Background Character Research Articles

Religious Character Formation Through Islamic Habituation in Primary Education

The general background character education plays a crucial role in shaping moral and ethical behavior in students, particularly within primary education settings. In Islamic educational institutions, there is a notable emphasis on integrating religious values into character development, with a focus on habituation practices to reinforce these values among students. However, there is limited empirical research that specifically examines the effectiveness of Islamic habituation as a method for strengthening religious character in primary education. This study aims to explore the implementation and impact of Islamic habituation on religious character formation among students at Muhammadiyah 1 Sidoarjo Elementary School. Findings reveal that the systematic application of Islamic habituation, including practices such as daily prayers, gratitude, and the 5S culture, significantly enhances students' moral behavior and engagement in religious activities. This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge by providing evidence of the positive outcomes of religious habituation in an educational context, emphasizing its role in character education. The results suggest that integrating Islamic habituation into primary education not only fosters individual moral development but also promotes a supportive community environment conducive to religious learning, thereby reinforcing the importance of character education within the broader educational framework. Highlights: Systematic Islamic habituation practices enhance students' moral behavior. Integration of religious values fosters a supportive community environment. Empirical evidence contributes to the understanding of character education in Islamic contexts. Keywords: Islamic Education, Character Formation, Habituation, Primary Education, Moral Development

Psychometric Properties of a Psychological Measure of Indigenous Personality (Suryomentaram's Perspective): Initial Study

Background Character development is central in personality and developmental psychology, with strong character as a protective factor against psychological disorders. Given the importance of character assessment, this study explores the development and initial psychometric evaluation of an indigenous personality measure, the Suryomentaram Personality Scale (SPS), grounded in empirical research on individuals trained in Suryomentaram philosophies. Objective The study aimed to (1) develop the SPS and (2) evaluate its psychometric properties, including content validity, factor structure, and internal consistency reliability. Methods Three analytical methods were employed: content validity assessment by six subject matter experts (SMEs), exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and reliability analysis. A convenience sample of 282 students participated in EFA and reliability analyses. Participants were recruited through social media announcements and provided informed consent before completing the SPS. Results Content validity analysis revealed eight items falling below the acceptable Aiken's V threshold (< 0.8) out of 23 initially developed items. EFA of the remaining 15 items identified four relatively independent factors: perseverance, optimism, lack of worry and regret, and empathy. Internal consistency reliability estimates for each factor ranged from 0.482 to 0.716. Conclusion This initial study provides evidence for the adequate psychometric properties of the SPS based on content validity, EFA, and reliability analysis. Further research is needed to confirm these findings and explore the scale's convergent and discriminant validity.

The Artistic Expression of Character Shaping and Dramatic Costume Design

Character shaping and theatrical costume design complement each other in theatrical performance. Character shaping requires consideration of the character's background, personality traits, and goals, and showcases the character's characteristics through techniques such as dialogue, body language, and psychological description. Dramatic costume design should reflect the personality of the characters, conform to the theatrical style and historical background, and reflect the development of the characters in the plot. By selecting appropriate materials, colors, and designing clothing styles, as well as cleverly matching accessories, theatrical costumes can enhance the effect of character shaping. The interaction between characters and clothing is reflected in clothing strengthening character characteristics, assisting in expressing character emotions, and creating a suitable plot atmosphere. By integrating character shaping with theatrical costume design, the connotation of characters can be better interpreted, and the overall expressive power of drama can be enhanced.

Content and structure of social practices

The article is devoted to the problem of defining social practices and their content, in which a comprehensive approach to the study of social practices is justified. To this end, it is necessary to adhere to the following methodological guidelines: first, the postmodern vision of reality, which emphasizes pluralism as a worldview and methodological guideline for understanding social processes; secondly, the study of social practices in the aspect of everyday life, based on the methodological guidelines of background knowledge and the concept of the "revealing" nature of practices; thirdly, theories of social action that exist in modern sociology, since the core of any social practice is social activity. The article notes the fact that today in science, three levels of social practices are distinguished depending on the role of the subject, namely, social practices of subjects in everyday activities, social practices of groups and communities, social practices of institutions and organizations. The nature of social practices is explained by two approaches - the background character of the practice and the "revealing" nature of the practices. Background practice is the context against which utterances and behavior are interpreted. The "revealing" nature of practices is related to the problem of identities. Practices constitute and reproduce identities or reveal basic modes of social existence at a specific historical moment. Meaningfully, social practices have spatial and temporal localization and may differ depending on the historical period, cultural features of the country or region, and the state system. The article provides a description of social time and social space, analyzes the space-time continuum - the chronotope. The third element of social practices is social action, which acts as the nucleus around which all social life revolves. Social practices are implemented in routine acts of practical actions of individuals in everyday life, existence and functioning of social groups and communities, functioning of social institutions.

THE IMAGE OF JAVANESE WOMEN IN THREE NOVELS OF NANING PRANOTO

This research aims to describe the image, position, and problems of Javanese female characters in the three novels of Naning Pranoto. This research is descriptive qualitative with a feminist analysis approach. The sources of data are the novels entitled Lupa Singgah di Shizi, Wajah Sebuah Vagina, and Mei Merah 1998 (Kala Arwah Berkisah) by Naning Pranoto. The research data are all lingual units in the form of sentences that contain the image, position, and problems of Javanese women in Naning Pranoto’s three novels. Data were collected using reading and note-taking techniques. Data analysis was conducted by comparing, categorizing, presenting, and making inferences. The results of this study show that the image of women displayed in the three novels by Naning Pranoto is quite dynamic because of the social contact experienced by the characters. Each character's background also affects the image labeled towards Javanese female characters in the three novels. When viewed from the position of female characters, Javanese women in the novels are depicted as figures who are more dominated by men. This could be Naning Pranoto's intention to protest or show cynicism towards those who marginalize women. Then the next problems shown in the novel mostly start from economic problems that cause other problems to arise such as sexual violence, oppression, and marginalization.

Kashmir, a theatre that stages hell: A study of Basharat Peer’s Curfewed Night (2008) and Vishal Bhardwaj’s film Haider (2014)

Kashmir, a region that lost its existence as a separate state since Akbar’s invasion and controls over it in 1586, had witnessed tyranny, felt pain, and experienced the darkness of conflict and insurgency, and it is still boiling in the same hell this way or that. She had been and is a theatre where half-mothers, half-widows, pellet-hit children and young men, psychos and disappeared souls perform their roles. Basharat Peer, the author of the novel Curfewed Night has described and shown it remarkably in his book. He has drifted from the tradition – ‘if there is a paradise on earth/ it’s here, it’s here, it’s here’ (Jahangir); or ‘here, every countenance is a moon/ every speck a star/ this is the valley of Kashmir/ the emblem of paradise.’ (Aabroo, 1968) – and recounted the tragedy he had been encountering around him as a citizen, rather a background character. Similarly, Vishal Bhardwaj’s movie Haider, partly based on William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Peer’s memoir, presents a moving picture of Kashmir, not as heaven but inferno, where souls had been suffering or still enduring the scimitars of Partition (1947), insurgencies and civilian disappearances that took speed after the infamous Pandit exodus, pangs inflicted by hungry and insane renegades, destruction of lives and property, identity crisis; and where the people during early mornings are characterised by crackdowns, men being taken away from their homes, questioning of young men, and mothers being condemned to spend the rest of their lives looking for their sons who have disappeared. In this paper, I will focus on Kashmir, where the general populace is denied access to basic human rights, endure the pains of conflict and their insensitive neighbours for whom she (Kashmir) is an apple of discord, and the constant attempt of Kashmiris to free themselves from the tiger grip of their hungry neighbours and their utter failure in this venture which has turned Kashmiris as mere psychos – through the lens of Peer’s memoir and Bhardwaj’s Haider.

The use of formal care for dementia from a professional perspective: a scoping review

Background and objectivesThe progressive character of dementia usually leads to a continuously increasing need for support. There is some evidence of late use of professional support during the disease course. We aim to provide an overview of aspects influencing access and use of formal care in dementia from the perspective of health and social care professionals. Additionally, the perspectives of professionals and people with dementia/informal carers will be compared.MethodsWe conducted a scoping review with a systematic literature search in Medline via Ovid in January 2019 and updated this in April 2020 and in May 2021. Publications were considered eligible when focusing on influencing aspects of the use of formal care or support for people with dementia in an outpatient setting from the perspective of health professionals. Included publications were critically appraised using the Mixed Method Appraisal Tool. We identified aspects of access to and use of formal care and support services. A consultation exercise with three specialised trained dementia care nurses was conducted to validate our results.ResultsWe included 29 studies: n = 20 qualitative, n = 6 quantitative-descriptive, n = 3 mixed-methods. Various support services were identified, but a focus was on services for diagnostic and treatment of dementia. A wide range of influencing aspects (n = 15) describe the access to and use of formal care services. Aspects related to the complexity and structure of the healthcare system and the competence of professionals were frequently addressed. Second, attitudes and expectations of professionals, and experiences with people with dementia and their informal carers were identified. The dementia care nurses highlighted the importance of coordinated care to enhance dementia-specific competencies.ConclusionsHealth and social care professionals still describe barriers in accessing and using formal care due to various influences. Ways to improve access to and use of professional support in dementia should consider individual and system-level activities, as well as overarching aspects. Important topics are therefore education and training of professionals and coordinated dementia-specific care to provide adequate support for people with dementia and their relatives. Several professions may be involved in this increasingly important field, e.g., nurses with a dementia-specific training like dementia care nurses.

Smith and Smitherson’s Theatre of the Absurd

Smith and Smitherson’s Theatre of the Absurd

Relationships of Surface Geological and Geophysical Characteristics with the Deep Structure of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge According to Seismic Tomography Data

—A retrospective analysis of seismic tomography models with different levels of detail along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) has shown that mantle inhomogeneities depicted by variations of seismic waves velocities in low-detail models look larger than their true sizes determined by more detailed modern models. They also confirm that there are two different types of upwelling in the Atlantic mantle: active plume, which has an impulsive character, and passive axial, which occurs as a response to spatial appearance during the drift of lithospheric plates. The structure of mantle velocity and density inhomogeneities, determined by low-frequency gravity anomalies and their reductions, has a consistent interpretation based on the thermal state of the mantle. Detailed models of the velocities under the MAR can serve as a basis for comparison with the geochemical characteristics of basalts. The decomposition of a single axial tomographic anomaly in detailed models into a chain of vertical lenses under slow spreading conditions corresponds to geochemical data on discrete manifestations of different basalt associations along the MAR. The attribute δ(Vp/Vs) section along the MAR in the mantle above ~700 km contains cold lenses with a thickness of 200–300 km, which are spatially related to the following structural and tectonic phenomena: transform faults with maximum lateral rift displacement; geochemical segmentation of the MAR; modulation of the total lengths of transform faults with increased values above the “cold” lenses; asymmetry features of the half-spreading rates, which decreases to zero above the cold lenses and reaches maximum values between the cold lenses. The cold mantle lenses at an average depth of ~500 km and the corresponding lithospheric geophysical characteristics reflect the background conditions, and areas above hot segments are disturbances that occur when plume branches interfere with the MAR. Inhomogeneous spreading rates can lead to movements of blocks inside large plates and tectonic deformations of the intraplate space. Along the 4 Ma isochron in the Northern Hemisphere, the half-spreading rates on the eastern flank of the MAR exceed the half-spreading rates on the western flank. In the Southern Hemisphere, the pattern is reversed, which indicates the possible influence of the Earth’s rotation effects on geodynamic processes along the MAR. Against the general trend, there are local inversion zones from the western predominance of increased rates to the eastern and, conversely, in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The main demarcation faults of the Atlantic differ in seismic events by their maximum energy release and are located near the “cold” mantle lenses and the contrasting lateral transition to the hot regions. The distribution of the total seismic moment in the depth intervals of 0‒13 and 13‒35 km also has less intense extremes near the branches of plumes with a predominantly crustal position of the hypocenters. The seismicity along the main MAR space associated with standard basalt magmatism has a background character and does not significantly contribute to the total released seismic moment compared to shear zones.

Character virtues prospectively predict responses to situational stressors in daily life in clinical and subclinical samples

ABSTRACT Background Character strengths and virtues may shape responses to stressors and risk for anxious and depressive distress. However, most studies have relied on cross-sectional designs, and it remains unclear whether virtues directly predict distress in daily life or buffer context-specific stressors. We tested whether higher-order intellectual (inquisitiveness), intrapersonal (self-control), and interpersonal virtues (caring) prospectively predicted coping responses and lower symptoms, and moderated effects of specific stressors on distress. Methods Treatment-seeking individuals diagnosed with anxiety/depression (N = 81; Study 1) and students (N = 112; Study 2) completed the VIA Inventory of Strengths survey at baseline, then experience-sampling of daily symptoms and situational responses (perceptions and/or coping strategies) over seven days (Study 1) or five weeks (Study 2). Results Multilevel models generally linked virtues to more adaptive daily responses during individuals’ worst and best daily events (Study 1) and worst events (Study 2), but inquisitiveness unexpectedly predicted higher symptoms in both studies. Additionally, virtues buffered against the within-person effects of specific stressor perceptions on distress (Study 2). Conclusions The relevance of character virtues for anxiety, stress, and coping may be complex, predicting higher or lower symptoms depending on both the virtue and the situational context.

The Historical Fact Bissu South Sulawesi in the Novel Tiba Sebelum Berangkat (Study Literature Mimetic)

The purpose of this study describes historical fact background character of bissu and describes historical fact of the life character of bissu. The historical aspect in question is how history is rewritten in the novel Tiba Sebelum Berangkat. This study is a qualitative descriptive study, using a mimetic approach is based on Plato's perspective. The validity of the data used to observe the semantic validity of the data units of words, sentences, discourse, dialogue, which is found in the novel. Reliability data using interrater and interrater. Reliability interrater used reading and reviewing repeatedly to find the consistency of the data while interrater had discussions with people who can appreciate literature. Analysis of the data used is content analysis to determine the content and meaning contained in the novel Tiba Sebelum Berangkat. Results in this study, first, historical fact background character of bissu includes: bissu as the traditional ceremonial leader indigenous; stage becomes bissu; the hierarchy of community bissu. Second, historical fact of the life character of bissu includes: bissu becomes the center of Operation Tobat DI/TII; syncretism of bissu and Islamic religion; bissu title pilgrim to Mecca; government intervention against bissu; now bissu as beauty salon worker; novel Tiba Sebelum Berangkat as a form of social criticism. The findings based on that novel have a relationship with bissu real life. Thus, the novel Tiba Sebelum Berangkat contains historical narrative bissu life in South Sulawesi. The impacts resulting from this research can reveal the historical facts that occur in the content of the novel.

MULTICULTURALISM AND SUBCULTURAL IN INDONESIA GENERAL ELECTION 2019

The issue of multiculturalism and subcultural are developing in the even of Indonesian election in 2019 such as democracy, equality in the fields of law, social, political, and cultural, human rights, honesty, justice, political choice, and unfair legal enforcement, so that people tend to split. The problem of this research is what are the cultural perceptions of the Jakarta multicultural community toward the events of the 2019 Election?The case studied was 2019 Elecion and primary data was obtained through interview with 8 informants from Javanese, Batak, Sundanese, Bugis, Chinese, and Betawi subculturs, then confirm by intercultural communication experts, Alo Liliweri. Data were analyzing using Miles and Hubermans models.The result showed that the cultural perception of Jakarta multicultural community was based on subcultural perception, in which Javanese, Batak, and Chinese subcultures tended to support Jokowi, while the Sunda, Betawi, and Bugis subcultures tended to support Prabowo. Nonverbal behavior of subcultural member s regarding 2019 election is oriented towards Dominant Cultures or Indonesian National Culture as parta of Eastern Culture, and also influenced by their family background, profession and personal character.

Background Modeling and Referencing for Moving Cameras-Captured Surveillance Video Coding in HEVC

Surveillance video coding is crucial for improving compression efficiency in intelligent video surveillance systems and applications. Plenty of work has been done, which can be roughly divided into two categories: the former mainly focuses on low-complexity background modeling to obtain the clear background, while the latter focuses on an appropriate coding strategy to generate the high-quality background reference picture for effective background prediction. However, almost all existing works focus only on stationary camera scenes, while moving cameras-captured surveillance video coding is left untouched and is still an open problem. In this paper, a background modeling and referencing scheme for moving cameras-captured surveillance video coding in high-efficiency video coding (HEVC) is proposed. First, this paper proposes a low-complexity motion background modeling algorithm for surveillance video coding using the running average based on a global-motion-compensation method. To obtain the global motion vector, we propose a global motion detection method based on character blocks by establishing a low-rank singular value decomposition model for clustering and estimating motion vectors of background character blocks in the cameras movement circumstance. Second, we propose a background referencing coding strategy, in which the motion background coding tree units (MBCTUs) would be selected by anchoring the input video frame on the modeling background frame and coded with the optimized quantization parameter. Then, the reconstructed MBCTU will be used to update the previous coding tree unit in the global compensation location of the background reference picture. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed scheme can achieve significant bit savings of up to 26.6% and, on average, 6.7% with similar subjective quality and negligible encoding complexity, compared to HM12.0. Besides, the proposed scheme consistently outperforms two state-of-the-art surveillance video coding schemes with remarkable bitrate savings.

The new script of nursing: using social media and advances in communication – to create a contemporary image of nursing

Background: Inaccurate and clichéd images of nurses are well documented and need to be challenged. For too long, the image of nursing has been formed by television and movies, which typically portray the nurse as the doctor’s assistant or as a background character rather than an integral member of the interdisciplinary team.Method: “The New Script of Nursing”, using a multi-media digital approach, was launched by Johns Hopkins University to break through the stereotypical images of nursing and showcase the depth and breadth of the nursing profession. Using a case study method, using temporal limits, the method of the campaign is described and the impact assessed using digital analytics.Results: Within two weeks there were: 23,030 views on Facebook including 1467 reactions, comments and shares; Twitter received 12,208 impressions and 832 engagements; YouTube received 4518 views and 107 views on Instagram. The We Got This website received more than 7000 visitors from Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Portugal, Lebanon, and Hong Kong. Engagement has been sustained and within nine months, the video on social media received 32,000 views and 400 shares.Conclusion: Social media, cellphones, and portable devices enable not just rapid but widespread communication and there is a compelling imperative to engage this media. The accessibility and affordability of social media is empowering and allows the voice of nurses to be heard.Impact Statement: Social media is an accessible, affordable and efficacious method to address misconceptions and inaccuracies of nursing as a profession. Nurses must adopt communication science and social media to profile the profession.

Generating background NPCs motion and grouping behavior based on real video sequences

Nowadays, there are many different types of NPCs (Non-Playable Character) in games, which can be endowed with different abilities, levels of intelligence and more or less realistic motion. How much the NPCs abilities are sophisticated, more complex are techniques to model and control them. Concerning the realism of NPCs motion, the ideal result is to provide characters that act and move in a way that seems natural to people. However, it can take a long time and a lot of work for developers, since designers should define characteristics for each different background character. This work aims to introduce a trajectory learning system derived from real video sequences, which can be used to generate NPCs motion for games. In addition to NPCs trajectories, we propose to detect in video sequences the formed groups and its characteristics to be used to simulate more realistic NPCs. We performed some evaluations using a pre-defined set of real video sequences and compared them with generated simulations. The obtained results indicate that our motion learning and groups detection techniques can be a valuable resource in order to generate NPCs and groups of NPCs trajectories, in an automatic way and similar to the real-life.

Comment on "Evaluation of Recurrence Factors and Gorei-san Administration for Chronic Subdural Hematoma after Percutaneous Subdural Tapping"

We previously reported the recurrence factors and the effect of Gorei-san on chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH) using percutaneous subdural tapping. Herein, we comment on less invasive surgical option and postsurgical administration for CSDH. Many factors for CSDH recurrence have been identified and categorized into four groups, namely: patient background, hematoma character, postsurgical administration, and surgical option. Patient background and hematoma character cannot be intervened for patients’ specific problem. Gorei-san has been reported to prevent CSDH recurrence without adverse events even if administered for elder patients. Gorei-san inhibits aquaporin-4, which is expressed on the outer membrane of chronic subdural hematoma. We have good impression of prevention effect of CSDH recurrence especially for those who started Gorei-san before surgery. Several surgical options for CSDH are reported as follows: burr hole surgery, percutaneous subdural tapping, endovascular embolization of middle meningeal artery, and craniotomy. Although burr hole surgery has been performed worldwide as a standard procedure for CSDH, percutaneous subdural tapping has been developed to realize less invasive surgical option, which allows noninvasive measurement of initial hematoma pressure and eases the perioperative management due to rapid discharge.

Family Politics: Domestic Life, Devastation and Survival 1900–1950 by Paul Ginsborg

Reviewed by: Family Politics: Domestic Life, Devastation and Survival 1900–1950 by Paul Ginsborg Sara Sewell Family Politics: Domestic Life, Devastation and Survival 1900–1950. By Paul Ginsborg. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014. Pp. xviii + 520. Cloth $35.00. ISBN 978-0300112115. Family Politics examines family life and politics in Bolshevik Russia, the Turkish Republic, Fascist Italy, the Spanish Republic, Francoist Spain, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union. Weaving together family theory, legislation, social conditions, gender relations, daily life, and cultural production, Ginsborg cogently demonstrates how each nation-state sought a revolution in family life. At its most compelling, Family Politics recounts the lives of families torn apart during periods of extreme violence and describes the impact of this violence on both the large scale, which resulted in seismic demographic shifts, and at the personal level where individual families struggled amid devastating loss. Ginsborg recognizes that these "great tyrant regimes" collapsed "the private into the public," restructuring "civil society to serve the state" (68). While acknowledging the invasive nature of dictatorial states, Ginsborg simultaneously challenges totalitarian approaches that downplay private life. As he contends, totalitarian approaches overlook "that layer of social activity which, even in dictatorship, lies between the individual and the state, and which has its lynchpin in the family" (437). By contrast, Ginsborg integrates family narratives into the "social and political life of a nationstate" to show that "families are not simply on the receiving end of political power but are themselves actors in the historical process" (xviii), even under dictatorships. In the years following World War I, when political experimentation was rife, debates about the family emerged as never before. Ginsborg devotes significant attention to the theoretical underpinnings of each regime's family ideology, from Alexandra Kollontai's reconceptualization of the family within the collective to Turkish nationalist Ziya Gökalp's advocacy of a familial "nest" as the kernel of national organization. Ginsborg also demonstrates how each regime attempted to put its theories into practice to revolutionize daily life. Comparing five countries through revolution, dictatorship, and war, Ginsborg points out that all of these states advanced family stability as a key ingredient to their "New Orders." His approach produces fascinating bedfellows. For example, both Revolutionary Russia and Kemalist Turkey promulgated family laws that were decidedly secular, undercutting religious authorities. Spain's anarchosyndicalist [End Page 659] Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) supported eugenic practices that echoed Nazi racial theory. And both the Nazi and Soviet idealization of youth as a national regenerative force incited generational conflict within families, leading to children denouncing their parents. Despite efforts to instrumentalize families, these regimes did not always realize success in the realm of family policy due to contradictory state policies. For example, while both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany enjoyed tremendous success at enlisting citizens in mass national organizations, these organizations simultaneously undermined family relations, drawing individuals out of the family. Sometimes the policies of these regimes destroyed families altogether. Despite the Francoist government's 1938 law that characterized the family as "the natural nucleus and foundation of society … endowed with inalienable rights" (305), famine ravaged working-class families in the early 1940s due largely to state actions. Similarly, the Bolsheviks contributed to conditions that ruined families during the Civil War, so that by 1922 orphan children totaled at least four million. For Ginsborg, the regimes' uneven records on family policy highlight the limitations of nation-states to infiltrate private life. Even under dictatorships, families drew boundaries between the public and private. In Fascist Italy, for instance, Mussolini's desire to grow the population was met with resistance by ordinary Italians. Similarly, in Kemalist Turkey peasant families, adhering to traditional religious practices, refused to register marriages with the state. While there is much to applaud about Family Politics, its analysis largely stops short of examining politics within families. Ginsborg often brings his readers to the cusp of family politics, halting just at the moment when the reader senses that the real drama is about to unfold. For instance, we learn that Kollontai periodically abandoned her family, but her husband is rendered silent, a background character to revolutionary drama. In addition, Ginsborg explains that Joseph Goebbels had a...

Senator James Eastland: Mississippi’s Jim Crow Democrat by Maarten Zwiers

Reviewed by: Senator James Eastland: Mississippi’s Jim Crow Democrat by Maarten Zwiers Catherine A. Conner Senator James Eastland: Mississippi’s Jim Crow Democrat. By Maarten Zwiers. Making the Modern South. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2015. Pp. [x], 293. $45.00, ISBN 978-0-8071-6001-5.) Maarten Zwiers’s book Senator James Eastland: Mississippi’s Jim Crow Democrat joins a growing literature that reconsiders white southern politicians who held powerful sway over national politics from the New Deal to the Reagan Revolution. No longer mere segregationists in these retellings, Mississippi’s James O. Eastland, South Carolina’s J. Strom Thurmond, and others are cold warriors who stifled civil rights and labor unions in the name of states’ rights and free enterprise. Such revisionism, coupled with recent explorations of Sun Belt politics, reveals the bipartisan, multiregional, and diverse ideological origins of the New Right and the decline of the Democratic South. To enter these debates, Zwiers uses a political biography of Eastland, one with a purposeful focus on the relationship between Mississippi Democrats and the national Democratic Party in the middle third of the twentieth century. Eastland becomes the great compromiser within this milieu, moving from staunch Dixiecrat to loyalist Democrat even as his party moved toward racial liberalism. Yet the tension between the national and state Democratic parties is not exactly the full story of this book. The Democratic Party’s retaliation after the Dixiecrat revolt, Zwiers suggests, kept Eastland in line. Zwiers continually asserts that Eastland’s position as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee explains why the senator remained a Democrat even as Mississippi began to move toward the Republican Party by the mid-1950s. Though many of his constituents challenged his position, Eastland maintained that staying within the Democratic Party—and keeping his chairmanship—was the best way to keep the state’s interests represented in Washington, D.C. Zwiers succeeds remarkably well in documenting such internal tension among Mississippi Democrats. Within this story line, Eastland becomes a moderate segregationist in an era of massive resistance, a characterization that only makes sense against the backdrop of Governor Ross Barnett’s hardline actions that incited a riot at the University of Mississippi over James Meredith’s admission. The ghosts of the Dixiecrats were ones that Eastland, though a founding father, could not control. And indeed, Eastland becomes a background character in the last few chapters that focus on the classical civil rights era. Zwiers’s investigation of gubernatorial races and the transition of the state’s GOP from the Black and Tans to rebranded Dixiecrats, overrides his intended story line and reveals a longer history of white southern Republicans and the internal disintegration of the Democratic South. Such historical work makes Zwiers’s book invaluable to scholars of modern American politics. Who Eastland was, however, remains a mystery, though it needs unraveling to further add to the scholarly conversations about southern and national politics. Democratic senator Patrick A. (Pat) McCarran of Nevada mentored [End Page 725] the young Eastland on the Judiciary Committee, a relationship that reveals ideological similarities between the South and the West before the regions banded together under the GOP. Zwiers also treats Eastland’s racism, anti-unionism, and anticommunism as givens, the unexplained worldview of a patrician planter from the Delta. Yet Zwiers misses an opportunity to concretely link states’ rights to free enterprise, the de facto ideology promoted by the New Right, free of white supremacy. Of equal importance is the unexplored inconsistency between Eastland’s championing of free enterprise and his state’s dependence on federal largesse, which he secured through his position on the Senate Agriculture Committee. With the exception of a few anecdotes of dinners and drinks, one humorously featuring Senator Edward M. Kennedy, ever-flowing whiskey, and an office plant in desperate need of rehydration, Zwiers rarely shows how Eastland wielded his power on the Judiciary Committee to protect Mississippi’s state sovereignty against what he perceived to be an encroaching federal government. Nonetheless, Zwiers uses Eastland to reveal a much more politically dynamic Mississippi than its history as a one-party state suggests. Catherine A. Conner North Carolina State University Copyright © 2016 The Southern Historical...

红外望远镜站址大气传输和环境背景特性的测量分析研究

红外望远镜站址大气传输和环境背景特性的测量分析研究

红外望远镜站址大气传输和环境背景特性的测量分析研究

红外望远镜站址大气传输和环境背景特性的测量分析研究