Activity In America Research Articles

The Controversies of a Dramatic Biography. Bartolomeu Anania’s Mission to America in the Context of the Recalibration of State-Church Relations under Ceaușescu

The study aims to address a sensitive issue in the history of the Romanian Orthodox Church during the Communist period, namely its relations with Orthodox communities in the West, in the context of the recalibration of relations between the State and the Church under Nicolae Ceaușescu. The pretext for this analysis is Bartholomew Anania’s 11 years of activity in America within the Orthodox diocese canonically dependent on the Romanian Patriarchate. Bartolomeu Anania, a cleric with an anti-Communist political past, spent six years in Communist prisons. Only a year after his release in 1965, he was sent to America, a fact that was likely to arouse suspicion in the eyes of his contemporaries, since such a departure was not possible without the consent of the regime in general and the political police in particular. In addition to the favourable political context, in which the Ceaușescu regime was opening up to the West in an attempt to move away from the tutelage of Moscow, Bartolomeu Anania’s departure was made possible by the common interest of the state, who wanted to create instruments of Romanian knowledge and influence in the West, and the Church, who wanted to strengthen the canonical structures dependent on the Romanian Patriarchate.

At the Roots of the Tree of Life: Marija Gimbutas among the Family Women

At the Roots of the Tree of Life: Marija Gimbutas among the Family Women

In Search of Jewish Women: My Travels into Light

In Search of Jewish Women:My Travels into Light Joan Roth (bio) and Judith Margolis (bio) Nashim Art Editor Judith Margolis writes: A survey of feminist activity in America for the last five decades will reveal that, while history was being made on our behalf, Joan Roth was often there with her camera, taking iconic photographs of women celebrating victories and mourning losses. At National Women's Conferences, reproductive rights rallies, women's marches, vigils and demonstrations, Roth framed for posterity the likes of Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisolm, Alice Shalvi and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Meanwhile, another body of work was also coming into being. Fueled by a fierce desire to search out and learn about the lives of Jewish women living far from the familiar centers of North American modern life, Roth, armed only with her camera and her curiosity, traveled to Ethiopia, Yemen, Morocco, the former Soviet Union, eastern Europe, South America, Bukhara and India. With determination and grit, Roth found ways to go to places she had never been and to find and communicate with women with whom she often did not share a language. Sometimes travel arrangements were organized by Jewish communal organizations and institutions in the U.S. or the destination country. But mostly Roth arranged and paid for her trips on her own. With disarming modesty, she related to me, while we were preparing this article: Until I met Lenny [her second husband, now deceased], I was a divorced woman raising two daughters by myself. I traveled mostly on my own dime. It wasn't easy. I couldn't just jump on an airplane and go; there were difficult and tangled travel logistics, visas and all kinds of documents and permissions to get, arrangements to stay in places. I had never done this before. The men in these communities were flabbergasted at the idea of a woman photographer. I always won [End Page 132] them over somehow, but nothing came easy.… I had to deal with security and all kinds of tough, scary stuff. I was not brave. Before this I had never gone anywhere in my life. I was scared to walk out the door. But I was possessed. And then there was developing the film—not like today when you just pop a chip into a computer. Getting prints made and having the money to do it all. It was hard! To understand the difficulty of having made these journeys is to recognize Roth's work as not merely a professional achievement, but a Calling. The images of the women she encountered in Jewish communities around the world emerge, manifesting narratives in one's consciousness in the way that photographs in developing fluid slowly bloom into clarity. The resulting works define a trajectory of exemplary artistic and documentary accomplishment. Life stories are revealed that might never have been told. But we also see a portrait of the photographer herself. Revealed as well is Roth's astuteness, her ability to invite, convince, seduce—allow—these women she had just met, in so many places she had never been, to stand unselfconsciously before the unflinching gaze of her camera and allow us to see them. We offer here a glimpse of the prodigious inventory of photographs that Joan Roth took wherever she went and the stories she brought home. WALEKA, ETHIOPIA Abeba In 1984, after attending an event focusing on the plight of Ethiopian Jews and their efforts to reach Jerusalem, I began a pilgrimage into the heart of a people and, in the process, discovered the roots of my own heritage. Through gaining an understanding of the struggles and triumphs of Ethiopian Jews and their longing for a rightful place in the world Jewish community, I came to feel more connected to my faith. As I arrived in the village of Waleka with a group of Jews working on rescue behind the scenes, the whole community rushed down the hill to greet us, skipping and jumping, running to shake our hands and bless us over and over. It was important that people came to visit them, they said. They were happy we knew about them and hoped we would...

Sociocracy as a New Paradigm of Organizational Management

Sociocracy as a New Paradigm of Organizational Management

Pesticides and the perils of synecdoche in the history of science and environmental history

When the Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT late in 1972, environmentalists hailed the decision. Indeed, the DDT ban became a symbol of the power of environmental activism in America. Since the ban, several species that were decimated by the effects of DDT have significantly recovered, including bald eagles, peregrines, ospreys, and brown pelicans. Yet a careful reading of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring reveals DDT to be but one of hundreds of chemicals in thousands of formulations. Carson called for a reduction in the use of all chemical insecticides. Carson's recommendations notwithstanding, policymakers focused on DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons, culminating in the DDT ban, passage of the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act of 1972, and subsequent bans on aldrin and dieldrin. Similarly, the history of pesticides has focused inordinately on DDT, providing a myopic image of the ongoing challenges of pesticides in agricultural practice and ongoing environmental protection efforts in the modern world. "Pesticides and the perils of synecdoche" argues that focusing on DDT oversimplified the environmental risks of chemical insecticides and narrowed the parameters of the debate, and in the process both policy and subsequent histories neglected the highly toxic organophosphate insecticides, which dominated agriculture in the United States and the world after the DDT ban, with unintended consequences for farmworkers and wildlife.

The Execution Systemic Toolkit for Policy Modelling and Lawmaking

This chapter aims to present the elements that the execution systemic toolkit for policy modelling and lawmaking should contain. The study focuses on America over which the Inter-American System of Human Rights exercises its jurisdiction, given that Human Rights normativism (promoted by the UN and the Human Rights regional systems) prevails at the legislative and public policy agenda of the States. Specifically, it is considered that the doctrine, concepts and principles established by the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), are nowadays the valid patterns to explain the conceptions and reasoning schemes that lead the legislative and public policy activity in America. Additionally, the “control de Convencionalidad” developed in the region, encourages the constitutional judgments issued within the States to reproduce these concepts and principles, which have the effect of the non-application or expulsion of legal rules and, through normative or structural judgements, the courts projects specific public policy, all of which could be considered a morphogenetic system. Thus, the main jurisprudential lines of the IACHR and the Mexico’s Supreme Court will be analyzed in order to extract the elements and their attributes that make up the systemic toolkit for policy modelling and lawmaking and identify which behavioral patterns have been displaced to the environment that affects the system.

Looking Back from the Year 2117: America, Philosophy, and Hope

ABSTRACT This article employs Richard Rorty's 1996 text “Looking Backwards from the Year 2096” as a model for examining the state of America, education, and philosophy from the year 2117. The imaginative engagement explores how past and present structures might yield to future forms with a focus on early childhood education, guns, literacy, higher education and the state of the university, and the relationships between professional philosophy and social activism in America. Arguing for a shift in the paradigms of thinking and writing to include more revolutionary and artistic practice, this essay envisions a future in which philosophy takes increasingly pluralistic, creative, and political forms. Rorty's prophetic writings serve as one example of the value of imagination in the production of social change, hope, and the destabilization of entrenched patterns of thought.

Americanizing Surrealism: Cultural Challenges in the Magnetic Fields

Any attempt at surveying American Surrealisms is likely to attract a certain amount of suspicion insofar as there has never existed such a thing as a large organic Surrealist movement in the United States. Instead, Surrealist activity in America has been characterized by interactions, exchanges, and influences in a number of heterogeneous fields, at different times and in different forms. Despite these discontinuities, between 1920 and 1940, contact with European Surrealism significantly shap...

Zero Barriers: Three Mega Trends Shaping the Future of Entrepreneurship

After a long Great Recession hangover, entrepreneurship is finally rebounding in the United States. Entrepreneurs are driving a resurgence of business activity in America—in new business creation, local small business activity, and the growth of small firms into larger businesses. But underneath this reassuring surface, turbulent shifts are shaping the future of entrepreneurship to be dramatically different than what it is today, or was in the past. We posit that three mega trends will be defining forces shaping the future of entrepreneurship for decades to come. These three trends reflect the changing demographics, map, and nature of American entrepreneurship.

Beyond Berets: The Black Panthers as Health Activists.

The article discusses health activism in America in relation to the history of the Black Panther Party which was founded by social activists Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California in the 1960s. The effort to restore the image of the Black Panther Party to reflect its full legacy is examined, along with police violence in American history. According to the article, Black Panther Party clinics were part of a movement to deliver community-based health care in the U.S.

The Organizational Roots of Political Activism: Field Experiments on Creating a Relational Context

This article examines the role that democratic organizations play in fostering political activism in America. Activists make democracy work by attending meetings, engaging others, trying to make their voice heard, and participating in myriad other ways. Yet, we still need a deeper understanding of what role organizations play in cultivating that activism. The article presents data from three field experiments showing that creating a relational organizational context makes targets more likely to sign petitions, recruit others, and attend meetings. The article argues that civic organizations can have a powerful impact on activism. In doing so, it introduces a new set of variables related to organizational context to consider in understanding the sources of participation. The article thus extends a burgeoning body of experimental research on the social bases of voter turnout by examining not only voting but other forms of activism that are increasingly common modes of citizen involvement in the twenty-first century.

To Plead Our Own Cause: African Americans in Massachusetts and the Making of the Antislavery Movement

The antislavery movement entered an important new phase when William Lloyd Garrison began publishing the Liberator in 1831—a phase marked by massive petition campaigns, the extraordinary mobilization of female activists, and the creation of organizations such as the American Anti-Slavery Society. While the period from 1831 to 1865 is known as the heyday of radical abolitionism, the work of Garrison’s predecessors in Massachusetts was critical in laying the foundation for antebellum abolitionism. To Plead Our Own Cause explores the significant contributions of African Americans in the Bay State to both local and nationwide antislavery activity before 1831 and demonstrates that their efforts represent nothing less than the beginning of organized abolitionist activity in America. Fleshing out the important links between Reformed theology, the institution of slavery, and the rise of the antislavery movement, author Christopher Cameron argues that African Americans in Massachusetts initiated organized abolitionism in America and that their antislavery ideology had its origins in Puritan thought and the particular system of slavery that this religious ideology shaped in Massachusetts. The political activity of black abolitionists was central in effecting the abolition of slavery and the slave trade within the Bay State, and it was likewise key in building a national antislavery movement in the years of the early republic. Even while abolitionist strategies were evolving, much of the rhetoric and tactics that well-known abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass employed in the mid-nineteenth century had their origins among blacks in Massachusetts during the eighteenth century.

America and Its Allies in the Middle East: Bungling toward Strategic Cooperation

Much has been said about a perceived steady decline of U.S. influence in the Middle East, and American weakness in the world more generally. Though there is some truth to the assertion that the United States’ ability to project power and assert influence in the Middle East has waned since it first sent occupying forces to the region in response to the attacks of 9/11, this does not necessarily equate to a black-and-white dichotomy of former might and current powerlessness. America's activities in Iraq in particular have led to some second and third order consequences that it will be dealing with for some time. While the empowerment of Iran is likely the most dominant negative consequence to emerge from America's activist foray into the region, the galvanizing of a strong pro-Western geopolitical alliance bloc poised to confront Iran and other subversive actors in the region is surely its most positive consequence. As this article will demonstrate, the ability of the United States to capitalize on opportunities created by the latter development have improved its strategic position in the region, and its maneuverability within it beyond what many have acknowledged.

No Billionaire Left Behind: Satirical Activism in America by Angelique Haugerud

No Billionaire Left Behind: Satirical Activism in America by Angelique Haugerud

Determinants of Physical Activity in America: A First Characterization of Physical Activity Profile Using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)

To develop and implement methodologies for characterizing accelerometry-derived patterns of physical activity (PA) in the United States in relation to demographics, anthropometrics, behaviors, and comorbidities using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) dataset. Retrospective analysis of nationally representative database. Computer-generated modeling in silico. A total of 6329 adults in the United States from the NHANES 2003-2004 database. To discover subtle multivariate signal in the dynamic and noisy accelerometry data, we developed a novel approach, termed discretized multiple adaptive regression and implemented the algorithm in SAS 9.2 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC). Demographic, anthropometric, comorbidity, and behavioral variables. The intensity of PA decreased with both increased age and increased body mass index. Both greater education and greater income correlate with increased activity over short durations and reduced activity intensity over long durations. Numerous predictors demonstrated effects within activity ranges that may be masked by use of the standard activity intensity intervals. These include age, one of the most robust variables, where we discovered decreasing activities inside the moderate activity range. It also includes gender, where women compared with men have increased proportions of active times up to the center of light activity range, and income greater than $45,000, where a complex effect is seen with little correspondence to existing cut-points. The results presented in this study suggest that the method of multiple regression and heat map visualization can generate insights otherwise hidden in large datasets such as NHANES. A review of the provided heat maps reveals the trends discussed previously involving demographic, anthropometric, comorbidity, and behavioral variables. It also demonstrates the power of accelerometry to expose alterations in PA. Ultimately, this study provides a US population-based norm to use in future studies of PA.

Juvenile Gang Participation and the Juvenile Justice System: Is There a Solution?

Juvenile involvement in gangs has long been a problem in the United States. However, in the past few decades, juveniles’ participation in gangs has continued to increase despite the fact that violent crime, as a whole, has decreased. The juvenile justice system has been unable to effectively deal with this problem. This essay traces the arc of the juvenile justice system, from its beginnings in the parens patriae doctrine through recent Supreme Court Eighth Amendment decisions, in order to situate the juvenile gang problem in both a historical and modern context. It then addresses empirical evidence of juvenile gang activity in America and examines three different methods for combating the problem. Ultimately, it concludes that the most effective approach to fight juvenile gang affiliation is by aggressive intervention and reformed court supervision that incorporates many of the same therapeutic interventionist methods.

Mortgage Banking in the United States, 1870-1940

Taken in concert with two previously written volumes on the mortgage industry that highlight the immediate post-World War II era and the 1963-1972 period, this study accounts for nearly a century of mortgage banking progress and activity in America. What emerges is a picture of a highly differentiated industry in the 1920s that began to focus more narrowly on federally sponsored mortgage products and a single funding channel during the 1930s and in the immediate post-World War II period, and then transitioned yet again to a more diverse business model by the mid-1960s. During their early pre-federal intervention periods, farm and urban mortgage bankers focused on three similar elements: •The use of informal guarantees or explicit mortgage insurance to protect and attract investors in the markets for whole mortgage loans; •The development of correspondent relationships with life insurance companies; and •A failed experimentation with European-style mortgage banking structures. The Federal Farm Loan Bank system and the FHA mortgage insurance programs that restructured both the farm and urban mortgage banking sectors shared three common features: •They each encouraged the widespread adoption of long-term, amortized mortgage loans; •They each created mechanisms to stimulate the inter-regional transfer of mortgage credit and the convergence of mortgage rates and lending terms across regions; and •They each established federal chartering systems for privately financed European-style mortgage banks to create active secondary markets for long-term, amortized loans.

Representation of the Legitimation Discourse of Iran’s Nuclear Activity in America`s View

Representation of the Legitimation Discourse of Iran’s Nuclear Activity in America`s View

Redistricting: The Most Political Activity in America. By Charles S. BullockIII. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. 234p. $79.00 cloth, $25.00 paper.

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Report on Knapping Activities in America

THE LAST TIME I demonstrated flintknapping and talked about the archaeology of stone tools to a grade school class, the teachers informed me that in their survey of “what I want to be when I grow up” the next week, a majority of students had decided to become archaeologists. God forbid! But at least they all know now that archaeologists study people, not dinosaurs. Anyone who can make “arrowheads” and other simple tools, play with the kind of sharp objects usually forbidden by parents and banned from schools, and talk amusingly about the different lives of prehistoric people is, for a brief space, a hero. OK, fifth graders are an easy audience for that sort of thing, but to some extent, so are their elders. Archaeologists who complain about the disinterested or even hostile public are not taking advantage of some easy connections among the large numbers of people attracted to “primitive skills.” Flintknappers are only one of several more or less organized subcultures where an interested audience, and even friends and colleagues, can be found among the non-academic public. Moreover, it’s a two-way street: many knappers would like more archaeological knowledge, and many archaeologists could learn a lot about stone tools from exploring the knap-in world. Since this journal is mostly read by (too few) academics working with stone tools, one of my major goals in writing this article is to point out to my colleagues that the non-academic knapping world provides many resources that academics should be aware of, as well as a few less pleasing aspects.