Boston Globe Research Articles

Borderline Girlhoods: Mental Illness, Adolescence, and Femininity in Girl, Interrupted

What about me was so deranged that in less than half an hour a doctor would pack me off to the nuthouse? He tricked me though: a couple of weeks. It was closer to two years. I was eighteen. (Kaysen 39) After a twenty-minute interview with a psychiatrist, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was compelled to sign herself into McLean Hospital, a psychiatric institute, where she would spend nearly two years. Kaysen’s memoir of the experience, Girl, Interrupted (1994) remained on the New York Times paperback bestseller list for at least seven years after its initial publication. According to Publisher’s Weekly, customer demand for Kaysen’s memoir quickly surpassed the original printing of 13,500, which resulted in Girl, Interrupted being “temporarily out of stock” (Maryles 18). As recently as 2000, a reporter for the Boston Globe suggested that Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted threatened to replace Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar as the “Must-read for young women in high school and college” (Bass 7). Like The Bell Jar (1963), Girl, Interrupted exists as a cross-written text that straddles the arbitrary border between young adult and adult literature. “Many teenagers read the book long before they encounter it in class, just as a previous generation of young women were drawn to The Bell Jar” (Bass 7). The popularity of Girl, Interrupted and the association of the text with U.S. adolescent girls warrants further consideration of the memoir as a text read by young adults and as a representation of adolescent girlhood that offers a complex commentary on feminine coming-of-age. In this essay, I analyze Kaysen’s memoir as a unique narrative mode through which she intervenes in knowledge about feminine adolescence. Specifically, I trace how Kaysen relies on the figure of the wounded girl

MATERIALS SCIENCE BLOSSOMS IN BOSTON

WINTER ARRIVED FASHIONably late to this year's Materials Research Society (MRS) annual meeting, giving conferees three balmy-for-Boston days before settling into the chilly drizzle they've come to expect from the event, held for the past 28 years in Beantown. The season's tardiness was appropriate, though, as fashion took center stage at this year's meeting. During the afternoon breaks on the second and third days of the event, held from Nov. 28 to Dec. 2, attendees were treated to a geek-chic fashion show that featured technologically advanced clothing made possible by materials research. Professional models and MRS student members strutted side by side down the catwalk sporting silver-coated antibacterial textiles, denim jackets equipped with solar cells, and tank tops illuminated by nanostructured optical fibers attached to light-emitting diodes. In the words of Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray, All the clothes showed off recent developments in materials research, an unsexy but vital ...

Nixon at the Movies: A Book about Belief

Mark Feeney, a writer for the Boston Globe and a lecturer in American studies at Brandeis University, has written an exceptionally interesting and innovative study that pushes the envelope in our understanding of Richard M. Nixon. He is to be complimented for trying something different. The book unfortunately pushes the envelope so much that the seams tear. It is no exaggeration to call portions of this book brilliant, but it is also inconsistent. In the end Feeney fails to support his thesis, and his analysis vastly exceeds the authority of his sources. Feeney argues that with film the character and image of each refracting and illuminating who Richard Nixon was and is in the American imagination. Just as in watching the movies he could help shape himself, so can watching the movies help how we shape him. (p. xiii, emphasis in original) Feeney has a subject worthy of investigation. A politician coming out of California is clearly going to have some relationship with every major industry in the state, including Hollywood. Like many others, Nixon used the fictional characters of motion pictures, referring to a John Wayne film to explain a new policy initiative. This tendency is an issue worthy of consideration. Presidents also have a broad impact on American society. They often become metaphors for their era, have long and lasting legacies in popular culture, or are the inspiration for fictional characters, which always involves some type of commentary. For example, George Lucas modeled the evil emperor in his Star Wars films after Nixon.

Last child in the woods: saving our children from nature-deficit disorder

children and nature movement is fueled by this fundamental idea: the child in nature is an endangered species, and the health of children and the health of the Earth are inseparable. Louv, from the new edition In his landmark work Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv brought together cutting-edge studies that pointed to direct exposure to nature as essential for a child s healthy physical and emotional development. Now this new edition updates the growing body of evidence linking the lack of nature in children s lives and the rise in obesity, attention disorders, and depression. Louv s message has galvanized an international back-to-nature campaign to Leave No Child Inside. His book will change the way you think about our future and the future of our children. [The] national movement to leave no child inside . . . has been the focus of Capitol Hill hearings, state legislative action, grass-roots projects, a U.S. Forest Service initiative to get more children into the woods and a national effort to promote a green hour in each day. . . . increased activism has been partly inspired by a best-selling book, Last Child in the Woods, and its author, Louv. The Washington Post Last Child in the Woods, which describes a generation so plugged into electronic diversions that it has lost its connection to the natural world, is helping drive a movement quickly flourishing across the nation. The Nation s Health This book is an absolute must-read for parents. The Boston Globe Now includesA Field Guide with 100 Practical Actions We Can Take Discussion Points for Book Groups, Classrooms, and Communities Additional Notes by the Author New and Updated Research from the U.S. and Abroad

Reframing the runway

This article discusses newspaper coverage of a plan by the Massachusetts Port Authority to construct a new runway that would triple the amount of flights at Boston’s Logan International Airport. The project was supported by the Boston business community, the hospitality and airline industries and the Republican state leadership – who because of their status as elite sources, had the power to create the initial framing of the issue in terms of ‘economic progress’ vs ‘stagnation’. Early coverage in The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald reproduced this frame, failing to elucidate larger social justice issues involved for working class and minority communities abutting the airport. Through community organizing and media work enhanced with new communications technologies, a volunteer-run coalition of Boston area residents drew attention to issues of equity concerning the project’s environmental impacts, and helped educate elected officials, journalists and the general public about alternatives to the runway. This affected the framing of the issue in the news and, more importantly, broadened the policy debate in ways that stimulated regionalized transportation planning aimed at reducing environmental impacts for the communities around Logan.

How did economics get that way & what way did it get?

pline began in September 1940 when I enrolled as a freshman in the elementary economics course at Harvard College. I will try in this essay to make sense of the evolution of economics over a span of more than 1⁄2fty years. An analogy that comes to mind is from The Boston Globe. The Sunday edition occasionally publishes pairs of photographs of urban landscapes. They are taken from the same spot, looking in the same direction, but are at least thirty, forty, or 1⁄2fty years apart. One shows a corner of the city as it looked then and the other as it looks now. Some buildings have disappeared, some new ones have been built, and some of the old ones are still there but with altered facades. This description is also true of the landscape and structure of economics, and I would like to provide a few then-and-now snapshots. The difference, however, is that with economics something more is called for; the pictures have to be connected. I would like to tell a story about how and why the architecture of economics changed. It will be a sort of Whig history but without the smugness.

Nursing and Health Care

Suzanne Gordon, an award-winning journalist and frequent contributor to the Boston Globe, New York Times, and Washington Post, has written a wide-ranging and sometimes exasperating but ultimately worthwhile book about the current state of nursing and health care.

John Kenneth Galbraith: his life, his politics, his economics

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) was one of America's most famous economists for good reason. From his acerbic analysis of America's private wealth and public squalor to his denunciation of the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, Galbraith consistently challenged conventional wisdom (a phrase he coined). He did so as a witty commentator on America's political follies and as a versatile author of bestselling books-such as The Affluent Society and The New Industrial State-that warn of the dangers of deregulated markets, corporate greed, and inattention to the costs of our military power. Here, in the first full-length biography of Galbraith and his times, Richard Parker provides not only a nuanced portrait of this extraordinary man, but also an important reinterpretation of twentieth-century public policy and economic practices. Whatever you may think of his ideas, John Kenneth Galbraith has led an extraordinary life. . . . Doing justice to this life story requires an outsize biography, one that not only tells Mr. Galbraith's tale but sets it on the broader canvas of America's political and economic evolution. And Richard book does just that.-Economist Parker's book is more than a chronicle of Galbraith's life; it's a history of American politics and policy from FDR through George W. Bush. . . . It will make readers more economically and politically aware.-USA Today The most readable and instructive biography of the century.-William F. Buckley, National Review The story of this man's life and work is wonderfully rendered in this magnum opus, and offers an antidote to the public ennui, economic cruelty, and government malfeasance that poison life in America today.-James Carroll, Boston Globe

The Protein Gap. John Fa is the first researcher to frame the bushmeat crisis as a protein crisis. And his analysis suggests that wildlife activists are behaving like Marie-Antoinette: "Let them eat cake."

Conservation in PracticeVolume 6, Issue 3 p. 117-123 The Protein Gap John Fa is the first researcher to frame the bushmeat crisis as a protein crisis. And his analysis suggests that wildlife activists are behaving like Marie-Antoinette: “Let them eat cake.” Fred Pearce, Fred Pearce Freelance writer based in London, U.K. He is an environmental consultant for New Scientist magazine as well as a regular contributor to the Boston Globe and the London Independent.Search for more papers by this author Fred Pearce, Fred Pearce Freelance writer based in London, U.K. He is an environmental consultant for New Scientist magazine as well as a regular contributor to the Boston Globe and the London Independent.Search for more papers by this author First published: 08 March 2006 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1526-4629.2005.tb00178.xCitations: 7AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume6, Issue3July 2005Pages 117-123 RelatedInformation

A new magical incubator?

PurposeBuilding 20 of MIT was erected hurriedly during World War II to house the Radiation Laboratory which was the main US centre for research on radar. Later it housed the Research Laboratory of Electronics of MIT and was the site of a vast amount of innovative research, including much that laid foundations for cybernetics. The unpretentious building was demolished in recent years, and a bizarre and entirely different structure has replaced it. The new design is meant to encourage innovation by a quite different route. The purpose here is to show the importance in the history of cybernetics of what went on in Building 20, which can hardly be overstated, and to argue that for the new building it has to be a “hard act to follow”.Design/methodology/approachPrompted by an item in the Boston Globe, the old and new buildings are contrasted, with the part played by the old building illustrated by reminiscences.FindingsThe reference to the old building as a “magical incubator” is fully warranted.Practical implicationsAn instructive contrast is offered between a highly successful but largely fortuitous research environment, and one that is planned in detail and has yet to prove its worth. One valuable planned feature of the old environment, namely a comprehensive “document room”, is described.Originality/valueThe account should be valuable as a historical record.

In the debate of sex and science, Summers, Hopkins, and the X chromosome battle it out

While speaking at an academic conference on January 14, 2005, Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard University, suggested that innate biological differences between men and women might be one reason for the paucity of women math and science professors. Nancy Hopkins, a biology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), walked out upon hearing this remark. Both Summers’ comments and Hopkins’ reaction have received significant publicity and undergone much scrutiny. Hopkins is an accomplished molecular biologist, but it is her pioneering role in fostering gender equity in academia for which many have come to know her. At the start of her career, Hopkins assumed that so few women worked in science because they wanted families and thus opted out of the 80-hour work week she associated with a successful career in the lab. Hopkins herself married young, but was divorced by 30 and decided not to have children. Early on, Hopkins repeatedly observed men and women equally accomplished in the lab, but noticed that they were not treated the same by colleagues. She did not see women as chairmen or as speakers, nor did she see women faculty with administrative power. Hopkins says she was in denial about the situation and just worked harder until one particular event, 20 years into her career, opened her eyes. When she needed an additional 200 square feet of lab space, Hopkins started measuring nearby labs with a tape measure and realized that, as a full professor, she had much less space than her male counterparts and also lacked the power to get what she needed. She set out to remedy the situation. In 1995, Hopkins was appointed chair of the first Committee on Women Faculty in the School of Science at MIT. At the time, there were 194 male faculty in the school, compared with 17 female. An extensive investigation by the committee was released in 1999 and sparked a flurry of attention when it was published in the Boston Globe and the New York Times. The committee found that women faculty tended to leave after tenure because they felt they were not part of the system in the same way as their male colleagues. The women tended to work alone, were not part of group grants, and were not in administrative positions. Interestingly, half of the women were unmarried without children, while nearly all their male counterparts had families. The committee concluded that MIT was experiencing unintentional gender bias. MIT responded by recruiting more women faculty, both to the university and to administrative positions. The university established gender equity committees chaired by senior female faculty to review salary data and interview the faculty. The president also established a Council on Faculty Diversity, which establishes institutional policies regarding such issues as hiring and family leave. Altogether, MIT created 11 committees to infiltrate the university structure. As a result, and in only 6 years, the number of women science faculty has nearly doubled, while the number of women faculty in engineering has undergone an almost 5-fold increase. MIT has become a model for recognizing, acknowledging, and rectifying gender bias. On March 25, 2005, Hopkins gave her first talk since the now-infamous Summers comment. Hopkins said she felt “like we turned the clock back 40 years” when Summers said that innate aptitude differences between men and women may be to blame for the dearth of women engineers, scientists, and mathematicians in advanced faculty positions. She said she “couldn’t sit there and take it” and “that it was morally wrong to listen” to Summers’s dismissal of the existence of gender discrimination after all the research that she and others had done. In reference to Rosalind Franklin, Hopkins joked, “If you discover the structure of DNA, you win the Nobel prize, right? Well, depends who you are.” Hopkins’s response to Summers is timely in light of a study recently published in Nature, which examines the complete sequence of the X chromosome (1). A companion paper in the same issue (2) shows that the second X chromosome — found only in women and thought to be silent — actually expresses many genes. Interestingly, different women express different genes from this “silent” chromosome, and do so at different levels. The two papers explain why men and women are biologically different, and why women are different from each other. The papers do not, however, lend any credence to the concept that innate aptitude differences exist between the sexes.

Can hormesis be a default for dose-response?

Since the 1920s, interest in hormesis has peaked and ebbed. Hormesis had been a forgotten theory until recent investigation by Dr Ed Calabrese at the University of Massachusetts, along with others, resurrected it from obscurity. This renewed interest is demonstrated by recent articles in prestigious scientific journals such as Nature and Science as well as the popular press (Discovery, US News and World Report and newspapers such as the Boston Globe). Currently, a strong interest in this theory of dose-response (which predicts contrasting effects at low versus high doses) exists and is explored in this issue.

The Boston Public School Match

After the publication of “School Choice: A Mechanism Design Approach” by Abdulkadiroglu and Sonmez (2003), a Boston Globe reporter contacted us about the Boston Public Schools (BPS) system for assigning students to schools. The Globe article highlighted the difficulties that Boston’s system may give parents in strategizing about applying to schools. Briefly, Boston tries to give students their firstchoice school. But a student who fails to get her first choice may find her later choices filled by students who chose them first. So there is a risk in ranking a school first if there is a chance of not being admitted; other schools that would have been possible had they been listed first may also be filled. Valerie Edwards, then Strategic Planning Manager at BPS, and her colleague Carleton Jones invited us to a meeting in October 2003. BPS agreed to a study of their assignment system and provided us with micro-level data sets on choices and characteristics of students in the grades at which school choices are made (K, 1, 6, and 9), and school characteristics. Based on the pending results of this study, the Superintendent has asked for our advice on the design of a new assignment mechanism. This paper describes some of the difficulties with the current mechanism and some elements of the design and evaluation of possible replacement mechanisms. School choice in Boston has been partly shaped by desegregation. In 1974, Judge W. Arthur Garrity ordered busing for racial balance. In 1987, the U.S. Court of Appeals freed BPS to adopt a new, choice-based assignment plan. In 1999 BPS eliminated racial preferences in assignment and adopted the current mechanism.

Is There a Text in This Advertising Campaign?: Literature, Marketing, and Harry Potter

Is There a Text in This Advertising Campaign?:Literature, Marketing, and Harry Potter Philip Nel (bio) In July 2000, The Boston Globe's Dan Wasserman drew a cartoon that predicted what would become the most prominent threat to Harry Potter's literary legacy. Several months ahead of the beginning of the Harry Potter marketing bonanza and more than a year before the release of the first Potter film, Wasserman's cartoon shows two children walking down a city street. One child holds a Harry Potter novel; and everywhere they look, advertisements announce all variety of Harry merchandise. A shop's sign offers "Harry Wares." A restaurant offers "Potter Pies," "Wizard Fries," and "Happy Harry Meals!" An eyeglass store proclaims "Just In—Harry Frames." A poster (located, perhaps appropriately, on a trash can) invites them to "Visit the Harry Potter Theme Park." And a store's display window reminds passers-by that "We carry a full line of Harry schlock!", including robes, wands, and "muggle mugs." One child says to the other, "I can already see how it ends—the dark forces win." (Wasserman). In July 2000, such a cartoon was a satirical comment on the culture industry. Less than two years later, it became merely descriptive. The aggressive marketing predicted by this cartoon also describes a critical problem: the novels and the hype become intertwined, resulting in analyses that fail to take into account the full complexity of either. Because Harry Potter is both a marketing phenomenon and a literary phenomenon, critical conflation of the two does not really advance the understanding of the marketing apparatus or the books themselves. Author J. K. Rowling herself appears to be aware of this problem, as June Cummins has observed. Citing Rowling's charitable work and critical comments about Potter merchandise, Cummins notes that the Harry [End Page 236] Potter author "seems determined to separate the books from the aggressive marketing pursued by Scholastic, Warner Brothers, and Mattel." Cummins then asks, "But is her goal realistic? I say it is not" (20). I, however, would argue that it is both realistic and necessary to separate the books from the marketing. First of all, conflating the books with the marketing fails to produce a sufficiently sophisticated analysis of the latter. Second, such critical conflation leads some critics to overlook the novels' considerable literary achievements. Consider the marketing side of the question first. Jack Zipes, Andrew Blake, and John Pennington correctly underscore Harry Potter as a contemporary capitalist phenomenon. In his essay "From Elfland to Hogwarts, or the Aesthetic Trouble with Harry Potter," John Pennington provides the most succinct version of this idea: "So what are the Potter books really about, then? Well, monetary success primarily" (92). Pennington has a point. It is difficult to talk about Harry Potter and to ignore the marketing. You can see the movies, you can buy the movies, you can buy Legos, action figures, stickers, notebooks, a card game, a board game, puzzles, address books, calendars, Band Aids®, toothbrushes, toothpaste, t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, trading cards, greeting cards, Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, a Nimbus 2000 broomstick, a Harry Potter wallet, wizarding-world money, and even piña colada–flavored "Dementor's Kisses." Much of the Harry Potter merchandising must make even the most ardent fan cringe just a little bit. And it is difficult to applaud the ways in which these Potter spin-off products encourage consumption for its own sake. However, to say that the books are only about monetary success ignores the late capitalist conditions of their production. Zipes and Blake offer more nuanced versions of Pennington's claim. As the reason for Harry Potter's success, Zipes cites: the conditions under which literature for the young have been transformed through institutional corporate conglomerates controlling the mass media, and market demands. Phenomena such as the Harry Potter books are driven by commodity consumption that at the same time sets the parameters of reading and aesthetic taste. Today the experience of reading for the young is mediated through the mass media and marketing so that the pleasure and meaning of a book will often be prescripted or dictated by convention. (172) Judiciously placing his comments in...

Documenting the International Avant Garde: Earle Brown and the Time-Mainstream Contemporary Sound Series

Upon Earle Brown's death in July 2002, newspapers such the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Independent of London memorialized Brown's contributions to contemporary music in lengthy obituaries. (1) These memorials note Brown's influence composer, his association with John Cage, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, and David Tudor, and, in particular, his development of open, modular forms and alternative approaches to musical notation. Although the obituaries briefly mention Brown's work in the sound industry, his activities record producer are overshadowed by the tributes paid to his achievements composer. As producer of the Contemporary Sound Series for the Time and Mainstream record companies from 1960 through 1973, however, Brown made notable recordings of avant-garde music, presenting new works by figures such Cage, Luciano Berio, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and introducing many listeners to the music of emerging experimental composers who would eventually attain greater attention. (2) Distinguished for its adventurous repertoire of various national and aesthetic origins, this series of eighteen long-playing discs reflects another dimension of Brown's contribution to twentieth-century music. BROWN'S BEGINNINGS AS RECORD PRODUCER Though record producer Brown drew on his studies in engineering, mathematics, and music, his first encounter with Cage in 1951 was particularly pivotal in guiding him toward work in the sound industry. While on tour, Cage presented series of concerts in Denver, where Brown was living and working. In conversation at party following one of the performances, Cage and Brown discovered variety of shared interests in philosophy, art, and music. (3) At Cage's behest, Brown moved to New York in 1952 to collaborate with Cage, Tudor, and Louis and Bebe Barron in their experiments with electroacoustic music. (4) These efforts, supported monetarily by architect Paul Williams and known formally the Project for Music for Magnetic Tape, involved the collecting, cataloging, and editing of recorded material to be used in new compositions. The five to six hundred sounds collected on tape served source material for handful of works, including Cage's Williams Mix, perhaps the most widely known piece to result from the project, and Brown's Octet I. (5) Besides solidifying his association with Cage and providing practical introduction to tape editing techniques, Brown's involvement in the Project for Music for Magnetic Tape supplied him with skills he could apply in other situations. In 1975 interview, Brown explains: as result of working on the electronic music project between 1952 and 1954, I gained some experience using machines and tapes. So between 1955 and 1960 I supported myself engineer for Capitol Records. (6) In contrast to the avant-garde artistic climate cultivated by Cage, at Capitol Brown found himself and editing music more commercial in nature. Spanning an array of styles, Brown recalls recording everyone from Count Basie to Nathan Milstein at Capitol, which, in addition to being a great experience for the ears, allowed him to build upon and refine his skills in the studio. (7) THE TIME AND MAINSTREAM RECORD COMPANIES After ending his term with Capitol in 1960, Brown began producing recordings for Time Records, new company founded in 1959 by Bob Shad. (8) Shad, who produced jazz and rhythm-and-blues recordings for labels such Savoy, National, Black and White, and Manor during the late 1940s, had launched and operated Sittin' In With, Jax, Jade, Shad, and other companies during the 1950s, and gained particular notoriety for Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Max Roach, Clifford Brown, and other jazz artists for Mercury Records' EmArcy division. With Time Records, Shad continued to produce new jazz recordings, but the label also covered relatively broad musical spectrum of big band, blues, folk, rock, and show tunes, well the avant-garde ventures of the Contemporary Sound Series. …

They Are Not Us: Framing of American Indians by the Boston Globe

This framing analysis of news, feature, and editorial texts identified the frames used to depict American Indians in the Boston Globe from 1999–2001. The results suggest that stereotypical good and bad Indian depictions are less frequent than in turn-of-the-century media but emerge more subtly through frames of degraded and historic relic Indians. Thus, whereas contemporary mores have produced a newspaper largely devoid of the most flagrant narratives of denigration that prevailed a century ago, today's newspaper continues to de-humanize and silence American Indians as it gives voice to the dominant culture. Furthermore, differences among the frames across story types support theories that structure and organization influence content frames.

A Look at Print Media Coverage across Four Olympiads

Although women and are competing in in ever increasing numbers from local youth recreational leagues to the Olympics, many studies show that they have been, and remain, shortchanged in both the quantity and quality of sport media coverage. Relative to the quantity of sport media coverage, work by Graydon (1983) indicated that 90 percent of all reporting was devoted to men's sports. Similarly, research by McKay and Row (1987) revealed that in city newspapers, 98 percent of the available coverage space was devoted to men's sports. In 1991, Duncan, Messner, and Williams (1991) analyzed the coverage of women's in four daily newspapers: USA Today, the Boston Globe, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Morning News. They found [s]tories focusing exclusively on men's outnumbered stories addressing only women's by a ratio of 23:1 (p. 3). Further, their research showed that even when men's baseball and football stories were removed from the mix ... men's stories still outnumbered women's stories by an 8.7:1 margin (p.3). A 1998 study by Kinnick, that reviewed the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, the Atlanta Constitution, and the LA Times, revealed gender based disparities in sport media coverage that reached as high as 62%:38%. Similarly, Evarts (1996) reported men's dominance in sport media column inch allocations in four Midwestern daily newspapers. A 1996 media study by Shields, Gilbert, and Finkelstein found that in the Tennessean, the New York Times, and USA Today, women's received 11.1 percent of the print media coverage compared with 82.1 percent allocated to the men's sports. This same study found 19 percent of the men's articles had accompanying photographs, while only 4 percent of the women's articles did. In addition to a quantitative advantage, Duncan et al. (1991) found that men's sport stories received better section placement and received more and better accompanying photo coverage. According to Sage (1990), sport media coverage for women has often focused more on personal aspects of sex-appeal, feminine characteristics, and/orstereotypicalrole perceptions, than on athletic ability and performance. In 1990, based on study findings, Duncan, Messner, Williams, and Jensen stated, weight of the evidence clearly suggests that women's are under-reported and that what coverage does exist is inferior to that afforded men's sports (p. 1). A 1994 follow-up study by Duncan and Messner, showed persistent evidence that female athletes were described as less competent than their male counterparts. According to the 1994-1995 Women's Sports Foundation report Words to Watch, When women athletes are the subject of reports and commentary they are sometimes referred to in words that treat them differently than men, often in ways which downplay of trivialize their achievements (p. 3). The report went on to say that identifying female athletes as girls or ladies, using first names instead of last names, and descriptions that emphasize physical appearance or skills not related to performance, are all examples ways women in sport are marginalized as inferior to men in sport (Women's Sports Foundation, 1995). Studies conducted outside the United States have revealed similar sport media disparities. Hall (1997) commented extensively on a sport media study of newspapers, magazines, national television broadcasts and radio stations conducted by the Australian Sports Commission (ASC). The ASC study revealed an overall increase in women's sport media coverage from 2 percent in 1980 to 10.7 percent in 1996. Even so, the men's sport media coverage loomed considerably larger, at 79.1 percent in 1996. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] A more recent study by Eastman and Billings (2000) looked at sports-casting on ESPN and CNN, and print media reporting in USA Today and the New York Times. …

Foreword

Foreword Elizabeth Gardner Lombardi The writings in this issue relate to my mother Carol Hemingway Gardner, her relationship to her parents, and to her famous brother Ernest Hemingway. The theme grew out of the interest of two Hemingway scholars, Morris Buske and Gail Sinclair, who contacted my mother shortly before her death in October 2002. For all of the years of our life together, my mother seldom mentioned Ernest. While an occasional biographer would contact her to flesh out a story about him, she was largely ignored by scholars until she became the only surviving sibling. She was pleased in her later years to be reconnected with Patrick Hemingway and his wife Carol and enjoyed attending with them the 1999 awarding of the Hemingway-PEN prize at the John F. Kennedy Library. In preparation for the dinner that would follow that ceremony, she bought a modest suit and had me shine her well-worn, comfortable shoes. Neither in preparation nor later did she mention that the dinner was a five-star event hosted by Caroline Kennedy and filled with literary luminaries. I only heard about it from a friend who sent an article from The Boston Globe, where my mother was pictured with other Hemingways. The last letter from Ernest to Mother was never read by her children until after her death, as is true of all the other letters used in this issue. They show a very determined young woman. This quality stayed with her as a basic strength which pulled her through many tough places, even as its more obvious features were gentled with bearing and caring for children. Children were Mother's passion. The creativity that could have gone into writing found its outlet in meeting children where they lived—a magic world of drama, of imagination, of possibilities. I hope Mother will forgive us for sharing this picture of her early trials. She should surely be pleased to have her memories of her parents help modify some of the misconceptions which she felt had resulted from her brother's writings. Elizabeth Gardner Lombardi Mill River, Massachusetts Copyright © 2004 The Ernest Hemingway Foundation

Comprehending the Narrative Power of the "Curse of the Bambino"

When 2003 Red Sox returned from a successful 6-4 road trip for their home opener, faithful at sold-out Fenway promptly showered bullpen with boos as a critique of their performance to date. (1) After Red Sox lost their 1988 opener, Boston Herald wrote off season with a back-page headline that screamed, Wait 'til Next Year! (2) Passion for Red Sox runs deep but carries with it a foreboding of equal depth. To understand this phenomenon requires a careful inquiry into psyche of Red Sox fan and uniquely painful history of following one of baseball's most storied franchises. most infamous example of this latent pessimism arises in of Bambino. While Red Sox's inability to win a World Series may be well-known--they last won series in 1918--the Curse adds another dimension to this championship-starved legacy. (3) Tracing well-documented legend requires beginning with young franchise's record as one of baseball's elite teams. Through first sixteen years of World Series history, Red Sox had won five titles, in 1903, 1912, 1915, 1916, and 1918. They won last two on strength of a lefty pitcher named George Hermann Ruth, a.k.a. The Babe. However, after a dismal fifth-place finish in 1919, Red Sox owner--and Broadway producer--Harry Frazee grew impatient with Babe's insubordination and increasing salary demands. (4) Strapped for cash to finance his theatrical productions in New York, Frazee called on his old friend Colonel Jake Ruppert--owner of Yankees--to buy Babe for $100,000 and proffer a $300,000 loan for mortgage of Fenway Park. Ruppert took deal and promptly raised Babe's salary to $20,000; thus a dynasty was born--but not in Boston. Since Frazee sold Babe in January 1920, Red Sox have not won a single World Series while Yankees have won twenty-six. Indeed, examination of Red Sox's tragic history since trade seems to support existence of a hex (see appendix to this article). THE CURSE'S ESTABLISHED POSITION Red Sox history of losing--in both mediocre and tantalizing fashion--has contributed greatly toward magnifying myth of Curse, but attitudes of writers, fans, management, and players have also impacted its propagation. Fans do not just capriciously jeer their team; their devotion to Red Sox--and associated legend--directs their behavior. Indeed, fans' well-documented dedication has become a part of regional folklore. Coastal pilots have described seeing house lights simultaneously turned off as Red Sox games ended. In a legend reminiscent of revolutionary history, church bells rang throughout New England to celebrate victorious conclusion of game 6 of 1975 World Series. (5) Many sportswriters have offered their own testimonials to Red Sox fans' passion. Boston Globe columnist Charlie Pierce refers to team as an institution and likens it to the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transit Association)'s Green Line or Museum of Fine Arts. Writer Peter Gammons recalls encountering a semicoherent fan in late 1976 who was still muttering about questionable decision to lift reliever Jim Willoughby while Sox nursed a late-inning lead in game 7 of '75 Series. (6) In his book Curse of Bambino, Dan Shaughnessy summarizes: Red Sox fans care. That's what makes Boston baseball saga irresistible and eternal.... In New England, Red Sox are a way of life. There is never a true off-season and interwoven threads connect Sox's annual campaign with dramatically different climates of spring, summer, winter and fall. (7) While writers remain acutely aware of fans' singular mix of passion and doom, most players fail to understand it. Former Red Sox second baseman Marty Barrett found it puzzling: I don't understand why they expect us to fail. Former pitcher Bruce Hurst sought to deflect fans' negativity by noting: I wasn't on '67 or '75 or '78 teams. …

Open sesame? Increasing access to medical literature.

Over the past few years there has been a growing concern within the world’s scientific communities about access to scientific, technical, and medical (STM) literature. This concern has given rise to a movement within scientific and medical circles known as the “open-access” movement. Over the last 12 months, this concern has leapt from the acid-free pages of the world’s STM journals to the newsprint of the mainstream media. Articles on the subject have appeared in The Washington Post , The Boston Globe , The Guardian , the San Francisco Chronicle , and The Chronicle of Higher Education , among other prominent media sources.1–5 Many of these articles have painted open-access advocates as something akin to Ali Baba standing before the locked portal of a cave in which the highwaymen of publishing have stashed the plundered treasure of the scientific world.6 All one needs to do is chant the magic words and the portal will open wide. Although this makes for dramatic storytelling, the reality is far more complex. Broadly defined, open access simply means that content is freely available on the World Wide Web without the need of a subscription or payment. It gets more complicated when one asks which content is freely available and when. For example, the Journal of Biological Chemistry makes preprints of accepted articles freely available on its Web site shortly after acceptance. To view the final revised, copy-edited, full-featured article, however, one must have a subscription. Is this an open-access journal? Many journals, including Pediatrics and the Journal of Biological Chemistry , make all content freely accessible after a certain period of time, usually ranging from 6 months to 2 years. Are these open-access journals? The answer varies depending on whom one asks. Another component sometimes included in definitions of open …