bartholomew said.
" The Tennessee drill is more of a team attitude drill," he said. "It's about being mentally tough, and I have no doubt this is going to be one of the hardest-hitting summers we've ever had. T 've's my kind of football."
It's really what football - - and the Tennessee drill - - are all about.
" You can't play football in shorts," Fulmer said after Tuesday morning's practice. "I look at this morning as the official opening of the season. You have to put on pads and see who's willing. If they let you play two-hand tag all the time, it would be a completely different game."
Fulmer Misses Practice
The head coach left campus right after his meeting with the media to fly to Winchester, Tenn., where his mother (Nan Lee Fulmer) was having emergency surgery.
He missed Tuesday afternoon's practice, leaving assistant head coach John Chavis in charge.
Ofenheusle's new home
Will Ofenheusle's move to right guard (from tackle) is taking on the look of permanency. "I'm glad they moved me. I have the challenge of learning a new position and it gives you a completely different perspective on the game. It looks like I'm going to be there," he said.</ 'm
One-Liners
Sophomore Anthony Herrera was back with the first team, working at left guard in place of Champion (Fred Weary was at center, Ofenheusle at right guard, Reggie Coleman at left tackle and Michael Munoz at right tackle.... Northwest Whitfield's Sean Young is running second team at right tackle.
True freshman Rashad Baker worked exclusively at cornerback Monday and Tuesday, "and he looks like he has a real chance to be a special player over there," said Fulmer. "Well continue a couple of more days working him both ways and then make a decision as to where he can best help this football team." In the next breath, however, Fulmer pretty much sealed Baker's fate when he said, "Mark Jones has made some really nice strides as a receiver and (fellow freshman) Tony Brown has shown he can help this team. We're building really good de 're at that position."
On quarterbacks Joey Mathews, A.J. Suggs and Casey Clausen, Fulmer isn't discouraged, but he's having to stretch his patience. "At times our quarterbacks are doing what we need to get done and at times they're just not as consistent 're they need," he said. "Some of it is experience and some of it is their need for more intensity and concentration on each play. If continue to understand that, we'll be more efficient the 'll"
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W2B-024-0.txt
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If fibers were indeed a structural component of the wing, then they, rather than the ambiguous impressions of the wing membrane, may be the best indicator of a pterosaur wing's shape. And according to the fibers, pterosaurs had narrow, birdlike wings that attached at the hip or the mid- thigh. Rayner, whose specialty is animal aerodynamics, says the fibers would have given the wings so much stiffness that a pterosaur wouldn't have needed to keep its wings taut with its feet, as a bat does. Instead the fibers would have acted more like a bird's stiff feather shafts, which, when the bird brings its wing down, transfer the lift generated by the wing to the rest of the body.
The shape of pterosaur wings must have affected not only how they flew but also how they moved on the ground. Birds, with their wings free of their hind legs, can walk easily. But bats have to deal with two problems: their wings connect their arms to their legs, and their legs are designed to swing out to the side. In flight this keeps the wing membrane tight, but on the ground it makes a bat's legs too loose to support the weight of its body. As a result, bats crawl on all fours, with their long arms and flexible legs splayed out to the sides.
Just as pterosaurs' wings were designed for birdlike flight, Padian maintains, their legs were designed for bipedal, birdlike walking. He points out that the head of their femur was oriented to swing the leg forward and backward, not side to side, and their ankle bones had fused into a hinge that couldn't bend out in a sprawl. Far from crawling on all fours, he says, pterosaurs walked on two legs as comfortably as a dinosaur or a bird--which, Padian argues, shouldn't be surprising. "They really are coming from fairly similar ancestral stocks," he says, "and so a lot of what they do is going to be predisposed to be similar.a Pterosaurs with wings folded up on either side also leave their hands relatively free for handling food or climbing trees.
But the traditional batlike stance still charms many paleontologists. "I find myself with the fuddy-duddies dotted around the world," says David Unwin of the University of Bristol. "In our humble opinion, the legs sort of stick out sideways and the animals tend to sprawl somewhat on the ground and walk around in a quadrupedal fashion.a Unwin, along with Wellnhofer, has argued that the hips of pterosaurs had sockets unsuited for walking on two legs. If a pterosaur tried to walk upright, they maintain, the pelvis wouldn't bear directly down on the femur and the femur heads would tend to pop out of their sockets. "I think you can get pterosaur hind limbs into a bipedal position in the same way I can do a split," says Unwin. "It hurts, but I may be able to do it with a bit of training.a
Padian counters that what might seem unlikely judging from only one part of a skeleton becomes possible when you add supporting cartilage and muscle. "What pterosaurs can't do," Padian adds, "is jerk the hind limb out to the side in exactly the way a bat does it.a
Recently, Christopher Bennett of the University of Kansas gave some of Padian's ideas a new twist. By tilting the hip 60 degrees from the horizontal, he found that a protruding part of the socket's rim was positioned so that it could bear down on a femur head. A pterosaur with such a hip wouldn't be hunched over like a bird; it would be upright, something between a gorilla and a human. Instead of walking on its toes, it would roll back on its heels and keep its feet flat on the ground. Pterosaurs standing as tall as 20 feet might have strolled along the banks of lagoons with a humanlike gait.
ONCE YOU KNOW how an extinct animal moved--whether it crawled or ran, flapped its wings or only glided--you can get an idea of how it fit into the ecological web of its time. If, as Padian argues, pterosaurs flew more like birds than bats, then one would expect them to play birdlike roles in their ecology as well.
Rayner and graduate student Grant Hazelhurst have found evidence for this idea in the geometry of pterosaur bodies. Previous research has shown that the ratios determined by a flying animal's mass, wingspan, and wing surface area predict what kind of flight style it will have. Forest birds share similar ratios, while soarers have their own set, as do the insect eaters, divers, and so on. Rayner and Hazelhurst found that the combination of long, thin wings and slender, lightweight bodies made large pterosaurs very aerodynamically efficient, able to soar on the weakest of rising air currents. Many of the largest pterosaurs may have been like today's frigate bird: perhaps they soared hundreds of miles over the ocean, grabbing fish or harassing other pterosaurs to surrender their catches. Perhaps, also like the frigate bird, they were helpless if they accidentally landed on water. Smaller pterosaurs probably flew like sea gulls and petrels, needing to flap more often to keep themselves aloft. Other pterosaurs were aerial hunters like falcons. And the smallest ones were the swallows of their day, chasing insects and maneuvering to match their prey's unpredictable flight.
Rayner and Hazelhurst's work is just as interesting for what it says pterosaurs didn't do as for what it says they did. Their long wings disqualified them from diving for fish like a duck or loon because they would have caused too much drag in the water. The researchers also say those long wings would have been unwieldy in forests. "If you've got a 'ved living in trees or nesting in twigs, it has a real problem if it's got very long wings because they can knock against the environment," Rayner explains.
Rayner is the first to point out that the fossils may be skewing his view. The fossils of small land animals are most often preserved in watery environments, such as oceans or lagoons, so creatures that kept to forests, deserts, or plains left behind much sketchier traces. Rayner didn't consider many pterosaurs that have left only fragmentary remains. For example, paleontologists know the giant Quetzalcoatlus only from the arm bones of a single animal. As a result, it's still not clear exactly what its physical proportions were, and paleontologists suspect that its wings may actually have been small for its body. Quetzalcoatlus is also unusual because it wasn't found by an ocean but instead in what were once seasonal wetlands far inland in Texas. The biggest birds that live in these kinds of habitats today are egrets and herons, which (possibly like Quetzalcoatlus) have relatively small, squarish wings that let them keep clear of the trees and other plants around them. Imagine Quetzalcoatlus as a spectacularly oversize egret, wading silently and delicately through the marsh, its long neck pulled back, and then suddenly plunging its head into the water to snatch fish with its chopsticks-style jaws.
Other pterosaurs apparently foreshadowed birds' feeding habits in surprising ways. One, named Pterodaustro, had hundreds of long bristlelike teeth in its lower jaw. Flamingos have similar ridges in their bill that they use to filter out algae and insects from water. Pterodaustro was exactly suited for that kind of feeding and supremely unqualified for anything else. In London, Stafford Howse has been studying the jaw of a pterosaur he refers to as the Purbeck spoonbill, after the geologic formation in England where it was found; like the living spoonbills of Africa and Asia, it had a long, narrow beak ending in two horizontal disks. Spoonbills today move their beak through mud at the bottom of streams and lakes to stir up the animals they feed on. The Purbeck spoonbill seems to have been even better adapted to this kind of feeding because it had several dozen sturdy curved teeth on both jaws. Although useless for chewing, since they jutted away from the mouth, they would have been perfect as a mud rake. More over, part of the roof of the Purbeck spoonbill's mouth was lined with horn; when it dug up snails and other shelled animals, it could have broken them open like a nutcracker.
In 1991 it occurred to University of Miami ecologist Thomas Fleming that some pterosaurs ought to have eaten fruit. Fruit-bearing plants now depend on bats, birds, and primates to eat their fruit and spread the seeds in their droppings. Yet paleobotanists believe that for 40 million years after fruit-bearing plants first appeared, these dispersers either hadn't yet evolved or were rare. There were plant-eating dinosaurs, of course, but they probably destroyed the seeds in their enormous, slow-moving digestive systems. However, Fleming hypothesized, the seeds would probably have survived a passage through a pterosaur's small gut. Furthermore, it made sense that pterosaurs would have taken advantage of a food that could provide them with the energy they needed for flying. The only problem with Fleming's idea was that at the time there weren't any pterosaurs known that might have been fruit eaters.
Fleming decided to publish his suggestion anyway, and only after his paper had been typeset did Wellnhofer tell him about a pterosaur from Araripe that he and Kellner were beginning to describe; they had named it Tapejara (meaning "the old being" in the language of the Tupi Indians). This pterosaur had an eight-inch-long head dominated by a high, thin prow in front of its nose that tapered back to a narrow prong above the eye. Its toothless jaws were like a precise pair of tweezers, sharp and slightly bowed.
The combination of crest and beak rules out many of the usual pterosaur feeding techniques. The fish eaters had either gripping teeth or long jaws like a pelican's. Tapejara's beak might have been good for picking at carrion, but its crest would have gotten in the way when it tried to poke into a carcass. Yet both its crest and its beak made Tapejara well suited for picking fruit. It could have used the crest to push aside thick foliage and could then have plucked fruit from the stem with its beak, which is precisely what hornbills and toucans do today. If so, then perhaps pterosaurs like Tapejara were crucial to the evolution of fruits like avocados and mangoes.
FLYING AND EATING undoubtedly took up a healthy part of a pterosaur's day but not all of it. What did pterosaurs do the rest of the time? What was their social life like? Christopher Bennett has recently shed some light on the question for a pterosaur known as Pteranodon, which lived from 115 million to 70 million years ago along the coast of a sea that ran down the middle of North America. It was among the best of the soaring pterosaurs, with a wingspan ranging from 10 to 25 feet. Pteranodon fossils have been found at sites that were 100 miles or more from the coastline of the ancient sea, which suggests that these pterosaurs regularly flew great distances in search of food.
Bennett compared some 1,100 Pteranodon fossils, plotting on a graph the length of their individual leg bones, finger bones, and so on. In each case the measurements bunched into two distinct groups. The average individual in the small group, he calculated, had a wingspan of 12.5 feet, while the larger ones averaged 19 feet. The smaller pteranodons seemed to be more common, outnumbering the larger creatures two to one.
Beyond their size--and presumably their weight--there were only two other differences Bennett could find between the groups: the pelvises of the large animals were proportionately narrow, while those belonging to the smaller ones were wide; the smaller animals also had small crests, while the large pteranodons had extravagant ones.
Paleontologists have long speculated on the purpose of pterosaur crests. Did they improve the aerodynamics of the body? Did they act as a rudder? Kellner points out that Tupuxuara's fossilized crest was covered with the impressions of blood vessels. A dense mesh of capillaries on the crest, he proposes, might have acted like an air conditioner during flight, bringing hot blood close to the skin.
Bennett doesn't think either aerodynamics or cooling makes sense. If a small crest is sufficient to do the job, then why do a third of the pteranodons have much bigger ones? The only explanation that made sense to him was that he was looking at male and female pteranodons. The crests were primarily male mating displays, like antlers on an elk or a long tail on a bird, and the wide hips of the smaller, female pteranodons were designed to pass eggs.
To understand this combination of sexual differences in size, displays, and population ratios, Bennett turned to living animals as analogues. He found several creatures with these traits, ranging from elephant seals to boat-tailed grackles. And, he learned, they all court, mate, and raise their young in a similar fashion. Bennett thinks Pteranodon probably did the same. He envisions male pteranodons on crowded rookeries lining the ocean, competing for the attention of females. Usually crest and body-size display would be enough for males to ward off challengers, but occasionally they might have to fight. The winners would maintain big harems of the smaller females, but they 'd offer no help in raising their young. The unlucky males could only look on enviously.
пя
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W2F-004-0.txt
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" Dwayne Hanson"
CHAPTER ONE
Dwayne Hanson picked a piece of tobacco off his tongue and wiped it inside the pocket of his black denim duster. He dropped his eighth cigarette and carefully stamped it out. He pulled out another unfiltered Lucky, flipped open his hammered silver lighter and thumbed it on, cupping the flame in his hands so that it would not be seen by the boy he hunted.
He stood on a cushion of needles under a large pine tree. At six feet tall, he was a foot below its lowest limb. The long drooping branches formed a natural tent with a twelve foot diameter that he had been pacing for the past two hours. Puffing on his cigarette, he walked around the tree again and tipped his watch so it caught the faint light filtering in from a nearby street lamp. Almost midnight. The damp chill of the early May night was beginning to heighten his irritation.
" Too damn cold," he muttered. Maybe it was that hole in the ozone. He shook his head - who gives a shit? Where was that little weasel?
Being loaned out was really eating at him. This waiting in the cold only made it seem worse. Frankie Fallo had given him to some arrogant creep like he was a loaner car or something- so, of course, the guy treated him just like that. Go here, watch that one, do this...lucky that Dwayne Hanson was a professional. Still, it sucked.
Three hours ago he had been watching the woman. He had been on her for five days. He smirked - he'd like to 'd on her for five days. She was was as hot as she looked. She probably wasn't. How could she be and be hanging with this college punk? He even had a pansy name - James Elsinor Ryerson, Junior, for Christ's sake. Well, the junior part was right, he was in deep shit way over his girl's hair head. What could the bitch see in this kid? Hanson's thick lips twisted in a grin. Who could figure broads?
The campus was almost deserted with only an occasional couple strolling by on the concrete walkway twenty feet from his tree. An hour ago, he had actually waved his arms to see if anyone would notice him. No one seemed to. A good sign in case it got messy. He hoped it would - Dwayne Hanson liked it messy.
He ground out this butt with the others and was about to twist another between his lips when he saw someone emerge from behind a large granite building at the edge of the campus. He pocketed the cigarette, staring through the branches. The figure walked to the narrow drive that divided the campus, paused, then hurried across. Dwayne Hanson saw that it was a male and, more importantly, it looked as if he wore his hair in a ponytail. It had to be Ryerson. The boy stopped again by the bookstore, still looking from side to side. He carried a large manila envelope in his right hand. Damn, Hanson thought, the little punk's got the goods with him. Perfect. He could have this all straightened out in an hour.
The boy left the bookstore and approached the English building, appropriately covered with ivy. He paused again under a walkway light and Hanson saw the blonde hair, pulled back tight in a ponytail. Jimmy Ryerson for sure, denim jacket and all, going to see his pal just as the caller had said. The boy continued toward North Hall, a Gothic dorm which reminded Hanson of something out of an old vampire movie. It stood ten yards beyond his hiding place. Pulling a lead-filled blackjack from his duster pocket, Hanson tapped it against his leg. One shot behind the ear and the punk'd be a 'drooling mess. Just drag him into the bushes beside that English building and see what was what. He slid through the branches and moved silently across the lawn, coming up on Ryerson from behind. Three feet away, he swung the sap back and reached for the dungaree shoulder. At that instant, the boy glanced back, saw him and leaped away with a startled cry. Hanson's hand grabbed air and he almost fell. Rage filled him as he caught his balance and spun around to see Jimmy Ryerson sprinting back the way he had come. Hanson stuffed the blackjack back in his pocket and went after him.
Jimmy Ryerson had run track in high school. Even with five beers in him, he instinctively lengthened his stride and pulled his rhythmically pumping arms closer to his body. Glancing back, he could see he was pulling away from the curly-headed man in the flapping duster. It was the same guy who had visited his step-father, no question. He was in bigger trouble than he had planned.
Past the bookstore, he saw South Hall, the twin of North, and angled toward it. This guy would have to back off if other people were around. The quickest way into the dorm was through a side door, almost hidden by flowering Forsythia bushes. Ryerson remembered that the flowers were a bright yellow, but they looked a sickly white in the moonlight. He pushed through them, seized the doorknob in his left hand and pulled. The door shuddered, but did not open. The curly-headed man's footsteps were closer. An arc of terror made him fumble and almost drop the manila envelope as he switched hands.
As he grabbed the door in his stronger right hand and pulled it open, something sharp hit him beneath his right eye. Three inches from his head a piece of wood had been torn out of the door. As he focused on that, a hole popped in the chicken-wire window in the center of the door.
The crazy bastard was shooting at him.
He dove through the door and down three metal steps that led into the basement, landing on his knees in the corridor. Pain paralyzed him for a moment, but fear stood him up and pushed him toward the staircase in the center of the building. He knew he wouldn't be safe from this madman, no matter how many people were here. As he reached the steps, he heard the door behind him slam open and glass break. The sound propelled him up the stairs and into a collision with four students entering the front door. He pushed through them and was outside, their curses trailing him.
Dwayne Hanson's breath felt like liquid fire and sweat ran freely down his back. The kid was in the building. Some lucky, that punk. Shooting on the run was the only reason he had missed. The Ruger twenty-two with its three inch silencer was still in his right hand as he burst through the basement door, vaguely aware of glass breaking as he slammed it against the wall. His focus was on the hallway and there, just past the vending machines, an exit sign. He guessed the kid would be too scared to try to hide down here.
As he reached the stairwell, he heard voices echoing in it. Ramming the.22 into its holster, he took the steps two at a time.
" Slow down, asshole," someone shouted.
Four students milled around the front door. The one yelling, Hanson's height with a brushcut, was still leaning out the door. Hanson grabbed him by the belt and propelled him out of the building and down the two entry steps where he lost his footing and sprawled face-first onto the sidewalk. Brushcut screamed in pain, then began scrambling to his feet, swearing. Hanson pulled his blackjack from his coat and rapped him with it. In mid-curse, Brushcut's legs folded as he dropped to his knees and pitched sideways, just making the grass.
Ryerson was nowhere in sight. Hanson ran to the end of the dorm and stared into a grove of trees and brush. He knew the punk was in there and that he wasn't going get him tonight.
" Fuck," he said aloud. Now he'd 'dave to call that jerk and explain how he had screwed up. He turned and started back the way he had come.
The three college kids were trying to revive their friend when one of them saw Hanson returning. He whispered to the others and, without a word - or their friend, they scurried back into the building.
Hanson had to grin. College kids were never as smart as they thought they were, but at least these three were smart enough to know what was good for them.
CHAPTER TWO
Nicholas Carmody was six feet tall, dressed in a sleeveless sweatshirt, stained blue jeans and work boots. A faded red bandanna covered his hair. He held a three foot tapered metal shaft in his gloved hand and stared at it. He tipped the metal so that it glowed in the overhead lights. Close, he thought, but this isn't it.
He clamped the shaft in a vise on his work bench then removed his safety goggles to examine it more closely. Absently pulling on his salt and pepper moustache, he walked around the piece until he nodded to himself. Picking up a striker, he lit his acetylene torch, adjusted the flame then plopped a welding mask on his head and began cutting irregular pieces out of one edge of the metal.
He stopped because even the intentionally random cuts seemed too planned. Closing his eyes, he moved the torch along the glowing metal. When he opened them, he found he had almost severed the tip, but it did look better.
Carmody turned off the torch and removed his mask. He loosened the blade from the vise enjoying its warmth through his asbestos glove. He positioned it on a metal anvil, slipped on his goggles and began molding it with a heavy hammer. Cords of muscles stood out on his arms and shoulders. The sound was deafening but he didn't care.
As he hit the jagged metal, he experienced an odd mix of feelings again. First, there was a sense of being detached and watching this object form before his eyes almost as if he weren't shaping it with his blows. But under that was a subtle excitement deep in his body. It had a surge to it that felt as if it were sexual or, at least, came from a parallel source. It intensified until it seemed to consume him, making him work the steel faster, but with greater delicacy.
Yeah, he thought, maybe it comes from the sexual part of the brain. Then he interrupted himself by realizing that he never had these kinds of thoughts before he started drawing and making sculpture. Sure, he had always thought about women- the way they looked, their different scents, the incredible smoothness of their skin. But hammering metal and coming up with a connection to sex...well, that seemed pretty weird. It was definitely new territory for him and, as such, felt strange and a little embarrassing. His grip tightened and he was on it now, making this steel bend to his will until, paradoxically, it gave him whatever it chose to share. It was ironic that this process seemed sexual to him because it also reminded him of his recent experiences with women when he had tried to be in control but always wound up shaking his head, wondering what the hell was going on. He was grateful that sculpture was easier than people. He was also grateful that he didn't have to share these new thoughts. Sometimes, when he had them, he would imagine what it would be like to still be a cop and have to tell someone about them. Of course, it would always be someone like that idiot, Brennahan, an overweight, chain-smoking red-neck sergeant who always looked as if he had just just crawled out of bed after a rough night in his clothes. Yeah, Brennahan'd 'de great. Carmody imagined him bellowing, What's that you say, Carmody? You got the hots for that metal shit you make? Man, you gotta have a world-class hard-on to handle that. Cops, most of them a little crazy, a lot crude - he didn't miss any of it, except sometimes... He stopped and studied the battered, asymmetrical shape. "Better," he said aloud. Carmody turned to the large sculpture that shared the thousand square foot studio with him. It lay tilted on its side. The base, a rough-cut seven foot oak pillar, was braced by thick blocks of wood anchored to the floor. The top consisted of an almost completed five-foot ball of wood and metal spikes and was supported by a heavy wooden saw-horse. The hammering of this metal shaft had twisted it enough so that it would not fit in the slot he had cut for it. He reworked it with the hammer until it was straighter, then pushed it in among the other spikes. Pulling off his gloves, he sank into a scarred captain's chair. He removed the knotted bandanna revealing a full head of silver-gray hair which had begun to arrive twenty-two years ago when he was nineteen. By age twenty-one, it had reached its present state and earned him the nickname of "Gray" which had followed him throughout his life.
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W2C-011-1.txt
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Alternative banking: Local bankers scramble to offer new services and offset growth in non-banking options
Greater Cincinnati banks are putting more emphasis on offering new services and products to a vital part of their customer base: individuals.
With interest rates at their lowest levels in more than 20 years, yields on traditional saving vehicles such as certificates of deposit (CDs) and passbook savings accounts no longer provide retail customers the best return for their money.
Responding to that trend, depositors have been pouring money primarily into stocks, bonds or mutual funds in search of better returns.
Local banks--particularly the larger ones--are fighting back by offering customers alternative products and services ranging from telephone banking to mutual funds to branch banking in stores.
Banks are offering alternatives largely because low rates have cut yields on traditional deposits and are driving away individual customers, said Fritz Elmendorf, a spokesman for the Consumer Bankers Association, an Arlington, Va.-based trade group.
" This is something that will not be temporary, but a course for those regularly willing to take the risk uninsured products with higher yields than FDIC-insured banking products, Elmendorf said.
So have elderly customers, particularly those nearing retirement and relying on higher-yielding investments as part of their income.
The shift actually began about two years ago, as interest rates dropped and consumers sought higher yields.
According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., investments in rate-sensitive deposits like CDs at banks totaled $845 billion, or 32%, of all deposits as of March, 1993, down from%; $ 970 billion, or 36%, of all deposits as of March, 1992.
%;
CD investments have plunged with their rates: By the end of 1992, one-year CDs were paying less an 3%, with 2-1/2-year CDs at about 3.5% and%; five-year CDs at 4.75%, a recent%;ank Rate Monitor survey showe%;. That compares with rates of 7% or more just two years ago.%;-011#54:2> In contrast, the amount of money in stock, bond and money market funds; grew to an all-time high of $ 1.847 trillion as of July, 1993, up 20% from $ 1.539 trillion i%; July, 1992, and 50% from $1.227 tril%;ion in July, 1991. The growth made those products some of the nation's biggest collectors of money after bank and insurance companies, Investment Company Institute, a Washington-based trade group, said.
Sales of stock and bond funds alone accounted for much of the growth, rising 33% during the first se%;en months of 1993 to $ 156.5 billion from $ 117.3 billion at the end of 1992, the institute said.
Banks across the nation have responded with efforts to build-or rebuild--their retail banking business.
Among the actions banks are taking to keep or draw back depositors:
* Offering alternative investments such as tax-exempt stocks and bonds, as well as annuities, that offer higher yields.
* Adding bank branches to such sites as grocery stores to increase deposits and loans.
* Training employees to handle a variety of customers' needs, instead of shuffling customers through several departments.
" You'll con 'llue to see an accelerated pace of banks acting more like retailers," Phillip A. Parker, executive vice president at Star Bank, said. "We have to be like Saks or Lazarus and do things to bring people in the bank".
Working from that philosophy, Greater Cincinnati banks are Implementing several options to maintain and increase their number of depositors.
Star, for example, has introduced new products such as mutual funds, discount brokerage services and annuities to protect its No. 2 ranking in the local retail banking market, Parker said.
Star also is considering opening its first bank branches in grocery stores in Greater Cincinnati, Parker said.
That strategy has worked well for Star in northern Ohio, where the bank has opened five such branches since May. The result: Consumers have opened about 1,000 new accounts at those branches and poured in $ 2.5 million worth of deposits, Parker said.
MORE IN STORE?
Provident Bank also is eyeing in-store banking, having recently opened a branch at a Thriftway grocery store in Fairfield, local bank executives said.
Local bankers are watching Provident's moves in that arena closely, wondering whether the bank will be able boost its No. 2 position in the retail banking market by entering more of Thriftway's 24 local stores. Provident and Thriftway aren't talking, however; executives at both firms did not return calls seeking comment.
PNC Bank Ohio/Northern Kentucky is preparing to launch new products, Executive Vice President Dennis P. Brenckle said.
Among them: The bank is testing ways to add such services as check cashing to its automated teller machine (ATM) network and recently upgraded its regional marketing centers in Greater Cincinnati. Those centers give customers the option of buying several products at one site.
" It's great to be part of this concept because you have many more resources that you can refer customers to," Jenea Norris Allen, a residential loan officer at PNC's downtown office, said.
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W2B-028-0.txt
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Wherein a neutron star invades, destroys, and rebuilds its neighbor in slavish orbit, betraying itself only by a wisp of lithium.
ASTRONOMERS AREN'T easily surprised by things astronomical. They take black holes, curved space, quasars, and many other wonders in stride. Yet Philip Charles of Oxford University had occasion to be nonplussed during a recent astronomy meeting. He had just finished giving a talk on a fairly unspectacular subject--the lithium content of certain X-ray-emitting star pairs--when he was buttonholed by Philipp Podsiadlowski of Cambridge University. Podsiadlowski pointed out that Charles may inadvertently have found the first evidence that a superdense neutron star can plunge to the core of a giant neighbor, disrupting that star's nuclear furnace and causing its vast atmosphere to drift off into space, where the gas would clump together again into a new and smaller star in orbit around the neutron-star invader. The lithium, said Podsiadlowski, was the smoking gun.
As it turns out, he wasn't just daydreaming, and the weird scenario he described wasn't entirely his invention. Some 20 years ago astrophysicists Kip Thorne of Caltech and Anna Zytkow of Cambridge proposed that a neutron star that started out in orbit around a red giant might eventually sink to the giant's core. Although a neutron star is only ten miles or so across, its gravitational pull is so strong that it could draw matter away from its huge but more diffuse companion. In the process, it would slow down, like a ship dragging an anchor. Eventually the neutron star, in an ever-shrinking orbit, would plow into the outer layers of its neighbor. After a few thousand years it would spiral down into the star's center, demolishing the existing stellar core but leaving the rest of the star essentially intact. A red giant that has been violated in this way has come to be called a Thorne-Zytkow object--even though no one has ever seen one.
Charles wasn't looking for one, either. Indeed, he was studying objects that are in some sense the opposite of Thorne-Zytkows: X-ray binaries. Instead of a neutron star orbiting a red giant, an X-ray binary is believed to consist of a small (sun-size) star orbiting either a neutron star or that other species of massive invisible body, a black hole. As the massive object pulls material off its small companion, the material gets so hot that it emits bursts of X-rays. "I was studying these systems because they contain our best black-hole candidates," says Charles.
While looking at the spectra of several X-ray binaries, Charles found that they all contained unusually high amounts of the element lithium. This was unexpected: lithium is usually destroyed in nuclear reactions deep within a star, and so the characteristic wavelength of light it emits doesn't show up in the star's spectrum. "We would have expected to find none," says Charles.
But the presence of lithium made immediate sense to Podsiadlowski, a theoretician who has thought a lot about Thorne-Zytkow objects. He thinks what Charles has been studying are not the T-Z objects themselves but star systems that are descended from them. In fact, he thinks all X-ray binaries may arise in that way.
Once a neutron star sinks to the center of a red giant to form a Thorne-Zytkow object, says Podsiadlowski, the physics of the star changes dramatically. Most stars have a large, hot core where energy-producing fusion reactions occur. Above this burning zone is a convective layer where hot gases rise, cool, and then sink back toward the core. A Thorne-Zytkow object, however, has at its center a ten-mile-wide neutron star rather than a core thousands of miles across. Nuclear fusion still occurs in the hybrid--matter falling into the neutron star gets compressed and heated enough--but only in a thin shell around the neutron star, at the bottom of the convective layer.
According to Podsiadlowski, the different locus of burning in a Thorne-Zytkow object explains why Charles saw his lithium. Although lithium is a normal by-product of fusion reactions in stars, in most stars high-speed protons in the core slam into the lithium atoms and transform them into beryllium (which later breaks down into helium). But in a Thorne-Zytkow object, Podsiadlowski says, fusion actually takes place in the bottom layer of the convective zone, which allows some lithium to escape before it can be converted into beryllium. Rising gases carry it to the outer layers of the star, where it becomes visible.
Eventually the feeble fusion reactor inside a Thorne-Zytkow object fails altogether, and the hybrid can no longer withstand its own gravity. The outer envelope of the star collapses like a pricked balloon, and part of it forms a lithium-enriched disk around the neutron star. Some of the matter in the disk, says Podsiadlowski, might coalesce into a second-generation star in orbit around the neutron star, much the way planets coalesced around our sun. The born-again star might then begin losing matter to its dense neighbor again--resulting in just the sort of X-ray-emitting, lithium-rich binary that Charles observed.
One great virtue of Podsiadlowski's theory, convoluted and outlandish as it sounds, is that it offers an explanation of where X-ray binaries come from. Astronomers have had a hard time explaining how the small companion in an X-ray binary could have survived while its larger neighbor exploded as a supernova, which is the only way to make a neutron star. (A neutron star is the dense remnant of the exploded star's core.) In Podsiadlowski's scenario, the companion starts out as a red giant so large it can withstand a nearby supernova explosion. Only when it is later invaded by the neutron star does the giant die, to be reborn later in smaller form.
Charles himself does not buy Podsiadlowski's theory. He has a less colorful explanation for the excess lithium: some of the X-rays emitted by matter falling onto the neutron star, he says, strike incoming carbon and nitrogen atoms, splitting them into lighter elements, including lithium. But Charles admits that this explanation "ignores the question of how the damned things"--the X-ray binaries, that is--"formed in the first place.
Thorne-Zytkow objects should forge a variety of strange elements besides lithium, and if Podsiadlowski is right, astronomers might be able to detect those other elements in X-ray binaries too. Until then Podsiadlowski may have trouble making a lot of converts to his theory. "It's certainly speculative, and many astronomers may find it too speculative or exotic," he says. "However, what you see is often more exotic than anything you've ev 'vethought about."
Buffaloed
As federal and Montana state officials wrangle, the Park Service becomes an unwilling accomplice in the slaughter of Yellowstone's bison.
By Marvin Jensen
While Old Faithful may be the icon of Yellowstone National Park and first on visitors' must-see list, wildlife--grizzly bears, elk, wolves, and bison--is a close second. Bison--cows grazing with their cinnamon colored calves on cool, green meadows, bulls bellowing during the fall rut in Hayden Valley or warming themselves on thermal-spring mounds in winter-- stir the soul.
Not surprisingly, then, the shooting and slaughter of more than 1,000 of these majestic animals last winter made national news. Media accounts, which blamed insufficient winter habitat, a disease called brucellosis, and competing human interests, did little to improve public understanding of the situation.
Within any given year, bison populations, just like any wildlife population, increase each spring when young are born and decrease throughout the summer, fall, and winter, as a result of natural mortality. The bisons' numbers naturally fluctuate from one year to the next as well, regulated by weather, forage, and predation.
Over the years, the Park Service's policies have swung from intense population management to nearly none at all. Today, the policy has evolved toward "natural regulation"--allowing ecosystems to operate with as little human influence as possible. This philosophy recognizes that while Yellowstone (and other parks) is not pristine, the ecosystem is as complete as is possible in today's world.
Unfortunately, even at 2.2 million acres of land, Yellowstone affords limited winter habitat for its wildlife. Bison and other large mammals, therefore, migrate outside the park onto adjoining Forest Service and private ranch lands, staying sometimes into the spring to calve.
Last winter proved especially harsh in Yellowstone. Heavier-than-normal snowfall before Christmas was followed by several days of rain around New Year. The rain saturated the snow, and the subsequent normal subzero temperatures created a layer of ice as much as a foot-and-a-half thick over most of the park. Bison and other grazing animals could not penetrate the ice in their quest for forage.
Exiting the park in unprecedented numbers to seek accessible winter forage, the bison fell prey to the grisly provisions of an Interim Management Plan, designed to protect cattle from the threat of brucellosis.
Brucellosis is a disease affecting bison, elk, and cattle. It was first discovered in Yellowstone National Park in 1917; about 40 percent of the park's bison now test positive to exposure to the brucella organism, as does a lower percentage of elk. In cattle, the disease causes cows to abort their first calf, and ranchers, the Montana Department of Livestock (DOL), and hence, the governor of Montana, are concerned that bison may transmit it to domestic livestock.
While it has been documented in experimental confinement, such transmission has never been demonstrated in the wild. In the Jackson Hole, Wyoming area, cattle intermingle on summer ranges and national forest lands with elk, up to 70 percent of which carry the organism. Ranchers there have vaccinated their livestock against brucellosis for several decades, but the vaccines are just 65 percent effective. Nonetheless, there have been no reports of brucellosis being transmitted from elk to cattle.
However, a small herd of bison in the area that had tested negative in two different years in the mid-1980s recently tested positive for brucellosis. The only reasonable explanation is that the disease was transmitted to bison from the infected elk.
Given the uncertainty surrounding transmissibility, ranchers near Yellowstone's northern and western borders do not want to risk infection. In response to their concerns, the Park Service for several years has been working toward a solution, through negotiations with the state of Montana. An environmental impact statement (EIS) and a long-term plan have been in the works by the Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Montana departments of Livestock and Fish, Wildlife and Parks for a longtime- probably far too long.
In 1995, while the review of the draft EIS was out for public comment, the state of Montana filed suit against the National Park Service and the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). APHIS had threatened to revoke Montana's brucellosis-free status while bison from a herd exposed to brucellosis were allowed to cross park boundaries into Montana.
A court-approved settlement called for an interim plan and a long-term plan. The interim plan, now in effect, mandates: the sanction of bison on federal land where there is no livestock; bison that have left the park at West Yellowstone are to be captured and tested, with those testing positive for brucella antibodies sent to slaughter and negative-testing, non-pregnant bison released onto public land; and the Park Service capture of and delivery to the DOL for slaughter any bison near the park's north entrance that cannot be prevented from straying onto adjoining private lands.
Under the provisions of the interim plan, this winter and spring near the north entrance to the park, 464 bison were captured and sent to slaughter, 261 were shot by the Montana DOL, and 107 that tested negative were corralled by NPS and recently released back into the park. Near West Yellowstone, 48 bison were captured and sent to slaughter, while another 310 were shot by Montana DOL.
The settlement, in essence, has made an unwilling partner of the National Park Service in a management program that runs counter to its mission, beliefs, and policies. The basis for the management program lacks scientific support, yet it appears to be the only course for working toward the Yellowstone bison's long-term protection.
Meanwhile, that long-term planning process and the EIS (which will evaluate a range of alternatives) have been restarted, and according to the settlement agreement, the draft EIS is to be available for public review and comment by the end of July.
The National Park Service believes that solutions exist. Some aspects of the problem can be resolved quickly, and some will take a number of years.
For starters, given that the real risk of brucellosis transmission from bison to cattle is relatively low, there should be an increased level of tolerance for bison migrating to winter habitat on public lands outside the park.
Because the Park Service does not want to increase any real risk of bison-to-cattle brucellosis transmission, it supports the establishment of a hunt for a portion of the bison that migrate outside of the park. Montana already has such hunts for elk, deer, antelope, moose, bighorn sheep, and other species. Wyoming's bison program, instituted in 1996, is a successful model. The solution must also address elk that carry the disease and would most likely re-infect bison even if the disease were eliminated from their numbers.
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W2A-032-0.txt
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This paper is based on a review of the literature about controlled experiments in research on knowledge acquisition. The review was carried out to help the author make decisions about the design of his own experiment comparing two knowledge-acquisition methods. The paper looks critically at six experiments reported in the literature, and proposes a framework within which such empirical work can be viewed. It concludes that some of the apparent difficulties can be resolved, and that controlled experiments can be a useful way of discovering the relationships at work in a knowledge-acquisition project.
Introduction
Case studies and benchmarks have been used widely in research on knowledge-based systems. For example, in a case study, Michalski and Chilausky [1] investigated the effect of the acquisition method in a single domain on the effort needed to acquire the knowledge and on the diagnostic accuracy of the resulting knowledge bases. In a benchmark, Quinlan [21 used several ease bases as input to different induction algorithms, and observed the effect of these variables on the diagnostic accuracy of the induced knowledge bases.
But there is a growing awareness [3] that controlled experiments can help advance understanding of how the knowledge source, representation, acquisition method, domain, and engineer affect the effort needed to build a knowledge base and the quality of its performance. Burton and Shadbolt [4, p.11] argue strongly in favor of controlled experimentation:
Although one can get useful practical information from case studies, there will always be many factors unique to any particular knowledge-elicitation session. Hence the need for a formal experimental analysis.
Indeed, researchers such as Burton et al. [5], Lundell [6], Stevenson et al. [7], Deffner and Ahrens [8], Adelman [3], and Agarwal and Tanniru [9] have used methods from experimental psychology to explore research questions in knowledge acquisition.
The author's interest in the subject arose from his own need to compare two knowledge-acquisition methods 1 in terms of the effort they demand from a domain expert, and the accuracy of their outcomes. The controlled experiment seemed the ideal way to do the investigation, so a search was made of previous uses of this of knowledge acquisition. It is evident that not many researchers have used controlled experiments for this purpose. However, the few that appear in the literature do contain lessons from which the author's own design was able to benefit. These lessons, and their influence on the author's design, are discussed in this paper.
Experiments
This section discusses six experiments reported in the knowledge-acquisition literature.
Congruence of representation
Proposing hypotheses based on Anderson's theory of skill acquisition [11], Lundell argues [6] that while novices store their expertise in declarative memory, or at the conscious level, experts do so in procedural memory, or at the tacit level. Lundell further argues that it ought to be easier to elicit rules from novices than from experts, and that it ought to be easier to obtain typical examples (or what he calls? prototypes") from experts than from novices.
In addition, Lundell conjectures that an artificial neural network (built using prototypes and exemplars obtained from an expert) ought to have greater diagnostic accuracy than a similar knowledge base derived from exemplars and prototypes that have been elicited from novices. Conversely, a set of rules elicited directly from a novice ought to have a higher diagnostic accuracy than a set elicited directly from an expert.
Lundell's "? representational congruence?" hypothesis asserts that if, for example, a rule-elicitation method is used, it will elicit primarily knowledge stored as rules in the mind of the expert. Lundell's representational and "? elicitational congruence?" hypotheses involve the following independent variables:
*Elicitation method.*Expert's level of expertise.*Knowledge representation in the knowledge base./p>
These variables are all controllable in an experiment. The dependent variable, which, Lundell argues, is a function of the variables listed above, is diagnostic accuracy of the knowledge base built using the knowledge elicited from a subject. To test his hypotheses, Lundell had to vary the controllable variables in turn, and record the effects on diagnostic accuracy. Taking several observations for each setting of each controllable variable allowed him to increase the reliability of his results. Of course, the subjects themselves are also variable (see, e.g., [3, 12]).
Lundell's experiment is essentially a two-group design, in which each subject fills in four different types of questionnaire. It used a random presentation order in an attempt at eliminating sequence effects.
Two of Lundell's questionnaires were aimed at eliciting rules directly. One he called the "? direct rule?" questionnaire, and the other the "? decomposed rule?" questionnaire. These two complemented each other in his subsequent creation of rule bases.
The two other questionnaires were aimed at examples, from which knowledge could be derived by some kind of machine learning. One of these questionnaires elicited a set of typical example or cases; this one he called the "? prototype elicitation?" questionnaire. The fourth questionnaire, which he called the "? exemplar questionnaire,?" consisted of a randomly generated set of undiagnosed hypothetical cases for the subjects to diagnose.
Using these questionnaires for knowledge acquisition appears to impair the external validity of Lundell's experiment. The antecedents and the consequents are given, whereas in practice it seems more usual to have to be elicited from the knowledge source by various methods. The considerable amount of knowledge acquisition which clearly went into the preparation of these questionnaires deserves to be acknowledged openly. Moreover, questionnaires are rarely used to acquire knowledge for knowledge-based systems (see, e.g., [13]).
Lundell used the completed questionnaires to build a number of expert systems, but little is said in his dissertation about this process. And without any reassurance to the contrary, his readers are left wondering about the scope for introduction of errors at this stage. Still, perhaps this criticism is a bit unfair, because the graphic representation on his questionnaires seems capable of being easily transformed into production rules. In the case of his connectionist networks, it appears obvious that the exemplar and prototype data were simply coded as examples and used to train the networks in the task.
Lundell's subjects emerged from his training with a range of levels of expertise in the diagnostic task. Some had become good at it, and others had learned to a lesser extent. Lundell classified his newly trained subjects as either skilled or unskilled. He set his criterion at the median test score, so that half the subjects are "? unskilled?" and the others "? skilled.?" It appears to be an arbitrary distinction with little basis in theory and little rationale, save that of balancing the sizes of the two groups.
After basing his initial arguments on the theory that experts' skills reside at a tacit level while novices' skills are represented consciously, Lundell appears to make little use of this representational differential that would be expected to exist between his skilled group and his unskilled one.
Perhaps an improvement would have been to use an adaptive questionnaire to gather the same type of data. Under this approach, subjects would interact w computer program that asks questions based on answers already given. By doing this, he would have introduced some of the flexibility characteristic of real-world knowledge acquisition, while providing systematic and consistent recording of data.
By creating his own experts in a domain of his own making, Lundell may have sacrificed external validity, but at the same time he gained a ready-made set of test cases against which both the experts themselves and the elicited knowledge bases could be evaluated. He also limited the scope of the task to a size amenable to analysis and experimental control.
Thinking aloud
Stevenson et al. [7] also did an experiment to test a hypothesis implied by Anderson's ACT* (adaptive control of thought) theory [11]. Their hypothesis was that their own method of knowledge acquisition would be more effective than "? traditional?" methods. They argue that it is wrong to assume that analysis of thinking-aloud protocols accurately unearths the knowledge contained in an expert's automatic productions. What thinking aloud is more likely to do, they argue, is to slow down and even distort the expert's actions. They argue that it is more effective to let the expert perform his task undisturbed except for the scrutiny of a videotape camera and recorder. At some later time, the expert can explain his actions while watching the videotape. These explanations can be used to generate production rules. Stevenson et al. call this method an? evaluation technique."
The experiment of Stevenson et al. tested their hypothesis by varying the acquisition-method treatments to which subjects were exposed. They used a two-group repeated-measures design, although one group (the experts) was very small (two subjects) compared with the other group (eight subjects). All subjects received all treatments, but in the same order (there was no attempt to correct for sequence effects by counterbalancing). But time (more than a day) was allowed between treatments, perhaps to allow the attenuation of any carry-over effects.
Stevenson et al. appear not to have taken the analysis of the data as far as Lundell did. They did not measure the diagnostic accuracy of derived knowledge bases. They did, however, employ a more qualitative approach than Lundell's bald statistical one. They examined the differences between the kinds of constructs that the experts produced and those that the novices produced.
But although Stevenson et al. assert that thinking aloud may be less effective than their evaluation technique, they fail to support this empirically. Or, more precisely, they appear not to have designed their experiment to test this.
Computer-assisted knowledge acquisition
Deffner and Ahrens [8] were not comparing knowledge-acquisition methods; they were simply evaluating the single method embodied in a tool of theirs. This method involves having a domain expert enter language and, as a second stage, refine any ill-defined quantifiers used in the rules. According to [8], deferring the refinement solves the problem of when they are interrupted and asked to be more precisse about quantifiers.
Like Lundell, Deffoer and Ahrens used an artificial domain and created experts in it by training their twenty-two subjects. The domain is nutritional prediction in a simulation of a person to be fed from a menu. During training, the subjects are free to display their tendency to explore the domain. This tendency is observed by tracing each subject's interactions with the training software.
Although apparently not so by design, Ahrens' experiment is a two-group one. The groups were discovered by post hoc cluster analysis of some of the training interaction data. Both groups received the same treatment (elicitation method), but they also had what Deffner and Ahrens assume to be two different levels of expertise. One dependent variable is the accuracy of the generated knowledge base, and this is measured by testing the rules on the simulation. Other dependent variables are the number of rules elicited and the average number of attributes per rule.
Deffner and Ahrens do not say how many of their subjects fall into each group. Nor do they treat the two subjects who do not "? fall clearly into one of the two groups.?" They concede that their tool "? may at first sight appear not to be very practical?" [2, p.359], and try to remedy this lack of external validity by suggesting where the use of the tool might fit in a series of knowledge-acquisition stages.
Elicitation efficacy
Whereas Lundell [6] and Stevenson et al. [7] were testing hypotheses, Burton et al. [5] wanted to determine the relative efficacies and efficiencies of different knowledge-elicitation techniques. They wanted to be able to predict which methods would be most appropriate for which circumstances, so that builders of knowledge-based systems would have some empirical basis for their choices.
Burton et al. also stopped short of building knowledge bases, and therefore did not reach diagnostic accuracy. However, they did perform other kinds of evaluation on the elicited knowledge, which they coded as "? pseudo-English production rules.?" In a subsequent experiment, these rules were each rated by the experts on a four-point scale ranging from true to false. Thus, they were able to compare (at least for some of their data) the overall quality of rules resulting from each elicitation technique.
In their experiment, Burton et al. had as independent variables the elicitation method and the expert's personality. They tried to keep the knowledge representation constant. Their dependent variables were the amount of knowledge elicited per unit time, and the quality of elicited rules.
They also made the distinction between procedural and declarative knowledge. Indeed, they assert that two of their methods (protocol analysis and formal interview) are likely to elicit procedural knowledge, white the others (card sort and laddered grid) are likely to elicit dectanttive knowledge. But they were forced to conclude that their results did not support this assertion.
Although, like Lundell, they used students as subjects. Burton et at. did not create instant experts. 'l'hus, their claim of expertise is more credible, especially in the light of Anderson-s assertion [It] that it takes a long period of practice to create an expert. On the other hand, Burton et at. offer little proof of the subjects' expertise. Burton's subjects were not tested for skill level as Lundell's subjects were.
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The Burdens of Love
CHRIS KMOTORKA
Some people prop themselves on a moral high ground, passing judgment until the Lord elects to contradict them. Other people, well... they do what they gotta do.
" Goddamn it, Gary," I said as I saw the news flash. I said it softly, silently even, to myself like a mother at her wit's end. Except I'm not his mother, I'm his wife. I sometimes w 'mder if there's a difference; sometimes I wonder if there should be.
I've been sitting here on the couch watch 've TV for an hour now, waiting for the six o'clock news. I always watch the news, but a few minutes ago they came on and said they're going to have a story about a ba 'rerobbery that happened really close to where we live, only about a mile or two to the southeast, depending on how it is you go, from where I'm sitting right now. 'mere's going to be this story, but all they've done so far is describe this gu 'ves being tall, six-one or six-two, thick, collar-length blonde hair and a mustache, late twenties, early thirties. Nothing real particular, your typical northern Michigan weekend bank robber type. I've always had a weakness for that kin 'vef guy: a little bit of trouble, nothing too dangerous, just enough to keep things interesting. I guess it's not so surprising then that Gary and I have been together for so long. He's exactly like that in the looks department. It's close to three years now, married almost half that - - sixteen months. But now I wonder what's going to happen to us.
We've been through a lot, Gary and m 've Not all of it so good you'd tell your friends an 'dfamily about it, but we've had good times and we've neve 'veone anything to hurt a 'vene else. Not on purpose anyway. At any rate, you can't even call it _real_ bank robbery. Just one drive through, two counter spots, and an ATM. Small time even as bank branches go. Whoever did it had an easy time of it. But robbing banks is big time, no matter how small the bank, how small the chunk of change you get. And you almost _always_ get caught.
After the news we're supposed to go out to eat 're then to the Fireplace Inn for a few drinks. They have a great country band out there on the weekends. We're celebrating. Gary helped my brother with a sheet rock job and we finally have a little bit of spending money. Things have been pretty tight since the money from the house ran out. I was beginning to think we were going to have another fire, and I could tell that Gary was thinking the same thing, saving all the extra papers from the _Journal_ route that he runs Sunday mornings and all. That may sound kind of strange, but it's happened before. We lost everything we owned that wasn't with us in the car. I have to admit that wasn't much, but even the little things add up when you have to start from scratch. It's not like we doused the house in gas and lit a match or anything.
What we did was, we started stacking up old newspapers in front of the furnace, and we let the lint build up in the dryer. Little things that add up, you might say. That was when we were living in Saginaw, a couple of months after we were married. Gary had lost his job working the oil rigs and things were looking kind of bleak. I was really sad when he lost that job. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't because of the money, although it was pretty rough being without it all of a sudden like that. I was sad for romantic reasons. We had our wedding ceremony in a clearing in the middle of a cornfield beside an operational rig. We had wanted to have it up on a platform tower, but we couldn't get the preacher - - Deaconess, really; Sister LaTicia Wallace - - to climb up there. So we had to settle for the pump in the cornfield. But I'll never forget it. I'll always have a soft s 'll for oil derricks.
We were clear across town visiting Gary's mom and dad when we heard about the fire. We rushed back home, fast as we could, but when we got there the fire department had already put it out and there wasn't much left of it but a big wet pile of stinking, steaming wood. The smell of smoke and ruin was in everything, you couldn't miss the finality of it all. We moved into a trailer on Gary's parents' lot and waited for the new house to be built, brand spanking new and owned free and clear thanks to the glories of a healthy insurance policy. Insurance is the one thing Gary and I have always seemed to agree on. I may get a couple of months behind on my utilities, dodging the shutoff notices and recorded messages and all, but my insurance premiums are always paid on time. That's because Gary lost a house once before. Which means an accident here could stir up a lot of trouble and questions from the insurance companies, what with two fires in less than a year and another one only a few years before that. Especially since the insurance was in my name on our last place and it's the same here. They'd start screamin 'darson so fast, whether they had any evidence or not, which they wouldn't. There can't be evidence of arson if we didn't set the fire.
So anyway, the news finally comes on and the anchor is describing this guy and asking for anyone with any information regarding the robber to call the station to let them know, and then they go to a commercial. For a second I get this scared feeling and look towards the bedroom, but I put it out of my mind soon enough because I doubt they'll get any call 'll I don't see too many of us rushing out to inconvenience ourselves over some small time crime that will get us little more than a court appearance. Traverse may not be a really big city, yet, but it's definitely a place where people are smart enough to know that it's better to wait for "Missing/Reward" or "America's Most Wanted", or one of those shows, because at least then you know you're going to get 'reething out of the deal. I watch them both; I'm waiting for a cr 'me that I know something about, but I suppose the chances of that are pretty darn slim. Basically, the community ethic/goodwill thing just doesn't cut it anymore. It's too easy to get hurt doing that trip.
I had an uncle, Uncle Ryan, who got killed doing the good deed activity. Uncle Ryan was a traveling salesman. Bathroom fixtures. He was twisting his way through the mountains of southeastern Kentucky when he got killed. There are these signs down there, all throughout the mountains that say "Fallen Rock Zone. They used to have signs that said "Watch For Falling Rocks", except you never see any rocks actually falling, and people were spending more time looking for the damn things to fall than they were looking at the road. I guess that's why they made the change. Anyway, Uncle Ryan actually saw a rock in the road. Now, just because people don't actually see the rocks fall doesn't mean that they don't. There are rocks the size of Yugos and all sorts of smaller boulders all along the sides of the roads. It's just that you don't see these things _in_ the road. Well, Uncle Ryan sees this rock and his first inclination is that someone is going to get hurt with that rock being in the other lane like that and there being a blind curve right there and no real way for oncoming traffic to see the rock, so Uncle Ryan pulls his car off to the side of the road as far as he can and he gets out. He walks over, bends down, grabs hold of the rock and starts to lift it. He had enough time to get halfway up with it when a huge coal hauler came hurtling around that blind curve Uncle Ryan was so concerned about and hit him dead center on the grill. Four days later we had a closed casket ceremony and to this day I'm convinced 'mat it simply doesn't pay to go out of your way to help someone else if there's nothing in it for you. That may be a hard thing to say, but I tend to think that these are hard times.
I'm waiting till 'mfter the news to wake Gary up. He's sleeping in the other room. I should wake him up and make him watch the news with me, see what he says, but I need time to think. And he needs his rest, though how he can sleep I'll never k 'll. He picked up a quarter pound of weed from my brother-in-law who lives just down the road on the street behind ours. The dope's mainly to sell, of course, but we usually skim off half an ounce or so. Once it's all divided up, no one notices. Still, I have to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't take too much. I have to keep reminding him that it's an investment. You have to be responsible where investments are concerned. Sometimes I think love is a lot like baby-sitting. But that's okay. Love should be a burden. I've alw 've thought that, at least for as long as I've fel 've know what love is.
My mom knew real love. Love was never easy for her. I mean, maybe at one time it was, but not that I can remember. My dad had Multiple Sclerosis, and it was hard on mother the last few years of his life. He had gone virtually blind and was in a wheelchair; he used to say over and over, "I ain't a baby, I can do it. He said it about everything we tried to do for him, but, of course, he couldn't. He'd we 'd himself out trying, and then sit there quiet with his eyes all wet looking while Mom or one of us kids helped him out. He had been a policeman and had always been active. The MS didn't really start affecting him till he was in his early thirties. My brother and sister and I were all very young. By the time I was ten or eleven, it seemed like he had always been in that wheelchair. His speech got to be real difficult to understand as well. He'd ge 'dupset over it. I can't blame him, now. I hate having to repeat myself, and my speech is perfectly clear. Mom had to take care of him like he was a child. And with three little kids running around on top of it all, it was hard on her. That's how I know what love is all about, how it has to be a burden to be real.
When I first met Gary I was working at a country bar called The Roundup, a little north of Thompsonville. He was up fishing along the Platte River and had been driving around looking for a place to get a steak and have a few beers. The Roundup is about the most perfect place around for that sort of thing. Anyway, I was serving him, and I guess I must have been pretty obvious, bending over and letting him have a peek or two at the goods, and other tricks I still haven't been able to stop using since I did a little time as a prostitute. Down in Detroit. I left that all behind. It's been practically fifteen years now since I got out of that life.
It's weird when I think back on it. It hurts, too. Sometimes I want to cry over it, like a black secret I'm 'mlways trying to hide from the rest of the world. I didn't do it for long, but it was too long just the same. I don't even know how it happened. I mean, I do, but I have a hard time believing I ever did it. I was in the Navy. I had a good job working as a missile mechanic, which I also can't believe I ever did. I only joined to get my GED and because I couldn't find a job. Anyway, one night I went out with a guy I met at a bar and we got to partying. I was gone the whole weekend, went AWOL, and I was afraid to go back. I couldn't call home. I needed money and it seemed like an easy enough way of getting some. Next thing I knew I was dishonorably discharged and sitting on a bus back to Michigan. I went right back to it in Detroit. I got into all sorts of other bad things, too, including smack. As far as I know there's still an outstanding warrant for my arrest there. For loitering of all things. That's what they bust you for when they can't get you on anything else.
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W1B-021-0.txt
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To our shareholders:
Fiscal 2005 was a year of continued solid, balanced growth for Cisco from both a product- and market-leadership perspective. We achieved an outstanding financial performance with record profits and cash generation, year-over-year growth in our core routing and switching products, and very strong growth in our six advanced technologies. Our enterprise, service provider, and commercial customer market segments all experienced solid year-over-year growth. However, the highlight for the year was the balance that we achieved across our geographies, customer market segments, architectural evolutions, and product families. We believe our financial strength, product leadership, and global reach uniquely position Cisco as a company not only built to last, but built to lead.
Innovation Strategy
In our opinion, the key to long-term success in the high-technology industry is ongoing strategic investment and innovation, and we intend to continue to take good business risks. Our innovation strategy requires a unique combination of internal development, partnerships, and acquisitions. In our opinion, for companies to lead in the technology industry they must be able to do all three. We continue to believe that our industry will consolidate and that the consolidation will occur along both technology and business architecture lines. This technology architecture will probably evolve where the seven layers of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) stack are first loosely, then tightly coupled. That is exactly where you see us taking the integration of our core and advanced technology product architectures. Equally important, companies also have to gain the confidence of their customers from a vision and strategy perspective, a product architecture leadership perspective, and a service and support perspective. We think we are very uniquely positioned to continue to win the hearts, minds, and capital investments of our customers.
In fiscal 2005 we invested more than $3.3 billion in research and development (R&D). This resulted in more than 50 product introductions and the number-one market share leadership position in most of our product categories, including our advanced technology markets, truly demonstrating that the investments we made three to five years ago are now paying off. We believe this product momentum will continue in fiscal 2006, and we will do our best to continue to meet and exceed the expectations of our customers and partners.
Fiscal 2005 Performance
In fiscal 2005 we achieved record performance across almost all of our financial and operational metrics. Fiscal 2005 revenue was $24.8 billion, compared to fiscal 2004 revenue of $22.0 billion. Net income on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis was $5.7 billion, compared to fiscal 2004 GAAP net income of $4.4 billion. GAAP earnings per share on a fully diluted basis for fiscal 2005 were $0.87, compared to $0.62 for fiscal 2004. In addition to net income, Cisco generated $7.6 billion in cash, highlighting the ongoing quality of our earnings.
Cisco demonstrated solid execution on its three long-term financial priorities. First, we continued to focus on profitable growth with GAAP net income as a percentage of revenue exceeding 20 percent. During fiscal 2005, we increased revenue year over year by approximately 12.5 percent. Of total revenue, approximately $20.9 billion was related to product revenue and $3.9 billion was related to service revenue. Our revenue growth is the result of a continued recovery in the global IT economic environment, and we achieved significant market share gains in many product areas.
Second, we increased our profitability. We increased GAAP net income by 30 percent and GAAP earnings per share by 40 percent during fiscal 2005, while operating expenses decreased by 3 percent as a percentage of revenue.
A key competitive advantage for Cisco is how we use our own technology to drive productivity. We achieved a key metric by reaching our productivity goal of approximately $700,000 in annualized revenue per employee, up from approximately $450,000 in fiscal 2001 when the goal was set. This is significant given that we also increased headcount in fiscal 2005 by 12 percent, primarily in sales and R&D. Our profitability far exceeded our revenue growth rate and is evidence of our ability to drive productivity and operational efficiency.
Third, we maintained our strong and conservative balance sheet, while aggressively reducing outstanding shares through our share repurchase program. At the end of fiscal 2005, cash and investments totaled $16.1 billion, days sales outstanding (DSOs) were 31, and annualized inventory turns were 6.6. During fiscal 2005, we repurchased $10.2 billion, or 540 million shares of our stock. Cash used for these repurchases was generated primarily through operations. At the end of fiscal 2005, our cumulative purchases since the inception of the share repurchase program in September 2001 were approximately $27.2 billion, or 1.5 billion shares, at an average price of $18.15. This is a decrease of more than 13 percent in the weighted average diluted shares outstanding since the inception of the program. The program's remaining approved repurchase amount is approximately $7.8 billion.
Our strong cash position provides investment opportunities for Cisco. The Board of Directors routinely evaluates growth and technology leadership objectives with the goal of providing an attractive return on investment for our shareholders. Our technology investments are designed to extend our current product leadership through new offerings, as well as feature and functionality enhancements. We believe these investments will allow us to capitalize on new advanced technologies and emerging geographic markets. These investments include areas such as enterprise IP communications, network security, and wireless networking. We believe ongoing strategic investments, along with our share repurchase program and strong cash balance, are in the best interest of Cisco and our shareholders.
Balanced Growth
Cisco's success in fiscal 2005 can be attributed to the balance achieved in almost all of our product families, customer market segments, and geographies. This, combined with our ability to continuously innovate and expand the industry and our markets, is a significant driver of our success.
In fiscal 2005, Cisco's six advanced technologies showed the highest revenue growth of our product groups. Revenue from advanced technologies increased 32 percent year over year to $4.4 billion. The six advanced technologies include: enterprise IP communications, home networking, optical networking, security, storage area networking, and wireless technology. During fiscal 2005, security and enterprise IP communications achieved our initial goal of an annual revenue run rate of approximately $1 billion. We shipped our 6-millionth IP phone. We continue to expand our advanced technologies and have set an aggressive goal of announcing several new advanced technologies in fiscal 2006.
This year we introduced the integrated services router, one of the industry's most comprehensive enterprise solutions for branch offices. The integrated services router is designed to allow customers to customize solutions by adding security, voice, and wireless capabilities to a single routing platform. In our core switching families, we made five key product announcements in fiscal 2005, and Cisco's switching products continue to maintain a number-one market share position.
We also experienced balance across all key customer market segments, with solid growth in the service provider, enterprise, and commercial segments. Our consumer-oriented Linksys division had the highest annual growth by market segment of approximately 40 percent year over year. In terms of our balance among Cisco's five geographic areas in fiscal 2005, we experienced strong product revenue growth in almost all of our geographies, increasing total product revenue by 12 percent on an annual basis.
We were also very pleased with our ability to enter new markets and gain leadership from both a market share and innovation perspective. As mentioned earlier, we believe innovation comes from a combination of internal development, partnerships, and acquisitions. In terms of key strategic alliances, we accelerated our growth opportunities with our strategic partners. In fiscal 2005, we continued our strategy of taking good, solid business risks by completing 17 acquisitions to further extend our talent and technology opportunities for both our core routing and switching products as well as our advanced technologies. We believe we are well-positioned to take advantage of future growth opportunities, and we are confident and optimistic about the areas of the business that we can control and influence. We intend to continue to add both engineering and sales resources as we focus on developing the next wave of advanced technologies, growing the commercial market segment, capitalizing on our emerging market opportunities, and increasing our market share gains.
Corporate Citizenship and Social Responsibility
An integral part of Cisco's business strategy is corporate citizenship. We believe this is not only the right thing to do, but is also just plain "good business." We employ and advocate responsible business practices and programs, which builds a lasting trust with our key stakeholders' customers, partners, employees, and shareholders. In the fall of 2005, Cisco will release its first Corporate Social Responsibility Report, which will be available atwww.cisco.com/go/citizenship.
We are dedicated to sustaining a diverse, inclusive workforce. We employ responsible operations, product stewardship, and environmentally friendly design policies, and we encourage our suppliers to adhere to these standards. Cisco is committed to sound and transparent corporate governance and financial disclosure practices. Our Website provides Cisco's corporate governance policies and practices, corporate citizenship programs, and financial information.
Cisco is also committed to education. We have Networking Academies in more than 160 countries, with approximately 10,000 academies and 420,000 students. Students in high schools, technical schools, colleges, and community organizations learn hands-on networking skills to prepare for the workforce of today and the future. The Jordan Education Initiative, spearheaded by Cisco in partnership with the World Economic Forum and several other organizations, has created a replicable model and is expanding its interactive e-curriculum-based education programs into other geographic areas.
I
n the area of giving back, employees celebrated Cisco's 20th anniversary by donating more than 20 years' worth of community service hours, or 235,000 hours far exceeding the goal of 175,200. During a time of global need, Cisco and our employees donated more than $4 million in relief efforts for the South Asia tsunami victims. We are truly proud to be a part of a strong culture of giving back and social responsibility.
Built to Last, Built to Lead
In fiscal 2005, we made evolutionary changes that support our long-term strategy. We announced a reorganization of our geographic segments to better address our global approach and focus on key growth areas. We evolved our engineering and sales leadership, demonstrating our continued bench strength and investment in future opportunities. Our ability to implement these changes smoothly is one of our core competencies.
Fiscal 2005 marked the end of our 20th anniversary, and on August 10, 2005, more than 3,000 employees participated in the "Virtual Opening" of The NASDAQ Stock Market at Cisco's headquarters. This historical virtual opening bell ceremony showcased the power of networking technology, demonstrated how a stock market can be opened anytime, anywhere, eliminating distance and time restrictions, and reiterated Cisco's commitment to technology and innovation leadership.
Looking ahead, we believe that Cisco's unique balance of financial strength, product leadership, and global presence truly position us as a company that is not only built to last, but built to lead. We would like to recognize the contributions of Don Valentine and Jim Gibbons for their years of service to Cisco's Board of Directors, and on behalf of the Board, we would like to thank our customers, partners, employees, and shareholders for their continued confidence and support. We hope to make the next 20 years equally successful.
BUILT TO LAST
We are pleased with our strong performance in fiscal 2004 and believe the investments we made 12 to 36 months ago are paying off in terms of our business and financial metrics. Going into fiscal 2005, we will continue to focus on our three major growth areas of core routing and switching, service provider, and Advanced Technologies, as well as network architecture evolution expectations and a continued focus on profit contribution.
For 20 years, Cisco's strategy has included an intense focus on results, catching market transitions, and listening to our customers. We helped build the foundation of the Internet by building the routers and switches that fueled it, and we believe that the best is yet to come in terms of increases in productivity and standard of living that can be created from technology innovation from companies such as Cisco.
We are confident that Cisco is a company that is built to last, and on behalf of our Board of Directors, we would like to thank our customers, partners, employees, and shareholders for your continued confidence and support.
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Memories of old days at Keanae School come to the fore as reunion nears
KEANAE - One vivid memory Helen Nakanelua has about Keanae School is her teacher coming to the school on a horse.
At age 89, Nakanelua has been holding on to the memory for a long time. She acknowledges that she is one of the oldest living people who attended the little school on the isolated stretch of the East Maui coastline.
Nakanelua said she still can still picture teacher Maggie Soon arriving on a horse wearing her riding skirt.
Marc Aquino remembers the benefits of a small school when he attended Keanae School in the 1960s.
" What I really liked about it is you get the full attention from your teachers," said Aquino, who now resides in Kahului.
There were about 30 students when he attended, with classes for 1st through 8th grades but just two teachers assigned to handle all of the grades in just two classrooms.
Former Keanae School students, teachers, administrators and past and present Keanae and Wailuanui residents will be recalling all that and more at the Keanae School Reunion 2001.
The reunion is to be held July 28 and will include a luau at noon in the Keanae Congregational Church Hall. Organizers estimate around 1,000 people plan to attend, which would be roughly 10 times the resident population of the Wailua-Keanae community today.
Chairman Clement Kock-Wah joked, "I kind of started all of this mess up." Kock-Wah, who grew up working in the taro patches of Keanae and attended the school in the 1940s, said, "I want to give back to the older people."
Kock-Wah also lived on Oahu and around Maui but eventually came back to Keanae. He lives kitty-corner to the school, he said.
He said that for awhile he talked and shared ideas about the reunion, which most thought was a good idea, and then he finally "took the bull by the horns."
" Our old kupuna are very excited about it," he said.
There is a handful of former students helping out.
He said he wants to thank that "handful of people," including friends outside of Keanae and kupuna who donated materials and money.
But Kock-Wah in turn earned praise from Nakanelua.
" I thought it was something really great. It took Clement Kock-Wah to put Keanae on the map again," she said.
The first school was near the Keanae Congregational Church on the Keanae peninsula, according to historical reports filed with a nomination form to place the school building on the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1909, as the result of a land exchange, the school moved to the present site on Hana Highway. The new schoolhouse was completed in 1912 by contractor Hugh Howell.
Through the years, the population of the region has dwindled, and the school's enrollment was fallen to minimal levels. Older students from 4th grade and up are now bused to Hana High & Elementary School 14 miles of winding road away.
There were three students at the school this year, said current teacher Laura Akiu Straight. The school accommodates kindergarten to 3rd-graders. The school is a single building with three rooms, said Kock-Wah. There also used to be a teacher's cottage on the property.
Because the school was small, the academic atmosphere could be a challenge for some students, according to some who attended the school.
" There were so many grades in one classroom," said Vicky Martin, who attended the school through the 8th grade, in 1956. "It's very different (from other schools)."
With several grades taught by one teacher in the same room, Martin said, it was hard for some students to learn.
But Aquino said having a mix of grade levels in a class was a "good incentive for everyone to learn." It would be embarrassing if you couldn't solve a problem on the chalkboard, while a younger student could.
" It did happen," he said.
" They got so shame," agreed Martin.
Aquino also remembers some old school practices that probably weren't customary only at Keanae School.
" We used to get licking from the teacher," he said. "I can still see the guava stick behind the (teacher's) desk.
" That's how we were disciplined."
The youngsters were also subject to inspection for personal cleanliness, including have their fingernails checked. Some children had a hard time keeping their nails clean because they worked in the taro fields.
There are also sunnier sides to the classes at Keanae, including the socialization among youngsters at lunch time.
Aquino remembers bringing his kini 'ai, or two-piece lunch can. There was a bottom container for poi or rice, with a second container stacked on top to hold fried fish, fried frog, sardines, chicken or even jerky meat made from pig.
" That was the days we used to share our lunch," he said. "It was fun, it was no big thing."
" Because we are from that kind of community we learn how to gather our food from the land and the ocean."
Being in a rural community where children helped their families by working in taro patches, Martin said poi "was the main lunch for the kids."
While memories may differ, Nakanelua, Aquino and Martin all agree that majority of the students who went to the school turned out well.
" All of the kids excelled in school," Aquino said. "I would say Keanae School kids did well out there."
Perhaps the success resulted from the small school setting, the discipline by guava stick, or maybe the strict teachers.
" Some of the kids (who got scolded) today turned out to be the best students," Martin said. "They came out better persons."
Nakanelua is looking forward to seeing former teachers, residents and old friends at the reunion. Most Keanae students had to go elsewhere to live. "They are holding good jobs," she said. "There's no way they can stay here; there's no jobs."
But for one day, she said, they can all be back in their little country school again.
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It is a fatal assumption to ascribe these calamities exclusively to the errors and infirmities of the Irish character; and set about alternately coercing and cajoling, as if it were a child or a maniac we had to deal with. No empire has ever yet treated a whole section of its subjects as inferior in heart and mind without incurring the condemnation of posterity. (2)
This question of race is the very last topic that English writers and politicians should have broached... The fallacy of referring Irish evils to Celtic causation, is one very likely to be wiped off in blood. (3)
The 150th anniversary of the Irish potato famine in autumn 1996 is already stirring a highly emotional reappraisal of the history of English treatment of Ireland. The belief that the racist English refused substantial famine relief to Ireland because of their hatred for the Celtic race is widespread both within and outside the scholarly community. Recent demands by the Irish Republic for an official British "apology" for the famine reflect this belief, which sometimes extends to the assertion that the English sought to perpetrate racial genocide by engineering mass starvation in Ireland. This understanding of the famine poisons English-Irish relations to this day, just as memories of 1641 or 1798 stirred anger and bitterness in the Victorian period.
Lewis Perry Curtis, Jr. is the most prominent of many historians who conclude that race was the defining element in nineteenth-century English perceptions of the Irish. The English, according to Curtis and others, looked with a self-conscious sense of Saxon superiority at what they considered to be a childlike and inferior but dangerous Celtic race. This attitude, it is assumed, shaped policy and lay at the root of Irish oppression. Irish nationalist historians have used these arguments to place their people among other victims of colonial racism and genocide in Africa, Asia and North America. (4) Anti-Irish racism in this sense appears as an inevitable manifestation of colonialism.
It is easy to forget, however, that prejudice takes many forms, not all of them based on a concrete conception of the victim as a biologically distinct race. Those who forget this fact have trouble interpreting English policy toward Ireland in the 1840s. Some writers misjudge, for example, the motivations behind the insistence of many Englishmen in the early famine period that Celt and Saxon and even Protestant and Catholic were fundamentally equal. Liz Curtis hails John Stuart Mill, who repeatedly rejected the notion that the Irish were racially inferior, as one of the few Englishmen who understood the true nature of "British exploitation" of Ireland. (5) Mill also, however, asserted at the height of the famine that
We must give over telling the Irish that it is our business to find food for them. We must tell them, now and forever, that it is their business. (6)
K.D.M. Snell sees Alexander Somerville's lack of religious or racial bigotry as evidence that Somerville was not "prejudiced" against the Irish. (7) Yet Somerville also wrote in early 1847 that the starving Irish were willingly foregoing food and using English charity money to buy arms, and that continuing to give them relief would only "make the people think that the government should do everything."(8)
British perceptions of the Irish in the 1840s were more complex than they may at first appear. During the first months of the crisis, advocates of the tight-fisted government policy drew on what may be called a Liberal discourse of moral improvement which explicitly denied the racial inferiority of the Irish and saw the famine as a Providential opportunity to civilize and improve them. The Liberal understanding of human nature gave the great majority of the public confidence that Irish degradation was moral and not biological in nature, and thus subject to change. Forcing the Irish to fend for themselves in time of dearth thus appeared as a useful and necessary moral lesson for a people with such potential for improvement. Frustration at the apparently obstinate unwillingness of the Irish to improve as a result of the famine led an increasingly large portion of the English public to believe, however, that the Irish were an irredeemably inferior race for whom no amount of tutoring would do any good. The years that followed saw resurgence of racialist discourse on Ireland that would persist for the remainder of the century.
The "condition of Ireland question" was a matter of great public attention in the years preceding the famine. Ireland was, most people agreed, a country of immense economic potential existing in the lowest possible state of degradation. Fish teemed off her shores, her harbors were some of the best in the world, and her land was capable of producing excellent crops. Her people, however, seemed unwilling to take advantage of the natural resources at their fingertips, living instead in abject poverty attended by a barbaric state of mind. External factors, not inherent flaws in the Irish character, were considered to be responsible for this state of affairs. Particularly to blame was the Anglo-Irish ascendancy, as it perpetuated "the system which has given to the character of the Celt some of the qualities peculiar to a slave population,"(10) ruling the Irish peasantry as an alien people incapable of integration into civilized society.
The worst thing about "the system" was that it had stood in the way of the complete union of the English and Irish people. This union was held to be the natural consummation of God's will; and what God had placed together no man could break apart:
The condition of Ireland is, directly, the condition of the British empire. No legislative union can tighten - no Utopian separation could dissolve - that intimate and close connexion between the two islands which has been formed by the hand of nature, and consolidated by the operations of time... Each year cements by closer fusion the twain branches of the Saxon and the Celtic stocks... Whilst our passions are the most excited, and our jealousy the most vigilant, terror and passion are found equally unavailing to keep those apart whom a higher Power than man's has joined by the contiguity of position and the bond of mutual dependence. (11)
The landed aristocracy of Ireland thus acted against natural law in seeking to perpetuate divisions among the peoples of the British family of nations. Unlike the larger of the British Isles, where Saxon, Norman and Roman had "amalgamated," and were in the process of doing so with the Welsh and Scots, in Ireland the races had remained separate. (12) The blame for this, it was supposed, rested on Anglo-Irish and English policy as practiced from the twelfth through the eighteenth centuries. These policies, by segregating the two peoples socially, racially and religiously, had kept them artificially divided and had worked to prevent the proper consummation of the union.
These errors could only be rectified, it was believed, by bringing the Irish more fully under English law. The Act of Union was only the first step; measures to strengthen this legislation through the introduction of measures such as a Poor Law on the English model were necessary. The ultimate aim in doing so was "the blending and amalgamation of the two peoples."(13) Or, as James Grant put it, "There is one way, and one way only, of crushing repeal. That is by rendering Ireland in reality what it is nominally - an integral part of the British empire," instead of ruling it as "a conquered province."(14) The Poor Law Extension Act of 1847 was enacted during the famine with this end in mind.
For all of the English admissions of the shortcomings of British rule in Ireland through 1800, it was considered inconceivable that the Irish could govern themselves. The only potential leaders of an Irish government, the English assumed, would be the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. Attacks on repeal of the Union therefore necessarily involved denigration of the ability of this class to rule effectively. They were therefore roundly excoriated by the English government and public as lazy, profligate, and brutal. The Times proclaimed that
the prime cause why the Irish peasantry have been reduced to their present level must be sought for in the neglect and unthrift of past generations of claret- drinking, writ-despising, landlords.(15)
In this respect the landlords had also become the scapegoats for English misgovernment. As Alexander Somerville put it,
It would be in the natural order of things for an Irish parliament of Irish landlords to legislate for themselves and against their tenantry and the great body of the people. (16)
Peasants and aristocrats could therefore obviously not supervise the regeneration of Ireland. The assumed absence of a native Irish middle-class ruled out the possibility that natives of any sort could rule the country. The possibility that an Irish middle-class could emerge at any point in the future was simply not considered. The Irish had no choice, therefore, but to look to the English and Scotch middle classes to govern and regenerate Ireland. Somerville expressed this attitude in the form of a hypothetical lecture of a pro-repeal Irishman:
your parliament, if you had it, would be entirely composed of landlords and lawyers, neither of whom as yet have done you any service, but much mischief... Feudalism and territorial representation is on the decline. It will decline more and more in England every year; but you would restore it in Ireland by an Irish parliament of landlords and law - jobbers. You have no middle class to control them. It is to the new current of legislation from the commercial classes of England that you must look for real substantial benefits to Ireland. (17)
Confidence in the English middle-class as the ultimate source of all social and moral progress combined with the Liberal belief that all human beings were capable of moral education and improvement. With English help, therefore, the Irish people would not be doomed to forever exist in a state of semi-barbarism. Celts, no less than any other European people, would ultimately prove responsive to Liberal treatment. Liberals denied, in Somerville's words, "the natural incapacity of the Celts for becoming a commercial people" or "the impossibility of improving the Celtic population."(18) English thrift and forethought would, it was assumed, be transmitted to the Irish and uplift their physical and mental states to a substantial degree.
Even so, though the Irish were not considered "inferior," it was assumed that on their improvement the Irish could not simply dispose of English support and begin to fend for themselves. They were instead expected to reciprocate by settling down in contented submission, sharing and enjoying the fruits of economic prosperity that would follow on realization of the union. Despite its apparent optimism, the ultimate purpose of Liberal discourse on Ireland was to justify perpetual English rule under the guise of the creation of a British family of nations. Critics like Daniel Owen-Madden argued that adherents of this view erred by failing to recognize the inherent difference of the Celtic people, which made ruling them through English laws and institutions a mistake:
There is a class of Imperialists who propose to govern Ireland without the slightest regard to local feelings, or to Irish prejudices. They would wish to obliterate Ireland in the map of the Empire, and to substitute West Britain. They would first deride all Irish instincts, malign all Irish character, and then proceed to treat a concursive and semi-celtic population as if it inherited the individualism and characteristic phlegm of English nature. This school of Imperialists is one made up of Whigs, Whig-Radicals, and Economists. (19)
A fundamental paradox did lay at the heart of the Liberal discourse. Although the principles of social and economic Liberalism could not admit that the Irish (or, indeed any people) were unimprovable, the case for English rule depended on the continual subservience of the Irish people. Englishmen professed their desire to fully assimilate Ireland into the British family of nations, (20) but also desired to maintain the colonial relationship of the two islands. Were the Irish ever improved to the extent of being admitted as full moral and physical equals of the English, their desire for independence could no longer be denied; but to justify their subservience on the basis of inherent racial inferiority would have been to reject the dogma of the improvability of all men. Somehow the Irish needed to be represented, not as racially inferior to or incompatible with the English, but as necessarily and perpetually playing the subservient role in the Union.
A conceptual framework for reconciling these paradoxes was at hand in the rhetoric of marriage. Lynda Nead has explained the Victorian concept of marriage in the following manner:
The underlying principle of gender division in the nineteenth century was that the two sexes were different and complementary. Woman was never described as inferior to man; rather, she was different, and her differences were to be valued since they entirely complemented male attributes.(21)
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In 1966, on the occasion of the centenary of Adolph Meyer's birth, Theodore Lidz delivered the Meyer lecture, entitling it "Adolf Meyer and the Development of American Psychiatry" (1). He concluded the published version of the paper by saying, "In commemorating him, we can do much for ourselves and for psychiatry by recognizing and utilizing the heritage he left us.? Analogously, in 1980 John Neill reviewed Meyer's contributions in a paper on "Adolf Meyer and American Psychiatry Today" (2). He stated, "Meyer's times were similar to ours in many ways. In a curious fashion our professional wheel has come full circle to where it was in 1900, and we are again in need of the Meyerian spirit, a holistic perspective. Acquainting ourselves with the wisdom in his legacy is an important first step on the journey forward. In the 1985 Adolf Meyer lecture, Michael Rutter (3) pointed out the relevance of Meyer's work to major current issues in psychiatry. His paper, entitled "Meyerian Psychobiology Personality Development, and the Role of Life Experiences," clearly enunciated the fundamental implications of the psychobiological concept. In this paper, I wish to follow my eminent predecessors but also to delineate in my own way how a reexamination of these Meyerian concepts might point the way toward the next turning point in American psychiatry. Indeed, I perceive subtle signs of the early phases around which the next stage might coalesce, and I anticipate that by the beginning of the twenty-first century, the developmental lines will be much clearer.
To be the Medical Director of APA is in itself a remarkable honor, and I have consistently relished the opportunity to be part of the profession's adaptation to new forces from within and outside of its changing boundaries. Lidz stated that "Adolf Meyer virtually identified himself with psychiatry"(1), and I empathize with that position as long as it is understood that I have also maintained the differentiation.
Of late I have noted the tendency (not yet a symptom) to reminisce and reflect about the broader sweep of events; indeed, I have been a participant and observer in remarkable changes in our field. In this paper I wish to review some of these events with emphasis upon the post-World War II changes that have been part of my personal experience. The scientific program of APA's 1989 annual meeting is an excellent symbol of our current status--quite different from the symbols and substance of the meetings of a quarter of a century ago. In this paper, I wish to highlight four turning points: 1) the rise of Meyerian psychobiology and its peak impact in the second quarter of the twentieth century, 2) the dominance of divergent therapeutic ideologies, including the important impact of psychoanalysis in the post-World War 11 years, 3) the current surge of neuroscience and psychopharmacology along with empiricism and logical positivism, 4) a predicted reemergence of analogues of Meyerian psychobiology at the turn of the twenty-first century accompanied by a) a new systematized psychobiology of coping, of adaptation, and of active efforts by persons to deal with multileveled stresses, b) an increased knowledge base in life course transactions converting the elaborate Meyerian history taking system to a more dynamic and relevant process, c) a trend toward a new nosological system that will give life and greater utility to the current axis IV and V systems (DSM-III and DSM-III-R) and will deal more effectively with the boundaries between health and disorder, d) with a, b, and c (coping life history, and boundaries between health and illness) and accompanied by appropriate professional leadership, the reemergence of a vital new clinical psychiatry, e) a more balanced overall approach using psychoanalytic, social psychiatric, and biological concepts that have become clear enough to test empirically, and f) a more rational therapeutic system emphasizing new combinations and transactions between pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy--along with a new generation of educators experienced in these combinations.
THE RISE OF MEYERIAN PSYCHOBIOLOGY AND ITS PEAK IMPACT IN THE SECOND QUARTER OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
I entered psychiatry in the decade after World War ll. The winds of change had already altered the psychiatric landscape, and almost all of my clinical supervisors and teachers espoused the new "dynamic psychiatry. The textbooks of psychiatry, however, were still dominated strongly by the prewar developments, and my introduction to Adolf Meyer was announced primarily by written words rather than by clinical interactions and case conferences or personal contact. In retrospect, I understand that this was unfortunate because it was not easy to grasp Meyer's ideas from his written words alone. Henderson 4) said that "Adolf Meyer had to surmount language difficulties affecting his speech and his writing which made it far from easy to get his meaning and rendered his ideas more obscure than they really were. Ebaugh (5), commenting on the same subject, stated that "It was frequently difficult to grasp the full import of Dr. Meyer's formulations. It was his tendency to be elliptical or to verbalize incomplete thoughts which meandered in the direction of his own special interest of the moment. This may account, In part, for the fact that his theories are not fully recorded, or are, at best, inadequately understood. (It is hoped that late twentieth-century technology will afford subsequent generations an opportunity to learn ten words.) Over time, however, I have become increasingly knowledgeable about the basic tenets of Meyer's ideas and understand better what a pervasive influence he exerted. Even more important for me, I began to understand why his ideas were so important. It is hoped that others will find it rewarding to make their own judgments on this matter.
On several occasions, Meyer sketched his own perception of the historical phases of psychiatry in the United States (6). He tended to call the first phase "the time of the Thirteen," honoring the founders of APA. He then described the second phase as "the preoccupation with the brain (a mere word with most) as the palpable issue in the disorder, when the workers actually looked for new emphases and concrete methods having to regulate complex organismal wholes, and the rising of competition from outside after the Civil War. That prototypic Meyerian description, with all of its ambiguity, lies at the heart of his concerns, namely, that the biological reductionism in the late nineteenth century was, at least in part, a defensive maneuver against the influx of immigrants into the United States. The "moral psychiatry" of the earlier part of the nineteenth century was fine with Yankee patients and doctors but somehow less appropriate with postindustrial America. In characterizing a third phase of American psychiatry from the 1890s to World War 1, Meyer essentially described a period of increased systematization of research, followed by a fourth phase that was a description of some of his hopes and aspirations. Meyer highlighted the development of special psychiatric centers (research oriented institutes) that could be models for an advancing science of psychiatry. His thoughts about psychosomatic processes and psychiatry's role in medicine were enunciated with emphasis upon "the person" and strong criticism of dualism and reductionism.
From the late twentieth century vantage point, the nuances of changes in the first part of this century are overshadowed by a dominant trend symbolized by Meyer himself. Indeed, the turning point that peaked in the second quarter of this century can be characterized as a gradual shift from the prior biological reductionism and its attendant practices and value systems to a phase where clinical psychiatry took on new aspirations, new methods, and new interests. While Meyer characterized his major approach as psychobiology, his personal style reflected the biopsychosocial model as enunciated much later by Engel (7). When finally ensconced in his pivotal professorship at Johns Hopkins (Phipps Clinic), Meyer maintained a profound interest in clinical practice, carried out experimental procedures in the anatomical laboratories adjacent to his office, became the preeminent educator of the psychiatric leaders of the next generation, and continuously served as an ardent advocate of community programs. Simultaneously, he collaborated with leaders in other clinical departments to develop psychosomatic programs (including liaison activities) and also kept abreast of larger philosophic, social, and political events. Keeping abreast was not an extraneous abstraction but involved friendship and collaboration with an impressive array of scholars, politicians, and moral philosophers.
It is likely, of course, that American psychiatry would have changed direction even without Meyer, but its contour and evolution were deeply influenced by him. It took a very special leader, however, to effect a turning of psychiatry toward a new direction. His solid biological roots gave special credence to his emphasis upon the patient as a person; simultaneously, his interest in social and community phenomena could not be brushed away as irrelevant abstractions. Kraepelin and his American counterparts had been challenged by a worthy critic who shook the lugubrious roots of the concept of dementia praecox. S. Wei Mitchell's 1894 challenge (8) to psychiatry to solidify its scientific and medical foundations was being answered by a leader with impeccable medical and scientific credentials. A mood of hope and of increasing capacity to cope with the enormous problems began to spread through the new scientific and academic institutes created by Meyer and his students. Many of these students became the directors and chairs of the major psychiatric departments across the country and also overseas. As they began to confront the many issues, however, progress was not easy. Hundreds of thousands of patients were housed in deteriorating institutions; treatment techniques and methods were unspecific; and the number of trained practitioners was much too small for the demands upon them. Just as the first rays of light began to seep through the end of the tunnel, World War 11 occurred and American psychiatry became absorbed in a momentous maelstrom that challenged many fundamental tenets.
THE DOMINANCE OF DIVERGENT THERAPEUTIC IDEOLOGIES INCLUDING THE IMPORTANT IMPACT OF PSYCHOANALYSIS IN THE POST-WORLD WAR 11 YEARS
World War II produced massive upheavals beyond the preemptive political and military events that changed the future course of history. In the wake of larger changes, old boundaries and barriers between nations became more permeable so that both people and ideas moved from one part of the world to another. The movement included the emigration of brilliant psychoanalysts to Western Europe, the United States, and Canada.
For American psychiatry these events precipitated significant qualitative changes that have been well documented in many excellent publications. In this paper I wish to emphasize a few aspects of these changes, which, at least m part, have not been emphasized enough.
The large number of American psychiatric casualties among our troops had riveted public attention to what began to be understood as a serious national problem. Wide publicity about new techniques to deal with traumatic neuroses, as developed by an able cadre of military psychiatrists, also had a significant impact. (I was fortunate enough to work for many years with Roy Grinker [9] and learned much about those heady days.)
What I wish to emphasize in this paper is that all of these postwar changes were engrafted upon the predisposing tendencies engendered during the Meyerian turning point. The uncompleted psychobiological revolution had opened new possibilities to concentrate upon the person and upon the individual clinical case. Biological psychiatry had not met the earlier challenges fully and gradually began to feel isolated. The dawn of a more concentrated effort at social and community psychiatry had been encouraged by Meyer himself. Most Important, Meyer had directly and indirectly supported the development of psychoanalysis in the United States; but by the early 1950s psychoanalysis superseded psychobiology and in fact paid only cursory attention to it.
In some quarters (Sargant [10] in the United Kingdom, among others) it was believed that psychoanalysis had taken over United States psychiatry lock, stock, and barrel. This perception was incorrect because, in fact, it overlooked competing ideologies (e.g., in social and biological psychiatry) that frequently challenged psychoanalysis, adding to the siege mentality that consistently pervaded the field. Nevertheless, psychoanalysis developed enormous academic institutional power and affected significant hospitals, associations, and their leaders. Equally, perhaps even more important, ideas and practices throughout the field were profoundly influenced. Repeatedly, I have emphasized one change that is only beginning to be understood by decision makers. Psychoanalysis altered the boundaries of psychiatry radically in terms of its implicit definition of psychopathology and its implicit concepts of what psychiatrists should do and should not do. Freud's Psychopathology of Everyday Life (11), in the context of his brilliantly written clinical examples and structural concepts, led to an assumption of the near universality of psychopathology. When psychoanalytic theory was coupled with equally profound changes in child and adolescent psychiatry, the world of nosology was given a near-mortal wound.
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I KNOW THE WORDS BY HEART
Like apples of gold in silver settings, is a Word spoken in the right circumstances. Proverbs 16:11
It is Sunday. I am in church surrounded by Words. But, they are good Words, full of love and graceful forgiveness. And then it happens, coming without warning or announcement. I see her and the sight preaches louder than any preacher could.
The little girl is about five years old. She is caught in the web of her father's arms, sweetly trapped and seeking no escape. There is such a look of peace and contentment on her face. She is nearing sleep with her nose in the creases of his neck. I know she can smell and feel him. Feel the rough scratchiness of his hurried Sunday morning shave and smell the birthday cologne, he splashed on this morning. I know by the gentle whispers that he is telling her Words, three precious Words. I am there with her, wishing to have been her. I am jealous. I know it is her time with her father and somehow I am intruding upon them. I never had those sort of times; they were times that were never to have been mine. I still want them. But, I have given up looking for that which can never be found.
The family that I was born into was cold. Not the bitter, biting cold of the North, but the nippy, nervous cold that troubles the South. The kind that makes you draw clothes and feelings more closely about you.
My father was a college educated man who lived in the world of books and Words. It was a good life. My mother never finished elementary school. She lived in the world of my father. It was not a good life. Where my father had romance, adventure and contentment between the pages of his books; my mother found drudgery, tears and resentment between the pages of her life. He had all that he wanted. She had nothing that she needed. Into this patch of cold, dry Words I came, ready and willing as a sponge to soak up the love and attention that I needed. It did not take long to discover that this was a dead and unfruitful place, full of empty Words.
Words can be magical and mystical. They are more powerful than can be imagined. They are death and life, written in ink on paper. Just think of it, Words can kill and heal, fix and tear down. They can bring joy or absolute sadness. They can control or set us free.
It was a world of Words that I received from my father. The harsh, loud, authoritarian Words of a dictionary, so unlike the honey-soft and slow Words of my mother. Truly from my father though I only asked for three Words. Only three Words, out of the millions that I heard him speak. Only three, was that so much to ask for? But, out of his wealth of Words, he could not give me these, I love you.
Now the pages of his book have ended; his Words have ceased to be. I will never hear them from him. He has been gone almost ten years now, but the indelible mark of that loss is there. It is like a dead body that needs to be buried but I can't find the proper grave. Before he died, I had the chance to give to him the Words he never gave to me. Words that before, I had only been able to write quickly in casual letters. I had never been able to say them either.
My last chance came as it always does on that clarion call known as the deathbed. He was not fully conscious. His life was slipping away as fast as my heart was beating. This was the moment to break the bond of Words that held me. I could tell him the magic Words and stop the evil legacy. I could tell him, Daddy, I love you. Dying, he could not respond with embarrassment or anger. He would be too weak to fight and kill my magical life-giving Words. Holding his hand, I said, "Daddy, I..................It was too late. He was already gone. I hope there are books and Words in heaven.
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Although Rotel may not be a familiar brand name to many American audiophiles, it has long had a solid reputation in Britain for producing good-sounding, moderate-priced equipment. This Japanese company has now introduced a high- end line in the United States; the line includes a tuner, a phono preamp and equalizer, a passive preamp, and the two products under review, the RHB-10 power amplifier and RHA- 10 preamplifier. The amp sells for about $2,700, and the preamp for about $1,800.
I initially approached these two components with some trepidation. Far too many Japanese companies' attempts at high-end amps and preamps have emphasized features over sound quality. The technical excellence of such units seemed to be the product of a committee of engineers unsupervised by anyone who actually listens. The end result has been products that have outstanding specs and test performance but that fail to provide musicality to match their technical achievements. The RHB-10 and RHA-10, however, combine both technical and musical excellence. Rotel has produced two excellent high-end units and has a design team that can listen!
My first indication of how good the RHB-10 power amplifier is came from my eldest son. He does a great deal of my unpacking and hookup work, and has gotten used to constant changes in my electronics. He normally greets new amplifiers with total indifference, but when he turned on the RHB-10, he reacted immediately by saying, "That sounds really good!"
Extended listening with a wide range of speakers confirmed my son's praise. The RHB-10 is rated at 200 watts into 8 ohms, 330 watts into 4 ohms, and a higher power level into 2 ohms. Such ratings are not uncommon for today's transistor power amplifiers, but the amps often prove disappointing in terms of driving difficult loads and are unpredictable in terms of performance with particular speakers. The RHB-10 exhibited neither of these problems. It performed well with my Apogee Divas, Thiel CS-5s, Quad ESL-63s, Spendor BC-1s, and a pair of custom-built small monitors that have extremely demanding crossovers and impedance.
I experience no problems with the amp's power- protection circuitry, even when committing the usual round of "stupid reviewer tricks" during various hook-ups. On the other hand, internal wiring changes allow you to bypass this protection if you are a purist who demands the minimum circuitry possible between amplifier and speakers.
The RHB-10 is superbly built, and its styling is more typical of European components than it is of Japanese. If you open the chassis, you find two mono amplifiers with large individual toroidal power amplifiers. Each channel has a very sophisticated and highly regulated power supply, and the gain stages are laid out in a symmetrical design, with a fully complementary push-pull differential amplifier that feeds two emitter-followers stages. The output stages use a Darlington quadruple parallel circuit that is also completely symmetrical and is mirrored top, bottom, left, and right. The RHB-10 has exceptionally large heat-sinks, a clean circuit layout, and excellent standards of construction. Rotel has used high-quality passive components, such as 1% Visha%; resistors, LCR/Wima capacitors, and high purity copper wiring.
Most important, the Rotel RHB-10 is musical. It has an overall timbre that is just slightly warm, where most Japanese electronics tend to be just a bit lean or analytic. It neither rolls off the highs nor exaggerates the lower midrange and upper bass at the expense of bass depth, control, or power.
The RHB-10 is not an "ultimate" amp in the sense of a Classe Audio M 1000 or Krell MLA-300. It cannot deliver the same kind of deep bass extension and dynamics, but its bass is very good indeed. Music that often seems slightly dead in the bass and lower midrange with mid-fi or moderate-quality high-end power amplifiers, such as strong bass lines in jazz and rock, comes alive with the Rotel. At the same time, percussion does not lose detail, and guitar is not altered in overall timbre.
The midrange is exceptionally sweet and does not lose detail or transparency. Many Japanese-made high-end amplifiers have excellent signal-to-noise specifications and performance but limited midrange transparency and life. With the RHB-10, you can really enjoy low-level midrange detail and listen to voice without fear of hearing a change in character or of having voice go hard or flat. Many transistor amplifiers are a bit unkind to female vocalists, particularly untrained soprano voices. The Rotel will not compensate for vocal weaknesses, but it has the kind of midrange that allows you to get the best out of solo voice. The same is true of demanding instruments like the violin and harpsichord.
The upper midrange and treble are equally well defined; no one will ever accuse the RHB-10 of lacking highs. It offers transparency and low-level definition without an apparent brightness or edge. One of the most critical tests of a power amplifier is whether it provides exceptional upper midrange detail and the ability to resolve upper midrange harmonics, low-level detail, and transients in a way that is as musically natural as the source material and front-end components allow. The upper midrange and treble of the Rotel RHB-10, though just a bit short of reference quality, are outstanding for an amplifier in its price range.
The soundstage performance of the RHB-10 is equally good. The amp reproduces virtually all of the soundstage information on a recording without contracting it, expanding it, or altering its apparent location in space. (I have several DAT cassettes of solo instruments that I recorded live. I keep notes with these tapes on the location, apparent size, and sound character of the guitar, drum set, and piano I recorded.) The RHB-10 does an excellent job of handling image size, some very low-level soundstage data, and left-to-right placement. It also does very well in reproducing layers of depth with more complicated music--although I am highly leery of saying that the depth of orchestral or any other complicated music is ever captured naturally on a recording and that it can ever be reproduced accurately in a home listening room.
The Rotel is scarcely unique in being mechanically and electronically quiet. In fact, I would deem unreviewable, and instantly return, any high-end transistor power amplifier that had fan noise, mechanical hum, or any electronic noise or hum that was audible in the listening position. There are so many top-quality amps without such defects that even minimal noise is totally unacceptable! The RHB-10, however, does deserve high praise for being remarkably free of the kind of low-level noise that nags at the edges of your perception. You can listen further into the music than is common with amplifiers in its price range.
My single reservation about the RHB-10 concerns its ergonomics and is a bit petty. The WBT output terminals for speaker connections do an excellent job of accommodating large bare wires, but they will not fit the standard spade lugs used by many high-end speaker cable manufacturers in the U.S. On the other hand, Rotel does recommend its own "6 nines" copper speaker cable. This cable is not a rival of the best American cables (such as products from AudioQuest, OCOS, Kimber, Tara Labs, and Wireworld), but it is of very high quality.
If I have slightly less praise for the RHA-10 preamp, it is not because it, too, is not an excellent- sounding unit. Like the RHB-10, it is superbly built, uses high-quality and custom-designed components, and has a very attractive European styling. This is the kind of unit that you want to display rather than hide in a cabinet.
The RHA-10 also reflects Rotel's emphasis on actually listening, rather than taking sound for granted as many mid-fi designers do. The preamp uses a specially designed four-gang attenuator as a volume control, Vishay resistors, high-precision switches with gold-plated contacts, and a power supply with a very high-quality toroidal transformer. Circuitry is on a double-sided, high-grade glass-fiber board, with specially formulated extra-thick copper tracks on the bottom and copper shielding on the top. If the extra care taken on this circuit board design seems like gilding the lily, let me note that every high-end electronics designer I know has found that different types of circuit board really do have a significant impact on the nuances of sound quality.
The circuitry is similar to the symmetrical, push-pull topology used in the rest of the new Rotel line. Rotel feels that it contributes to the preservation of subtle phase differences between the two channels and that it presents a highly detailed soundstage with a great deal of depth.
Features include low-impedance outputs that allow very long interconnects, three regular line-level inputs, and two tape loops. A tape buffer amplifier is intended to eliminate any possibility that hookup to a tape unit will degrade the signal to the power amplifier, and there is a record output switch with five positions plus a separate control for switching the tape output off. All of the inputs are mechanically switched, and an input is only connected to the ground plane when it is active. This feature may seem unimportant, but it is surprising how many high-end preamps allow trace levels of signal to go from one input to another--particularly when a tape monitor output is being fed into the preamp. Two sets of RCA outputs allow for biamping or other uses.
These features are typical of today's "minimalist" high-end preamps, where the goal is the lest possible coloration of the signal. At the same time, I do have three minor reservations about the features of the RHA-10:
* There are no balanced inputs or outputs. This will be unimportant when the RHA-10 is used with the RHB-10 or in an installation free of hum fields and other sources of noise. Most of today's top preamps do, however, have at least one balanced input and one balanced output.
* It may make sense for a manufacturer to assign numbers to the inputs on a unit intended to be exported, rather than assigning them names, but I find names more convenient.
* The RHA-10 does have a remote control that can also be used with the Rotel RHT-10 turner, but the remote does not have a balance control. I find the ability to adjust balance via a remote control to be a real advantage. I have a great many CDs and records where a slight adjustment of balance is needed to lock in left-to-right imaging and depth. Perhaps if a balance control was called a soundstage control, its importance might receive more widespread recognition.
What counts most in a high-end product, however, is sound quality, and the RHA-10 is very competitive with other preamps in its price range. Its sound largely duplicates the sound of the RHB-10. It is very neutral in overall timbre and frequency response, with no touch of transistor leanness. It does not alter the highs or bass to reduce or emphasize either frequency extreme.
Bass extension and dynamics are fully competitive with the better high-end U.S. designs, with a high-quality deep bass that is missing in many imported preamps. Percussion and string bass have excellent transient and harmonic detail.
The midrange is neutral and transparent, although a few U.S.-made high-end line preamps provide slightly more low-level and transient detail. Reproduction of voice and solo instruments is excellent, particularly violin, piano, and guitar. Resolution of complex choral passages and grand opera is very good to excellent, and very musical.
The upper midrange and treble are largely unaffected by the RHA-10 preamp, with the same transparency, low-level definition, and lack of apparent brightness or edge as the RHB-10 amp. The sound of the upper octaves is determined far more by the other active and passive components in the system than by the RHA-10, although there is a minor loss of sweetness and harmonic detail compared to the upper octaves of the best high-end designs.
The soundstage performance of the RHA-10 is very good to excellent--even in comparison with the top high-end units. Soundstage width and depth are very natural, as is the presentation of left-to-right imaging and layers of depth. Some other units do a slightly better job of reproducing very low-level soundstage detail and musical dynamics, and the RHA-10 does tend to move the apparent listening position just slightly forward. At the same time, the RHA-10 matches the RHB-10 in providing an exceptional apparent signal-to-noise ratio and in being electronically quiet.
In broad terms, the RHA-10 provides excellent sound quality and highly musical performance. It is a fact of life, however, that any line-stage preamplifier costing over $1,000 that does not provide excellent sound quality will simply not be competitive in today's market. The state of the art has advanced to the point where a colored or noisy unit is more an irritating curiosity than a serious product--except for those audiophiles who want a preamp to act as a euphonic equalizer more than they want a neutral preamp. As a result, a line-stage preamp must be judged by its features and the relatively minor sonic nuances of the kind I have just described, or it must provide an extraordinary level of excellence at a given price point. The RHA-10 is fully competitive at its price point, but it does have competition.
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W2A-028-0.txt
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INTRODUCTION
There is a lack of information on the environmental fate of herbicides used for silvicultural purposes in the Lake states region. Water quality is an important issue, and pesticides are a major focal point of public concern. Pesticide persistence and mobility in the soil are key factors in water-quality issues. Knowledge of herbicide half-lives and leaching characteristics in forested environments is limited primarily to data from southern or western states; little research has been done in the Lake states or the Northeast [1]. The objective of this study was to determine the environmental fate of three soil-active herbicides - - hexazinone, sulfometuron methyl, and tebuthiuron (Velpar L?, Oust? (E.I. du Pont de Nemours Inc., Wilmington, DE), and Spike? (DowElanco Inc., Indianapolis, IN))-- in low base saturated sand soils that had been preconditioned by treatment with acidified rainwater for four years.
The behavior of a chemical in the soil is determined by properties of both the chemical and the soil environment [2]. Important properties of herbicides are water solubility, soil adsorption, chemical and photodegradation, microbial breakdown, and volatility [3]. Primary environmental conditions include precipitation amount and distribution, temperature, soil type, organic matter content, and pH. Large areas of low base saturated sand soils in the Lake states region are subject to acidification by atmospheric deposition [4]. Interactions among atmospheric deposition, soil acidity, organic matter content, the environmental fate of herbicides, and their potential effects on water quality have not been investigated. We hypothesized that the combination of coarse soil texture, low base saturation, low organic matter content, and preconditioning would represent worst-case conditions likely to be encountered in the upper Lake states region. This paper reports effects of litter-humus treatments, amount of applied precipitation, soil characteristics, and rainwater acidity on behavior of the three herbicides.
METHODS
Materials
Lysimeters were used to determine the mobility and dissipation of the soil-active herbicides hexazinone [3-cyclohexyl-6-(dimethylamino)-1-methyl-1,3,5-triazine-2,4(1H, 3H)- dione]; sulfometuron methyl (methyl 2- [[[[(4,6-dimethyl-2- pyrimidinyl) amino]-carbonyl]amino]sulfonyl]benzoate); and tebuthiuron (N - [5- (1,1-dimethylethyl)-1,3,4-thiadiazol-2-yl]-N, N'- dimethylurea) in acid sandy soils. 14C-labeled hexazinone, sulfometuron methyl, and tebuthiuron were used to spike the commercial formulation of each product. The specific activities of [14C]carbonyl hexazinone, [14C]phenyl sulfometuron methyl, and [14C]5- thiadiazole-ring tebuthiuron were 263.1, 218.3, and 429.2 kBq/mg, respectively.
Lysimeters
Detailed soil and site characteristics and lysimeter methodology were reported previously [4]. Briefly, intact soil columns were collected in 15- x 150-cm polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipes from six sites on national forest in northeastern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, and Upper Michigan in October 1984. The sites were selected to provide soils with either 0 to 10 or 10 to 20%; base saturation. The soil columns were transported to the Forestry Sciences Laboratory at Grand Rapids, Minnesota (47?20'N, 93?30'W). Lysimeters were constructed by sealing the base of each with a watertight PVC cap and instrumenting it with 70-? m porous polyethylene filters to sample soil water at the 10-,20-,40-, and 150- cm levels. The completed columns were installed at the original soil depth to maintain normal soil temperatures and atmospheric conditions. They were covered with Fiberglass shelters at night and during rainstorms to exclude dust and ambient rainfall.
Preconditioning
To minimize variation in forest floor thickness among soil columns, the litter- humus layer was removed from each and replaced with a cap prepared from 400 g of coarsely ground litter-humus from a jack pine or mixed hardwood stand or with an equal weight of quartz sand. Kentucky-31 bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.) was established on each to stabilize the cap and to provide an active root system. Rainwater was collected from a greenhouse roof, stored at 3 to 52C in a polyethylene tank, and acidified to pH 5.4 or 4.2 with a 1:1 solution of HNO3 + H2SO4. Half of the soil columns received rainwater acidified to pH 5.4, and the other half received rainwater at pH 4.2. Applications were made weekly throughout the growing season, and the leachate was collected periodically. During the four-year preconditioning period, a total of 4,600 mm of water was applied.
Design and treatment
The study was conducted using a randomized complete block design with four herbicide treatments, including an untreated control, applied to soils from each of the six sites, with six replications. Thus, each herbicide treatment was applied to 36 soil columns, for a total of 144 lysimeters. The herbicides were applied to the surface of the soils on July 28, 1989; application rates of active ingredient (a.i.) were 2.24kg/ha of hexazinone (47.9kBq 14C per lysimeter), 42.5 g/ha of sulfometuron methyl (47.0 kBq 14C per lysimeter), and 2.24 kg/ha of tebuthiuron (93.4 kBq 14C per lysimeter). On the following day, 10 ml of 1.0 M NaCl solution was applied to each column as a conservative ion tracer to indicate the Cl- breakthrough volume. Acidified rainwater was applied to the columns once weekly at rates to approximate the actual precipitation recorded at an adjacent official weather station. The amount of water applied substantially exceeded actual precipitation on three treatment dates, both to enable collection of sufficient sample volume at the upper soil levels and to simulate rainfall representative of worst-case conditions. Soil water was collected once at the 10-, 20-, and 40-cm levels and 10 times at the 150-cm level over the 130 of post-treatment. At each sample date, all leachate was collected and weighed; subsamples were subsequently analyzed for herbicides and 24 chemical parameters. Samples were stored at 3 to 52C until all analyses were completed.
Analyses
Concentrations of Cl- in leachate were measured with an ion chromatograph (Dionex Corporation, Sunnyvale, CA). 14C was determined in a 3.0-ml subsample by liquid scintillation counting techniques with correction for quenching and background. Count rates were converted to concentration of chemical in solution. The 14C was confirmed to be parent compound by HPLC analyses using a Hewlett Packard (Avondale, PA) model HP 1090 with a Radiomatic flow detector (Radiomatic Instruments, Meriden, CT) with C8 and C18 columns and different solvent systems and comparing retention times of samples to standards. The 14C was predominantly parent compounds with trace amounts of unidentified metabolites. Losses due to plant uptake and degradation were not considered. The recovered 14C was analyzed by concentration (micrograms per liter) and total amount (percentage of a.i. applied). Data were evaluated by analysis of variance (ANOVA) with leachate volume as a covariate. Treatment differences were tested with the least significant difference (LSD) procedure [5].
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Ambient precipitation for the 60-d post-treatment period was 254 mm, 96 mm above the 50-year mean [6]. Elevated Cl- concentrations appeared in leachate collected at the 150-cm level 45 d post-treatment, after 154 mm of rainwater had been applied (Table 1), indicating displacement of the initial soil solution from the lysimeters. Thus, the 440 mm of water applied during the 130-d study period was approximately three times the mean pore volume of the soils and double the 50-year average precipitation for this area.
Rainwater pH had no significant effect on herbicide movement, apparently due to high soil acidity. In 1984, before the acid rain treatments began, pH of the surface 40 cm of soil (in 0.02 M CaCl2) from four of the six sites averaged 4.3 [4]; current acidity has not been determined.
Leaching of the three herbicides differed significantly by litter-humus treatment, quantity of applied rainwater, and soil characteristics. The variation in mobility reflects differences in their physical and chemical properties. Sulfometuron methyl has a short half-life and is not readily soluble, particularly under acidic conditions [7,8]. From 80 to 130 d post-treatment, no sulfometuron methyl was detected below the 20-cm level (Table 2), and none was found in leachate at 150 cm at any sample date. By 80 d post-treatment, the 14C activity was near background level, suggesting that most of the compound had been degrade [8] or irreversibly sorbed into the upper soil layers.
Concentrations of hexazinone and tebuthiuron at 10 and 20 cm were, respectively, nearly two and fivefold greater than those at 150 cm, indicating that most of the products remain in the upper portion of the profiles after the first growing season. Tebuthiuron is about 10 times as soluble as sulfometuron, as reflected by the higher concentrations at the 10- and 20-cm levels and its presence lower in the profiles. It was detected in leachate at the 150-cm level from 12 of the 36 treated soil columns. Hexazinone is highly soluble and is subject to both lateral and vertical movement under conditions conducive to leaching [9]. Under the conditions of this study, hexazinone reached the 150- cm level in 31 of the 36 lysimeters. Measurable concentrations of hexazinone first appeared in leachate at 150 cm from seven of the 36 columns 52 d post- treatment (Table 3). Tebuthiuron was first detected in leachate from two lysimeters 66 d post-treatment after 286 mm of water had been applied. The highest concentrations of both hexazinone and tebuthiuron occurred 80 d post- treatment (Table 3), following application of 44 mm of water over the previous two-week period, the smallest application since displacement of the pore volume (Table 1). These results agree with both field plot and watershed studies. In a field study in Alberta, Canada, Feng et al. [10] found an inverse relation between hexazinone concentrations and leachate volume. In catchment-scale studies, very large storms generally do not result in high chemical concentrations due to dilution by large flow volumes; the intermediate storms frequently produce the higher concentrations [11].
The amounts of both hexazinone and tebuthiouron reaching the 150-cm level varied significantly by collection date, due to amount of applied rainwater. The above average ambient precipitation following herbicide application and consequent heavy rainwater applications undoubtedly contributed to the quantity of materials reaching the 150-cm level [12]. Bowman [13] documented greater mobility and leaching of two triazine herbicides in soil cores that received supplemental watering, compared to those that received natural rainfall. The relation between leachate volume and the percentage of each product recovered at the 150-cm level was highly significant (p <0.01, r =0.71 for hexazinone and r =0.44 for tebuthiuron).The higher coefficient for hexazinone reflects its greater solubility Beckie and McKercher [14] found a close relation between the position of the wetting front in soil columns and movement of two sulfonylurea herbicides, suggesting a high leaching potential in coarse textured soils. The greatest amount of both products at the 150-cm level occurred 101 d post-treatment (Table 3), following application of 88 mm of water, the largest treatment of the year (Table 10). This treatment amount is nearly equivalent to a 25-h rainfall of 3.5 in. (8.9 cm); the probability of a storm of this magnitude at this site is one in 10 years [15].
Leaching of both hexazinone and tebuthiuron differed substantially by site (Table 4). Movement of tebuthiuron is determined largely by soil properties. It is strongly adsorbed by organic matter and clay particles [16,17], resulting in large differences among sites in both concentration and amount of recovered chemical. No tebuthiuron reached 150-cm level in soils from sites 2 or 3, where pH of the surface 40 cm of soil was 4.7 and base saturation averaged 22%;. Small amounts were recovered from the four more acidic sites, where pH averaged 4.3 and mean base saturation was <6%;. The soils of sites 2 and 3 were classified as Aquic Udipsamments; the other four sites were either Entic Haplorthods, Typic Udipsamments, or Spodic Udipsamments [4]. These data suggest that soil pH and base saturation of the upper horizons, in conjunction with soil classification, may be of value in identifying sites where tebuthiuron is likely to leach below the rooting zone. On these same sites, soil properties had far less influence on movement of hexazinone. Despite the twofold difference in both concentration and percentage of hexazinone among the six sites, the differences were not significant (p >0.05).
The litter-humus treatments had a most pronounced effect on leaching of both hexazinone and tebuthiuron (Table 5). Humus type (hardwood pine) did not significantly affect movement of hexazinone; however, hardwood humus was particularly effective in retaining tebuthiuron in the upper portion of the profiles. The lack of a litter-humus cover increased the amount of hexazinone reaching the 150-cm level by nearly threefold and that of tebuthiuron by nearly fivefold.
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W2C-007-1.txt
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FAIRFAX CITY OBSTETRICIAN MARIO ESPINOLA DIES AT 65
Mario Emilio Espinola, 65, a retired Fairfax City obstetrician and gynecologist, died of a heart attack April 28 at a hospital in Miami Beach.
In practice in Fairfax for 30 years, Dr. Espinola moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., in 1988.
He was a native of La Vega, Dominican Republic. He attended the medical school of the University of Santo Domingo.
Dr. Espinola came to the United States in 1948 to intern in New York City at Beth David Hospital. His residency training was in New Jersey, at Sibley Hospital here and at the Morrisania City Hospital in the Bronx, N.Y.
He served in the Army as a captain.
Dr. Espinola was a vice president of the Fairfax County Medical Society And belonged to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
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W2F-012-0.txt
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MISTAH LEE
John Cho
Lee runs the rough blade of his cutlass across the ruddy, smooth skin of the guinea mango; the chipped edge catches, piercing the epidermis, slicing out cleanly a thick, convex piece, the sticky, acrid juice flowing through his holding hand. He sets aside the seed-exposed main body, cups the independent piece in his hand and scores the almost translucent meat into a grid-like pattern with the blunt blade-tip, criss-cross, criss-cross, I wonder if this seed would take hold back home. He inverts the convexity into a concavity, the skin turned inside-out, the flesh now exposed in bite-size rectangular chunks as if they grew that way--discrete, logical, vulnerable. He bites into the slippery morsels, heedless of the mildly caustic syrup that trickles down his jaw, throat, bare chest. A gust blows across the veranda where he is sitting, streaking the juice across his abdomen.
The dim outline of the Fouta Djalon mountains on the horizon is rapidly being shrouded by the black-as-coal-smoke tropical cumulonimbus clouds, thunderheads roiling over the top, silent lightning flashes backlighting random sections. Lee flings the still inside-out skin, now bereft of all flesh, frisbee-style, out toward the rice field. It soars amazingly far, its particular geometry creating an airfoil, cutting across the strong wind, landing in a tangle of cassava plants. He is proud of this small discovery-he wonders if the ancient Africans had little flying toys for their amusement. When Saidu comes for the evening water he will ask him if he knows this trick.
The temperature and light is decreased drastically as if night had fallen prematurely. Watching vainly for signs of goosebumps on his body, Lee quickly finishes the remainder of the mango and fetches and places a bucket under the spout coming down from a corner of the roof.
The wind is falling off. The first of the raindrops are announcing their arrival on the zinc pan roof; scattered rim shots soon give way to a continuum of a thousand snare drums beating, beating.
As Lee continues to bask in the relative cool of the deflected mist he notices a bucket bobbing up from the bramble bushes that lead down to the swamp. The expected head then appears beneath the bucket, then the upper body of a woman. She is walking briskly and smoothly, spinal column perfectly vertical, arms at the sides, the bucket swaying slightly to and fro but stably as if it were just a decorative hat one put on nonchalantly. As the path from the swamp to the village passed next to his house, following custom, Lee had to greet everyone who went by. Sometimes he would duck inside his house when he spotted a group of old women coming in from their farms--they spoke neither Krio nor English and Lee was somewhat embarrassed and frustrated by his continuing inability to learn Limba past the few basic phrases. They still derived a great deal of amusement from the mangled speech of this whiteman, this grown man who preferred to wear shorts and who did not have a wife to cook meals for him.
The full figure of the woman is now visible, the lower half wrapped by a lappa, the torso plastered by a drenched T-shirt, the inscription on which is faded and indecipherable from this distance. It is clear now that she is a young woman, her well-defined breasts yet undrooped by the rigor of the child-rearing years. As she approaches his house her face remains obscured by the shadow of the bucket, an anonymous figure within the isolating walls of the deluge.
Lee prepares himself for a greeting, but the girl--she looks even younger now--keeps moving up the path, head unturned by his existence, in unbroken rhythm as if entranced. He can make out the words on the T-shirt: "Go climb the mountain. He recognizes it and realizes that she has it on backwards--the phrase should be on the back, not the front. Acting upon some newly intransigent impulse he calls out to her.
" Eh, sistah. You no de greet me?"
She turns her head slowly toward him, the extra moment of the bucket resisting sudden rotation.
" Mistah Lee."
With a little start he realizes that he knows this girl, then after a short delay his mind assembles her identity: Fatmata Jalloh, pupil in Form II. Not an outstanding student, somewhat lethargic, but socially well-adjusted. She is particularly at a loss in his math class, but this doesn't seem to weigh upon her mind, and as she looks at him now he feels no heat of resentment, no opacity of shame in her eyes. She stares at him, not moving, not saying anything further. Lee's unsettling impulse falters for a moment but makes him continue.
" Come here, Fatu."
He switches to schoolhouse English and invests his words with the authority of a teacher giving instruction. Wordlessly she comes to him on the veranda; she stays standing just outside the cover of the roof, the bucket on her head catching the thicker curtain that falls from the edge.
" Put the bucket down and come under."
Keeping her back straight she bends down on one knee then lowers the bucket from her head. Water sloshes close to the rim; under its surface are the tight knots of washed and wrung garments. She stands on the concrete floor of the porch, stares at the amorphous puddles of water growing around her bare feet. Lee is squatting on a foot-high, woven raffia stool, watching her static expression; he has seen this face many times before: the bank teller in town eating a bean sandwich and sipping her lukewarm bottle of Vimto with unbelievable languor, eyes in the general direction of the mildewy Krio sign painted on the wall, "KEEP YOU KOPOH NAR BARCLAYS," while waiting customers--"businessmen," market women, civil servants, farmers-stand sweating in the crowded lobby, warding off with a "shilling" the occasional beggar that wanders in, but each one mirroring the same mask of negation, an anti-expression, that the teller wears signalling that time is suspended, that no transactions are to take place at that moment; it is somehow like the Taoist's "uncarved block" and the mu on which Zen practitioners meditate; and yet it is an effortless state and one from which the subject can abruptly explode into violent laughter in response to a neighbor's ribald joke. Whenever he confronts this wall (as he perceives it), Lee feels desperately alone.
As he gazes up at Fatu, he feels an extension of the same strange impulse that made him call out to her; for no reason that he could fathom his heart is racing. In a mock stern voice he says, "You know you should greet everyone you meet, especially your own teacher."
" Yes, Mistah Lee."
God, what an asshole I'm being, 'mt it is only with the next words that come out of his mouth that he understands why his pulse is pounding in his stomach: "Fatu, let we go siddohn small."
Fatmata Jalloh, daughter of a Fula entrepreneur who had wandered south of the colonial border as a young man to start the first bread bakery in Kukuna and a Limba mother who sold palm oil at the market, Fatu, at age fourteen, a responsible member of the Bundu society, a good Moslem who said her prayers then went to a Catholic secondary school where, uniformed in a bright azure schooldress, she learned the skills necessary to be a fine, modern African woman: English, History, Home Ec., P. E., Agric., Bible, Maths, Geography, Forensics, and Religious Knowledge; she, who had inherited the café au lait complexion and the petite, angular features of the Fula, raised her eyes at Lee, who was now standing, and giggled. It is, however, a momentary outburst. She quickly falls back to her previous state, eyes now staring past the dried mango stains cutting diagonally across Lee's smooth chest.
Lightning strikes strobelight the squall-induced murk, thunder arriving almost simulaneously as soft kicks in the gut. The proposition somehow being articulated by someone he barely recognized, the border crossing completed, Lee now feels compelled, without choice, to explore the new moral territory that has been handed to him. His perceptions continue to operate displaced: he watches as his hand reaches out to take Fatu's arm, but force is not necessary, they move together inside. He sees their journey in snapshots, each lightning stroke exposing two portraits: Fatu's tin bracelet flashing bridal-white and its dark image on the wall, glimpse of a shadowy shackle. He reaches under his bed for the Peace Corps medical kit through which he fumbles for a vestige of insensible sensibility; then under the mosquito net they go, hands quickly denuding body of wet things.
After a while it becomes clear that Fatu does not have any idea of what is going on but is very aware of the idea of it. Little gasps of pain and disjointed giggles; odd rushes of sadism and alienation. The bed convulses in rhythm, its creaking cutting more and more through the dying rain. Mosquitos can be heard riding their high-pitched notes, a cluster chord in variable tuning, swarming along the folds of the netting, bouncing their hungry bellies against the flexuous lattice. Sweat streams down from his armpits, over the hip bones onto her pinned thighs; she is otherwise perfectly dry, the effects of the rain evaporated by her body heat; her skin silken, hairless, and absolutely blemishless save for the Bundu scars on her cheek and upper pudendum. Sunlight is already beginning to break through the departing clouds; the open window, guarded by two vertical "thief" bars, admits a sudden light that projects the warped square grid pattern of the mosquito netting on the supine body of Fatmata, malleable coordinates that shift with each jolt, the smooth landscape of her body defined geometrically and arbitrarily moment by moment. As her eyes come into focus she turns her head away from the brightness, her slender neck revealing perfect, taut sinews. The bed noise is alarmingly conspicuous without the rain, and soon people will be walking about again. For Lee privacy is still a precious commodity, but it only seems to come to him in small increments here in Kukuna.
Holiday...holiday...it would be so nice. Saidu loved to feel the squish of wet laterite between his toes as he dragged his feet along the puddles in the rutted path. He sang the refrain from the Madonna song over and over--he couldn't remember the verses--in a soft, accurate voice that remarkably resembled the original. She was not bad, but Michael Jackson was still his hero; every other page of his Geography notebook was filled with lyrics of My-Kell's hits from "Rock with You" to "Beat It" in a stylized, florid handwriting using black and red ball-point pens. One entire page was devoted to a sketch of the map of Mississippi, U.S.A., with a miniature figure of the Moonwalker gliding across the city of JACKSON, prominently marked in red and black ink. Saidu had discovered the home of his idol, not in Geography class, but on the map of America that Bruce Lee had on his bedroom wall. His discovery was confirmed by Mr. Lee himself: "Oh yeah. The town was named after him. He was, however, deeply disappointed when he learned that Bruce had no cassettes of Michael Jackson; in fact, that had been the first question that he had asked in class after Bruce had introduced himself as their new maths teacher from the United States (everyone was surprised; they had assumed he was Chinese). Of course, when they learned his name it became obvious who he really was: Mr. Lee? Bruce Lee, of course! There was no denying it--he looked just like he did on screen except a bit thinner. It didn't matter that Mr. Lee never admitted the fact--he was only concealing his identity until those evil men with their chained and flying weapons descended upon Kukuna in search of the Dragon. Then we'll 'll who's who. Saidu "Golden Fox" Momoh and the Kung Fu King will defend this village to the death! Ai-yaa! Golden Fox delivered a flying kick to the malevolent trunk of a flamboyant tree.
Hitching up the tan polyester shorts that were always threatening to fall off the underside of his distended belly, Saidu suddenly paused to listen closely: some strange noises were coming from the back of Bruce's house that was now in full view. Quietly he stepped closer to the building. He couldn't hear anything now. Could it be... But not sensing any aura of danger he decided to call out, "M-mistah Lee! Mistah Lee, I have come for di watah! After a momentary silence during which Saidu's gaze darted around for quick cover from flying knives, an answer came from the bedroom window, "Saidu, didn't you notice the big rain? I' 'vegot a whole bucketful from the roof."
" A... Of course." Actually, Saidu knew perfectly well that Lee wouldn't want water from the swamp today; he had hoped to listen to Lee's radio for a while--it was the best one in all of Kukuna.
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W2E-008-0.txt
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A TALE OF TWO CITIES - - WITH MOST ON THE OUTSKIRTS
The Griffin legacy can best be described as a tale of two cities.
Frank Ciminelli described Griffin as a can-do guy; Bob Rich claims history will treat James Griffin kindly. Both Ciminelli and Rich benefited greatly over the last 16 years. The other tale comes from the "average Joe," the middle-lower income individual; in other words, the vast majority of the people who live in Buffalo.
Griffin's policy over the last 16 years was downtown at the expense of everything else. Yes, we built a few buildings downtown. I say "we" because the citizens paid through the nose.
How? Tax abatements, free grant money, low-interest loans, etc. What did we get? Nothing except low-paying jobs, empty offices, no major league team. In other words, nothing.
Our neighborhoods have suffered the most as a result of this philosophy. A few became richer and many became poorer.
Second, the Griffin administration never understood that our children are our most important resource. Griffin has kept the Board of Education in federal court for most of the last 16 years. Griffin had nothing to do with the success of the magnet schools. However, his administration has had a lot to do with the poor condition of our inner-city schools.
His commissioners have been found guilty or have been accused of stealing from the Parks Department and the children's lunch program.
We should guarantee our kids quality housing, recreational facilities and, most importantly, schools.
Third, the Griffin administration failed miserably on the ethical issues, mainly because the administration is racist. People of color and/or not the right ethnic background were left out.
People have become disenfranchised. The result is a disastrous crime rate, especially among our youth.
The Griffin legacy is one of separation and despair. History will not treat James Griffin kindly but fairly. His administration will remain in the ash heap of history, where it belongs.
Jack Torse</@ Buffalo SCHOOLS HAVE TO FACE UP TO PUPILS' TROUBLED LIVES; STATE SHOULD FORCE ATTENTION TO KIDS' PROBLEMS IDEALLY, teachers should walk into a classroom full of eager and attentive students and help them gain skills in math, science, English and other academic subjects. In too many instances, though, that is not the reality.
Students often come to school preoccupied, hurt or terribly torn by a myriad of social problems, including family breakdown, abuse, poverty and lack of any meaningful mental stimulation at home. Some of them require lots of encouragement and individual attention to focus their minds on their work. Others need more.
That is why it's encouraging that the state's Special Commission on Educational Structure, Policies and Practices recently recommended, among other things, that nearly two-thirds of New York schools be required to set up "family resource centers." They would provide a wide range of assistance to troubled families.
Schools in which more than 20 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches would be required, within three years, to hook up with community agencies to provide prenatal and parenting education, health and social services, job counseling and help for those with alcohol and drug problems.
The social services system is now so fragmented that many students and their families are bounced from agency to agency or simply go without appropriate care.
Educators may object to yet another state mandate and to the financial and administrative headaches involved in setting up school-based social service agencies. But because the alternatives are so grim, a state requirement should be given serious immediate consideration. Studies on educational reform often cause an initial stir and then simply gather dust. This one deserves better.
In fact, many schools already recognize the need to expand their traditional roles.
Kentucky has more than 300 school centers. New Jersey has at least one in every county.
Locally, Sweet Home Central Schools set up a family resources center this year. Its center parallels what is recommended by the state.
That program was created after a survey in which 73 percent of the Sweet Home teachers who responded identified lack of student motivation as a serious problem. Sixty-four percent cited angry, aggressive students as a detriment to learning.
" We're get 'reg to kids and parents we weren't reaching before," said Gary R. Cooper, district superintendent. "The program is working." There are other good examples in Western New York of schools trying to help students overcome the problems that come between them and learning.
The Buffalo school system has anti-drug counselors at some high schools, runs a school for unwed mothers and runs training courses in conflict resolution for students and teachers.
The Williamsville Central School District has an alternative high school that provides individual attention for students who have academic, disciplinary or adjustment problems.
But more needs to be done to deal with the personal troubles of troubled students.
The state report offers one possible answer. At the least, it should cause a search for other ways to help students who too often end up on unemployment lines, as high school drop-outs or as victims of the cycle of poverty and abuse.
BRING BACK THE ENGINEERS; IT'S WRONG TO DILUTE TOP PUBLIC-WORKS JOBS SEVERAL local governments in recent years have removed engineering qualifications from top-level jobs in the public works field. That's an error.
The notion seems to be that people with some sort of administrative ability can handle the jobs without having the technical background. But the public would be better served if the people heading governmental units concerned with buildings, roads, bridges and pipes had engineering training and experience. How can they command others in the field if they lack the technical knowledge and don't know the language of the trade? How can they make the proper judgments about safety? How can they keep from being fooled? Some examples: In 1988, Buffalo juggled the City Charter qualifications for the job of commissioner of public works so that David P. Comerford, a non-engineer and a political ally of Mayor Griffin's, could be appointed. Previously, the appointee had to be an engineer. Now, as administrations change, the Erie-Niagara Chapter of the State Society of Professional Engineers is urging that a professional engineer be appointed by Mayor-elect Anthony M. Masiello. Sure, the society is following its own self-interest, but that doesn't keep it from being right. While the Charter doesn't require an engineer, it doesn't prohibit one from being appointed. Masiello should find an engineer.
In September, the Buffalo Sewer Authority, controlled by Griffin, dumped its time-tested requirement that its top staff job, general manager, be held by an engineer. Comerford was duly appointed, probably making it possible for him to survive the change in administrations for a time. The next general manager should be an engineer.
In February, the Niagara Falls City Council dropped engineering requirements for public works director, and Dick Lucinski, a local television reporter, was named. There is now a Council resolution to restore the qualifications. It is spearheaded by a Democrat opposed to Republican Mayor Jacob A. Palillo, but, politics aside, the resolution is right. It says that knowledge of such things as concrete mixes, soil bearings and reinforcing steel strengths is important for a public works chief. Sometimes it's a matter of public safety. Top public-works jobs should be filled by professionals in the field. To properly command their departments, they should be familiar by education and experience with a range of technical matters that escape untrained mortals. For instance, they should be able to discourse about tensile strength without fumbling for a manual. Bring back the engineering requirements.
TIME FOR ALBANY TO RESIST ADDED CUTS IN SUNY BUDGET;
PUBLIC UNIVERSITY SYSTEM HAS BEEN HURT ENOUGH
LEADERS AT THE State University of New York and its flagship Buffalo campus have a problem. They have watched the system that is supposed to prepare the state's work force get squeezed by years of budget cuts, sapping much of its vitality.
Yet they can't scream too loudly for fear of scaring away students and faculty.
That leaves it up to state officials to recognize on their own the importance of the SUNY system, and particularly the university centers like UB. And it leaves it up to residents to demand that higher education not be treated like an ugly stepchild in the state budget each year.
SUNY has lost 9 percent of its faculty, 5 percent of its student enrollment and has eliminated 3,000 classes since 1987-88. That is hardly the way to maintain a first-rate public university system.
When students can't get the classes they want, have to sit in overcrowded lecture halls or take five years to graduate, SUNY is on its way down hill.
Nor is UB immune to the problems affecting the rest of the system. Hampered by union rules that restrict the ability to manage personnel and by a budget structure that makes no allowance for negotiated salary increases, UB officials say the campus has lost $ 28 million in real spending power since 1987-88, when inflation and the salary hikes are factored in. That translates into fewer offerings for students.
The problems are the same on other campuses, a fact illustrated in an alarming Newsday series that took an in-depth look at SUNY's many problems last year. The 1994 budget will provide another for state officials to prove that the promises made in the wake of that expose were more than just rhetoric.
SUNY officials are seeking a $ 1.5 billion budget, up 8 percent. That request comes at the same time that Cuomo has asked all departments to come in with budgets 2 percent lower than needed simply to hold the line.
That sets the stage for one more showdown that will illustrate just how well - - or how poorly - - Albany understands the role that higher education plays in the economic and cultural life of a state.
The SUNY request includes $ 10 million for graduate research facilities plus $ 5 million for auxiliary personnel and supplies necessary to attract top-flight researchers - - and the outside grants they bring - - to SUNY. Given that every dollar spent on graduate research attracts $ 3.50 in outside funding, that seems a smart investment.
But thinking in terms of education as an investment takes a foresight not always evident in Albany. UB officials - - who would get an extra $13 million under the SUNY request, and about 40 percent of the research money - - say they just want the state to stop the bleeding.
Considering that no will exists to raise tuition in an election year, SUNY is at the mercy of state officials if its programs aren't to be gutted further. The budget to be unveiled next month by Cuomo and approved by the Legislature must recognize that public higher education can't take more hits.
LAME DUCKS HEADED SOUTH AMOS, WOYSHNER TOOK TAXPAYERS FOR A RIDE
PUBLIC officials - - like everyone else - - can get in a rut. Ways of doing business can become so habitual that change is not only difficult but hard to envision. The traditional way becomes the only way.
So it's a good idea for public officials to go - - from time to time - - to state and national conferances about governmental issues. If they go with an open mind, putting business ahead of the inevitable tourist attractions, they will return home with fresh ideas and a broader outlook worth the cost of the trip.
But what were two area lame ducks up to when they headed to the annual conference of the National League of Cities in Orlando, Fla., at taxpayer expense, a few weeks before the curtain falls on their tenure in public office? Archie L. Amos Jr. took the trip even though he lost his University District seat on the Buffalo Common Council when he was relegated to an independent line after pleading guilty to a fraud charge in connection with his nominating petitions.
Leonard Woyshner took the trip even though voters last month ended his 20-year tenure as the 3rd Ward's representative on the Lackawanna City Council.
Whatever the two may have learned in Orlando cannot be translated into a better performance as public officials because they won't be public officials after Jan. 1. Any added know-how they may have picked up in Orlando will do no good to the taxpayers who paid the bill.
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W2D-004-0.txt
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WHAT IS COPYRIGHT?
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works.
In addition, certain authors of works of visual art have the rights of attribution and integrity as described in section 106A of the 1976 Copyright Act. For further information, request Circular 40, "Copyright Registration for Works of the Visual Arts."
It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright. These rights, however, are not unlimited in scope. Sections 107 through 121 of the 1976 Copyright Act establish limitations on these rights. In some cases, these limitations are specified exemptions from copyright liability. One major limitation is the doctrine of "fair use," which is given a statutory basis in section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act. In other instances, the limitation takes the form of a "compulsory license" under which certain limited uses of copyrighted works are permitted upon payment of specified royalties and compliance with statutory conditions. For further information about the limitations of any of these rights, consult the copyright law or write to the Copyright Office.
WHO CAN CLAIM COPYRIGHT
Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright.
In the case of works made for hire, the employer and not the employee is considered to be the author. Section 101 of the copyright law defines a "work made for hire" as a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire....
The authors of a joint work are co-owners of the copyright in the work, unless there is an agreement to the contrary.
Copyright in each separate contribution to a periodical or other collective work is distinct from copyright in the collective work as a whole and vests initially with the author of the contribution.
Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources)
The way in which copyright protection is secured is frequently misunderstood. No publication or registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure copyright. (See following NOTE.) There are, however, certain definite advantages to registration. See "Copyright Registration."
Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is "created" when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. "Copies" are material objects from which a work can be read or visually perceived either directly or with the aid of a machine or device, such as books, manuscripts, sheet music, film, videotape, or microfilm. "Phonorecords" are material objects embodying fixations of sounds (excluding, by statutory definition, motion picture soundtracks), such as cassette tapes, CDs, or LPs. Thus, for example, a song (the "work") can be fixed in sheet music (" copies") or in phonograph disks (" phonorecords"), or both.
If a work is prepared over a period of time, the part of the work that is fixed on a particular date constitutes the created work as of that date.
Publication is no longer the key to obtaining federal copyright as it was under the Copyright Act of 1909. However, publication remains important to copyright owners.
" Publication" is the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display constitutes publication. A public performance or display of a work does not of itself constitute publication.
NOTE: Before 1978, federal copyright was generally secured by the act of publication with notice of copyright, assuming compliance with all other relevant statutory conditions. U. S. works in the public domain on January 1, 1978, (for example, works published without satisfying all conditions for securing federal copyright under the Copyright Act of 1909) remain in the public domain under the 1976 Copyright Act.
Certain foreign works originally published without notice had their copyrights restored under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA). Request Circular 38b and see the "Notice of Copyright" section of this publication for further information.
Federal copyright could also be secured before 1978 by the act of registration in the case of certain unpublished works and works eligible for ad interim copyright. The 1976 Copyright Act automatically extends to full term (section 304 sets the term) copyright for all works, including those subject to ad interim copyright if ad interim registration has been made on or before June 30, 1978.
A further discussion of the definition of "publication" can be found in the legislative history of the 1976 Copyright Act. The legislative reports define "to the public" as distribution to persons under no explicit or implicit restrictions with respect to disclosure of the contents. The reports state that the definition makes it clear that the sale of phonorecords constitutes publication of the underlying work, for example, the musical, dramatic, or literary work embodied in a phonorecord. The reports also state that it is clear that any form of dissemination in which the material object does not change hands, for example, performances or displays on television, is not a publication no matter how many people are exposed to the work. However, when copies or phonorecords are offered for sale or lease to a group of wholesalers, broadcasters, or motion picture theaters, publication does take place if the purpose is further distribution, public performance, or public display.
Works that are published in the United States are subject to mandatory deposit with the Library of Congress. See discussion on "Mandatory Deposit for Works Published in the United States.?
The year of publication may determine the duration of copyright protection for anonymous and pseudonymous works (when the author's identity is not revealed in the records of the Copyright Office) and for works made for hire.
The use of a copyright notice is no longer required under U. S. law, although it is often beneficial. Because prior law did contain such a requirement, however, the use of notice is still relevant to the copyright status of older works.
Notice was required under the 1976 Copyright Act. This requirement was eliminated when the United States adhered to the Berne Convention, effective March 1, 1989. Although works published without notice before that date could have entered the public domain in the United States, the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) restores copyright in certain foreign works originally published without notice. For further information about copyright amendments in the URAA, request Circular 38b.
The Copyright Office does not take a position on whether copies of works first published with notice before March 1, 1989, which are distributed on or after March 1, 1989, must bear the copyright notice.
Use of the notice may be important because it informs the public that the work is protected by copyright, identifies the copyright owner, and shows the year of first publication. Furthermore, in the event that a work is infringed, if a proper notice of copyright appears on the published copy or copies to which a defendant in a copyright infringement suit had access, then no weight shall be given to such a defendant's interposition of a defense based on innocent infringement in mitigation of actual or statutory damages, except as provided in section 504(c)(2) of the copyright law. Innocent infringement occurs when the infringer did not realize that the work was protected.
The use of the copyright notice is the responsibility of the copyright owner and does not require advance permission from, or registration with, the Copyright Office.
The "C in a circle" notice is used only on "visually perceptible copies." Certain kinds of works--for example, musical, dramatic, and literary works--may be fixed not in "copies" but by means of sound in an audio recording. Since audio recordings such as audio tapes and phonograph disks are "phonorecords" and not "copies," the "C in a circle" notice is not used to indicate protection of the underlying musical, dramatic, or literary work that is recorded.
Sound recordings are defined in the law as "works that result from the fixation of a series of musical, spoken, or other sounds, but not including the sounds accompanying a motion picture or other audiovisual work." Common examples include recordings of music, drama, or lectures. A sound recording is not the same as a phonorecord. A phonorecord is the physical object in which works of authorship are embodied. The word "phonorecord" includes cassette tapes, CDs, LPs, 45 r. p. m. disks, as well as other formats.
Position of Notice
The copyright notice should be affixed to copies or phonorecords in such a way as to "give reasonable notice of the claim of copyright." The three elements of the notice should ordinarily appear together on the copies or phonorecords or on the phonorecord label or container. The Copyright Office has issued regulations concerning the form and position of the copyright notice in the Code of Federal Regulations (37 CFR Part 201.20). For more information, request Circular 3, "Copyright Notice."
Publications Incorporating U. S. Government Works
Works by the U. S. Government are not eligible for U. S. copyright protection. For works published on and after March 1, 1989, the previous notice requirement for works consisting primarily of one or more U. S. Government works has been eliminated. However, use of a notice on such a work will defeat a claim of innocent infringement as previously described provided the notice also includes a statement that identifies either those portions of the work in which copyright is claimed or those portions that constitute U. S. Government material.
Omission of the Notice and Errors in Notice
The 1976 Copyright Act attempted to ameliorate the strict consequences of failure to include notice under prior law. It contained provisions that set out specific corrective steps to cure omissions or certain errors in notice. Under these provisions, an applicant had 5 years after publication to cure omission of notice or certain errors. Although these provisions are technically still in the law, their impact has been limited by the amendment making notice optional for all works published on and after March 1, 1989. For further information, request Circular 3.
HOW LONG COPYRIGHT PROTECTION ENDURES
Works Originally Created On or After January 1, 1978
A work that is created (fixed in tangible form for the first time) on or after January 1, 1978, is automatically protected from the moment of its creation and is ordinarily given a term enduring for the author's life plus an additional 70 years after the author's death. In the case of "a joint work prepared by two or more authors who did not work for hire," the term lasts for 70 years after the last surviving author's death. For works made for hire, and for anonymous and pseudonymous works (unless the author's identity is revealed in Copyright Office records), the duration of copyright will be 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter.
Works Originally Created and Published or Registered Before January 1, 1978
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W2C-007-6.txt
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Shoppers crowd buy-ways of longest yard sale
Is it the world's longest yard sale or a linear parking lot?
The heaviest concentrations of goods for sale have traditionally been along the 200-mile stretch of road from Signal Mountain to Jamestown, Tenn. Organizers are expecting even more than last year's 40,000 shoppers.
Officially, the event begins today, but buyers and sellers already have been active.
Throngs of hawkers have erected tables and tents on grassy roadsides and gawkers are in pursuit of priceless treasures at bargain prices.
Throughout the weekend, thousands will be searching for everything from undiscovered Picasso etchings to collections of Elvis-on-velvet paintings.
" My dealers set up and started selling on Tuesday," said Linda Cannon, co-owner of the Antique Station in Walden. By Wednesday morning, her parking lot was full and shoppers filled her store and kept the 25 outside vendors busy.
For the weekend, Mrs. Cannon hired an off-duty school-crossing guard to help people cross the road. And Walden police have set up tape and barricades to prevent parking on the road shoulder and keep traffic slowdowns in the town to a minimum.
But antique dealers and other businesses in the town protested. Prohibiting roadway parking was a compromise solution.
Other than that fatal accident, most yard sale problems have been finding parking, potables, potties and enough cash and trunk space for the must-haves found along the way.
The sale began in 1987 as the brainchild of the Fentress County, Tenn., Chamber of Commerce.
They planned their vacation around attending the sale and made reservations months ago to stay in Crossville, Tenn., and Danville, Ky.
" I came prepared this year," said Mrs.Evers. "We're 'reling an empty horse trailer behind our van. Last year I ran out of room and had to go home - - it looked like "Sanford & Son" when we went home. We had a seed cleaner tied atop the van and the inside was full of primitive farm equipment.
" My advice is to take your time and don't get in a hurry - - you might miss something," she said.
That shouldn't be a problem Saturday, as traffic across the mountain is expected to be at a near crawl by then.
In years past, Mrs.Cannon has spent the night sleeping in a bed that was for sale - - or even on the floor of her shop - - because she was afraid she'd 'dot be able to get up the mountain when customers and dealers throw off the tarps and start shopping with the first rays of sun.
" About Thursday night I'l 'llo around and tell everyone I'm 'mt going to do it next year," said Mrs.Cannon. "But the dealers from Texas, Canada and California are already asking for the same spaces for next year. It's just a zoo, but it's also a lot of fun."
Of course, if you 're not a shopper, now is a good time to find another route.
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W1B-002-1.txt
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If you're still in 'reested in ethnomusicology though, this is the wrong place to come. Ken switching to Folklore as his PhD major because the ethno-faculty is not real receptive to his studying American country music & pop music. Also, the ethno. Dept. is kind of like the Russian dept. was at Oberlin-- still has a good reputation, but the faculty is dwindling. So UCLA is the place to go for ethnomusicology, if you're still at 're all interested. I keep toying with getting still another master's degree, since I'm here at 'm university and all, but in other ways I'll be gla 'llo work again. It's nice to have a little money, and I actually enjoyed working when I was at the Newberry of course, that could have been place-specific I guess.
By the way, I never got your card, so maybe it's still somewhere in your apartment. So how come you moved? Did you get sick of living in Dorchester? Glad to hear you're stud 'reg Italian?I'd love 'do learn it too.
Unfortunatley, I know a lot of people who are getting or got married, although I guess the only person from Oberlin is Steeeeeeve. I almost got to see him this summer when he & his wife were traveling cross-country, taking a car his grandfather gave him from Maryland to San Diego, where they're liv 're. He's planning to go to med school. He applied to many last year but didn't get in anywhere. He said it's because he told the interviewers that he didn't have a life-long dream to become a doctor. Whoops.
Well, thank you again for writing and for the addition to my armadillo collection. I hope you can make the wedding. Give some thought to playing piano and let me know. Glad to hear you like your apartment, even though you seem to want to make some changes in the other parts of your life. Take care! Write soon!
Love,
April
Dear Amy,
Here is the music & recording we promised you. The tempo on the recording is altered to be at the speed we think will be best for walking in and out. The arrangement of Hopak on the tape is different from the score, but it will at least give you an idea. Each piece lasts about 2 minutes with the slower tempo-- we may end up needing more time, so probably you will have to repeat parts of the pieces. Anyway, hope these pieces are do-able for you. Let us know if there's any problem, and thanks again for your willingness to give this a try!
Enjoy your holidays
Love,
April
P.S. Promenade is the processional & Hopak the recessional
P.P.S. The songs are also recorded at their original tempos after the slower ones, since in the slower tempo the sound is kind of distorted.
Dear Amy,
Have a wonderful holiday season!
Glad to hear you are at least willing to think about playing piano at our wedding. As far as Morris and I are concerned, you can wear whatever you want-- no one is going to force you into a ball gown or other heavy-duty formalwear. The music we would like for the marching in & out of the ceremony is Mussorgsky's Picutres at an Exhibition. We are thinking about the first or fifth promenade to march in to, and HoPak to march out. If you are still interested in playing piano after hearing this, let me know. We have the piano music & we can Xerox it and mail it to you. No pressure, though!! Heh, heh. Anyway, planning a wedding is pretty hectic. Luckily we have a cool minister (Oberlin grad) who pretty much is letting us do whatever we want with the ceremony. How are you spending your holidays? Morris & I are going to Chicago for Christmas & New York for New Year's. Morris just found out that he passed his Master's exam, so now he has an M.A. I will have fulfilled the requirements for mine in 2 more weeks. Can't wait! Yeah, can't wait to be unemployed. I' 'mapplying for jobs, but it's pretty slim pickens in the job market around here. Are you still thinking of quitting your job?
Let us know if you are willing to be our wedding pianist and enjoy your holidays.
Love,
April
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W2B-013-0.txt
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Friday evening, the day the Hill-Thomas hearings began, a friend called and said she wasn't sure why she was so fascinated by the proceedings. I said it might be because we almost never see more than a glimpse of a real black woman on TV talking about anything, let alone the painful realities of racial-sexual politics. Both of us found it compelling, simply to watch Anita Hill-bright, sincere, black, and female. Here was someone we recognized. Here was someone we believed.
I can think of no other situation that has commanded the nation's undivided attention that so clearly illustrated the inextricable links between racism and sexism. It's difficult to conceive how the hearings could be understood from anything other than a black feminist perspective. A perspective that doesn't require shortchanging any aspect of black women's reality or assume racial oppression is more important than sexual oppression or vice versa.
But of course this was not the way Anita Hill's description of sexual harassment was responded to, which explains in part why this drama ended as it did.
As a black feminist, I've long believed 'vet political analyses and strategies that take into account how racism, sexism, homophobia, and class oppression dovetail and interlock, provide the clearest and most revolutionary agendas for change. Unfortunately, the outcome seemingly illustrates that my perspective and that of most women of color simply doesn't count, because ultimately it's the white male ruling class that gets to define reality and call the shots.
Yes, I was furious at how Anita Hill was treated, but as a black feminist, a socialist, and a lesbian, I was not particularly surprised. I don't expect justice from the Republicans or the Democrats, whose duplicity and ineffectualness were revealed in bas-relief during the hearings. I also don't agree with the mainstream women's movement's singular solution to run as many women for office as possible. Late twentieth-century U.S. capitalism cannot be fixed by adding new faces to the ruling class.
The worst consequence of the Hill-Thomas hearings for me was in what they revealed about African Americans' level of consciousness regarding both sexual and racial politics. It has always taken courage for women of color to speak out about sexism within our communities. In this instance it was done more publicly and dramatically than at any time in history. For that, Hill was attacked not only by white right-wing misogynists, but by African Americans who felt that she had stepped out of line by accusing a black man chosen by white racists for high office.
It was demoralizing to see how the confrontation reinforced the perception that any woman who raises the issue of sexual oppression in the black community is somehow a traitor to the race, which translates into being a traitor to black men. It is particularly disheartening knowing that probably a lot of black people took this stance despite believing Anita Hill. They who decided that standing behind a black man--even one with utter contempt for the struggles of African Americans--is more important than supporting a black woman's right not to be abused.
But the attitudes brought to the surface by the Hill- Thomas confrontation are not unique. As in the heyday of the 1965 Moynihan Report, black women are again seen as the cause of the myriad problems our people face. Despite the fact that we experience sexual as well as racial and class oppression, black women are thought to be in a much better position than endangered black men. Blaming black women instead of capitalism, racism, and those who run the system is a political dead end. And yet negative views of black women abound. Recent films by black men ridicule us, scapegoat us for all of the race's problems, and portray violence against us as perfectly justifiable. Rap music almost always defines black women as shrews, with no value other than as sexual commodities. Black male teenagers in many cities are wearing T-shirts with the words SHUT UP BITCH written in bold letters.
This increasing misogyny and those polls indicating that most black Americans supported Thomas, tell me how much work black feminists still have to do. We must alert our communities to issues of sexual violence and get out the message that respecting black women's freedom does not subtract from the freedom of black men.
Yes, the Hill-Thomas confrontation was incredibly depressing, but it was also politically catalytic. It illustrated why the work of activist feminists of color is so crucial, why we must continue to build a movement whose politics have the revolutionary potential to free us all. It also helped to radicalize more women. (One of them, I hope, is Anita Hill.) I see numerous signs. African American Women in Defense of Ourselves is a grassroots network that sprang up within days of the hearings and placed ads in the New York Times (November 17, 1991) and in African American newspapers all over the country. Their clear analysis of the hearings, signed by 1,603 black women, marks a watershed in black feminist organizing. Never have so many black women publicly stated their refusal to pit racial oppression against sexual oppression. The ad has elicited an outpouring of support, and the enthusiastic signers intend to create an ongoing mechanism for organizing and speaking out.
Revolutionary Sisters of Color is a socialist-feminist organization that is building a political base both nationally and internationally. Founded in 1990, this is the first autonomous group embracing all women of color in this country and abroad committed to an explicitly socialist and feminist agenda that confronts the capitalist basis for racial, sexual, and homophobic oppression.
I find it encouraging that some black men were furious about what happened to Anita Hill and had the integrity to speak out. Many more need to do so. That too is part of our struggle.
I hope that white feminists have a better sense of the challenges women of color face when we make the commitment to confront sexual oppression. Those who really want to support our struggle can best do so by cleaning the racism out of their own houses. This can only be accomplished by participating in political organizing that directly challenges the multiple oppressions women of color face, oppressions that undermine their lives as well. Not only would we then have more trustworthy allies, but it would also be that much harder to accuse us of being the dupes of unprincipled white women.
Although Thomas' confirmation seemingly demonstrated the overarching power of the white male ruling class, I got a different message. The powers that be are in serious trouble. This was only the latest example of their efforts to maintain their hold upon the failing capitalist economy and upon an image of power by using desperate means, by resorting to ever more outrageous lies and deceptions just to stay in place.
Yes, it's going to be a long struggle. But in the after-math of the Hill-Thomas episode, my new T-shirt will display the words of the old freedom song, AIN'T GONNA LET NOBODY TURN ME AROUND!
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W2A-009-0.txt
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Cultural History, Interdisciplinarity, and Romanticism
Increasingly literary scholarship and criticism is turning to interdisciplinary approaches that stretch beyond the now familiar linkings of literature and art, literature and history, literature and philosophy.1 Romantic Studies in particular has been experiencing a shift toward an emphasis on cultural history in the last few years, as books and articles have come out on taste, the metropolis, ecocriticism, colonialism and empire, trade routes and their impact, and the dominance of theatre and spectacle in the cultural imaginary. Romanticist conferences have focused on themes relating to migration, mobility, cosmopolitanism, and the developing sciences in the period.2 Such research has demonstrated the importance of considering both the global and the local, and of questioning frameworks that are in themselves only relatively new, such as the public/private divide, the polite/popular culture divide, gender practices, consumer culture, and everyday life. Although there has been some effort on the part of historians to step back and define cultural history as a distinct practice, what remains to be done is a thoroughgoing examination of cultural history as a theoretically framed and integrative approach to the past. Here I will sketch out some points about cultural history that may aid in such an interrogation.
Cultural historical research necessitates a multiply layered perspective and approach. This is not the same as interdisciplinarity, because interdisciplinary approaches presuppose the priority of the disciplines, with their grounding objects of study: the discipline of literature takes a particular kind of text as its object; history takes the nation state; sociology takes class; anthropology takes culture; ethnology takes comparative cultures, economics takes the industrial city. These objects are constructs: class, for instance, is an abstract concept that defines sociological research in the direction of class conflict. This assumed definition narrows, methodologically but also conceptually, how society might be studied. Similarly, although literary scholars and historians both study texts, historians examine texts for evidence while literary scholars examine particular kinds of texts for formal and cultural expression. Interdisciplinary studies also presume these disciplinary frameworks, so that something like urban studies, while drawing on economics, sociology, and so forth, takes as its object of study class in the metropolis.
As Romanticists attempt to go ever deeper into textual understanding while staying attuned to the cultural milieu that produced Romantic Period texts and that formed the imaginations of their authors, they are forging new relations with other disciplines, as is happening in so many of the liberal arts. For literary scholars the other disciplines proving useful are increasingly those of the social sciences economics, psychology, demographic studies, anthropology, urban studies and hard sciences such as meteorology, geology, cartography, environmental studies, astronomy, and the medical sciences. While some academics worry about the way in which the sciences appear to be valued over the humanities in interdisciplinary research, and others are concerned about retaining disciplinary purity as scholars attempt to master the approach and the skills of other disciplines, these concerns may be balanced by what we necessarily stand to gain in the pooling of information. Here is where cultural history steps in, because its starting point differs from that of the disciplinary object of study. Cultural history asks a question or poses a problem. In seeking to answer that question or understand that problem, the scholar is freed to bring together whatever tools are necessary to create frameworks from which to study it. Thus the accepted disciplinary practice of disregarding what does not fit the approach to a defined object of study can no longer apply: the scholar must be open to all potential facts, paradoxes, and discrepancies. This form of "thinking outside the box" allows for a flexible practice one that resists the regularization of approach and methodology since each new problem or question requires new frameworks to be created.
Thus, when a cultural historian asks what daily life was like in Romantic period London, and draws on literature, urban studies and the history of economics to do so, a new framework must be devised to reconstruct what it was like, for instance, for Jane Austen to purchase her tea, sugar, cocoa, dress materials, and gloves, or to attend fashionable art exhibitions while visiting her banker brother in Sloane Street. The consumer history, material culture, and trade economics involved in this information sheds light not just on the lives of real people, but on the careful detailing of foodstuffs, dress fabrics and accessories in womens novels, all of which signal something important to characterization or plot in the specific act or article of dress being described. Involving the theory of everyday life in this mix would help reconstruct what everyday practices were, although such reconstructions are admittedly incomplete and open to ongoing revision. The same pooling of disciplinary resources (rather than restricting oneself to methodological purity) would allow a scholar to reconstruct the cultural importance of what Richard Altick has termed "the shows of London" (1), a sudden emergence of exhibitions of curiosities, natural objects, and art that moved indoors from the public square space of Bartholomew Fair and Southwark Fair, or that became more public and entrepreneurial than the antiquarian collections of wealthy virtuosi (gentlemen scholars) and picture collections of the great landed families. The new indoor shows ranged from innovative technologies such as mechanical manikins to menageries of exotic animals, exhibitions of foreign plants or artifacts, displays of live tribal peoples with their native costumes and implements, and shows of exotic or ancient art. While we might make the connection easily between these London shows and the rise of national museums in the nineteenth century, such a reconstruction requires revealing the trade networks, collecting fads, scientific research, and global explorations that made such shows possible, and that gave enormous stimuli to the great literary imaginations of the period, from the visionary William Blake to the cosmopolitan Lord Byron.
This way of framing the pursuit of knowledge differs in kind and degree from that of interdisciplinarity, which is all too frequently touted as the answer to disciplinary restrictiveness. Indeed, scholars have been warning about interdisciplinarity as a too-easy accommodation of disciplines for years. In 1988 Janet Wolff complained that when literary studies and sociology were brought together, particularly in the U.S., the result was either a literary critical investigation privileging an ideological-critical perspective which rarely attempted "to discuss representation as the complex product of processes and institutions," or it was a sociological investigation that analyzed institutions "without a real sensitivity to representation and textuality" (109).3 Insensitivity to either institutional agency on the one hand, or aesthetic form on the other, means an either/or approach and a constitutive blindness to cultural processes: social and economic relations and social and ideological relations constitute culture as it is experienced. Wolff puts some of the blame for this lack of real interdisciplinarity on the weight given scientific objectivity versus subjectively informed humanistic interpretative strategies. The nineteenth-century professionalization of more generalized areas of scholarship into separate disciplines contributed to the segregations of knowledge and activity that have helped create an "increasingly fragmented and compartmentalized way of life" (72). The professionalizing of the university guided not only the creation and definition of disciplines, it also guided collaborative effort. "Interdisciplinary" work was often taken to be research that occurred entirely within the domain of one discipline or that centered on a shared object of study, rather than one that profited from different epistemological frameworks.4 Attempts to talk across disciplinary boundaries became increasingly fraught in the second half of the twentieth century as the increased value given culturally and politically to scientific specialization was accompanied by a decreasing valuation of humanistic generalism. Either/or thinking reflects the binarisms at stake in disciplinary as well as interdisciplinary studies.
We are still struggling with this see-saw effect in which the liberal arts and the sciences are made to counterbalance each other, as we also struggle to escape the constraints and blindspots of disciplinary assumptions. Each year more efforts are made to reconnect scientific and artistic knowledge through projects that, for instance, might investigate both the mechanics of the eye and the interpretive judgments determined by that eye toward an artwork, or that might apply the principles of baroque music to medical research on the ear. But this recent trend is often untheorized and haphazard. It has been preceded by more traditional forms of discipline-crossing in which two disciplines from the humanities or two from the physical sciences are brought together in ways that do not interrogate the assumptions of either discipline, and therefore do not de-compartmentalize how an object of study is conceived or approached. Because so much has been made of interdisciplinary work and areas of study in the last two decades or so, scholars may well have wanted to rush to knowledge rather than taking the time to learn how economists construe trade relations or model urban demographics, how historians gather and analyze data, or how art historians analyze paintings, architectural elevations and other visual images and artifacts. As Janet Wolff notes, we tend to foreground our own discipline, and for literary scholars this means giving analysis of the literary text priority. Often a multidisciplinary approach (putting two disciplines side-by-side) provides an easy fix because it does not demand the same degree of theoretical and methodological integration as an interdisciplinary one (interconnecting disciplines at a deep level so that each is viewed through the other), and yet appears to escape the difficulties arising in interdisciplinary work. A thorough integration of conceptual frameworks and tools can move us even further past disiciplinary assumptions and facile approaches, producing knowledge through a juxtaposition of disciplines that encourages cross-interrogation into the cultural past. This does not mean "breaking down the walls" between the disciplines so much as talking across them to see how similarities and differences in conceptual models and disciplinary methods can be made to help us view problems in cultural history in a more three-dimensional way. Cultural history can provide a method of problem-solving by opening up frameworks rather than presuming them.
But we do need to attend seriously to a careful use of disciplinary knowledge as we move beyond the boxes that disciplines construct. First, language itself can often trip us up. Different disciplines have different technical meanings for words, as in "prosody," which in literary analysis refers to the poetic effects (acoustics and rhythm, or versification) of crafted language, is used in linguistics to refer to parts of a languages sound structure (tone and intonation), and in musicology to refer to musical phrasing and acoustic cues. Yet the very use of the same term by different disciplines also facilitates interdisciplinary research, as when clinical psychologists use linguistics to help explore cognitive dysfunction through a patients recognition of affective prosody (emotional tone of voice) and propositional prosody (whether the sentence is a question, imperative or declarative).
Second, interdisciplinary study is usually too grounded in the disciplines that gave rise to it, such as urban studies, which developed from a particular integration of sociology, economics, and history, while American studies integrates disciplines necessary to the analysis of class, race, and gender. These interdisciplinary studies developed new conceptual models based on the theories that orient their object of study. They thus create new ways of understanding that offer insights to other fields, but they can also provoke deeply instilled resistance to the intermixing of discipline-specific methodologies. Those working in cultural history need to beware the distinction between interdisciplinary work and an approach that moves beyond disciplinary methodologies. As Dror Wahrman notes of an improperly conceived cultural history, its most problematic methodological quagmire... can be described as the difficulty of the "weak collage": the historian, identifying a seemingly similar phenomenon in several disparate cultural spheres at the same historical moment, declares it to be a pattern of historical significance. (45) Although this difficulty can be circumvented through quantitative evidence, the historians stock-in-trade, the problems of change over time and categorical difference can mean that pattern changes in cultural forms and modes might be dispersed throughout a period or beyond period boundaries rather than accumulating synchronously. It is the cross-interrogation of their appearance, in other words, that resolves anomalies into discernible patterns, and that produces real knowledge rather than a "weak collage."
Cultural history involves an approach in which cultural and material practices are investigated in order to reveal shifts in human subjectivity and identity, social class hierarchies and constructions, political identity, institutional formations, and changes in religious, economic, and creative practices, their reception and tolerance or resistance. The term "culture" itself is a hotly debated one, its meaning ranging from social history to anthropological analysis, cultural sociology, ethnography, cultural studies, community identity, cultural identity, and a tradition of cultural achievements in the arts. For literary studies, Raymond Williamss seminal works on the cultural grounds of literary production provide the arena for understanding culture as the integration of traditional, dominant, and emergent forms that at any one moment formulate a literary culture, and the economic and social conditions that facilitate such a culture.5 But those trained in other disciplines would argue for a different understanding; anthropologists, for example, have moved from considering "culture" as a non-dynamic concept to understanding it as that which is dynamically produced at any given moment by a body of people, so that an individual can move from the culture of his or her workplace to the culture of the street, to that of the subway, to that of the home. As William Sewell argues, part of the confusion in how to define culture lies in the hazy distinctions often made between conceptual and concrete understandings of "culture." Theoretical concepts of culture refer to broad categories of social life, while concrete studies of cultures refer to culture as practice, culture "not [as] a coherent system of symbols and meanings but a diverse collection of tools that... are to be understood as means for the performance of action" (Sewell 40). This understanding of concrete cultures, viewed through theories arising from a range of disciplines, can produce a cultural history that reconstructs a stronger and more vital picture of the past or present. By contrast, not differentiating clearly between conceptual and concrete meanings of culture can lead to a falsifying attempt to integrate these two definitions, allowing the "smuggl[ing of] highly debatable assumptions into ethnographic accounts for example, that cultural meanings are normally shared, fixed, bounded, and deeply felt" (41).
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W1B-016-0.txt
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27 August 1996
1996 97 Executive Committee: Jin Seo Park
Setting Agenda for Department Meeting on September 9
Aside from announcements, the main item must be deciding on priorities for line requests for 97 98, which are due at the Dean's Office by September 18. I would like the Executive Committee to have a recommendation to put before the department; the relevant guidelines and constraints are as follows: 1) Every position request, even for a line vacated by death or retirement, must be fully justified, even though the Academic Program Review determined that our department should be maintained at its current strength. 2) Programmatic integrity will be only one of several criteria used in determining which units will be permitted to recruit. 3) Enrollments will be a factor in awarding lines. This means both actual numbers and potential numbers. Any proposed line likely to increase enrollments will be viewed favorably. 4) Affirmative action is a high priority this year. Lines will go to those depts. that can demonstrate that there is a pool of candidates of color for the position being recruited. 5) Positions that will strengthen general education also remain desirable. 6) The possibility of joint appointments should be explored; a department increases the possibility of getting more than one line if one of the requests is for a person who would contribute a percentage of teaching and service to one of the collegiate programs or intercollegiate divisions.
All this being so, we should consider, in addition to the obvious need for an American literature specialist to replace Gia Lannone, how to weigh our FY 96 requests for an African Americanist and a professional writing position and the FY 95 request for a specialist in pedagogy. We might also give some thought to how we could design a line that we share with, for instance, the new Communications Division. Possibilities: a specialist in media studies, media production, and/or telecommunications; a professional writer/journalist; a visiting professional writer/creative writer
What else should be on the table?
25 November 1996
To Part Time English Faculty
From Bill Cross, Chair
Back in September I promised to schedule a second meeting of part time faculty before the term was over, preferably in November. At the time I hadn't fully grasped what kind of pace I would have to march at during the fall semester and so I am already very late. I expect that many of you are also tired at this point in the semester and are trying to hold on until the last day of classes. So, I wonder if I can make this proposal:
notice has already gone out about an informal holiday party on the afternoon of Friday, December 13, following a department meeting at noon. What if we had a gathering of as many of you as wanted to meet over coffee and doughnuts at 10 A.M. on the 13th? Then you could stay on if you like for the department meeting and/or the party.
As always, this proposed meeting is purely voluntary; you are under no obligation to come, and you are most welcome to skip the meeting and still come to the party in the afternoon.
I'd apprec 'dte it if you would leave a note in my mailbox if you want to have this meeting and you might add what topics you would want to see on the agenda. If at least eight of you want to meet I'll book a 'llace, send out a confirmation note, and we'll go ahe 'lland gather at 10 o'clock on the 13th.
3 December 1996
To Part Time English Faculty
It appears that there is enough interest to warrant scheduling an end of term meeting on Friday, December 13, from 10:00 11:45 AM. I have reserved the Music Department Lounge, room W 6 94. There will be coffee and doughnuts.
I have one suggested agenda item: Creative writing opportunities for ESL students who have completed the 101E 102E sequence; Bruce Joyce will speak to this issue.
Please let me know of any other topics for discussion that you want on the table. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on the 13th.
Reminder: holiday party starting shortly after 2 o'clock that afternoon.
The main task of the committee for this year is to undertake a comprehensive review of the department's curriculum for majors, leading to a set of recommendations for a revision of the curriculum and the requirements for the B.A. in English.
The work of the committee may be enhanced and supported if the department receives a grant from the ACE Kellogg funds available for assessment work on the campus [see attached proposal], but with or without the grant the following tasks need to be accomplished:
1) Research into how other departments have redesigned their English majors in recent years. This research should probably pay particular attention to any of our peer institutions whose English departments have revised their majors [e.g., George Mason, University of Illinois Chicago, University of Maryland Baltimore, etc.], but need not be limited to our peer institutions. [For starters, see packet on the new English curriculum at Millsaps College.] The committee should aim to gather the materials for this research by the end of the fall semester.
2) Study of the planning for the new university general education program to ensure that planning and sequencing of major requirements is synchronized with general education developments on the campus. Curriculum committee members should read the April 1996 report of the General Education Steering Committee and the new report of that committee which is scheduled to be submitted for review by the Faculty Council in November 1996.
3) Assessment of strengths and limitations of the current English major program, including sophomore requirements and advanced requirements and electives; scheduling patterns of courses; kinds of courses or requirements missing from the curriculum; means for ensuring quality control of the major program and for measuring student accomplishment in the program. The committee should aim to make a preliminary report of its findings to the department at the March 1997 department meeting; the committee may also want to propose at this meeting a mechanism for ongoing consultation with and involvement by the department in the process of reshaping the curriculum.
4) After discussion with the department, the Curriculum Committee should concentrate on developing its recommendations for changes to the English major curriculum. A final report and recommendations on the major should be presented to the department for its consideration by the end of the Fall 1997 semester.
16 December 1996
To: Dean Will Ruff
As I promised a few days ago, I brought to the department meeting of December 13 your offer of a one third share of the line that has been awarded to the Africana Studies Department for a position in African American literature. The department has instructed me to accept this offer, although with a deep sense of dismay and disappointment that the teaching needs of the department and our obligations to our students, as detailed in our requests for our own tenure track appointments, are not being addressed.
In accepting the share of the line with Africana Studies I'd like 'd to specify several understandings for the future:
1) You and I both agree that this offer does not satisfy the department's need for faculty in American literature, African American literature, and other minority literatures, and that the acceptance of this offer by our department should not be understood as undercutting or prejudicing the department's resubmission of requests for those positions next year.
2) Although you have expressed the hope that the candidate eventually hired by Africana Studies might have pedagogical expertise that could be helpful in the preparation or supervision of English education majors, you and I both agree that this one third position can not satisfy the department's urgent need for additional full time support for its majors preparing to teach in the schools.
3) The English department shall be represented by two members on the search committee for the candidate; shall conduct annual reviews of the teaching done by the appointee in English department courses and have a voice in decisions about reappointment; and shall have a substantive role in fourth year and tenure reviews of the appointee.
4) Because the department remains understaffed in American literature after the deaths of Jay Trib and Ed Man, we will be seeking temporary lines, full time or part time, in 1997 98 to ensure the adequacy of our offerings in the American literature program.
Finally, I must convey my own sense of frustration, shared by many others in the department, on two scores. The inability of the College to offer us even the minimal number of lines called for by the Academic Program Review raises real questions whether program reviews offer meaningful or reliable assurances to departments about their capacity to carry out their missions. Once again, there will be increased cynicism within the faculty community that program reviews serve only managerial interests rather than the interests of academic programs or students. And even more importantly, I feel frustrated at the department's being prevented from recruiting more minority faculty. The provost's committee on minority faculty has dispatched frequent messages about the university's commitment to minority recruitment. My department was fully prepared to heed that call and was confident that we could identify excellent minority candidates for several of the lines we requested. It is discouraging that we have not been permitted to make this effort.
25 November 1996
To All Faculty and Staff
A Few Announcements
1. The Executive Committee and I have discussed using a portion [the amount as yet undetermined] of the department's allocation from the university's annual fund to proceed with the renovation of the Department Lounge and the construction of the Gittleman Library. In order to ensure that anyone in the department with an interest in the future uses and appearance of the lounge has a chance to help make the decisions about this common space, the Executive Committee has authorized a redecorating committee. Membership is open to any member of the departmental faculty or staff who wishes to join. Jan Akeve will chair the committee; please let Janet know if you would like to join. Since we expect some of the renovation work to be initiated sometime in the spring semester, some important decisions about planning should be made soon.
Several memos on the Urban Mission Action Plan, dated October 1996, from colleagues are in general circulation and other materials have been sent to members of the ad hoc committee. These memos will help frame the discussion, but all members of the department may want to read the Urban Mission Action Plan before the December 13 meeting.
3. Following the department meeting, we will have an informal holiday celebration. I would ask for volunteers to supply simple pot luck appetizers and snacks; the department budget will take care of beverages for the occasion. If you are able to contribute something to the buffet of appetizers, please tear off the bottom of this sheet and leave it in my mailbox.
December 13
Film requests for the Spring semester should be submitted in the second week of December (Dec. 9 13) to Sven Luda in the Film Services office in Healey Library. Because of reduced funds this year it is important to make timely submissions of requests. Film request forms will be available in the department office. We also have an up to date catalog of films and videos owned by the university. For additional information, contact Kay Chow directly at extension 7 5961.
9 December 1996
1. Department Meeting, Friday, December 13 at noon. To be followed, at approximately 2 o'clock, by a holiday celebration with drinks and appetizers. We have a few commitments for appetizers; if you are thinking you might be hungry on Friday, please volunteer to bring some food.
2. Change in eligibility for the Peter Brooks Butler Scholarship to Oxford. Requirements used to state that this scholarship for tuition and air fare for the summer program at Oxford was not open to seniors. Please let students in your courses know that applications are open to any English major with an interest in Renaissance literature or creative writing who will not yet have graduated by the end of August 1997.
14 November 1996
To English Department
I want to report on how our financial picture looks at the moment, and I invite you to give me or a member of the Executive Committeeyour suggestions about departmental priorities for spending of our discretionary funds in II and III below.
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W2C-018-3.txt
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MPC sued for on-call policy tain
A trial that began Monday in a lawsuit brought by three Montana Power Co. computer technicians could help refine federal Requirements for compensating workers who are "on call."
The employees, who work at the MPC Colstrip generating plant, contend that they should be paid time and a half for the hours they spend on call every fourth week. Each of the plaintiffs--Richard L. Fitz, Larry Jones and Gregory L. Peterson--will apparently be asking $ 140,000 in back pay, their attorney, Stephen Mackey of Billings, indicated during his questioning of potential jurors.
MPC attorney Patrick Fleming told the jury that the employees were already well compensated for their work, and that the on-call system in use was technicians' idea, not the company's.
According to Mackey, each of the employees works a 40-hour week. But every fourth week, one of the four computer technicians in the division spends the week, including the weekend, on call. The employee must stay close enough to a telephone to respond within 15 minutes. Each of the technicians is equipped with a pager that must be carried during the entire week. Mackey said that the range of the pager is only about five miles, which means that the person on call has to remain with a five-mile radius of the plant, he said.
The key issue in the case will be the extent of the limitations placed on their lives while they are on call, and how much is fair compensation for the disruption in their lives.
In his opening argument, Mackey said that when Fitz is on call, he can't attend church or take classes toward a college degree, and that he has also missed his daughter's Christmas play. Mackey said Peterson hasn't been able to spend Christmas or Thanksgiving with his family in Billings, has missed the wedding of a close friend and is unable to accept social invitations with people he socializes with in his church. Mackey said that Jones has missed his daughter's out-of-town basketball games and her solo choir performance in Miles City. He said they all have trouble sleeping through the night because of calls from the plant or anticipation of calls from the plant.
Others workers who are on call at the plant aren't tied to Colstrip and have no mandatory call in, Mackey said. But the computer technicians are required to be within 15 minutes of the plant. That distinction will apparently be an important one.
Fleming said that the three workers are already well paid for their time. They get paid more than $ 30 an hour when they are called out, he said, and they are paid each time for a minimum of two hours.
The MPC attorney said that until 1986 or 1987, the computer technicians did shift work to cover the plant 24 hours a day. But the technicians objected to the rotating shifts and asked for an on-call system instead. The proposal was apparently made by the fourth technician in the computer group, who will testify for the power company.
Fleming said that the company said it would not go along with the on-call system unless all the technicians agreed. Mackey said that Fitz, the only plaintiff who was working in the computer division at that time, was opposed to the on-call system, but agreed to go along because all the other technicians wanted it.
The current system has been fair, flexible and lucrative for the technicians, Fleming said. The technicians fix their own on call schedule a year in advance and submit it to MPC. The company places no restrictions on their ability to trade on-call time, he said.
Modems were purchased for the technicians so they could work from their homes if they were called. He said they can chose to work 10-hour shifts instead of 8-hour shifts so they can have three-day weekends. The technicians are also provided pagers so they can go anywhere in the Colstrip community, Fleming said. And if the technician is called and it's inconvenient for him to come to the plant right then, the company has always allowed for a delay, he said.
The case is being heard by U.S. Magistrate Richard Anderson in Billings. Trial is expected to conclude by midweek.
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W2A-005-0.txt
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Nil sine Numine
" Nothing without Divine Will," Motto of the State of Colorado
Dei sub Numine Viget
" It/She Flourishes under the Might of God," Motto of Princeton University
The notion of the sacred or the numinous as a category for understanding religion was substantially launched by Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) in his classic Idea of the Holy (Das Heilige) in 1917. Otto, indeed, coined the term "numinous," which has now become part of common usage. Otto's influence on thought about religion extends from C.G. Jung (1875-1961) to the "Chicago School" of history of religion founded by Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). On the other hand, Otto's influence on the philosophy of religion has been less strong, perhaps because he was professionally more of a theologian (not rigorous enough for philosophers) and is too easily misunderstood and dismissed as describing some kind of mysticism. Even in the history of religion, Otto's own analysis often does not persuade because of his clear preferences for Christianity and his devaluation of religions that do not measure up to Christian paradigms.
The history of Rudolf Otto's theory of the sacred begins, however, more than a century earlier, with the great philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Otto's own confidence in his ability to talk about God has its origin in Kant's own theory about the basis of the concept of God in human reason. In the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) Kant had reworked the traditional distinction between the immanent (within the world) and the transcendent (outside the world) by distinguishing between phenomena and things-in-themselves. "Phenomena" are how it is that objects appear in our own conscious minds. We do not have access to the world outside of the experiences we enjoy through our own consciousness, and Kant believed that consciousness itself, or the possibility of conscious experience, imposes certain conditions on the manner in which phenomenal objects appear to us. Among those conditions are the forms of space and time and the abstract forms of connections between events and objects such as the concept of substance and the relation between cause and effect. David Hume (1711-1776) had challenged philosophers to show why it is that we believe in principles such as the one that every event must have a cause. Kant's answer, then, was that the mind itself constructs a phenomenal reality according to just such a rule.
Things-in-themselves, in turn, are the way that reality exists apart from our experience, our consciousness, our minds, and all the conditions that our minds might impose on phenomenal objects. The question occurs, then, whether concepts like substance and cause and effect apply to things-in-themselves the same way that they do to phenomena. Kant did not think that we could know. However, he did notice something very curious: it isn't just that we apply the principle of cause and effect to phenomena, it is that we apply in a certain way. In phenomenal reality, cause and effect are applied in a continuous series. Every effect has a cause, but every cause also has a cause, and so forth, ad infinitum. This adds up to a philosophical principle of determinism, that everything is causally determined to act in a certain way. Kant believed that science sees things that way, but we do not, for the idea of free will contradicts determinism. Free will involves a free cause, i.e. a cause that is not determined by some prior cause. We can also call that an unconditioned cause, since it is free of a prior causal condition, and it occurred to Kant that a characteristic of phenomenal reality was that everything was conditioned by something else. In that, Kant hit upon the same point that had been made earlier in Buddhist philosophy: in the reality that we see, everything is conditioned by everything else. One example of this in Buddhist thought is the doctrine of Relative Existence or No Self Nature: Nothing has a essence, nature, or character by itself. Things in isolation are shûnya, "empty.? The nature of things only exists in relation to everything else that exists. Existence as we know it is thus completely relative and conditioned by everything else. Only Nirvâna would be unconditioned, although we cannot know what it is like.
If an unconditioned cause cannot occur in phenomenal reality, then it could only occur among things-in- themselves. But for all we know, even if cause and effect do apply among things-in-themselves, determinism may even be true there also. Other kinds of unconditioned objects, like God or the soul - - God is not conditioned by anything, and the soul is free of most of the conditions of phenomenal reality, like corruptibility - - might also exist among things-in-themselves, but we cannot be sure about that either. Thus, Kant did not believe that it was possible to prove things about things-in-themselves. If we try to do so, we create what Kant called "dialectical illusion," involving contradictions in reason itself, e.g. between determinism and free will, which Kant called Antinomies. Kant's Fourth Antinomy lays out equally compelling arguments for and against the idea of a Necessary Being, i.e. a God. Nevertheless, Kant believed that the existence of things like God, freedom, and the soul could not be disproved; and in the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), he decides that the Moral Law provides us a basis for making certain decisions about transcendent objects that mere theoretical reason could not do. Thus, we believe in free will because we must if we are to use moral concepts like responsibility, guilt, praise, blame, retribution, punishment, etc.; for according to determinism, no one is actually responsible for their actions, and scientific explanations will always reduce people to creatures of remote causes, e.g. genetics, childhood, society, drugs, disease, etc. All three of what Kant called the "Ideas" of pure reason in the First Critique--God, freedom, and immortality--Kant comes to believe are motivated as objects of rational belief, on the basis of moral considerations, in the Second Critique.
The next step towards Otto comes with an obscure post-Kantian philosopher, Jakob Fries (1773-1843). Friesian theory is little known today, but Fries does rate honorable mention by perhaps the greatest recent philosopher, Sir Karl Popper (1902-1994), who says, apropos of G.W.F. Hegel's dialectical method: "For the truth is, I think, that it was not at first taken really seriously by serious men (such as Schopenhauer, or J.F. Fries)..." [Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol II, Princeton University Press, 1966 (1945), p. 27]. Popper himself, in his seminal The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), says that he considers his own system of thought a successor to the Friesian pattern, probably because Fries revived the Aristotelian principle that not every proposition needs to be proven. Popper believed that scientific theories do not need to be proven because they are actually falsified instead. As with Schopenhauer, Fries was attempting to come to terms the problems in the Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
Fries was not impressed by Kant's arguments for belief based on practical reason. Like Kant, however, he did believe that the notions of God, freedom, and immortality are necessitated by reason. He concluded, in his Wissen, Glaube und Ahndung [1805; available in English as Knowledge, Belief, and Aesthetic Sense, translated by Kent Richter, Jürgen Dinter Verlag, 1989], that we simply must accept that these concepts spring from theoretical reason directly as, indeed, a kind of rational belief (Glaube), which we will not be able to understand in the way that we understand science or the world of experience (what Fries called Wissen, "knowledge"). On the other hand, Fries was put off by the bloodless rationalism and moralism of Kant's theory. Kant had provided a place for feeling in his system, in the Third Critique, the Critique of Judgment (1790); but his view was that the feelings of the beautiful and the sublime did not arise from any direct relationship to external reality but only from a subjective harmony of our own mental faculties. Fries did not think such a theory was good enough. He thought that aesthetic and religious feelings were real cognitions of their objects but that they existed in dissociation from any concepts that would make them real matters of Wissen or understanding. Kant himself had earlier believed in such an aesthetic realism, but he later decided that only morality related directly to things-in-themselves.
Thus, after a fashion, Fries extended Kant's own theory of the mind: Kant had thought that experience arose from the synthesis, the active unification, of sensations according to rules provided by pure concepts of the understanding. Kant then figured that reason had some concepts, the Ideas of God, freedom, and immortality, for which we have no corresponding sensations and so no corresponding experience or understanding. Fries merely added that there are corresponding sensations, aesthetic and religious feelings, but that synthesis, experience, and understanding still do not actually occur between the sensations and concepts. Fries calls these feelings that we have independent of reason and understanding Ahndung, or "intimation.? They are intimations of the transcendent.
Where Kant had thought that it was only through reason and morality that we are related to things-in- themselves, Fries adds that there is a component of feeling to this relationship as well. Fries was thus bound to see religion differently from Kant. In Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793), Kant had reduced religion to a phenomenon of reason and morality. Kant believed, indeed, that morality was what religion was all about and that it provided a basis for rational belief in concepts like God, freedom, and immortality; but this provided no ground for any other aspects of traditional religious practice, belief, or experience. Fries was able to add an important component, that the central aspect of religion was not so much reason as feeling. But Fries still provided little room for most of the traditional contents of religion. Even though both Kant and Fries were, in some general and cultural sense, Christians, there was nevertheless no reason in their systems of philosophy to believe anything more than that Jesus Christ was a particularly good moral teacher. Fries might make Jesus some kind of poet in addition, but there was still no way that he could admit anything like traditional Christian views about the status and function of Jesus in the nature of reality or the scheme of salvation. Indeed, Fries had a moral objection to the idea that Jesus might have suffered for our sins and redeemed us from damnation. Salvation itself could only remain an alien concept to both Kant and Fries, but it is hard to see what something like Christianity (or Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism) could possibly mean as a religion without the idea of salvation.
Kant and Fries thus both represent a strong sort of philosophical rationalism, albeit one with much more room for something like religion than the reductionistic materialism that became common in the 19th century (continued and continuing among many in the 20th). Fries himself was simply forgotten until rediscovered by a later German philosopher, Leonard Nelson (1882-1927). Nelson added little beyond lucid exposition and restatement to Fries's view of religion, but Nelson did introduce Fries to a colleague of his at the University of Göttingen: Rudolf Otto. Otto had a clear sense that there was much more to religious feeling than what his philosopher friend allowed through a sense of the beautiful and the sublime. But he also thought that there was no reason not to add that extra feeling into the very fine metaphysical and epistemological framework, the theory of Ahndung, that Kant and Fries had actually provided. Thus, as a purely descriptive matter, Otto believed that we are related to the transcendent, not just through morality, and not just through the beautiful and the sublime, but through a sense of the holy and the sacred, categories of value that are unique and characteristic of religion.
Otto takes the Latin word numen, "the might of a deity, majesty, divinity," and coins the term "numinous" to describe either religious feelings or the religious aspect attributed by those feelings to experiences and objects. He characterizes the feelings as involving 1) ultimacy, 2) mystery (mysterium), 3) awe (tremendum), 4) fascination (fascinans), and 5) satisfaction. Unassociated with any objects, the sense of the numinous is a feeling of "daemonic dread," a sense of the uncanny, frightful, eerie, weird, or supernatural. These feelings make us feel vulnerable and overpowered, what Otto calls "creature feeling."
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W2D-008-0.txt
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Executive Summary
Spurred on by the passage of the landmark welfare reform legislation - - the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 - - States have made tremendous progress toward the critical goal of moving families from welfare to work. More families are entering employment, earnings are up, and caseloads are down.
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program has given States new opportunities to develop and implement creative and innovative strategies and approaches to remove families from a cycle of dependency on public assistance and into work. For example, many are turning welfare offices into comprehensive service centers focused on work or changing policies so that work pays.
However, in spite of some dramatic results, there are still individuals not working or in entry-level jobs, with incomes that are too low or too erratic to raise their families above poverty. Under TANF, States have the flexibility and resources to develop programs that reach all families, promote success at work, and convert welfare offices into job centers. The task of welfare reform is far from finished. We encourage States to take the critical next steps to ensure that all families get the essential supports they need to get a job, succeed at work, and move out of poverty.
The TANF program provides extraordinary flexibility for funding a wide variety of employment and training activities, supportive services, and benefits that will enable clients to get a job, keep a job, and improve their economic circumstances. TANF funds are much more flexible than funds under the prior entitlement programs. So States should start with the assumption that they may use these funds in innovative ways to achieve the critical goals laid out in the TANF statute.
As a general rule, States (or local governments and other agencies where decision-making has devolved from the State agency) must use the available funds for eligible, needy families with a child and for one of the four purposes of the TANF program:
1. To provide assistance to needy families; To end dependence of needy parents by promoting job preparation, work and marriage; To prevent and reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies; and To encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families.
States must use objective criteria for determining eligibility and benefits. However, they may decide the income and resource standards that they will use to determine eligibility, and they may set different financial eligibility criteria for different benefits or services. (For example, they could limit eligibility for cash assistance to families living below poverty, but provide supportive services like child care and transportation to working families with incomes up to 185% of povert%;.) Further, since individuals do not have an entitlement to TANF benefits, States may elect to target benefits to families with incomes below their established eligibility guidelines.
States fund their TANF programs with a combination of Federal and State funds. While both are very flexible, the two sources of funds entail somewhat different rules and restrictions.
Federal TANF Funds. If States use Federal funds provided through their TANF block grants to provide "assistance," recipients are subject to work and participation requirements, a five-year time limit on Federal assistance, data reporting, and certain prohibitions. But these restrictions do not generally apply to other services and benefits that are not "assistance." Also, States have broad discretion to provide a wide range of benefits and services and to set different eligibility standards for the different types of benefits.
State "maintenance-of-effort" (MOE) funds. States must spend 80% of their his%;oric level of spending (FY 1994)- - or 75% if they meet%;work participation requirements - - on "qualified State expenditures" to meet the basic MOE requirement. All MOE funds must be spent on TANF eligible families.
This guide suggests some of the many flexible ways States may expend their Federal TANF and State MOE funds to further the purposes of the TANF program. These examples are by no means exhaustive. They merely serve to illustrate a few of the possibilities that State and local agencies, State legislators, communities, community-based organizations, and advocates may consider when designing an array of benefits, services, and supports that will accomplish one of the four purposes of the TANF program. We hope that the principles and illustrations in this guidance will promote the design of creative and innovative programs that effectively address the needs of low-income families.
Introduction provides some background information, explaining what progress has been made on welfare reform, what the funding situation is, the purposes of TANF, and the purpose of this guide.
Considerations in Deciding Whether A Use of Funds is Appropriate presents a list of factors which a State would consider in deciding what benefits and services to fund with Federal or State dollars.
Federal TANF Funds addresses the basic criteria that apply to the expenditure of the Federal block grant funds.
State Maintenance-of-Effort (MOE) Funds addresses the basic criteria for determining whether State expenditures would count as part of the minimum State financial contribution to the TANF program.
Appropriate Uses of Funds provides numerous examples of benefits and services that might be paid for with Federal TANF or State MOE funds.
Additional Considerations provides more detailed information about the potential implications of providing "assistance" and other kinds of benefits under the TANF program. It also provides more detailed information about what kinds of expenditures are allowable.
General Guidance and References identifies additional sources of information about the appropriate use of Federal and State funds. It also includes a chart summarizing the specific program requirements that would apply under different State program designs.
We hope that this guide will facilitate the development and sharing of creative ideas, and we invite States to send us information about successful strategies and innovative approaches. We will post them on our Internet page (www.acf.dhhs.gov) so that everyone can benefit from this information. Also, we encourage contact with Regional Office or Central Office staff who are available to answer any fiscal or policy questions about strategies being considered.
Introduction
The purpose of this guide is to show how States may use Federal TANF and State MOE funds to support working families and to address the needs of clients with barriers to self-sufficiency. The flexibility available under TANF presents new opportunities for funding a greater variety of activities, services, and benefits and for fostering new collaborative partnerships.
Because the funding of TANF is complex, State agencies, advocates, community groups, and State legislators may be unsure about the array of options available. Therefore, we developed this guide as a ready reference tool that would promote creative thinking about potential services, supports, and activities that States might adopt to further the purposes of the TANF program.
This guide presents examples of the many flexible ways States may use TANF and MOE funds to further the purposes of the TANF program. It does not contain new rules or policies. Although it summarizes the general limitations and prohibitions on the use of funds, we do not intend for it to serve as a definitive policy manual. States and locales should review the recently issued final rules and consult with Regional Office or Central Office staff if they have fiscal or policy questions about strategies they are considering.
The guide does not attempt to identify all possible appropriate uses of TANF and MOE funds, but simply provides a list of representative examples. Omission of a particular activity or service from the list does not necessarily mean that associated expenditures are not allowable. Also, inclusion of a particular example does not mean that such expenditures are categorically allowable, under all funding streams or for all types of recipients.
Over the past several years, States have made great progress toward the critical goal of moving families from welfare to work, spurred on by the passage of the landmark Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). This legislation created the TANF program.
The TANF program has expanded the opportunities States have to develop and implement creative and innovative strategies and approaches to remove families from the cycle of dependency on public assistance and into work. Across the country, we are seeing welfare offices transformed into comprehensive service centers focused on work. Case managers are being energized by their success in helping families find jobs and enter the economic mainstream. States have dramatically improved policies to help ensure that work pays. For example, they are allowing families to keep a larger share of their earnings, supplementing the Federal Earned Income Tax Credit with refundable State credits, allowing ownership of more reliable automobiles, helping families accumulate assets through Individual Development Accounts, and investing new resources in child care services.
The proportion of people who are working after receiving assistance is much higher than in the past.
A variety of "leaver" studies conducted by the States show that 50-65% of families%;eaving the rolls are working afterwards.
The latest Census Bureau statistics show that nearly one-third of the families that were on welfare in 1997 were working in March of 1998 - that's 1.5 million working parents.
Eighteen percent of clients receiving assistance now have earnings, more than double the level in 1993.
The amount of monthly earnings for these welfare families who are working is up from a monthly average of $450 in fiscal year 1996 to $592 in the last quarter of fiscal year 1997.
The number of individuals on welfare has been reduced by 46%; since President Clinton took office.
Even with these dramatic results, there are still individuals without work or in entry-level jobs. While these jobs typically pay more than welfare, they may leave families with incomes that are too low or too erratic to escape poverty. Some studies are showing that, within a year of finding jobs, 30-40%; of families are back on assistance or still combining welfare with work.
It is clear that poverty is significantly correlated with bad results for families: poor nutrition and health, unsafe housing, dangerous neighborhoods, and inadequate cognitive development of children. Recent findings from the New Hope demonstration program in Milwaukee demonstrate that investments in working families - - particularly child care and health care - - can yield very impressive results in helping families succeed in jobs and improve the well-being of children.
Under TANF, States have the flexibility and resources to contribute to these kinds of investments.
To succeed over the long run, collaboration among a range of community organizations and of governmental agencies must occur to address how best to serve clients with needs such as developmental disabilities, learning problems, substance abuse, mental health problems, rural isolation, and domestic violence.
States decide the services or benefits that are to be provided using their Federal and State funds. A State must use all of its Federal TANF and State MOE funds to meet one of the four purposes articulated in the Federal TANF statute or, in the case of the Federal TANF funds, to continue providing services and benefits that it was authorized to provide under its former title IV-A or IV-F State plans (which covered Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Emergency Assistance (EA), Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS), and Supportive Services). A State may use its TANF or MOE funds for services and benefits that directly lead to (or can be expected to lead to) the accomplishment of one of these four purposes. For example, it could fund special initiatives to improve the motivation, performance, and self-esteem of youth (e.g., activities like those included in the HHS Girl Power! Campaign or sponsored by the Boys and Girls Clubs) because such initiatives would be expected to reduce school- dropout and teen pregnancy rates.
Both sources of funding provide significant resources for States to invest in the services that families need to move from welfare to work, stay in the workforce, and move out of poverty. States have received tremendous financial benefits from the flexibility available under TANF and the strong economy. Many States have unobligated TANF funds available, giving them an unprecedented opportunity to invest in families with significant barriers to employment, provide additional supports for low-income working families, or design pregnancy prevention and family formation programs.
In deciding how to best use their TANF and MOE funds, it is critical that State agencies, including agencies such as child support, transportation, housing, and child care, develop strong collaborative relationships with businesses, local agencies, and community organizations in developing strategies and delivering services. While States have been enormously successful in placing millions of clients into work, efforts must extend to reach all needy families, including those that face multiple barriers to success and who face time limits for receiving public assistance.
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W2A-024-0.txt
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There has been continuing concern about the neurologic manifestations of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-I) infection ever since early reports of neurologic complications associated with acquired immmunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) appeared in literature (1-3). Much of the concern has centered around a constellation of neuropsychiatric symptoms known as AIDS-associated dementia or AIDS dementia complex, originally described by Snider et al. as "subacute encephalitis" (3), because it may develop insidiously. It has been estimated that up to two thirds of AIDS patients who do not develop some other central nervous system disease may develop primary dementia (4).
Navia et al. (4) and Price et al. (5), among others, have described the characteristic abnormalities associated with AIDS dementia. In general, they include difficulty in complex sequencing, impaired fine and rapid motor movement, reduced verbal fluency with retention of vocabulary and object naming, and complaints of forgetfulness despite good memory retention upon testing. These impairments have been found to be most prominent with testing formats involving time pressure, problem solving, visual scanning, visual motor integration and alternation between stimuli.
Recently, there have been reports of neurologic manifestations in early HIV-I infection, before the full development of clinically apparent AIDS (6-8). While the point at which neurologic impairment first becomes clinically apparent in the course of HIV-l infection remains uncertain, hypotheses about the progression of HIV-I central nervous system involvement from initial infection to end-stage disease have led to increased speculation that cognitive dysfunction may exist in otherwise asymptomatic HlV-1-positive individuals. This study was undertaken to attempt to estimate the effect of seropositivity on Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test scores in otherwise healthy individuals with early HIV-I infection.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery is a multiple-aptitude battery consisting of 10 individual tests that has been administered to all civilian applicants for military enlistment during the past 15 years. It is designed to predict what a person could accomplish with training or further education, and especially to measure potential for occupations that require formal courses of instruction or on-the-job training. It also provides a general measure of academic ability and some indication of future job performance. There is a large body of literature documenting the validity of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and its components (9-13). The battery is administered prior to the preinduction medical examination, which since 1985 has included testing for antibody to HIV-I (14, 15).
For the purpose of this study, the individual tests were considered in three groups. The first group consists of general academic tests which provide an overall measure of trainability. These tests are: General Science, which measures knowledge of physical and biologic sciences; Arithmetic Reasoning, which measures the ability to solve arithmetic word problems; Word Knowledge, which tests the ability to select correct meaning and synonyms for a word presented in context; and Paragraph Comprehension. which tests the ability to obtain information from written passages.
The next two tests, Numerical Operations and Coding Speed, are perhaps the most important, because while all 10 tests are timed, these two are performed under the greatest time pressure. The former test requires the performance of 50 arithmetic computations in a speeded context of 3 minutes, and the latter measures the ability to use a key in assigning four-digit code numbers to 84 words in a speeded context of 7 minutes.
The last four tests are specific vocational skills tests that measure knowledge in particular areas. Auto and Shop Information measures knowledge of automobiles, tools, and shop terminology and practices; Mathematics Knowledge tests knowledge of high school mathematics principles, including basic algebra and geometry; Mechanical Comprehension measures knowledge of mechanical and physical principles and the ability to visualize how illustrated objects work; and Electronics Information measures knowledge of electricity and electronics.
Four individual tests are summed according to the following formula to derive the Armed Forces Qualifying Test composite: Arithmetic Reasoning Word Knowledge + Paragraph Comprehension + 1/2 Numerical Operations. The Armed Forces Qualifying Test composite is the most widely used combination of individual test scores. It is used to determine an applicant's mental category, and it correlates with an individual's mental aptitude on other intelligence tests (15, 16). Table I provides a summary of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery component tests.
Test and demographic data were extracted from the Military Entrance Processing Stations induction testing data base for an 18-month period from October 1985 through March 1987. Records without HIV-l test results or Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test scores were eliminated, leaving 975,489 observations; 1,283 of these were HIV- 1 - positive cases. Five controls per case were chosen matching on US postal ZIP code alone. using a computer algorithm developed by one of the authors (F. W.). This algorithm chose controls systematically with a pseudorandom start. Of the 1,283 cases. 1.275 matched on all five ZIP code digits for the full five controls. The rest matched on a combination of three-, four- or five-digit ZIP codes.
After matching, the analysis file had 7,698 observations. Exploratory analysis of the data and univariate analysis of the test scores were performed. Table 2 shows the unadjusted mean raw aptitude test scores. For almost all of the tests, the HIV-l-positive group had a lower mean score. Because our sample sizes were so large, the standard errors were small. and all the differences except one were nominally statistically significant (by t test, variance unequal) at the @ = 0.01 level. The magnitudes of the differences were also small, though, especially with respect to the sample standard deviations, which were much larger than the actual differences for each of the scores. Therefore, we anticipated that after adjustment for age, race, sex, and other factors, the HIV-I effect would diminish.
Further exploration was done prior to conducting the regression analysis. No non-gaussian distributions were noted among the Y variables (test scores). We then plotted each predictor (or X) variable against the Armed Forces Qualifying Test composite to look for outliers and interactions. One extreme outlier was identified and eliminated; no interactions were found. All individuals who were failed on subsequent physical examination, due to abnormal skin/lymphatic conditions (such as enlarged lymph nodes or benign or malignant tumors of the skin) were eliminated to preclude applicants from the final analysis who had clinical HIV-I disease. At this point, 7,505 observations remained.
Table 3 illustrates some of the likely demographic confounders in the analysis data set. The HIV-I-positive applicants were more likely to be male, to be black, to be older, and to have a history of prior military service, all of which were considered likely determinants of scores. The regression analysis was used to adjust for these and other confounders and to identify any remaining HIV-l effect. The design fixes the ratio of HIV-1-positive to HIV-l-negative individuals at 1:5, and by matching on ZIP code, we have attempted to control for geographic variation.
To make the regression coefficients comparable with one another, we adjusted all test scores to a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. Since our outcome variable (test score) was continuous, a multiple linear regression model was built. SAS analytical software was used to conduct the analysis (17). To choose the best model initially, we examined main effects and interaction terms for the Armed Forces Qualifying Test composite. The model derived was sensitive enough to detect an HIV-I effect of approximately 0.07 standard deviation for most of the aptitude tests at @ = 0.01. (That was less than a l-point difference in raw score for each of the tests except the Armed Forces Qualifying Test composite, where it was just under 1.5 points.)
Each of the 10 standardized individual test scores was then regressed on the same group of predictors that was used in the main effects model for the Armed Forces Qualifying Test. High leverage points with poor fits were identified and eliminated from each regression, and after the distribution of the residuals was checked, the regressions were repeated. This checking and correcting improved the fits only slightly, however. Finally, each individual's Armed Forces Qualifying Test composite score was used as an independent predictor variable in a final set of regressions to control for individual variation in basic intellectual capacity.
RESULTS
The results of the initial regression analysis using the Armed Forces Qualifying Test composite as the outcome variable are shown in table 4. The listed effects represent the number of standard deviations that an individual's score was predicted to change per unit of change in the predictor variable. Ninety-nine percent confidence intervals are also shown. Years of education was a powerful and highly significant predictor, with each year adding nearly 0.16 standard deviation (SD) to an applicant's Armed Forces Qualifying Test composite score. The strongest categorical effects identified were racial/ethnic ones. Women tended to have slightly higher scores than men. HIV-I seropositivity lowered an applicant's score by 0.09 SD, enough to be nominally statistically significant; however, the total regression R 2 for the model was only 0.21, so much of the variability was not being accounted for.
As for the remaining predictors, prior military service was not significant in these data but was allowed to remain in the model because it did contribute in some of the later regressions, and we wanted to have a consistent model. The branch of service for which the individual was applying was also an independent predictor; applicants to all other armed services tended to have higher scores than Army applicants. No interactions between HIV-l status and any other predictor were identified.
The results of the individual regression analyses for the effect of HIV- I positivity on each test score are shown in table 5. The same main effects model was used. In general, HIV-1-positive status tended to lower scores slightly, while most of the regression R2 values remained quite low, indicating that much of the variability in test scores w as independent of the factors in our model. This was expected, however, because if test scores were highly correlated with demographic factors, rather than individual variability, there would be no need to administer them as predictors of future performance.
Among the general academic tests at the top of table 5, there appears to be no HIV-1 effect upon word knowledge or paragraph comprehension, which is consistent with a priori expectations, based on what is known about HIV-I dementia. We expected that Numerical Operations and Coding Speed would be the most sensitive indicators of an HIV-l effect, along with Arithmetic Reasoning. which involves solving arithmetic word problems. For Arithmetic Reasoning, there was a clearly significant decrement; for Numerical Operations, there was a marginal (though statistically significant) HIV-I-positive decrement; and for Coding Speed, HIV-I-positive status appeared to marginally improve an applicant's score. The largest negative effects occurred among the four vocational tests at the bottom.
Because all of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test's components arc to some degree interrelated with each other and with measures of general intelligence, Pearson correlation coefficients between the individual tests were calculated. Most of the tests correlated fairly well with each of the other tests, with the exception of Numerical Operations and Coding Speed, which only correlated well with each other. The Armed Forces Qualifying Test composite, however, correlated well with all of the tests. Since the Armed Forces Qualifying Test composite represents a measure of an individual's mental aptitude (15, 16), the Armed Forces Qualifying Test composite score was added as a predictor variable in another set of regressions to control for individual variation and further isolate the HIV-I effect on the remaining individual tests, apart from any effect on general intelligence. Those individual tests which are included in the Armed Forces Qualifying Test composite were excluded from this analysis, with the exception of Numerical Operations, in which case the composite was calculated without the Numerical Operations component when used as a predictor variable for that regression.
The results of this final set of regressions using the Armed Forces Qualifying Test composite as a predictor (table 6) were helpful. The R2 values roughly doubled for all of the test scores, and the magnitude of the HIV-I effect consistently diminished, with the exception of Coding Speed, which then showed a significant improvement with HIV-I-positive status. One must be cautious in interpreting these results, however. The approach used will automatically diminish the magnitude of the HIV-I effect on the individual tests, since part of the effect is already included in the Armed Forces Qualifying Test composite score as an effect on general intelligence. Only the improvement in Coding Speed for HIV-1-seropositives went against this expectation, as the magnitude increased, and if this test truly is a sensitive indicator, these results would tend to discount the significance of the HIV-I-positive effect on the other test scores.
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W2E-004-0.txt
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Nukes For Sale
KARL GROSSMAN AND JUDITH LONG
" The time has come to consider creating a global system for protection of the world community," Boris Yeltsin said on January 31, addressing President Bush and the United Nations Security Council. "It could be based on a reorientation of the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative to make use of high technologies developed in Russia's defense complex." Yeltsin's proposal is a hot deal for the former enemies: Russia gets cash, the United States, nuclear technology - and power through the militarization of space. The losers are the planet and its peoples.
A deal to buy Russia's Topaz 2 space reactor was struck more than a year ago and announced in January 1991 at the eighth annual Symposium on Space Nuclear Power Systems in New Mexico. Nikolai Ponomarev-Stepnoi, first deputy of the Kurtchatovis Institute of Atomic Power in Moscow, explained at the time, "Our institution got its budget cut 50 percent and... we need to look for finances from different sources." As for the cost to the United States, Richard Verga, director of key technologies for the Pentagon's Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, said that Topaz 2 would be used in a program with an overall cost of $100 million. The Topaz, a reactor that produces energy through nuclear fission as it orbits the Earth, uses a "thermionic" design - technology in which Russia outstrips the United States. It could be mass-produced here to provide power to weaponry on Star Wars battle platforms.
The Topaz 2 deal poses stiff competition to General Electric, which is developing a Star Wars nuclear reactor of its own, the SP-100, and is causing a split among U.S. policy-makers. In a January 6 memo the White House Office of Management and Budget ordered the Energy Department and NASA to give preference to the Topaz 2 because "the potential availability of the Topaz 2... offers new possibilities," and it cut D.O.E.'s SP-100 budget for 1993 from $40 million to $30 million. The Pentagon also favors the Topaz, claiming it can be deployed in three years at a tenth the cost of the SP-100, which has a price tag of $1.6 billion and can't be tested until 2004. But D.O.E., longtime friend to G.E., insists SP-100's liquid metal heat system is "ahead of thermionics."
This past January the Russians were back with more deals - and some veiled threats of selling to Libya - at the ninth annual Symposium on Space Nuclear Power Systems. This time they were peddling their nuclear-powered rockets. Coincidentally, the Pentagon had just disclosed some of its own plans for nuclear-powered rockets. Scrubbed in 1972 after seventeen years of development as too dangerous and too costly (at $1.5 billion already spent - $6.5 billion in today's dollars), the project was covertly reopened for Star Wars in 1987, code-named Timberwind and kept in deep secrecy. Nuclear-powered rockets, with a stronger blast force than conventional ones, would theoretically be able to loft the massive lasers, particle-beam devices and other heavy Star Wars weaponry into orbit. Air Force spokesmen admitted to a cost of $800 million for the project. The designer and manufacturer of the U.S. nuclear-powered rocket engine is Babcock and Wilcox, of Three Mile Island fame.
Lost in the scramble for dollars and technology is careful consideration of what the nuclearization of space can cost the planet - in dollars and in lives. In dollars: The Star Wars budget jumped from $2.9 billion in 1991 to $4.1 billion this year. The White House in calling for a record 1993 Star Wars budget of $5.4 billion.
In danger: There has been a 15 percent failure rate in both U.S. and Soviet nuclear space hardware. The most serious U.S. accident occurred in 1964, when a plutonium-powered satellite fell toward Earth, breaking up i the atmosphere and showering plutonium over vast areas of the planet. Russian nuclear-powered satellites have also fallen to Earth. The 1978 crash of Cosmos 954 covered a broad swath of Canada with radioactive debris. Topaz or SP-100, Timberwind or Russian rocketry, they're Chernobyls 'rein the sky.
Government documents on Timberwind told of a prototype of the nuclear rocket failing on the ground. Still, the Pentagon planned a test flight, which for "safety" reasons would take place mostly over water around Antarctica, though New Zealand is on its path. A government analysis put the chances of the nuclear rocket crashing into New Zealand at 1 in 2,325. (For some perspective on these odds, recall that the chances of a Challenger-type disaster were estimated at 1 in 100,000.) The Topaz 2 has been used in only two missions, in 1987. Both ended because of a malfunction in the reactor.
This past July, insuring against accidents with U.S. nuclear space machinery, NASA and D.O.E. signed a Space Nuclear Power Agreement limiting U.S. liability in the event of a nuclear accident in space to $7.3 billion to Americans for property damage or death from radioactive contamination and $100 million, total, for citizens of all other nations. Five months earlier, the United States withdrew support for U.N. draft guidelines on the use of nuclear space devices because the Defense Department and NASA feared that Star Wars might be hindered by such a treaty. It's the nuke world order.
Toxic Banking
DOUG HENWOOD
" I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that. The publication of these words, from a leaked internal memo, caused a rush of bad publicity for their author, World Bank chief economist Lawrence Summers, who now claims he was being ironic and provocative. There were calls for his resignation. But Summers was expressing honestly the logic of his discipline and his employer.
Summers - whose salary is 225 times the per-person income of the bank's Third World clientele - is a whiz-bang Harvard econocrat, a class that believes religiously that money is the final measure of value. Happiness is a growing G.D.P. Legal issues can be resolved as competing economic claims, and ethical decisions can be translated into dollar terms, with the cheaper alternative always preferable.
In his memo, which criticized a draft of the bank's World Development Report, Summers was applying cost-benefit analysis, which measures the value of a human life by the stream of wages remaining to it. Say it will cost Global Megatoxics $1 million to install a state-of-the-art scrubber in its chimney. If Global determines that not spending this sum will shorten the lives of five people by ten years apiece, all that would be lost would be the present value of these fifty years of wages. At a wage of $1,000 a year, the cost of the five lives can be figured at $41,000, thanks to the magic of compound interest; at $30,000 a year, they're worth 'reollar;1.2 million. As Summers said in his memo, "health-impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages." Since the costs of pollution - always priced in dollars or their equivalent - rise with development, Summers argued, it makes sense costwise to dump in Africa. If a pollutant is going to cause "prostrate" cancer, a disease of old age, why not locate it in countries where people aren't likely to live long enough to get it? He concluded this section by saying that disagreement with this logic suggests the belief that things like "intrinsic rights to certain goods, moral reasons, social concerns, lack of adequate markets, etc. could be turned around and used more or less effectively against every Bank proposal for liberalization.? Exactly; as they should be.
It makes no sense for Summers to resign; he expressed the bank's logic perfectly. It's a bank, and acts like one. It may preside over a steady erosion of Third World incomes relative to First World ones, but it makes big money. Last year, after paying $7 billion in interest and fees to its investors and bankers, it had a $1.2 billion surplus and a rate of return that commercial banks would envy.
What's a public institution to do with that kind of surplus? The bank's executive board spends a lot of time working that question over. In 1991 it decided to contribute $267 million to its soft-loan affiliate, which lends to very poor countries at concessional rates, $29 million to the Global Environment Trust Fund and stuff the remaining $904 million into its hoard of 'retaine 'rearnings,' which now stands at $11.9 billion. According to Unicef, preventing vitamin-A-deficiency blindness would cost $6 million. Preventing "the great majority" of childhood malnutrition deaths would cost $2.5 billion. But adding to the World Bank's surplus is a higher priority.
In recent years, the bank has moved away from project-oriented lending - power plants and dams - and toward structural adjustment lending, in which credit is conditional on adoption of a standard austerity/deregulation package. Not surprisingly, these schemes have savage effects, to which the bank has a ready answer - more loans. The bank is lending its clients more money to treat the poverty, social dislocation and environmental damage that earlier loans helped create. The bank funds greenhouse-gas reduction schemes in countries where the greenhouse-gas producers were initially financed by the World Bank.
Bank publicity makes much of a new environmental consciousness, but actions tell a different story. The bank exempted structural adjustment programs from environmental review even though their point is to work human and physical resources harder which can't be friendly to people or their environment. It has redlined its environment department, leaving it little power. World Bank claims to a larger role in global environmental politics - to be pressed, for example, at this spring's United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development - should be beaten back with heavy sticks.
Whether or not Summers returns to Harvard, waste export will be a growth industry for these sluggish times. The practice of shifting dirty industries to poor countries is well established. Greenpeace follows the routine stuff all over the world - German (per capita income: $20,440) plastic to Argentina ($2,160), U.S. ($20,910) mercury to South Africa ($2,470), car batteries from everywhere to Brazil ($2,540). Plastic dropped into recycling bins is likely to be shipped to Malaysia ($2,160). The logic is impeccable.
IMPLANTS: TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES
KATHA POLLIT
The F.D.A. hearings into the safety of silicone gel breast implants have ended with a split recommendation by the advisory panel: Rejecting an out-right ban on the devices, it urges that implantees be registered in clinical trials, to which only women who needed the surgery for reconstructive, not cosmetic, purposes would be guaranteed admittance. Which is it - "Panel Backs Marketing of implants" (The Washington Post) or "Experts Suggest U.S. Sharply Limit Breast Implants" (The New York Times)" You be the judge.
Whatever else they were, the hearings were great theater. There was the perfidy of Dow (Napalm? Agent Orange? What's that?) Corning, the largest manufacturer of the implants, which was revealed to have lied and stonewalled for almost thirty years. There was the pious greed of plastic surgeons, who aggressively marketed the devices as a "cure" for "micromastia" small breasts, to you) and now warn of an epidemic of "hysteria" in breast-enlarged women newly enlightened about the risks of autoimmune disorders, painful scarring, obscured mammograms. There was a hero, too, if a few decades late - David Kessler, the F.D.A.'s energetic new head. But most of all there were breasts - sex, beauty, fashion, women, women's bodies. Does anyone think the implant story would have been plastered all over the news media if it was about orthopedic shoes? The real breast-implant story, though, isn't about women's bodies; it's about their minds. In the postfeminist wonderland in which we are constantly being told we live, women's lives are portrayed as one big smorgasbord of "choices" and "options", all value free and freely made, and which therefore cannot be challenged or even discussed, lest one sound patronizing or moralistic. Thus, women "choose" to have implants, we are told, to please men - no, wait, to boost their self-esteem - and who are you to criticize their judgment?
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W2C-013-0.txt
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Frankfurt, Germany--Center stage at the auto show that opens here today are a pair of little bubble-topped cars that represent a potential industry breakthrough.
The models whose unveiling this morning attracted about 2,000 auto executives and journalists aren't pollution-free wondermobiles, or even most-elegant Mercedes-Benz and BMW sedans. Instead, they're a pair of ordinary subco 'rects from Chrysler Corp. with an extraordinary mission: to become Detroit's first small cars to sell well, drive comfortably AND make a profit.
The new Dodge and Plymouth Neon are noteworthy this morning for another reason: Their Frankfurt debut marks the first time one of the Big Three first introduced an American-made car abroad. But then never before has a U.S. car counted on overseas sales so heavily for its success.
Successfully marketing small cars has been Detroit's Holy Grail for the past three decades. Not that there haven't been notable attempts--and flops.
General Motors Corp.'s Chevrolet Corvair attempted to copy the rear-engine design of the popular Volkswagen Beetle, only to spawn Ralph Nader and his book Unsafe at Any Speed. Ford Motor Co.tried to stem rising Japanese car sales with the Pinto. But court setbacks over fuel-tank explosions sank the Pinto instead.
American Motors Corp., which pioneered Detroit's plunge into small cars during the late'50s, produced one of the ugliest cars ever conceived--the squat Pacer. Even the Ford Escort, one of the best-sellers in Ford's history, has failed to produce profits.
Through it all, top Big Three executives were uncomfortable with small cars and the modest profits they produced. And by producing unsatisfactory cars like the Pinto or the Chevrolet Vega, Detroit merely fed the rush of young, affluent buyers to foreign cars.
" By creating awareness of the practicality, even pleasure, that is inherent in driving a small automobile--and then marketing mediocre Vegas and Pintos--Ford and General Motors were generating increased potential sales for Volkswagen, Toyota and (Nissan)," auto writer Brock Yates observed in his 1983 book The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry.
Now, Chrysler is hoping to reshape the perception of America's small cars. To do, it is banking its recent string of comeback vehicles on the Neons-as Chrysler describes them, "cute" four-seaters with roomy, cab-forward interiors, standard dual air bags and peppy 2.0-liter, 16-valve engines likely to sell for less than $ 9,000.
The car's biggest drawback: It comes with only a three-speed automatic transmission, while many of its competitors offer a more modern--and often more efficient--four-speed.
The debut of the Neons caps a year in which the once-troubled carmaker won raves for its new mid-sized sedans, sold Jeep Grand Cherokees as fast as it could make them, prepared to thrust a bold, new entrant into the U.S. pickup truck market and slashed its enormous debt.
" With the recent positive view of Chrysler as a clever, innovative, dynamic company, they're certainly trying 'remove that halo over the Neon," said David E.Cole, director of the University of Michigan's Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation. "I think they're doing a good job 're it."
Indeed, the Neons represent more than just additional new products for Chrysler.
The Neons are Chrysler's first new subcompacts since 1978's Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon. When Neons start selling in the United States in January, the company hopes they will win back long-lost market share from the Japanese. In Europe, the little car could play a big role in re-establishing Chrysler as a mainstream automaker.
Building the Neons "was really a counter-attack to get back what we used to have," said Robert P.Marcell, Chrysler general manager of small-car engineering and leader of the team that built the Neons.
But the Neons' most-notable achievement would be to make money--or at least not lose it.
" In today's very demanding auto industry, you really don't want to do money-losing products," said Joe Caddell, Chrysler's general product manager of small cars.
With subcompacts, that's easier said than done, for reasons both of necessity and choice.
For one thing, small cars cost nearly as much to design and build as larger cars. But bigger autos command proportionately bigger prices, producing bigger profits.
In the past, the Big Three ere willing to accept the trade-off because the unprofitable small cars helped them average out the fuel economy of their car lineups to meet federal standards.
Small cars also inhabit a corner of the market that doesn't allow much room for price hikes. "With 22 nameplates, it's by far the most competitive segment in the world," Marcell said.
Former Chrysler Chairman Lee A.Iacocca initially wanted to spread the cost of building the Neons by getting Fiat's help. "Iacocca was sort of the small car's biggest advocate and biggest adversary," Caddell said. "It was kind of a love-hate relationship, like, "I'd really l 'de to do a small car, but, damn it, I can't figure out why.'"
Marcell and his team convinced Iacocca that they could build a profitable subcompact if they dispensed with conventional thinking. They knew "if we did things the same way we had done things for the past 20 years in Detroit, we would end up disappointed," Marcell said.
The result: Chrysler spent $ 1.3 billion to bring the Neons to market. By loose comparison, Ford a helled? out $ 6 billion for its Mondeo "world cars" and GM spent $ 5 billion to give birth to Saturn. Chrysler figures that difference means each Neon will cost about $500 less to build than its close competitors.
The Neon team began by tearing apart rival models and talking to hundreds of consumers to determine how to make a car that would address buyers' two main beefs with subcompacts: They look unsafe and they're no fun 'reto drive.
Following Chrysler's "platform team" development concept, designers, engineers, production planners, suppliers and line workers worked together to trim costs while adding features normally not offered by subcompacts. As a result, Neon will arrive in dealerships after a 31-month gestation, beating the average Big Three development pace by more than a year and rivaling Japan's swiftness.
" What the team tried to do is question every step of the way why you do things and why they can't be done a different way," Caddell said. "When you save $ 1.50 here and $ 2 there, it does add up."
For example, the Neon planners counted seven different types of fasteners that had been used to attach doors to door panels on the Plymouth Sundance, Chrysler's current small car. They decided the Neon would do better with just one type.
" That means you've got one 'vepplier vs. seven," Caddell said. "You've got one 'vex (of parts) on the assembly line vs. seven. You've got one 'verque wrench at one torque setting instead of seven. You eliminate the cost of putting the wrong screw in the wrong hole."
Chrysler saved $ 25 to $ 35 a car by using a single air-bag crash sensor instead of the usual three to five. Bumpers were molded in color, making them recycleable and cutting painting costs. By locating satellite stamping facilities next to the main Neon assembly plant in Belvidere, Ill., Chrysler will reduce shipping costs and scrap.
Chrysler also is shelving the standard approach of supplying different sales outlets with slightly different versions of the same car. Because research showed consumers see through such tactics, both Dodge and Plymouth dealers will sell identical Neons, saving on engineering, advertising and other costs.
The Neons seek to offer the basics consumers expect in a small car: a modest price and decent fuel mileage. Caddell said the car will get just below 30 mpg in the city and at least 35 mpg on the highway.
But Chrysler willingly sacrificed a bit of fuel economy to equip the cars with a 2.0-liter, 16-valve engine--and make it more enjoyable to drive. The car will accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in about nine seconds. "It's about the fastest car in the Chrysler Corp. short of the (Dodge) Viper," Caddell said.
Dual air bags were included to address buyers' safety concerns. The car will meet federal safety standards for side-impact collisions four years before they take effect. Enhancing the safety image is the availability of anti-lock brakes and built-in child seats as options.
" We're not 'reoking at making a profit by making the product cheap," Caddell said. "We're loo 'reg at making a profit by making the product efficient."
Will the Neon make money? As recently as January, retiree Iacocca said he doubted it. Analysts are more optimistic, but they think Chrysler will have to sell at let 300,000 Neons a year to pet it into the black.
That's no easy task in a market as subdivided as America's, and it shows why European sales are necessary for the Neons to succeed.
" Volume is crucial," U-M's Cole said. "If for some reason the car doesn't sell...you've g 'vea serious problem because your fixed costs are just about as high as with any product."
Four-door models will debut in the United States in January followed by two-doors in September. Chrysler plans to begin exporting four-door versions to Europe--where the subcompact market is about twice as large as the U.S. market for small cars--in June.
Joseph Phillippi, an analyst with Lehman Brothers Inc. in New York, said some Chrysler managers are worried they won't have enough capacity in Illinois and at the plant in Mexico to satisfy demand. "They're 'reually scratching their heads: 'What if the Neon is more successful than we think?"
For America's small cars, it would be a switch.
CHRYSLER'S OVERSEAS GAMBLE
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W2F-007-0.txt
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Newtopia
AARON LYON
The dirty, dystopian future of cyberpunk writers is so popular now. But if the future ends up looking more like "Leave it to Beaver" than "Neuromancer", should we consider ourselves lucky or cursed?
" Next!"
Jeez. Finally. As I enter the white room alone, three short, uniformed men display practiced grins, gleaming straight teeth framed by dark, oily skin. My luggage has preceded me, and lies apparently unopened on the plastic table - - the only furniture. Two video cameras glare ostentatiously from the eaves like Poe's ravens.
" Anything to declare?"One agent opens my suitcase and deftly upends the contents on the table. The next employs a metal detector like a kitchen tool, stirring my egg white socks and flipping my sausages. A similar metal detector was needed to eliminate the threat of the brass rivets on my 501's when I wasn't able to pass the walk-thru test a second time.
" Are you taking any prescription medications?"Another agent devours my overnight bag, snorting my talc, drinking my shampoo, chewing my aspirin, and gnawing my hairbrush. Finally, sniffing my Speed Stick and giving my shaving cream Indian rug burn in an attempt to unscrew either end, he turns his attention to his clipboard.
" Please turn your pockets inside out.?The third agent seems especially interested in my pens, taking them apart and flexing the springs suspiciously. I find nothing at all in my pockets, having already emptied them before the metal detector and EPD scan, and having vacuumed them carefully before this trip.
EPD (Emotional Photograph Detectography) is an emerging science wherein a selection of emotional elementals, the basic components of all emotions, are measured. Some of the more elusive emotional components exist for mere nanoseconds, and can only be detected using EPD. The resulting measurements are then interpreted as a concrete report of the subject's psychic personality. For example, violent criminals should show exaggerated hatred and pain elementals, while the ideal, bovine citizen displays a healthy mix of happiness, sadness, and fear.
The EPD scan had encouraged me with its accurate reading of my normally cool emotional complexion. EPD, despised in the West but employed in Newtopia, leaves much to be desired in a psychic evaluator for one simple reason: criminals are commonly more together than straight folk. But I had needed the recommendation - - my long hair is a serious warning sign to these people. This fact is duly noted on several pages of my passport in large red letters: "S.H.I.T." (Suspected Hippie In Transit.)
Notice the way my hands shake when I tell you this. A typically heavy storm thrashes the hotel windows rhythmically with its wrinkled fingers. I'm on th 'm60th floor of this 72-floor steel and glass monster, slowly getting sick from the motion - - the hotel is a giant pine branch stuck in the old tar of a derelict rolling gas station. My makeshift pendulum, a pencil suspended from the lamp by a complimentary piece of thread, nervously etches a widening oval on hotel stationery. Huge, horizontal claws of lightening, no longer shy to be seen by my bloodshot eyes, scratch the paint off my retinas, leaving the white of true power etched into my vision.
I'm jet-l 'm wired. My watch delivers its one-liner with a straight face, "Sixteen thirty-three."
" Stop, you're ki 'ren' me!" I chuckle rhythmically, like a woodpecker finding lunch. My gaze turns to the bathroom and I stop giggling abruptly.
A flash of lightening lasts mere nanoseconds, but this one turns from white to yellow as it lights up the shower curtain like a Las Vegas night. I whip around, jaw snapping into place a bit late, and gape. I've se 'veplenty of esses blow in the past, but this one flares into a screaming white magnesium celebration of the universe and my small brain. Hallelujah! The red neon tubes explode, exhaling their precious cargo like an ejaculation. Tiny bits of burning sign dive off toward the street below in a shower of sparks like space flotsam entering the atmosphere. The skin on my chest tingles with electricity.
The storm is eerily over and the building rests, perhaps sleeping, exhausted from its dance in the primal rain.
" Sixteen thirty-two?"I check my watch again. Then my stomach checks in with me, hunger overpowering my nausea. I find the thought of a food-finding mission risky, but room service is downright inhospitable.
" 'Adventure' is my middle name," I say as I grab my card key and sunglasses.
Outside the hotel, the hot, thick air presses against my face like a wet blanket. The jungle doesn't stop at the city limits like a timid forest creature, but spills out of cement troughs throughout the city. Youths on motor scooters choke the streets, buzzing from mall to mall with their T-shirts on backward. Police adorn every corner, shouting nonsense over cellular phones, 9mm handguns and black batons painfully visible. Three million people slap the sidewalk with floppy sandals - - a percussive symphony in the heavy air.
A stocky blond man emerges backwards from a doorway in an office building. His soiled cotton slacks and sweat-stained shirt distinguish him from the throng as much as his fair complexion and relative stature. The stubble on this rube's cheeks is days old. An irate woman, a madam with white pancake and rouge, follows him out onto the sidewalk, ranting incoherently. A tan micro-van screeches to a halt in the middle of the street, pig-tail radio antennae wagging, halting traffic in both directions. The front and back doors pop open and steady streams of small, uniformed men pour impossibly from the tiny vehicle, like circus clowns. A captain, adorned with gold buttons and megaphone, becomes ringmaster of this grotesque circus, as the acrobatic constables perform fearless feats of brutality, quickly subduing the golden-maned lion. More cops rush needlessly to the scene from adjacent corners, knuckles white on their batons.
" Bad foreigner! Get in van!" shouts the ringmaster. "Everything OK now. Nothing to look at. Everybody scram!"
" Baby crocodile crawled out of the sewer yesterday, damned if it didn't bite my landlady!" says a nonplussed pedestrian, continuing his broken stride.
" Don't say. Good things come in small packages. Remember that guy with 93 outstanding parking tickets? Just got nipped for 36 grand and three visits!"
" Ouch, ouch!"
" Smile when you say that."
Newtopia employs corporal punishment to achieve its rigid social order. Miscreants and nogoodniks are dealt with swiftly and effectively according to a graduated scale of evil-doing. Jaywalking, spitting, and littering bring a quick five hundred dollar fine, as does the use of a public toilet without flushing afterwards. More serious crimes are punished by fining and beating the guilty individual. Tampering with a telephone on the subway, peeing in an elevator, and bad-mouthing a police officer all result in a fine and a beating. Counterfeiting results in a $10,000 fine and five beatings.
A beating is an organized affair, in which an appointment is made for the sentenced offender to appear at an office, rather like a visit to the dentist. Appointments are rarely missed, due to the ten- fold nature of escalating punishments. Paperwork is required to officiate the event, "Please sign here and here in triplicate...and here..."Awaiting the soon-to-be-reformed criminal are two police officers and a government doctor in an examination room, completely bare of furniture except for a small stainless steel table on which sits a clipboard and a medical bag. The penitent citizen is checked for sobriety, directed to strip down to his/her underwear, and advised to assume a stance of attention in the center of the room.
The two officers proceed to administer the beating, which I will describe sparingly, using no scathing adjectives or graphic similies.
Using weathered bamboo canes three feet long, both officers brutally deliver slicing blows from far overhead, like lumberjacks chopping wood. The hapless recipient generally falls quickly to the linoleum floor, but the beating continues relentlessly. The two officers trade blows like Chinese slaves building an American railroad. Each blow raises a discoloring welt or breaks the skin, and crimson tears flow from the shallow wounds. The antidoctor, assigned to prevent death from excessive abuse, determines the merciful end of the beating when the victim is suitably reprimanded. After a few minutes, most citizens walk out under their own power.
If the criminal has been sentenced to more than one beating, an interval of time is prescribed between beatings for the wounds to heal. Some persons convicted of multiple crimes are suffered to endure the lesser punishments, i.e. beatings, before the ultimate penalty, namely, hanging to death. Smugglers, pushers, and users are all sentenced to death, as are all perpetrators of violent crimes. Participants in shootouts with police are never tried - - anyone stupid enough to point a gun at a cop is immediately shot to death.
Allow me to state the obvious: cops in Newtopia engender no small amount of respect. All males are required to serve a two-year term in the service of their country when they are 18. It's no wonder most elect to become police officers. What comes around, goes around.
Subversive behavior is not tolerated. Dissenting opinion and left- wing blasphemy are not tolerated. Anyone caught voicing such revolutionary rhetoric disappears. "The Government is all-powerful, my son, and Thou Shalt Not Mess Wid It."
All news of any kind, that is, newspapers and TV news, is carefully censored by the state. Editorials do not exist. Late-night TV stations run the following spots: A figure in silhouette is shown standing, noose around neck. Next to the figure is displayed a name and a crime. Trapdoor opens, figure falls against taut rope, struggles for a moment, then swings silently.
McDonald's sprouts everywhere like a shit-eating fungus. The thought of a Big Mac turns my guts, but the food park in the broad alley attracts me like a dump attracts seagulls - - a pungent smell on the air miles away. Ramshackle shops offer steamed rice, noodles, and a variety of animal parts. The flat eyes of whole, dead fish flick towards me in my peripheral vision, but stay put when I stare at them. I order noodles and fish by pointing and begin to eat.
The sounds of commerce break apart like someone singing through the blades of a moving fan. Thin yellow and orange spots blinking little neon lamps. Throbbing stroboscopic flash scene. My camera works at twelve frames per second. Now, only four frames every second. Step forward. Flash. Fumble bowl. Flash. Bowl crashes to street, chopsticks chasing madly after. Flash. Next step forward lands on noodles. Flash. I'm 'mmehow happy to be earthward bound as my feet then my legs become egg noodle.
Three Russians with five cars full of TVs, radios, VCRs, furs, blank tapes, and pornography search docks for a homeward-bound ferry for hire.
I wake up in a hotel room with a bad hangover and a pulsing ache in my side. I discover a wound there carefully sewn with black thread - - twenty-three stitches. Here's the routine: hooker snares white- faced John dupe, fucks him in prearranged hotel room. Antidoctor joins femme fatale after John gets all squashed on dope from doctored booze. Antidoc, he remove excess baggage from Johnny's inventory. Kidney and pancreas sell well on black market. Antidoc, he patch John Boy up nice: "Get yer hands offa me! I' 'ma wholesaler, not a murderer!"
A smooth, circular pool set in the center of the room stirs restlessly under my gaze. Glass water on top protects gossamer cloud below. Iridescent cream color cloud swirls when disturbed, flipping clear opals flashing green orange red blue sparks. Swells and ripples of opal chips cascade away from droplets of sweat falling off my nose.
The opals fall crystalline, tinkling, echoing. More sounds come from every corner. My mother calls my name clearly. A trumpet plays a raceway overture. Bells and whistles are interrupted by a radio news report. "Thirty-one degrees at twenty-three twenty. Humidity a low 97. Rainfall totals two-point-seven centimeters..." All these sounds from my memory coming clearly, yet projected on an auditory movie screen. I summon more sounds by name - - earthen blocks thudding together, rusty old roller skate wheels spinning, clips from a million unrecorded symphonies composed in my head. Each sound is as clear and unprocessed as spring water, and on tap for instant playback in this auditory theater.
" I 'll be damned if it doesn't look like a free-flowing parking garage," Zan confides.
Allow me to describe this amazing structure. Each level undulates like a sine wave, exactly one cycle from east to west extremes of the building. A second wave, exactly out of phase with the other, sits adjacent to the first, so that the two waves share a common point exactly in the center of the entire structure. By traversing from one wave to the next via one of the aforementioned nodes, the intrepid parking garage spelunker can achieve the uppermost bounds of this Sinusoidal Time Antenna (STA).
Each wave segment is frozen in time - - anchored in the stream, if you will. Time is frozen, and we move freely through it. An artificial light source provides the illumination here. Photons cannot travel in the STA, so imaginary light is used. Each quadrant of each wave bears an identifying scheme of colors, applied to the white enamel supports. You cannot get lost; out is always down, and up is always out.
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W2C-012-1.txt
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<n>
'Best' hole proved fatal: Boy killed in cave-in at beach was to leave soon
Thursday, August 24, 2000
Moments before 13-year-old Ivan Smith was to leave Salisbury Beach Tuesday night, the Andover boy took one last cannonball-style jump into a deep hole that he and his three friends had spent all day digging.
Rescuers tried to save 13-year-old Ivan Smith. (Staff photo by Mike Adaskaveg) But the triumph of creating the "best (hole) we ever dug" ended tragically when the hole's walls caved-in from the impact of his jump, causing the piles of sand the boys had shoveled out of the hole to fall in and bury Smith.
Smith, a paperboy who would have been an eighth-grader this fall, was pronounced dead at the scene.
" The mother had gone to get something and had come back down to get them. They looked like they were heading out," said Cory, a 15-year-old Lawrence boy who befriended Smith and his three buddies on Tuesday.
" They were just having fun and digging," said Cory, who did not want his last name used. "He wanted to jump."
Cory, other witnesses and a neighbor said Smith had spent the day at the beach with three neighborhood brothers, and his mother, Nancy T.Smith. His older brother, Nicholas, and his brother's female friend, who were both in wheelchairs, were also with them, witnesses said.
Smith and his three pals started digging what would become a 3 1/2-to 4-foot deep hole with a plastic shovel at about noon, witnesses said. Other youngsters at the beach stopped by throughout the day to offer a hand.
By the end of the day, beachgoers said they couldn't see the boys' heads as they shoveled out sand from inside the hole and piled it on the beach around them.
The three boys took a break to play pool, continued to dig and took turns jumping in the hole - which they dug on a stretch of sand between the 5 O'Clock Lounge and the Beach Club on Ocean Front Street, witnesses said.
One of the boys was climbing out of the hole as Smith made his final jump, but managed to get free before the heavy, soft sand collapsed on Smith, Salisbury Fire Chief Paul Antonellis Jr. said.
Witnesses said the boys began digging their friend out and ran into the nearby 5 O'Clock Lounge for help.
When Smith's mother returned, witnesses said she began to panic when told that her son was beneath the sand. She began scooping with her hands and crying for her son.
When rescue workers arrived, Antonellis said the area where the hole had been looked like regular beach, with no evidence of where the boy was except for the friends telling rescue workers where to dig.
" There were no indentations and the area hadn't been disturbed. We almost thought it was a joke," Antonellis said.
Antonellis said the boys might have been digging one to three minutes before calling for help. But because of the hole's depth and the weight of the sand, the result probably would have been the same even if a crew was "sitting right there," Antonellis said.
Rescue workers rushed to the scene at about 8:15 p.m., using buckets and their hands to reach the boy's head, which they unearthed in about 15 minutes.
Antonellis said when they reached the boy's head, he was not breathing and there was no sign of a heartbeat. It took them about 90 minutes to pull him out.
Eric Ramsdell, who lives near Smith's North Tanglewood Way home, watched rescue workers with tears in his eyes.
" We were digging a really big hole," he told The Daily News of Newburyport. "The best we ever dug."
Yesterday, witnesses left crosses and flowers at a makeshift memorial where the boys had dug the hole.
To Andover neighbors Larry and Esther Taylor, Smith was like a son. Smith rode his bike and walked to school with their 12-year-old son Jared.
" He went camping with our sons and stayed overnight. They were like brothers," Larry Taylor said.
Jared said his friend had two cats and wanted to be a veterinarian when he was older.
Smith, who is the son of Andover Town Accountant Rodney Smith, had just finished working at a camp run by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Esther Taylor said. Smith was also a catcher for a Little League baseball team.
" He was the glue of the neighborhood. He got everybody together. We're going to 'ress him a lot," Larry Taylor said.
His principal at the Doherty Middle School, Floyd McManus, said Smith was well-liked by teachers and peers.
" He excelled at physical education and Latin. He was his own person and well-respected," McManus said. "My heart goes out to the family."
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W2B-027-0.txt
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Commentary: Unnatural Acts
By Roald Hoffmann
Human beings have been put on this earth to create. Some write poems. Others build additions to houses, draft new civil rights legislation, dig ditches. Some make molecules--these are the chemists. All--poets, builders, lawmakers, ditchdiggers, chemists--either create something new (call it man- or woman-made, synthetic, artifactual, or unnatural) or modify a product of nature.
Is the natural different from the unnatural? Yes, on the spiritual level, as the designers of food labels know too well. The words natural, organic, unadulterated have unmistakably positive connotations. No, on the material level. All stuff, whether natural or unnatural, is at the microscopic level molecular. And all observable macroscopic properties--color, toxicity, strength, conductivity--follow from that microstructure, from the arrangements of atoms in space. Synthetic molecules, carefully made, can replace natural ones. Your MSG headache is equally well induced by synthetic or natural MSG, your pneumonia cured by an antibiotic made either by a mold or in the laboratory.
The natural-unnatural distinction is made ambiguous by every aspect of human existence, not just by molecules in and around us. I look out my window and see a wonderful rolling landscape of green fields and forests--the foothills of the Appalachians. It is human agriculture that has shaped that view. My roses in bloom and my neighbor's sleek dachshund are curious and pleasing mixtures of nature and most deliberate intervention.
It's ambiguous not just to nonscientists but even to the molecule makers, the first ones to tell people that there is no such distinction. People in the molecular trade talk of "natural product synthesis"--the laboratory crafting of the molecules of nature--to distinguish it from the synthesis of molecules never before present on Earth. Significantly, no chemist uses the term "unnatural products," except as a joke. Even those who insist most vehemently that there is no difference between natural and unnatural, I suspect, go home to houses with windows, not photographs of landscapes on windowless walls; their furniture is made of wood, not an artful imitation.
Chemists, my gang, do have a special way of playing with the natural, however. First, they see it as a challenge to make any molecule nature can. And they do it, those master builders of tiny structures. They may manage their synthesis less efficiently than nature does, but then nature has had a few million more years to optimize almost any process.
Second, chemists want to make molecules that aren't present in nature. Why not a molecule that looks like an icosahedron (B12H122-)? Or one like a soccer ball (C60)? This is real fun. (And the fun wasn't spoiled by finding C60 in nature after it was made in the lab!)
Third, they want to make molecules that resemble natural ones but are better in some respect. There now exist polymers stronger than steel, and fats to fry your onion rings in that are calorie-free because they are not digested.
Fourth, chemists want to make molecules that are sort of like natural ones but a little different. Why? To fool bacteria and viruses, of course. To trick them into committing suicide or not reproducing. There is profit in this.
Fifth, chemists make synthetic molecules to understand nature--its highways and byways, how it got to be the beautiful way it is.
Men and women seem to find ever more ingenious ways to confound the natural-unnatural dichotomy. A recent sample of minor and not-so-minor changes made to molecules critical to life gives a taste of what these molecular engineers are up to.
There was no greater chemical achievement (even if it was accomplished by two non-chemists) in midcentury than the recognition of the structure of DNA. And it has taken much ingenious work to explore fully the consequences and workings of what James Watson and Francis Crick divined. But now chemists are curious. Why this structure and not all others? Albert Eschenmoser of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, one of the deepest-thinking chemists of our time, has focused on the sugars.
Nucleic acids, including DNA and RNA, are the information carriers of life. The two strands of DNA, a marvelous biopolymer, are each a chain of phosphates (PO4) alternating with sugar rings made up of carbons and a single oxygen. Coming off the rings are flat platelet-like molecular units, the "bases" that are the letters of the genetic alphabet: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T, in DNA) or uracil (U, in RNA). The sequence of the bases within one strand codes the message; the pairing of the bases in that strand with specific partners in the other strand is the mechanism for replication. The bases encode the information; the sugar rings are part of the backbone of the spiral ladder.
Because the sugars of RNA and DNA are made of five carbons (four in the ring and one more outside), chemists, prone just occasionally to fits of rationality in nomenclature, have called them pentoses. Much more common than the pentoses, however, are the six-carbon sugars called hexoses (containing a ring of five carbons and an oxygen, with an extra carbon outside the ring). An example is common glucose, maybe one of the few healthy delights left us.
Eschenmoser argues convincingly that hexoses are not just popular today but were more than likely to have formed under prebiological conditions. Why, then, he asks, did nature choose pentoses and not hexoses as the sugar building blocks of nucleic acids?
The Swiss chemist follows up the question with... synthesis. He and his able co-workers build up an entire alternative universe, constructing not just the sugars but single-stranded phosphate-sugar chains as well. They add the bases. They do what nature chose not to do.
The alternative world in their grasp, the chemists look for differences. These are easy to find. The beauty and efficient replication properties of the pentose universe (natural, ours) derive from the bases being cradled within a helix and perpendicular to it. And that cradling in turn can be traced to the angle at which the bases come off the sugar, relative to the chain axis formed by the phosphates and part of the pentose ring. Notice how in the hexose universe (unnatural, and even more so ours) the bases are attached at a very different angle. Computer modeling and experiment show that the hexose-DNA does not form helical structures. Hexose-DNA strands pair differently, pair more strongly, and thus are much less prone to the ready pairing-unpairing that is characteristic of normal pentose-DNA. The alternative universe is just not good enough, so it seems, to do what has been done.
Not too far from Eschenmoser, in the same laboratories in Zurich, Steven Benner is playing with nature in another way. Recall the four bases, G, C, A, and T (U). These bases come together, through hydrogen bonds, in specific pairs. A fits with T (or U, in RNA) like the clasp on a necklace; it will not pair with G or C. G and C are, likewise, perfectly and monogamously matched. This pairing is the heart of the replication mechanism that is needed if information is to be passed along. A sequence of three bases translates into an amino acid of a protein. So GCU codes the eventual synthesis of an alanine, and GGU gets us a glycine. In this way the very specific amino acid sequences of the protein chemical factories of our bodies are built up.
Benner's group thought that nature's alphabet might be extended. So they designed another base pair, k (kappa) and X, to fit into the double helix. Neither k nor X pairs with known bases, so the new letters do not sow confusion; they just extend the alphabet from four letters to six.
The new letters give the potential for--but don't guarantee-- increased richness in the genetic vocabulary. Nature chooses four letters. Would six produce a richer universe of proteins? I don't know the answer. English is a richer language in number of words than either French or Anglo-Saxon, but that's no guarantee that you'll wri 'llgreat literature in English. Still, it's interesting to try to create a new language and see if you can make some new words with it. The analogue of making new words is making new molecules. It's possible you could in this way make some new proteins that could be interesting drugs, that could be different in some slight way.
Put more letters, weird new ones, into English, and you can certainly make more words. But they'll b 'llonsense, or near nonsense. With time, if needed, those additional letters may shape new words, new meanings in a richer language of the future. So the expanded genetic alphabet needs to pass through the selection process of evolution before it begins to create molecules more diverse, more versatile, than the ones we already have.
There is a kind of chutzpah in Benner's game, but it sure is pretty.
Still more molecular games are afoot, this time with proteins. Proteins are biopolymers built up from long chains of linked amino acids. A piece of a protein, assembled from two or more of these amino acids, is called a peptide. Imagine each amino acid as a tool with a bit and two sources of attachment (see preceding page). These two "handles" are always the same--an amino (NH2) and an acid (COOH)--and they allow one peptide to link up, interchangeably, with others. But the bits come in 20 different varieties, called R groups. The differences create variety, like different tool bits on the same machine, allowing for different functions. If the R group is a single hydrogen, H, then the resulting amino acid is glycine (gelatin is full of it); when it's CH3--three hydrogens and a carbon--then the amino acid is alanine, which is especially common in silk fibers. When it's CH2CH2COOH, the amino acid is glutamate; replace the last H by a sodium and you'v 'veot the primary ingredient for the MSG--natural or unnatural--that produces your headache.
Stuart Schreiber at Harvard and Jon Clardy at Cornell have designed a set of stretched, or "vinylogous," peptides. You see the same handles that confer the ability to form a chain at the ends. But in the middle there is something different, two extra carbons sewed in, with a second R on one of them, providing potentially more variety than the single R group of a normal amino acid. The two-carbon spacer in the chain also gives the polymer the ability to fold up in a way similar to, but different from, normal protein folding. What could these modified peptides do? They would be the same and not the same, and among them some might fool and subdue the pathogens that threaten our well-being.
For example, enzymes are protein powerhouses built up bit by bit by the peptide pieces. They bind some molecule and then do chemistry with it. The binding often depends on their recognizing just one piece of the molecule, not the whole thing. You could conceivably make a molecule with one piece that would be recognized, but with another piece that would throw a wrench into the works and essentially shut down the molecular factory. So being slightly unnatural can be very dangerous--to harmful bacteria, we hope.
Incredibly, a molecule that strongly resembles one of these vinylogous peptides has turned up in nature, in a marine sponge; in humans the peptide inhibits blood clotting. This discovery offered strong psychological support to the chemists. They thought they were making things that were very far out, but it turned out that nature had played that same variation on a theme. All the more reason to believe that a library of such modified peptides might be of value in drug design.
The three examples I picked of chemists ringing changes on nature are not peripheral; they touch on central issues of biology. Eschenmoser's work deals with the structural prerequisites for the storage and replication of molecular information. Benner's touches on the transcription of this information from one biopolymer family to another. Clardy and Schreiber, meanwhile, study the type of structure created from this information.
The motivations of the chemists engaged in this work are clear. First, there is the sense of wonder. Why did nature do it this way and not another? What if I change things just a little? The power to effect such change is in our hands. There is real adventure in creating an alternative world.
Then there is benefit and its sidekick, profit. Some of these molecules may be useful drugs just because they are small variations on a natural theme. When curiosity and benefit find themselves on the same trail, the hands and minds of human beings seem to quicken. You can see this in the current flurry of activity in the making of slightly unnatural molecules.
Yet some people are scared by these molecular games, as they are by genetic engineering. The range of concerns is wide: even if there are safeguards against letting loose possible new pathogens, even if these molecules save lives or improve our standard of living, what right do we have to tamper with a God-given universe?
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W2B-006-0.txt
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The middle-aged woman consented to talk only after she was assured that her anonymity would be guaranteed. Even then she feared giving certain details, thinking that any fact might link her to her illegal immigrant status. Maria, as we will call her, sadly recalled her life in Mexico, where she lived in a small agricultural town with her husband and son. The three lived in a small one-room hut. "We had no running water and no electricity," said Maria. "The roof leaked and we didn't even have a bathroom." Maria's husband, a field worker, was out of work due to the rainy season. "My son was very ill, and we barely had enough to eat," said Maria.
It was for these reasons that Maria and her husband made the long, arduous trek to California, in search of the American Dream. Maria couldn't have known what awaited her when she arrived. "They say we come here, have our children, and abuse the system," said Maria. "But I haven't done that." She speaks of what she calls "a persecution of Latinos." She is referring, of course, to California's Proposition 187, a plank in the reelection campaign of Governor Pete Wilson, which passed by a 3-2 margin, or by 59 percent of the voters, on November 8, 1994.
Proposition 187, also known as the Save our State Initiative, or S.O.S., would ban nonemergency health care, schooling, and other social services for illegal immigrants. It would also require police, school, and hospital officials to report suspected illegal immigrants to the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service. It has currently been blocked by U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer, who issued a preliminary injunction on December 14, 1994.
The enforcement of the ban on higher education for illegal immigrants was also recently barred by a superior court judge. That means that the increased penalty for making, selling, or using false immigration documents is the only aspect of Proposition 187 that is currently enforceable.
The passing of Proposition 187, however, not only affects Maria because she is an illegal immigrant but also affects her two children. Before 187 passed, Maria's four-year-old son was diagnosed with a severe case of swollen glands. So severe were his medical problems that he required surgery. "After Prop 187 passed, I didn't know if I should still take my son in for the operation," said Maria. "I couldn't sleep at night, I was under so much stress. I kept thinking that even though Prop 187 isn't in effect now that they would be able to use the information [provided on the forms] against me later when it did go into effect."
According to Nora Roman, a registered nurse at San Francisco General Hospital, this fear is not uncommon. "Proposition 187 has had chilling effects because people know that if it is upheld by the courts, the information they have shared with their health care service providers will no longer be confidential," said Roman. The job of the California health care worker has become increasingly difficult since the passage of Prop. 187, according to Roman. "People are so afraid, that they are not coming in for preventive care," said Roman. "They are waiting until they are so sick they have no choice but to come in, and this means that they require more medical assistance."
The facts, however, indicate that the health-care system is greatly overburdened by growing costs. The cost of providing free services to illegal immigrants in 1992 (the most recent year for which complete statistics are available) was 1,800 percent higher than the average of the costs over the previous five years, according to California's Department of Health Services.
Opponents of Proposition 187 argue that the increased public health care costs due to untreated illnesses will far exceed the money that S.O.S. would save California if enforced. In addition, they contend that the social damage created by an increase in juvenile delinquency and illiteracy are far too costly.
The most controversial aspect of Prop. 187 has been its denial of basic education to illegal immigrant children. In 1982, a Texas statute that would have denied the children of illegal immigrants access to elementary and high school education was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. In the decision for Plyer v. Doe, Justice William J. Brennan wrote: "The children... can affect neither their own conduct nor their own status... Visiting condemnation on... an infant... is contrary to the basic concept of our system that legal burdens should bear some relationship to individual responsibility or wrongdoing.... Penalizing [them for] a legal characteristic over which children can have little control... is an ineffectual-as well as unjust-way of deterring the parent."
He added that an education was necessary to sustain "our political and cultural heritage." The inability to read and write imposes a "lifelong penalty and stigma" that "denies the means to absorb the values and skills on which our social order rests," Brennan wrote. Lofty rhetoric aside, the discussion always returns to the issue of cost. According to Texas State Senator Eddie Lucio, Jr., few people are opposed to the idea of educating the children of illegal immigrants, but the state needs help paying for it. "We're just 'reying that Congress should provide financial assistance," said Lucio.
Rick Oltman, chairman of Yes on 187 and the S.O.S. Committee, believes children are little more than political pawns for the anti-187 movement. "Name one social change that you try to make that doesn't affect children," said Oltman. "The opponents of Prop 187 are simply using children as an emotional weapon. It is the citizens' children that are being hurt by overburdened classrooms."
According to Laura Alvarenga, executive assistant to the superintendent of schools in San Francisco, Oltman's position is based on incorrect premises. "What these people don't understand is that if Proposition 187 is upheld, schools will lose funding, both from the state and federal government."
None of these arguments seems to appease Maria. Her personal experiences have led her to believe that she must keep her children out of school in order to protect them. "I was buying groceries one day with my two-year-old daughter, when she was stopped by an older man who shoved her aside," said Maria. "I think he threw her aside because she is dark, because she is Mexican. I don't speak English and he didn't speak Spanish, but the language of hatred was clearly understood." "It is not only us who are affected by this hatred; our children are also being affected. We would like to send them to school but because of Proposition 187, that no longer seems possible. I fear for their safety," said Maria.
Proposition 187 has struck fear not only in Maria's heart but in the hearts of all Hispanic immigrants-legal and illegal-who live near the U.S.-Mexico border or in Florida. The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that 3.4 million illegal immigrants were in the United States in 1992, and that 80 percent of them were in California, Texas, and Florida. With the help of determined lobbyists, anti-immigrant sentiments are spreading beyond these three key states. "Proposition 187 was only the first step in dealing with the illegal immigrant issue in the United States," said Oltman. "We are hoping to stir national awareness of this issue. We want them not only to talk about illegal immigration but to start deportation. Not only in California but in the entire country."
According to Texas State Senator Lucio, it is expensive and pointless to try to eliminate illegal immigraton. He suggests that the federal government has the obligation to pay for the services provided to illegal immigrants or "at the very least give tax breaks to the people who live along the border." He argues that "any other debate can only conjure up hate and fear, and ultimately will not lead to a real solution."
Since its passage by the citizens of California, several states, such as Arizona, Washington, Oregon, and Florida, have begun to consider similar measures. There have also been 32 separate pieces of legislation presented to the federal government relating to illegal immigration. "We're se 'reng a message to the federal government that says we won't stand for our towns to be overrun with illegal aliens while Americans go hungry," said Enos Schera, vice president of Citizens of Dade County United, an organization that is lobbying for a measure similar to Proposition 187 in Florida. "There has been an over-infusion of Cubans in our state," he continued. "They are eradicating our language and our culture. They are [also] degrading the quality of our children's education." "Americans think this way because they believe what they are told," said Clara Luz Navarro, an outreach worker for the Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Services. "It is simply a game of politics. When there is a governmental deficiency in management, they seek out a sacrificial lamb, and unfortunately in this case it is us [Hispanics]."
Other 187 opponents also cite emotional ploys by the government to divert attention from various national ills. "The federal government is unable to solve the nation's problems, so they have created anti-immigrant sentiments," said Franklin Chavez, director of the Immigration Latina Foundation in Florida. The federal government "lacks the charisma and foresight to solve the problems, so they get patriotic feelings stirring in people who have third- and fourth-generation American roots. These people are told they will not be taxed more if we can cut social service, health care, and education costs.... They are told that they are protecting the American Dream, and they can't prove this with action, so they point fingers. at the immigrants, saying that they are the ones destroying it."
President Clinton made a $1 billion federal commitment in his proposed 1996 budget to strengthen immigration control enforcement. Of this amount, an increase of $370 million was budgeted for the states that have incurred the greatest expenses relating to illegal aliens. Border control, enforcement, and deportation of illegal immigrants were also earmarked for a funding increase of 27 percent. In response to growing anti-illegal immigrant sentiments, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia, recently indicated that he will move toward nationalizing certain elements of California's Proposition 187. The law Gingrich supports would duplicate a law passed by the House in early February, which limits Congress' ability to impose requirements on the states without taking financial responsibility. House Republicans are discussing a similar law that would require the federal government to either stop mandating that the states provide social services to illegal immigrants or start paying for the costs incurred by these mandates. "We don't need something like this in Florida," said Chavez. "We are talking about basic human rights. We are not in the Gestapo. "Schera counters: "The only thing that is inhumane is when illegal aliens make it harder for Americans that are here. If you enter illegally, you are not entitled to anything," he argues. "The incompetence of the federal government and INS officials shouldn't fall on the taxpayers."
According to Schera, a proposition similar to 187 would pass with no problem in the state of Florida. "In Dade County there are 1,500 jobless, homeless Americans, and we're 'ready to say enough is enough." In Arizona also, immigration is a touchy issue. In January, 19,426 suspected illegal immigrants were arrested in Tucson. This figure is up from 9,903 last January. Don F. Barrington is leading the movement in Arizona. His solution to the immigration crisis is a national 187 campaign. Barrington's ideas are continuing to gain popularity. According to Judith Gruber, a professor of political science at the University of California at Berkeley, the nation's anti-immigrant mood could possibly have an effect on the presidential race. "It is certainly a hot-button issue in certain states," said Gruber. "The illegal immigration issue has struck deep emotional chords in particular key states."
Gingrich has gone as far as saying that California Governor Pete Wilson, one of the major backers of Proposition 187, would make a "very formidable" GOP presidential candidate, because it is believed by political pundits that Proposition 187 contributed heavily to Wilson's successful campaign for reelection in November 1994. Historically, feelings toward immigration have fluctuated with the economy.
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W1A-015-0.txt
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APPLIED LINGUISTICS C204: LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT TAKE-HOME EXAM #1
QUESTION 1:
In this question, students in an adult education program in a large U.S. city are given an exit test to provide evidence of their ability to participate in small talk. The limitations on measurement, including underspecification, indirectness, incompleteness, imprecision, subjectivity, and relativeness, all apply to the specific features of this testing situation. These limitations, in addition to some other factors, affect interpretations of test scores, reliability, and construct validity. However, these limitations can be minimized through the steps in assessment, defining the construct theoretically and operationally and describing observations of performance.
Underspecification, the process of making "certain simplifying assumptions", applies to this testing situation (Bachman, p. 31). Though the intention is to measure a construct that includes knowledge of vocabulary, knowledge of syntax, and textual knowledge, the examiners cannot assume that the different parts of the test only measure those components of language. For example, in the textual organization ability test, a student may not perform well because he does not have the vocabulary to express himself. This may affect his ability to organize his thoughts in a meaningful way and will in the end negatively affect his score on this portion of the test. This then would have an effect on validity of the score interpretation, as it would be difficult to know what the score is actually measuring. Even if there are other factors that affect a student's performance, we must isolate the factors we wish to measure through underspecification. In the end, this may affect our ability to interpret scores in a valid way.
This testing situation is designed to measure a student's ability to engage in small talk. Since it is designed to be an oral interview, it may seem to be a "direct test" because it "involve(s) the use of the skills being tested" (Bachman, p. 33). However, this language test, like all language tests, is indirect because its score is not based on an actual "small talk" conversation that the student had with someone outside of the testing situation. Since the scores are "indirect indicators of ability", it is very important to specify the relationship between the test score and the ability it should indicate. If this is unclear, the interpretations and uses could be invalid.
As with any language testing situation, the performance observed and measured in a language test is "a sample of an individual's total performance in that language" (Bachman, p. 33). This test is designed to sample a student's performance in order to measure his competence in a broad TLU domain, which includes "a variety of types of tasks to meet occupational, day-to-day pragmatic, and social needs". However, since the student has the opportunity to choose a topic about which to speak during the entire test, the score will be based on an incomplete sample of performance. The score will only reflect the components of the construct as they relate to the student's chosen area of expertise. This will affect the construct validity, as it will be difficult to assess whether the score interpretations are appropriate or meaningful in relation to the student's ability to engage in small talk about a variety of different topics. This could also affect reliability, since if the student had happened to choose a different topic with which he is comfortable he may have received a different score.
Imprecision poses two problems in this testing situation. As Bachman states, "the accuracy or precision of our measurements is a function of both the representativeness and the number of tasks or units with which we define our scales (Bachman, p. 35). In order to increase precision of measurements, it is necessary to develop a rating scale that includes as many levels as possible. In this case, the scale that is being used is not described in any detail. In addition, comparability of the tasks on the test, "in terms of their difficulty relative to the ability of the test takers", is important. Because this test is designed for beginning to advanced students with expertise in different areas, it would be quite difficult to assure comparability for all the students taking the test. This imprecision will make it difficult to interpret scores appropriately, as the level of difficulty of the test questions would affect different students' performance in different ways. This would therefore affect construct validity.
This language test, like all language tests, is subjective. The design of the test is subjective, for the choice of which questions to ask and which topics the test takers can choose from are subjective. In addition, the way that the two examiners score these tests is definitely subjective. Though they have a rating scale to guide their scoring, the examiners each have their own perspectives and ideas about the test taker's abilities. Also, if the examiners disagree about scores, they "discuss the interview and their notes in order to arrive at a rating that they can agree upon". This process could result in scores that may or may not be reliable, since the scores depend to some extent upon the raters. Also, if the test were given to the same student more than once, final scoring decisions could change if different raters were placed together or if the same raters switched jobs; this would also affect the reliability of the scores. Lastly, the test taker is consistently making subjective decisions during the test about the types of answers that he wants to give.
It is difficult to define the presence or absence of the components of the construct; in this way, this testing situation is relative. For example, though there is a section in this test which includes "Specialized Vocabulary Questions", it would be impossible to define a student's ability based on a concept of "zero language ability" as related to vocabulary (Bachman, p. 38). In addition, the construct includes knowledge of a range of syntactic structures. It would be difficult to say that a test taker has "perfect language ability" or a "native speaker's ability" in syntax. This limits the examiners' ability to measure these components. In turn, this limitation affects their ability to interpret the scores in a clear, useful, and meaningful way.
Many of these factors affect reliability. There are also other issues unique to this testing situation which affect reliability. For example, the results of this test will be used for two different purposes, one that is low-stakes and the other that is high-stakes. This makes it difficult to assess how reliable the scores need to be. In addition, the fact that there is scoring done during the test will affect the reliability of the scores. The test taker could be affected by being scored while the test is happening, which will affect his "affective schemata". The test taker's "affective schemata" will therefore not be the same as that of the language user, as discussed in Bachman and Palmer (Bachman and Palmer, p. 20). In this way, the testing situation itself is affecting the test taker's performance, which can in turn affect the reliability of the scores.
These six limitations in measurement greatly affect interpretations of test scores, reliability, and construct validity. Also, one other point is that we would want to make sure that the "areas of expertise" that the test takers can choose to talk about are actually topics within the TLU domain of "small talk". If not, the results of the entire test could be interpreted in an invalid way for the intended purpose.
QUESTION 2:
The situation that is described here has very specific qualities. These qualities would affect the choices I would make when developing the language test, interpreting the test scores, and determining the scores for making placements into the different levels. In this case, I would use a criterion-referenced achievement test to place the beginning to advanced individuals into different course levels for a variety of reasons.
Criterion-referenced tests are intended to enable "the test user to interpret a test score with reference to a criterion level of ability or domain of content" (Bachman, p. 74). The test tasks are, therefore, representative of such levels or domains. As Brown discusses, in an achievement test, the developer bases test items on "objectives of whole range of course levels" (handout). In this situation, there are "fixed syllabi and textbooks for each level, and the teachers are expected to follow the textbooks closely". Therefore, it would be necessary for the placement test tasks to be based closely on the content of the different course syllabi and textbooks. For example, I would include questions that test different levels of competence regarding vocabulary, verb tenses, grammar points, and syntax as they are presented in the different levels' course syllabi and textbooks (through listening, speaking, and written exercises). In this way, a criterion-referenced achievement test would be appropriate. In this situation, there is "the potential for more appropriate placements, with respect to course content objectives" (handout).
A criterion-referenced achievement test is also appropriate in this case because the teachers have no formal training and little previous experience, in addition to the fact there is a large turn-over in teaching staff each term. Since the test tasks will be chosen with the syllabi and textbooks for each level in mind, it is possible for the teachers to gain diagnostic information about course objectives based on the results of the tests. Brown mentions another advantage of CR achievement tests, which is that one only needs to develop "a single test battery for placement, progress, and grading decisions" (handout). This would also help the inexperienced teachers, since they could use the same tests before, during, and after the term to determine information about the students' progress.
The two disadvantages generally associated with CR achievement tests do not apply in this testing situation. The first, which is that "if cohorts vary in proficiency or size from year to year, there will be shifts in the numbers of students in various course levels, but placements will still be appropriate" (handout). In this situation, the numbers of incoming students are approximately the same each term. Therefore, one would not have to take any change in size of the cohorts into consideration. The second disadvantage is that "if course syllabi change, [one needs] to change the test" (handout). However, as has been already stated, there are fixed syllabi and textbooks for each level. Consequently, this disadvantage also would not apply in this testing situation.
I would interpret the scores "with reference to specified levels of ability or content domain" (handout). For example, I stated earlier that I would include test tasks that test different levels of competence regarding vocabulary, verb tenses, grammar points, and syntax as they are presented in the different levels' course syllabi and textbooks. If a student is able to respond correctly to questions which include all vocabulary, verb tenses, grammar points, and syntax from level 1 and a few from level 2, then I could interpret that score to mean that the student should be placed in level 2. It would make it quite easy to show a correlation between various test tasks and syllabi/textbook components, since I will have designed the test tasks to be representative of certain ability levels and competence in specific content domains. In addition, I will be using questions that are both objectively and subjectively scored. This enables the test takers to demonstrate knowledge in a variety of ways and allows the teachers to see the students' demonstrated ability levels through their performance.
I would first need to determine selection points according to criteria for certain decisions in order to decide how to place individuals into the different levels (handout). In this case, the teachers are not very experienced and have no formal training. In addition, they are assigned to teach specific levels. Therefore, I want to make sure that the students are being placed appropriately in each level, meaning that they need to demonstrate very well their abilities in the specific content domains for each level. Consequently, if there were four levels total, my placement would look like this: If a score is 85%; on test tasks from level one/level two/level three (respectively) and below 85%; from level two/level three/level four (respectively), place into level one/level two/level three (respectively).
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W2D-011-0.txt
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How to make "calaveras" or Mexican sugar skulls (Copyright 2011)
The net is an incredible place, because 10 years ago, if I wanted to make "calaveras," which are those sugar skulls that kids and lovers give each other for the Mexican holiday El Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead), how on earth would I have figured out how to do that without going to Mexico and hanging out in some grandma's kitchen? So I was all excited a couple of weeks back when I ordered my sugar skull mold (just a cheap piece of polystyrene that looks like the containers that things like Ipods and flash drives come in...that stuff thats practically impossible to cut open without slicing your hands) and got ready to make 40 calaveras for my fall dinner party.
The website that sold me the skull mold (for an astonishing $15 considering the cheap production cost...this stuff is just basically packaging) has a recipe for sugar skulls that I found repeated virtually EVERYWHERE on the internet. If a site had a recipe for sugar skulls, this was the recipe. And there simply were no other recipes. The problem was that their recipe called for an ingredient called "meringue powder" which is an obscure ingredient typically only found in commercial kitchens, and it's offensively expensive. Sure, their website will be happy to sell you a small quantity, enough to make about 4 big skulls, for around $10. Maybe that's a bargain if you only want to make 4 skulls (which, with your $15 mold and $10 meringue powder, plus shipping, is going to make your skulls cost around $9-$10 per skull once you buy the rest of the ingredients). I can't afford that for 40 skulls.
But their recipe specifically states, "This recipe will not work if you leave out the meringue powder, the skulls will fall apart." And it was the ONLY recipe I could find on the net that looked legitimate. "Surely," I thought, "those little grandmas in Oaxaca aren't pulling out their tin of ultra-expensive imported meringue powder when it's time to make calaveras." Knowing that meringue powder is basically powdered eggs whites, I figured...why not just try using egg whites to help cement the sugar together, and maybe bake the skulls at a low temperature to speed the setting and drying process?" An experiment proceeded to unfold. And I got it right with the first try! So if you can find yourself a sugar skull mold, here's how to make perfect calaveras without meringue powder: 6 cups sugar, 2 egg whites.
That's it folks.
Put the egg whites in the bottom of a big bowl, dump in the granulated sugar, and get your hands all messy squeezing and churning it together until the sugar feels like wet sand at the beach. You want the sugar to be as dry as possible but still stick together in the mold, but it's better for it to be too damp than too dry.
Take a handful, dump it into your skull mold and press it down, and continue until the mold is full. Make certain that you press VERY firmly so the sugar is packed hard into the skull.
Then rake a knife or straight edge across the back of the mold to give yourself a flat edge for the bottom of the skull.
Then take a spoon and scoop out a little sugar from the center of the back of the skull so that you don't waste sugar and so the skull doesn't weigh too much.
Make sure the walls of the skull will be at least 1" thick when you dump it out of the mold, or it may collapse on itself.
Then take a square of cardboard just a little larger than your skull, place it against the back of the mold, and flip the mold over.
Gently pull the mold up off the sugar and you'll ha 'lla perfect replica of a skull staring back at you.
The mold should come off easily. If it is hard to pull off, your sugar is too wet and you need to add an extra handful to the bowl and work it in well with your hands. The mold should pull off easily leaving a smooth, perfect replica, and the drier the sugar is, the better this will happen.
Rinse the mold between each skull and dry with a paper towel. Continue making skulls with more sugar and more cardboard squares until you have all your skulls formed. Then, very carefully, place your skulls inside a preheated 200F oven for 30 minutes. When you remove them, the surface will be very hard to the touch. But don't put too much stress on them yet...they need a week of drying before they'll be 'llrd enough all the way through to handle vigorously.
Google images for "sugar skulls" or "calaveras" to see pictures of how the skulls are decorated. Traditionally, the name of the person receiving the skull is written on a piece of colored foil which is placed across the skull's forehead, and then the rest of the skull is decorated with brightly colored icing. You can get tubes of premixed icing at the grocery store which work just fine, or make your own by using lots of powdered sugar, an egg white, a few tablespoons of corn starch, food coloring, and a few drops of water. Stir it until it's thick, then stuff it into a decorating bag. If you don't have a decorating bag, make a cone of wax paper, parchment paper, or just plain paper, fill the cone with icing, and cut a tiny bit off the tip of the cone. Fold the top paper down until you can squeeze the icing out of the tip you just cut. Use the icing to decorate the skulls, which can be done as soon as they come out of the oven and cool. Then let the skulls, icing and all, dry for a week and you'll 'lle a perfect Mexican sugar skull.
The recipe above will make about 2 complete large skulls. (Molds come with a front and a back. You make them separately and then glue them together with icing. I found it was just as cool to just make the front of the skull, the face, and decorate it so it lies flat on the table and stares up at you.) So the recipe above will make 3-4 large skull faces, but this will vary depending on the size of your mold. If you make lots of skulls, buy a huge bag of sugar and lots of eggs. I went through 25 pounds of sugar and 18 eggs to make 40 skulls, and only made the front half of the skull.
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