Brushing Aside Research Articles

Brushing aside doubts: an evaluation of the beat-sheet brushing technique for detecting the Nearctic tree trunk sheetweaver (Araneae: Linyphiidae).

It is important to have reliable information on the presence/absence, population structure, and density of animals across their natural range. Detecting small organisms, however, such as the Nearctic tree trunk sheetweaver spider Drapetisca alteranda Chamberlin 1909 (Araneae: Linyphiidae), presents challenges due to its diminutive size and cryptic nature. We used a capture/recapture study to determine the detection and recapture probabilities of this spider using a standard beat sheet technique adopted for surveying tree trunks. Spiders were released on 3 different tree species that provided a range of microhabitats, including variable bark surface area and furrow depth/width. Microhabitat features played a small role in the timing of spider recapture (i.e., slower rate of recapture as furrowing increased). However, our results demonstrated 100% detection across replicate experiments and individual recapture probabilities exceeding 90% in most situations, with no significant differences in recapture observed among tree species and with respect to tree circumference. Furthermore, we show that most spiders could be recaptured within 2 sampling revolutions around the tree trunk, and there was no difference in the probability of collecting male and female spiders (although they differ markedly in size). Finally, we found no difference among brushers, supporting the idea that this method is replicable across collectors and studies. Collectively, we establish confidence in the ecological knowledge obtained with this technique and encourage its application with similar species and systems.

Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University

Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University

The dark side of the ‘Moral Machine’ and the fallacy of computational ethical decision-making for autonomous vehicles

ABSTRACT This paper reveals the dangers of the Moral Machine experiment, alerting against both its uses for normative ends, and the whole approach it is built upon to address ethical issues. It explores additional methodological limits of the experiment on top of those already identified by its authors and provides reasons why it is inadequate in supporting ethical and juridical discussions to determine the moral settings for autonomous vehicles. Demonstrating the inner fallacy behind computational social choice methods when applied to ethical decision-making, it also warns against the dangers of computational moral systems, such as the ‘voting-based system’ recently developed out of the Moral Machine’s data. Finally, it discusses the Moral Machine’s ambiguous impact on public opinion; on the one hand, laudable for having successfully raised global awareness with regard to ethical concerns about autonomous vehicles, and on the other hand pernicious, as it has led to a significant narrowing of the spectrum of autonomous vehicle ethics, de facto imposing a strong unidirectional approach, while brushing aside other major moral issues.

Decolonizing Indian Critical Practice: A Reading of CDN's The Swan and the Eagle

However,there is no doubt that critical ideas have no geographical boundaries and no criterion solely based on the ethnic identity of a literary work can be adjudged a timeless tool for evaluating literature,it cannot be denied that a work of literature itself cries for its evaluation from the view of cultural milieu it is generated in. Under the shadow of western canons, the colonized countries like India ,hardly developed a critical framework of their own to evaluate the literary works of their land, brushing aside theories from the west ,specially in the early decades of Independence. Prof CDN'S The Swan and The Eagle (1969),is one of the earliest critical works in post -independent India,where his critical analyses clearly chart out an agenda for the decolonizing Indian critical practice among students and teachers of his generation.

ФІЛЬМИ ПРО ДІТЕЙ, ДЛЯ ДІТЕЙ І НЕ ТІЛЬКИ ДЛЯ ДІТЕЙ

In Soviet times, cinema for children and adolescents received considerable attention. Already since 1924 began the regular release of children's films. In the 1930s, paintings of various genres appeared on the screen: Torn Shoe, Captain Grant's Children, New Gulliver, Golden Key, Space Flight, Castle Border, Pike Command, and others.Yes, the real heyday of cinema for children and adolescents came during the "Thaw" period. There are various tapes on the screen - modern, historical subjects, fairy tales. At the same time, so-called "problem films" appear. It all began with the infamous "Rose Boys": "In Good Time" (1956), "Noisy Day" (1961).Soviet cinema was filled with new themes, problems, characters, and with it grew up cinematography for children and adolescents. In the 1960s, such iconic, problematic tapes as "Sergiyko", "And if this is love?", "Three Days of Viktor Chernyshov" and others. These were movies about children, but not just for children. Then the family movie comes into play.Movies of the 1970s - 1980s are even more problematic. "Movies of moral concern", so you can define the films "Other People's letters", "Scarecrow", "Plumbum or Dangerous game", "Dear Elena Sergeyevna", "My name is Arlekino" and others. All the nightmare that could only be dreamed up in a horrible dream became the reality and everyday life of our existence. These films can be conditionally defined as "films of moral concern". These works, as a thin barometer, diagnose the spiritual crisis of society, and appear in the cultural space of the country in the face of serious, global social upheavals.At the same time, good, all familiar films appear on the screen: "Teacher of singing", "Car, violin and blotch dog", "Adventures of Pinocchio", "About the Red Riding Hood", "Adventures of Electronics", "Mary Poppins, Goodbye!", "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn", "The Guest from the Future", "The Adventures of Petrov and Vasechkin ...", and many others.After the collapse of theSoviet Union, cinema for children ended. Has the modern generation of children grown so much that they do not want to read books, watch movies intended for them? Could society's coordinates and priorities have changed so much? Or is society itself brushing aside unwanted problems? But most of all, the modern world simply does not know where it is headed, what ideals, directions of development can be offered to humankind, and above all, its youngest part. Art, in particular cinematography, not only reflects the stages, events, problems of the social history of mankind, but also warns, encourages, educates, supports during a difficult hour. And if art retreats, its place is occupied by masculinity - ersatz and palliatives of art. Musculature shapes so to speak a one-dimensional person who lives only in material needs, without noticing spiritual values. Musculature destroys personality, unifies consciousness. Through psychological processing, it imposes political stamps, social myths, household cliches through the media. A variety of shows, heartfelt conversations about the topical, television series and films of dubious quality, like a spider web, entangle a person, turning him into an obedient doll, devoid of personal thought and freedom.The process of dehumanization of art is dangerous for society, especially for its young part, since it leads to emotional and intellectual sterilization. It would not be desirable to speak banal truths, but good films about children, for children and not only for children, could make their contribution, as they said, “to the upbringing of the younger generation”. And if in doubt, it's worth turning through our movie history pages.

Brushing aside colposcopy for young women with low grade pap smears

Burket, Jeffrey H. MD; Smith, Ashley MD; Arnold, Michael DO; Arthur, Benjamin MD; Bennett, Nick DO Author Information

The First Knowledge Economy: Human Capital and the European Economy, 1750–1850 by Margaret C. Jacob

The First Knowledge Economy: Human Capital and European Economy, 1750-1850, by Margaret C. Jacob. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014. ix, 257 pp. $108.95 Cdn (cloth), $39.95 Cdn (paper). Margaret C. Jacob provides a coherent account of reasons behind industrialization of four Western European countries with expert clarity, brevity, and instructiveness. Jacob argues that Britain was a pioneer in Industrial Revolution because for first time in history a productive combination of knowledge translation, human capital, and cultural ethos worked. The author rightly maintains that deployment of knowledge wielded by semi-literate tinkerers, (2) self-educated industrial innovators, and gentlemen-scientists was critical for establishment in Great Britain of first knowledge economy. In Jacob's words, Both lofty and mundane lay at heart of early industrial (126). This line of reasoning was partly inspired by Musson and Robinson's Science and Technology in Industrial Revolution (Toronto, 1969), which suggested that eighteenth-century Industrial Revolution in Britain was a result of both uneducated empiricism and intellectual movement characteristic of Enlightenment with its scientific spirit percolating top-down and its empirical knowledge diffusing bottom-up. Jacob significantly extends Musson and Robinson's considerations on development of steam engines in Birmingham (from Savery and Newcomen to Boulton and Watt) and technical processes of bleaching and dyeing of fabrics, manufacturing linen and wool in Leeds, and industrial-scope cotton making in Manchester. Determinedly brushing aside economic arguments in favour of social and material basis for Industrial Revolution, Jacob insists on crucial role of human capital in triggering rapid industrialization in Britain. However, outright dismissal of argument about role of abundance of easily extractable coal in Britain somewhat diminishes weight of Jacob's argument. The above-mentioned Musson and Robinson discuss approximate number of steam engines that helped to propel Industrial Revolution, particularly in proportion to water power (71-72). Consider as well that availability of easily accessible coal deposits, as German historian Rolf P. Sieferle argues in The Subterranean Forest: Energy Systems and Industrial Revolution (Munchen, 1982, transl. Cambridge, 2001), enabled people to turn increasingly to manufacture-oriented activities: by substituting wood for coal in burning, thus saving wood for construction, and increasing efficiency of smelting. Moreover, shift in land-use structure occurred because woodland was converted into pasture for sheep on which manufacturing of wool-cloth depended. Therefore, Jacob's argument suffers from underestimation of socio-economic factors and exaggeration of the growing pool of mechanically knowledgeable entrepreneurs and civil engineers (55) at end of eighteenth century. …

Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War

<i>Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War</i>

Virgil in India: Epic, History, and Military Tactics in the Lusiads

Camoes begins Lusiads, his great epic on Vasco da Gama's journey to India, by brushing aside both classical models of epic and tra- dition of Italian romance. Forget, he says, the journeys of subtle Greek and Trojan—that is, Odysseus and Aeneas—and let's hear no more of Alexander or Trajan. Here we have a new experience, experience of Portuguese, whose deeds outshine those of ancients, offering a greater valor, outro valor mais alto. As for Rodomonte, Ruggiero, and Orlando, heroes of Ariosto's Orlando furioso, they are mere fantasies. Now we have a true history that will outshine inventions of writers of romance. Indeed, Vasco da Gama has outpaced classical heroes, snatching fame from Aeneas himself—de Enneais toma a fama. 1 Camoes's poem is thus an account of a new kind of action—modern heroism—and a new kind of epic, based in history. These gestures of literary modernism are familiar to readers of Renaissance epic, a genre that is as much about struggles over literary heritage as it is about war or conquest. However, it is striking that Camoes both relegates Virgil's Aeneid to oblivion and then recalls it in his praise of da Gama. Virgil's poem would seem to be epic model most generative of Camoes's own. The structure of Aeneid, divi- ded as it is between six books of wandering about Mediterranean 1 References to Lusiads will cite Luis de Camoes, Obras Completas. English trans- lations will be from version by White. I will occasionally amend White's version to conform more closely to original. Book and stanza references will be included in text.

Community and Democratic Citizenship: A Critique of the Sinus Study on Immigrant Milieus in Germany

In the ongoing debate on immigrant integration policies, the Sinus study on migrant milieus has attracted much attention for its clear stance as a proponent of a multicultural society. Brushing aside arguments about an ethnic-religious divide in the German social fabric, the study argues that social milieus constitute much stronger markers of difference than ethnicity. This paper provides a critical appraisal of the postethnic vision articulated by Sinus. However, it also raises some methodological issues concerning the collection and analysis of data on immigrant populations. The concluding section discusses the limits of a politics of difference based on milieus. It questions the potential of the Sinus study to move the German immigration debate forward towards a more democratic vision of citizenship, given its de-emphasis of social inequalities rooted in relations of gender, "race" and class.

Theories of legislative politics and committee action in the postwar U.S. House of Representatives

Scholars of American legislative politics have settled into debating the merits and faults of majoritarian and party theories to explain legislative actions, brushing aside theories that see committees as autonomous. However, all three types of theories have rarely been tested together. This study builds upon an existing game-theoretic model of the legislative process in the U.S. House of Representatives to compare all three simultaneously. Competing hypotheses are generated and tested using observable actions by legislative committees. Support is found for both committee and party theories, conditional on the congressional era and the relative preferences of key institutional actors.

Lines of Equity: Literature and the Origins of Law in Later Stuart England by Elliott Visconsi

108 his analysis concerns Germany; only one of his two major chapters (out of nine), ‘‘Scholarship, the New Testament , and the English Defense of the Bible,’’ directly deals with the time of the Scriblerians, who are rarely mentioned . The following topics are covered: the beginnings of the vernacular Bible; the birth of the ‘‘Enlightenment’’ Bible, and English responses up to and including Richard Bentley, whom Sheehan makes seminal; German pietism’s incorporation of critical methodology; responses to philological research; approaches stressing moral pedagogy and the bible as poetry; the bible as stimulus for archival research; universalist and cultural readings; and the vagaries of higher criticism through 1850 in England and Germany . The thread that unites large and small essays on the English bible is translation . Mr. Sheehan regards those periods that created research without making the bible available to the public (as in translation ) as epicene and deficient; such periods fail to use the Bible as it should be used. He repeatedly inquires why English translation, after the Authorized Version of 1611, dried up. Interesting not only in itself, this question provides, in an age of writing about the Bible, a useful code for highlighting the wealth of the almost unmanageable theological writing around the year 1700. Other codes for ordering this material include methodologies of reason and faith; sectarian polemics; and doctrinal questions, especially the existence and nature of the Trinity. For Mr. Sheehan, the last code is extraneous. Trinitarian controversy, however, always ran along two tracks: philosophical argument about terms and texts, and philological argument about manuscripts and whether certain texts place the Trinity among the central doctrines of the Christian faith. Perhaps Mr. Sheehan might continue his resolute research by tracing the multiple sources of the no-translation theme in other important material within his grasp: the Unitarian pamphlets of the 1690s, for example, or the Boyle Lectures . Or perhaps this is to say that I disagree with using translation as a code for this period because its grasp is incomplete (as will be the grasp of all codes). The present work shows great familiarity with German and English texts, readily proves its point about interest in the Bible, and is a reference. Unfortunately, the Index is skimpy; there is no bibliography. Gerard Reedy College of the Holy Cross ELLIOTT VISCONSI. Lines of Equity: Literature and the Origins of Law in Later Stuart England. Ithaca: Cornell, 2008. Pp. xiv ⫹ 216. $39.95. Lest his title should call up Dickensian visions of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce, Mr. Visconsi warns his readers that ‘‘this is not a book about the relation between literature and the seventeenthcentury equity courts’’ such as Chancery . The ‘‘equitable judgments’’ Mr. Visconsi has in view are literary rather than juridical, and the ‘‘lines’’ connecting them are thematic, not—as in English law—historical. Equity decisions, the OED points out, ‘‘were taken as precedents, and thus ‘equity ’ early became an organized system of rules, not less rigid and definite than those of law.’’ In order to carry on his dialogue with early modern literary texts, Mr. Visconsi brackets off prece- 109 dent along with the equity courts, much the way new historicists ignore historical context when it interferes with their Foucauldian hermeneutics. Mr. Visconsi ’s ‘‘fictionalization (perhaps mythopoesis ) of law’’ is therefore the diametric opposite of jurisprudence. His model for equity from Spenser’s ‘‘Legend of Justice ’’ is not the Isis episode, which Mr. Visconsi finds ‘‘positively odd,’’ but the Giant who, brushing aside precedent, vainly strives to fashion a utopia by weighing right and wrong in his scales. The literary history in this book is as reductive as the author’s legal history. In seeking to draw ‘‘lines’’ relating Davenant , Dryden, and Milton to Henry Neville, Algernon Sidney, Behn, and Defoe, Mr. Visconsi traces a fantastic genealogy far removed from Shakespeare ’s ‘‘lines of life that life repair.’’ The texts Mr. Visconsi has chosen ‘‘confront a reader or audience with occasions for individual judgment of the nature of government, the extent of the rule of law, the limits of obedience, and the duties of sovereign and subject.’’ Running through these political texts is a thread of ‘‘imaginative originalism’’ that provokes readers to reexamine their national origins...

Friends Indeed

Friends Indeed Earl Rovit (bio) I doubt that I’m more fortunate in my friendships than anyone else, but because they are my friends, I regard them as special, as nonpareils, as uniquely gifted to offer me companionship, support, sympathy, enrichment, love. That, in my clear-sighted moments, I can recognize how their presence has immeasurably enhanced my life doesn’t deter me from feeling—in my murkier times—that through some intrinsic qualities of my own, I must have merited their regard. In some sense, which I don’t care to delineate or justify, there is that nature in me which is also special—else, why should these special people have chosen me? This, of course, is the radiant illusion of friendship. It not only puts an aura of value around one’s friend, but, like the reflected light of the moon, one’s self also glows. But friendship—like its generic mother, love—is far from being a monolithic concept, and significant acts of friendship can sometimes stem from the most superficial connections. I recall in the waning months of 1945 when I—a rather exceptionally callow adolescent—was some three or four days out of Puget Sound on a troop transport bound for Inchon, Korea. Our Liberty ship with several thousand men aboard was wallowing in the very teeth of fierce frigid waves and wind, and I had lost my field jacket, certainly one of the most essential pieces of gi gear. I was propped against a bulkhead, shivering, fighting nausea, thoroughly miserable, wondering how I was going to live with what seemed to me at the time an absolutely overwhelming loss. “What’s the matter, Rove?” I heard, and there was Peter Rondinelli staring compassionately at me. I wouldn’t then or now have defined Pete as a friend. Like several dozen of the men I had trained with in Infantry Basic, we had a casually amiable relationship, but certainly not one on which to base much weight of mutual care or affection. A short, voluble, and street-smart Italian, Pete was from Staten Island and, susceptible to too many movies, desperately desirous of being called “Pistol Pete”—a demand which we all cheerfully [End Page 75] disregarded. His presence in the U.S. Army was curiously accidental. He had been found guilty of statutory rape (his undoubtedly willing partner being underage), and the patriotic judge had given him the choice of incarceration or voluntary induction. His concern for my plight seemed genuine as I told him what had happened in what probably was a doomsday tone. Brushing aside my worry as a minor nuisance that could easily be corrected, he slapped me on the shoulder—“What’s your size?” he asked, “Your jacket size.” “40 regular,” I said, wondering whether he had some influence with a supply sergeant. “Give me a little time,” he said. “Pistol Pete will handle it.” And, mirabile dictu, he was back in about an hour with a slightly-worn, perfectly acceptable field jacket, 40 regular. “No problem,” he said. “Just print in your serial number.” Carefully, with indelible ink, I blacked out the id numbers on the inside of the jacket collar and replaced them with mine. I thanked Pete effusively, but he would have none of it. “What the hell, Rove,” he said. “What are friends for?” As a doleful codicil to this story, I must confess that this was the last conversation that I can remember having with Pete. We were assigned to different units in Korea, and the last I heard about him was in a repple-depple camp a year later on my way back to the States when I learned that he had been sent to the stockade for theft. Lord knows I’ve had scores of closer and more intimate friends since, but I’m hard-pressed to think of many more valuable or gratuitous acts of friendship. Thinking, as I often do, in terms of categories, I’ve concluded that friends tend to be of two types: our likely and our unlikely friends. My likely friends are those who in some significant ways are more like than unlike me—whether in age, sex...

Blasts from the past impacting on Peninsular Malaysia

At the Plio-Pleistocene transition, three large volcanic centres in the Bukit Barisan, Sumatera, began producing voluminous amounts of felsic tephra and pyroclastic flows. Field evidence at two of the centres suggests not one but multiple paroxysmal events spanning periods of up to almost 2 million years. At (now Danau Toba, northern Sumatera) perhaps four such events occurred between 1.9 Ma and about 30 ka ago. The centres are marked by several hundred metres thick of ignimbrite, pyroclastic tuff flows, and air-fall tephra. All three centres should be classed in the top rank of the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI). Air-fall tuff has been identified at more than a dozen localities throughout Peninsular Malaysia as far east as the middle Lebir river, Kelantan, and in the upper Terengganu river reaches. Thicknesses are in the one-metre range. Recently all these Malaysian tephra have been attributed to one Toba eruption and assigned a 70-75 ka age ignoring the possibility of origins from the other two volcanic centres and brushing aside findings of detailed fieldwork and publications of pre-World War II vintage. Recently we studied the volcanic eruptives of the Maninjau volcanic centre in the Minang Highlands, western Sumatera, and here too evidence of multiple eruptions is present.

Taming democracy: "the people," the founders, and the troubled ending of the American Revolution

Americans are fond of reflecting upon Founding Fathers, noble group of men who came together to force out tyranny of British and bring democracy to land. Unfortunately, as Terry Bouton shows in this highly provocative first book, Revolutionary elite often seemed as determined to squash democracy after war as they were to support it before. Centering on Pennsylvania, symbolic and logistical center of Revolution, Bouton shows how this radical shift in ideology spelled tragedy for hundreds of common people. Leading up to Revolution, Pennsylvanians were in their opinion that the people (i.e. white men) should be given access to political system, and that some degree of wealth equality (i.e. among white men) was required to ensure that political freedom prevailed. As war ended, Pennsylvania's elites began brushing aside these ideas, using their political power to pass laws to enrich their own estates and hinder political organization by their opponents. By 1780s, they had reenacted many of same laws that they had gone to war to abolish, returning Pennsylvania to a state of economic depression and political hegemony. This unhappy situation led directly to Whiskey and Fries rebellions, popular uprisings both put down by federal armies. Bouton's work reveals a unique perspective, showing intimately how war and events that followed affected poor farmers and working people. Bouton introduces us to unsung heroes from this time-farmers, weavers, and tailors who put their lives on hold to fight to save democracy from forces of united avarice. We also get a starkly new look at some familiar characters from Revolution, including Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington, who Bouton strives to make readers see as real, flawed people, blinded by their own sense of entitlement. Taming Democracy represents a turning point in how we view outcomes of Revolutionary War and motivations of powerful men who led it. Its eye-opening revelations and insights make it an essential read for all readers with a passion for uncovering true history of America.

A Stone House

A Stone House Bay Anapol (bio) Now that her mother is dying—will, in fact, die very soon—Kit manages most of the time to forget her. She types her dissertation. She weeds the garden. But her mother creeps in anyway: unannounced, unwanted. Kit imagines 1938 , the year her mother's parents rented a stone beach house on the unfashionable edge of Cannes. They took their daughters out of the heat of Paris as if they were any other middle-class French family. Kit imagines the stone house as small, gray, and perfectly square, the kitchen stocked with ingredients for Croque Monsieur, buttered croissants, chocolate pieces tucked in baguettes. Kit's mother, Solange, is perfectly calm, like all French schoolchildren, the part in her hair not the slightest bit crooked. She strokes each stone of the house with her little hands. She is smiling. She does not know what Kit knows: that in less than a year, the war will take over her life, and she will lose her father, her sister, everything. But now—in this last wonderful summer—Solange sheds her clothes, her city skin, and runs down to the water slapping the white sand cold and pure, far from the smelly streets of Paris. It is only 1938. She dips a clean toe into the sea. This may or may not be the real story, but Kit adds details to the one she tells Jon. She adds a German boy swimming with a blonde girl very close to the stone beach house, so close her mother's heartbeat stops and starts again at the words: Werner, nein. Nein. Kit adds a broken-down train on the way back to Paris, her grandfather searched and taken to Auschwitz, never to return. In the true story, Solange returned to Paris and to school, and the terror, the important things happened later. But Kit cannot help twisting her mother's fate for effect. She's been with Jon for more than a hundred nights, but every night, she spins a tale to capture his attention once again. Her ordinariness is like a birthmark—how can Jon not see it? There is no other dramatic incident to share with him, so she makes the most of what she has. Kit continues to curl up in the bed, under her mother's old silver comforter. It's true that the stories she tells Jon come from her grandmother, second-hand. Her mother said almost nothing of her life before the war, [End Page 14] before she left France, before she married a dull American who called her So. There are many stories Kit doesn't know about her mother: her first kiss, her first love, what it was like sailing into Ellis Island. I don't remember, her mother says, brushing aside all her questions. It isn't important. Her mother was strong. She had willed her past to evaporate as completely as clear water in a jar. "That was the last time she felt safe" is the way Kit ends the story of the stone house. Jon is not listening. He comes into her bedroom with carefully washed strawberries and whipped cream in a small blue bowl. It's like a movie scene, Kit thinks, a perfect movie scene of passion. In a movie, however, the stems from the strawberries and the red stains on the sheets would magically disappear. Jon smiles, but his smile is far away. "Organic berries are the best." Kit understands this is not the first time he has eaten strawberries in a woman's bed. She feels for her heart's relentless pound, buried under clothing and skin, refusing to halt. There is another story she could tell him, but what would it help? In this story, it is Kit who is nine and at a beach house with her parents. The beach house is in America, not France; it is made of pink stucco instead of stone. Florida, where the sun shrieks all day and the cars are white and turquoise, the color of wind-up toys. Her mother is standing by the doorway, calling for her, unsmiling, impatient. Kit is always late. For the...

White Out: Race and Nationalism in American Studies

Death of A Nation: American Culture and the End of Exceptionalism. By David W. Noble. Minneapolis: Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 2002. 335 pages. $59.95 (cloth). $19.95 (paper). WHEN DAVID NOBLE PUBLISHED Death of a Nation: American Culture and the End of Exceptionalism in 2002, even he could not have predicted how timely the volume would be. As I sit down to write, Secretary of State General Colin Powell travels the world reiterating the doctrine of American exceptionalism in arguing the case for war against Iraq. The New York Times implicitly recognized the centrality of this doctrine in its choice of framing quotes for its coverage of Powell's speech to the international power brokers at Davos, Switzerland on January 26, 2003: "We Reserve Our Sovereign Right to Take Military Action," reads one headline, while the inset quote warns, "Multilateralism cannot become an excuse for inaction." Brushing aside concerns from European and Middle Eastern allies, and distancing the U.S. government from possible United Nations advice for more restraint, the general-turned-statesman said bluntly: "When we feel strongly about something, we will lead. We will act, even if others are not prepared to join us." And the basis for this John Waynesque bravado? Simply put, America's exceptional command of moral absolutes in its wars against "evil" empires: "It is not a matter of time alone. It is a matter of telling the truth, and so far Saddam Hussein still responds with evasions and with [End Page 781] lies." 1 President Bush followed up in his State of the Union Address for 2003 by concluding a listing of Iraq's atrocities with the claim: "If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning." As Noble argues, the messy complexities of time, with all the attendant relativism of culture and history they involve, get brushed aside by an ideological identification of the nation with the space of truth and goodness. Should Powell and Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have their way, "the death of a nation" will be the unilateral verdict pronounced on Iraq. America will stand triumphant as the sole arbiter and habitation of truth, the exception that proves the rule that power without justice corrupts moral action. Events since the war, unsurprisingly, have cast serious doubts about Bush's truth claims. The title of Noble's book, then, may be misleading, since both his argument and current events suggest that nationalism and exceptionalism are all-too alive and well, although in forms that may be quite distinct from their previous incarnations. Noble contends in his introduction, "the tradition of American exceptionalism is a variation on a transatlantic bourgeois definition of modern nations as the embodiments of a state of nature" (xxv). Noble thus claims that the United States is not exceptional in narrating the nation as originating in a special physical and cultural landscape that purportedly gives rise to a "homogeneous" people united in their special relation to truth, beauty, goodness, and God. The United States just has exceptional power when it comes to putting that nationalism to work, abroad as well as at home. Noble traces the modern crisis of American nationalism back to the rise of the "international marketplace" as the new state of nature, as well as to an increasing acknowledgement of the ethnic, racial, and cultural pluralism of the people of the United States. He contends that "bourgeois elites since the 1940s have transformed" the "hope of transcending history as an unpredictable flow of time" into a faith in "the global marketplace. For the middle classes, that marketplace now represents the end of history" (xxxvii). But the "desacralization of the paradigm of national peoples who had sprung from national landscapes" seems not to have affected the ideology of the American government and the American media, who, like General Powell, feel comfortable invoking America's sacred right to pronounce timeless judgment on those it would condemn as "evil." It turns...

Statement of a Proud Agnostic

A recent embryology course (ABC, Val d’Isere, January 2003) helped concentrate my mind on wider issues. One of the speakers explained how he had, for ethical reasons, stopped experimenting with monkeys and dogs and continued with the rabbit, mouse and rat. Asked to clarify what he meant by ethical reasons, he pleaded practicality and economics, brushing aside my question with a few light-hearted quips on the inferior suffering capacity of rabbits and rats. I have worked with practically all laboratory animals (frogs, chicken and mouse embryos, mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, sheep, pigs, donkeys and monkeys), with the exception of the dog. I gave up pathology and took up neuroradiology because I could no longer bear to witness their suffering. The two years I worked with rats proved to me beyond doubt that they are intelligent and capable of immense suffering and courage. Every rat in the labaratory recognised my voice and footsteps, and hated me. I believe animal experiments are right and that it is right to choose the most suitable species for the project in hand. I also believe we need a research protocol or guidelines to ensure against unnecessary and repeated suffering. I do not, however, subscribe to the hierarchy of sensitivity whereby primates - our presumed ancestors - are more capable of suffering than the lowly rat (an aggressive, dangerous species in open competition with man). It is a mindset deriving from man’s own self-centred view of the world as the species elect, the only living creature able to think, communicate, speak etc. Every living animal loves, suffers, communicates and relates, albeit in totally different ways to man, ways that are incomprehensible to us. However, we apply the same human-centred yardstick to everything, embryology included: genes, homeoboxes, chemical transmitters all function by conditioned reflex. I can induce development at will: shift a homeobox and my fruit fly will have four wings instead of two. And so on. But what if this construction were flawed? Are we sure that genes are only codifiers and not part of an actively communicating system? Could it not be that cells react with each other through those myriad chemical mediators with impossible acronyms as part of an immense project that goes into creating life? If I give irregular building specifications to a builder, the result will be a house with two kitchens, no lift, etc. to no real fault of the builder. Or is our superiority as human beingsanything to do with the fact that a good builder should be able to go back and check with the architect whether he really intended two kitchens? Mine may well be the ranting of an old man, but I am fascinated by the fact that despite all the notions and information we have piled up, we are unable to fathom their underlying mechanism. In my view, “chemical” embryology is not tinkering with life. It is closer to Frankenstein than real life. Scientific study enables us to predict accurately what note will be emitted on striking a given piano key with a given force etc. But we still do not know why Mozart became Mozart. I have no conclusions. I refuse the explanations of the creation offered by my evolutionist or religious colleagues, whatever their creed. I simply do not know. I do not have sufficient information on the one hand while on the other, I refuse the delusion of a faith I cannot believe in. I shall stick to being a proud agnostic.

Phonons in pure and doped CuGeO3 spin-Peierls crystals: Raman and ultrasonic studies.

Elastic anomalies have been identified in pure and doped (Zn, Si) ${\mathrm{CuGeO}}_{3}$ single crystals by studying the evolution of the Raman phonons and the elastic constant ${\mathit{C}}_{33}$ as a function of temperature and magnetic field. At high temperatures phonon softening centered around 100 K is observed for pure and doped crystals, brushing aside any relation with the spin-Peierls transition. Below 20 K, all the Raman-active phonons stiffen while the ${\mathit{C}}_{33}$ elastic constant softens as the result of magneto-elastic coupling correlated to the spin-Peierls transition and a three-dimensional N\'eel state. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.

Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem

Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem. David Blankenhorn. New York: Basic Books. 1995. 328 pp. Hardcover ISBN 0-465-01483-6. $23.00. Unlike France, where serious sociopolitical and philosophical tracts can count on sales, readership, and serious debate, in the United States books on important social issues seldom attain such status. In the last two years, only The Bell Curve has initiated substantial popular debate, eliciting a torrent of critical responses in both the professional and popular media to its conclusions about the associations between race and IQ. Though arguably focused on at least as serious a social problem as The Bell Curve, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem has received much less attention and has fostered much less debate. That's unfortunate, for while Blankenhorn's thesis is flawed and somewhat simplistic, his book is beautifully written and the problems he identifies are no less important and serious for the failures-in my view-to articulate sufficiently comprehensive explanations and solutions. Blankenhorn begins his argument by noting the convergence of some widely noted demographic trends, particularly rising rates of divorce, single parenthood, poverty, and crime. Whereas the so-called Moynihan Report identified these as portentous indicators of social decay in Black America three decades ago, Blankenhorn shows that they characterize White America with increasing accuracy today and that the situation can only worsen in the decades ahead. And where the Moynihan Report fostered discussion about the extent to which acceptance of fatherlessness in Black families might exacerbate the associated social problems and make necessary the revision of social policy, Blankenhorn observes that fatherlessness is increasingly accepted by all Americans, both White and Black. In his view, this laissez-faire acceptance, along with fatherlessness itself, are the central issues of the social illscrime and poverty-that threaten to derail the society. As he states: In short, the key for men is to be fathers. The key for children is to have fathers. The key for society is to create fathers. For society, the primary results of fatherhood are right-doing males and better outcomes for children. Conversely, the primary consequences of fatherlessness are rising male violence and declining child wellbeing. In the United States at the close of the twentieth century, paternal disinvestment has become the major cause of declining child wellbeing and the underlying source of our most important social problems, especially those rooted in violence. (p. 26) There is little doubt that the phenomena concerned-single parenthood, fatherlessness, crime, poverty, poor school performance, and psychosocial maladjustment-are interrelated, as Blankenhorn proposes and as many social scientists have shown. But evidence of co-occurrence is not sufficient to establish causality, and there remains considerable controversy on this score. In the absence of experimental evidence, which makes reliance on correlational techniques necessary, causality is hard to determine, and the conclusiveness of any research on the topic is limited by the plausibility and comprehensiveness of the theoretical models and the precision and quality of measurement. Brushing aside such qualifications, Blankenhorn concludes that fatherlessness is the central cause of declines in the quality of children's lives. As a result, fatherlessness must be recognized and addressed if any interventions are to be successful. Blankenhorn's stubborn commitment to this conclusion leads him to a simplistic prescription and prevents him from confronting the daunting complexities of our most vexing social problems. Blankenhorn's analysis is disappointing in other ways. Although he effectively and appropriately skewers much politically correct rhetoric, including the notions that strict child support enforcement can ameliorate the problems occasioned (in his view) by fatherlessness, or that father-child relationships can be replaced, psychologically and metaphorically, by casual and temporary relationships between children and other adult males, he also rejects rather superficially other analyses of the complex problems involved. …