Casual Reading Research Articles

Change of Purpose in the Novels of Louis L’Amour

J O H N D. N E S B I T T University of California, Davis Change of Purpose inthe Novels of Louis L’Amour The novels of Louis L’Amour, like the novels of many another paperback Western writer, sing their author’s praises on every front cover. The slogans range from “A Classic of the West” to “America’s FastestSelling Western Writer” to “World’s Bestselling Western Writer” to the imperious “World’s Greatest Western Writer.” L’Amour’s recent surge in popularity, occasioned by a strong publicity push by Bantam in the fall of 1975, has brought more of his books than ever before onto the new and used book racks. He now is, indeed, the best-selling and fastest-selling writer of them all. His books serve the worthy purpose of whiling away the hours behind the walls of a prison,1 in a military barracks, on the banks of a river when the fish are slow to bite, or on a creaky camp cot in the lazy hours between the morning and the evening hunt. It is com­ monly acknowledged that any book by “Looie” is bound to be good reading, even if a casual reading of ten or twenty of his sixty-some books does not resist the old “read one and you’ve read ’em all” criticism. To the person who reads with a slightly less abandoned mind, and 1An article in the San Francisco Chronicle, December 22, 1975, reads: “In some prisons, according to the legend, you have to trade five other books for one L’Amour. . . . But except for some scholars doing dissertations, the literati generally seem to ignore the Los Angeles-based author.” 66 Western American Literature to the critic who does not dismiss L’Amour with ridicule and contempt, L’Amour’s novels are not just the same old story with the hero of each new volume given a different name and a different colored horse. His books have changed over the years, independently of story lines or plot formulas, according to an apparent change in moral and historical pur­ pose. L’Amour’s career can be divided into three phases — early, middle, and recent — and the novels from each phase reflect a change in his use of historical detail accompanied by a change in moral focus. L’Amour is such a prolific writer of short and often similar novels that it seems justifiable to discuss his works by the handful. Since he has no single magnum opus, nor even “major” and “minor” works, this essay will discuss groups of novels from each of the three phases of his career.2 L’Amour’s career as the novelist we know today began variously and gloriously in 1953, with the publication of Hondo and Showdown at Yellow Butte. Prior to that he published a volume of poetry, Smoke from This Altar (1939), several Hopalong Cassidy sagas under the pseudonym “Tex Bums,” and a multitude of short stories. A few of the short stories have been reprinted in War Party (Bantam, 1975), but for the most part we know L’Amour’s productions from 1953 to the present date. From 1953 to 1957 he published novels with no fewer than six presses; the copyrights have since been obtained by Fawcett and Bantam, the two main purveyors of L’Amour novels today. The novels of this early phase are entertaining in their unbridled violence, their directness of moral utterance, and their frequent (if pedan­ tic) tidbits of Western lore and trivia. As one L’Amour critic has put it, “a certain amount of humor is unavoidable,”3and the simplicity of these books is diverting. Two of the novels from this period, Utah Blaine (1954) and Showdown at Yellow Butte (1953), reflect L’Amour’s simplest use of history and his most direct statement of morality. (Both of these were also originally published under the pseudonym “Jim Mayo,” but now appear under L’Amour’s name.) In both of these books, history is the setting but not the subject. Historical range wars such as the Lincoln County War and the Mason County War, and mention of contemporary gunfighters such as Clay Allison and...

Electrocardiogram in Evaluation of Resistance to Antihypertensive Therapy

The effect of blood pressure control on the evolution of electrocardiographic evidence of left ventricular hypertrophy was investigated 50 patients with hypertension who were followed up for an average period of nine years. Blood pressure response to treatment was determined both from casual office readings and from weekly averages of twice daily home readings. Changes in the ECG, judged from both alteration in QRS voltage and in ST-T segment, were related to the degree of arterial pressure control. Usually, both home and office arterial pressure responded similarly to antihypertensive therapy, but when there was a difference, electrocardiographic changes correlated best with home prssure averages. Reduction in maximum precordial QRS voltage (Sv1+Rv5-6) correlated best with changes in home systolic pressure (r = .460; P less than .001), but correlation with diastolic pressure variation either at home or in the office did not attain statistical significance (P greater than .10). The present data stress the importance of home pressure measurements in the management of some patients with hypertension and provide evidence that casual office readings may sometimes misjudge the effectiveness of antihypertensive therapy.

Freud and Degeneracy: a Turning Point

In the second half of the 19 th century an “anthropologico-psychiatrical “ doctrine proposed a conception of mental illness which remained prevalent in Europe for a long time: the doctrine of degeneracy. Modern psychiatrical texts and works devoted to the history of ideas usually dismiss it with the slightly annoyed contempt of those who have long since given up such obsolete notions. The doctrine is most often referred back to a purely “hereditary” concept of alienation which psychoanalysis long ago proved of no use. Now the most casual reading of the literature (whether medical or anthropological) shows that this interpretation is not only superficial but radically in error. The doctrine of degeneracy is not limited to this “hereditary” concept inasmuch as it assigns utmost importance to environmental factors such as social, educational and moral. Furthermore, the idea of heredity with which it is concerned has little to do with what genetical science today is studying under this term. Dissimilar heredity, during the second half of the 19th century, was the motivating force which was used to account for a factor that, paradoxically, transmits not likeness but unlikeness. Thus, a pathology o f heredity, or pathological heredity (in the sense that it is heredity itself which is “ill”), rather than hereditary pathology.

Another look at the discrete structures course

Over the last several years since the introduction of B3 (Discrete Structures) into the undergraduate computer science curriculum, the course has been the subject of continuing controversy. The major difficulties later found in implementing the course were easy to foresee from the most casual reading of its original description in Curriculum '68 [1]. The necessary placement of the course in the sophomore year, the relative sophistication of the intended subject matter, and the lack of sufficient preparation of most beginning students in these areas and in appropriate computer science areas of application, all have contributed to problems in the implementation of the ACM Curriculum Committee recommendations. We will discuss each of these problems in turn, and hope to provide new insights toward achieving a satisfactory solution.

Another look at the discrete structures course

Over the last several years since the introduction of B3 (Discrete Structures) into the undergraduate computer science curriculum, the course has been the subject of continuing controversy. The major difficulties later found in implementing the course were easy to foresee from the most casual reading of its original description in Curriculum '68 [1]. The necessary placement of the course in the sophomore year, the relative sophistication of the intended subject matter, and the lack of sufficient preparation of most beginning students in these areas and in appropriate computer science areas of application, all have contributed to problems in the implementation of the ACM Curriculum Committee recommendations. We will discuss each of these problems in turn, and hope to provide new insights toward achieving a satisfactory solution.

Editorial: Crohn's disease: what do recurrence rates mean?

IT would seem at first glance that comparison of therapies for diseases resulting in death over a period of years should be an easy task for physicians. That it has not proved to be so is evident from the most casual reading of the cancer literature, or that related to heart disease. In 1950 Berkson and Gage1 made an important step forward in evaluating survival of patients with cancer by employing an adaptation of the life-table concept, so that at each year after diagnosis, or therapeutic intervention, the number of persons alive could be calculated, and thereby the population at . . .

The Structure of Kate Chopin's At Fault

THE STRUCTURE OF KATE CHOPIN'S AT FAULT Bernard J. Koloski Mansfield State College Even a casual reading of Kate Chopin's early novel Ar Fault (1890) is enough to convince us that the book lacks the intensity of The Awakening (1899) and that it shares litde of the later work's beauty of language. Its resolution seems contrived and melodramatic, while its tone, as Per Seyersted points out, strikes us as inconsistent.1 Yet At Fault is emphatically not a book we would look for in 1890, not a book like the one Chopin refers to as "the latest novel of one of those prolific female writers who turn out their unwholesome intellectual sweets so tirelessly, to be devoured by the girls and women of the age."2 It is in many ways a rewarding book, with a keenness of insight and a sureness of structure characteristic of Kate Chopin at her best. Like The Awakening, At Fault is developed through a well conceived succession of contrasts which gradually delineates the plight of a woman struggling with a seemingly irreconcilable difference between the social reality of an "outward existence"—to use the language of the later novel—and the private vision of an "inward life" (p. 893), an imaginative ideal. Edna Pontellier's struggle leads inevitably to alienation, isolation, and ultimately death. The heroine of Ar Fault, largely through chance, manages to unify her two realms and achieve a sense of peace. Edna yearns for an existence in which she can fulfill herself by escaping from what she comes to see as the restrictions and conventions of an essentially static society. Her plight is, therefore, the result of an interior change, the result of her awakened consciousness, her newly transformed vision of the possibilities of life. For Thérèse Lafirme, however, it is not a vision of life but life itself which is changing. Thérèse becomes increasingly sensitive to the dynamic character of her society, to the economic, cultural, and sometimes natural pressures which are altering not only the land about her but the nature of the communities which evolve on the land.3 Compelled by circumstance to assume the role of a major stabilizing force in such a society, she yearns for a world in which the old traditions and customs help preserve order and harmony. It is a threatened breakdown in the social order which provides the 90Notes impetus for the heroine's actions in At Fault. The newly-widowed Thérèse is shocked by the realization that people are stealing even the cotton seed from her plantation and that the cotton itself seems sure to disappear next. Convinced that she has inherited not only the land but also the "weight and sacredness of a trust" (p. 741), she reacts quickly to the disorder gathering about her and makes herself into what "Lafirme," her late husband's family name, suggests sheshould be: "the firm one," a tough and respected administrator. The experience, like Edna Pontellier's months with Robert Lebrun and the outgoing Creoles amid the sensuousness of the Grand Isle environment, proves to be a critically important one in the life of the heroine. Nearly every incident throughout At Fault illuminates some aspect of Thérèse Lafirme's efforts to maintain order, continuity, and peace in her community and her private life. Determined to prevent a recurrence of thenear chaotic situation that she faced when herhusband died, Thérèse tries her best to placate the half-Negro, half-Indian Joçint, who is enraged because his father forces him to work at a sawmill and give up the daily jaunts he once took in his beloved woods. She tries to rehabilitate her nephew Grégoire, who sets out to drink and brawl himself to death after he loses his nearby plantation to creditors. Most important, she tries—because she believes strongly in the social necessity of those moral supports provided by traditional Catholic precepts—to salvage the marriage of David Hosmer, the man who loves her and whose love she reciprocates, by persuading him to return to the alcoholic woman he has divorced. The twelve chapters ofPartI ofthebook depictThér...

Inequality, Sociology, and Moral Philosophy

The theoretical enterprise of moral philosophy has deep roots in both Continental and British philosophy. In Germany Hegel and Kant; in France Rousseau and Les Philosophes; in Scotland the moral philosophers, Frances Hutcheson, Adam Ferguson, and Adam Smith; and in England Locke and Mill, aspired to express normative principles for the organization of society.1 Sociology began much later, with aspirations to be a positive science of society, and, befitting such goals, the discipline started as not only a theoretical enterprise but also an empirical one. Despite the differences in their aspirations and modus operandi, moral philosophy and sociology have shared a subject matter, the functioning of society, and the relation of the individual to society. Consequently, it is surprising that except for readings in moral philosophy assigned to students in courses on the historical background of social theory, and for casual reading of modern sociological theory by moral philosophers, sociology and moral philosophy have remained wholly apart, with no interchange of ideas. The same cannot be said of the relation between economics and moral philosophy, for the origins of economic theory may be found in one branch of moral philosophy: classical utilitarianism, as expressed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Along with its aspirations as a positive science economics as a discipline has maintained a parallel set of aspirations as a normative science, principally in the branch of economics known as welfare economics, which continues to hold, perhaps in a narrower context than does moral philosophy, the aim of expressing normative principles for the organization of society.2 In turn, moral philosophy as a theoretical

Economic Interdependence and Foreign Policy in the Seventies

A Casual reading of contemporary news reports suggests that during the past decade economic issues have taken on growing importance in the relations of non-Communist developed countries. The disputes between the United States and Japan over textiles, between the United States and the European Economic Community over agricultural trade, and between France and Germany over currency alignments come readily to mind. It is perhaps symbolic of the enormous success of early postwar foreign policy that issues no graver than these play such a prominent part in relations among countries that, earlier in the century, were sporadically at each other's throats.

Comments on a Monetarist Approach to Demand Management

A casual reading of the popular discussion of stabilization policy over the past four or five years would suggest that the definition of a monetarist was firmly established. In the monetarist camp are Milton Friedman, Karl Brunner, Allan Meltzer, and the model of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Costs of Positive Tests

To the Editor.— In your editorial ( 214 :2047,1970) you properly point out two deficiencies in Collen and coworkers' report on the dollar cost per positive test for automated multiphasic screening. Actually both had been noted by the authors. They admitted omitting some overhead costs, perhaps on the premise that the screening could have been as well done without these particular costs. They also described the second, which you state to be, the failure to take into account the cost per proved true positive test. For example, while the cost per positive mammogram was $408, follow-up studies in the positive cases brought the cost per true positive test to approximately $2,000. Casual reading of your statement would suggest that the reason the cost jumps five-fold is that the expense of the follow-up studies is that great. The original report clearly indicates, however, that the true cost was arrived at by a

Man and Wife: The Dialogue of Contraries in Robert Frost's Poetry

T HE VOLUME OF ROBERT FROST'S POETRY entitled Complete Poems (1949) covers his varied production from before the turn of this century up through his poetic drama, The Masque of Mercy (I947). Even a casual reading shows that Frost's poetry is not homogeneous in form and subject matter. The self-conscious lyrics of A Boy's Will (1913) give way to the dialogues of country folk in North of Boston (I914) and the urbane and witty poems of the following years. Critics have shown alarm in dealing with the poetry of Frost as a whole, for many fail to recognize any line of continuity in this varied collection. Thus Frost has been accused of lacking a consistent point of view and of rejecting out of hand all firm systems of human value. George W. Nitchie compares him unfavorably on this point with his contemporaries Yeats and Eliot.

Eggleston's Indebtedness to George Eliot in Roxy

NWr HEN EDWARD EGGLESTON S Roxy was published in i878, two reviewers saw George Eliot's fiction as an influence upon the novel. An American reviewer' suggested that George Eliot's depiction of commonplace characters, especially in Scenes of Clerical Life, was noteworthy influence, while an English reviewer commented that Roxy, the novel's heroine, was a methodist Romola.2 In his biography of Eggleston, William P. Randel briefly notes these reviewers' comments and states that even unfavorable comparison with her [George Eliot] gave Eggleston glow of satisfaction,3 but, hewing to the biographer's task, Randel leaves the subject unexplored. The fact is that both Romola and Middlemarch are significant influences upon Roxy, and study of this influence gives us an excellent perspective from which to grasp both the limitations and the achievement of Eggleston's novel. In addition, such study helps reveal the way in which George Eliot's fiction exerted its influence upon American realists in the seventies and eighties, too-long neglected chapter in our literary history. Eggleston's debt in Roxy to George Eliot's fiction is considerable.4 Even casual reading reveals striking similarities in the basic plot situations of Romola and Roxy, but the significant debt is Eggleston's

Leadership Influence on the Nature of the Political Party: The Case of the W.A. Branch of the A.L.P. in the 'Thirties

From Michels in 1915, through Duverger in 1951, to the present, the academic analysis of the leadership of political parties has been dominated by a single theory. Michels' 'iron law of oligarchy' expressed his conviction that even the leaders of an ostensibly democratic political party have power far beyond what a casual reading of the party's rules would suggest;2 Duverger similarly concluded that 'the leadership of political parties ... is democratic in appearance and oligarchic in reality'.3 The influence of the party membership is not totally discounted or denied but it is seen as basically a negative influence; the leaders are restricted only in the sense that sculptors are restricted by the nature of the material with which they work. That is, the leadership decides what course to pursue but the range of choices is not completely unlimited.4

Social media for health librarians

Welcome to a new information technology column called ‘‘Social media for health librarians’’ for the JCHLA/ JABSC. Over the next year or so, I plan to write about social media and the effects of Web 2.0 tools on our information practices. I hope you find the column a more casual read (i.e., less academic) than previous teaching and learning columns. My goal is to engage health librarians about the tools and trends of Web 2.0 and to raise topics for debate with your peers. Feel free to engage me in debate also. E-mail your questions and send suggested topics such as medicine 2.0, health 2.0, or even health librarian 2.0. For now, let’s leave all of the Web 2-point-ohs for later. (See Appendix A for quick definitions of these terms.) Let’s begin by talking about time — what other health librarians tell me is the single largest barrier to their use of social media. As a health librarian who follows social media very closely, I realize that time is a significant barrier for many of you and that these barriers also prevent appropriate evaluation of tools. I also realize that if it comes down to spending your collections budgets or evaluating Twitter, there is no contest — collections come first. But Twitter’s rise in particular reminds me of the hoopla around Google Scholar when it was first released; do you recall how many librarians spoke out against using it [1–2]? Would any of us now deny that Google Scholar is extremely valuable in the health librarian’s toolkit, indeed any librarian’s toolkit? The realization that Twitter, like Google Scholar, is valuable is certain to come with time. Social networking presents its own quirks for health librarians — and a tendency to drain more of our time. And the ruse is that to use social media well, you need to build a network of people to create the network effect. The network effect (Metcalfe’s law) states that the more people you have in your network, the more useful it becomes [3]. On Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, I follow ,1000 people. I can’t follow all of these people closely but am getting to know about 5% of my network. I follow people from around the world and anyone who can teach me something. If someone is not providing value to me, I quietly stop following them. I am regularly asked how I monitor so many social tools while maintaining a full-time position at the UBC Biomedical Branch Library. How do I find time to evaluate the tools? I’m also asked what my opinion is on social media’s long-term prospects. Is social networking a passing fad? And even — as a busy academic health librarian at Vancouver General Hospital, why do I blog and tweet? For me, social media is primarily about two things: lifelong learning and promoting the profession. I firmly believe health librarians should be thinking about the implications of social media in the information age but also using it to tell our stories. Moreover, I think social media is a natural ally for lifelong learners. My use of social media directs my learning every day, and I see it as part of understanding the digital landscape. Our information practices in the digital age should take into account core librarianship competencies but within an environment that includes social media. Many of you already use social media and collaborate with users online. Please share your ideas. You might even author blogs or use Twitter to network with colleagues. In 2010, it is obvious we have reached a critical mass of social media users in CHLA / ABSC [4]. The Association Web site is now interactive and several members contribute to the Board blog — maybe not as regularly as I would like, but it’s a start. In the same way that Google is now accepted, social media has reached a level of quiet acceptance by information professionals. Have you discerned the slow shift towards the acceptance of social media in health libraries? Within the Medical Library Association (MLA), librarians work through modules to learn about social media [5]. While tools such as Twitter and Second Life may be peripheral for a while, other tools seem to be here to stay. Take a look at some of the recent social media research in MEDLINE; recently, I noticed that several well-designed studies have been published [6–15]. Clinicians around the world are evaluating social media, and the evidence-base is growing. Social media represents a new domain of expertise for health librarians. Are the collaboration and informationsharing skills of Web 2.0 critical for our future? I believe that they are. Social media skills are not as important as maintaining our intellectual orientation or the work we do to organize collections and services. But I believe we

Heir Beginnis Countering

AND WHAT, ONE MAY ASK, is countering? To which the anonymous compiler (the so-called Scottish Anonymous) of British Museum, Additional MS 4911 answers, is ane formall fractione of sympill noittis be numeris trinar and binar in music figurative deducit, quhilk be musicians in plesand soundis of harmony craftellie is convoyit. Thus begins one of the most intriguing sections of Add. MS 4911, a treatise rather frequently referred to in musicological literature, but one about which relatively little is actually known. As stated above, the manuscript is anonymous and is in Scots dialect. It has been dated with some certainty as copied circa 1580,1 and was probably intended for some didactic purpose-as a text in one of the post-Reformation Sang Schools in Scotland, for example. The bulk of the manuscript was simply copied from well-known works of the time such as Ornithoparchus' Micrologus (Leipzig, 1516) and Heyden's De Arte Canendi (Nuremberg, I540), relying to a lesser degree upon Gaffurius' Practica Musice (Milan, 1496). Other contemporary treatises quoted occasionally were Finck's Practica Musica (Wittemberg, 1556), Rhaw's Enchiridion utriusque musicae practicae (Wittemberg, 1546), Agricola's Musica Figuralis deudsch (Wittemberg, 1532), and Listenius' Musica (Wittemberg, I548). The main portions of Add. MS 4911 not taken from these printed treatises are i) a large number of puzzle canons, many of them seemingly unique, 2) a very detailed description of various kinds of faburdoun, and 3) the section on to be dealt with here. All of these unique portions of the manuscript seem rather anachronistic for a date as late as i58o; nevertheless, the presence of metrical psalm tunes gives strong evidence that it is of post-Reformation origin. The section of this manuscript is most interesting because of the fact that even a casual reading convinces one that it concerns a method of improvisation, and also perhaps composition, quite different from any of the better known types of improvisation used in the Renaissance. The only musical dictionary to give any sort of definition of the term countering is Pulver's Dictionary of Old English Music:

Brain Tissue Electrolytes.

This book is not for casual reading, and its contents will interest only a limited audience. However, Dr. Van Harreveld's monograph is an excellent review of current information in an important and controversial field to which the author has made major contributions. The text reflects his knowledge and experience. The introduction succinctly states the problem posed by conflicting data covering the distribution of water and electrolytes within the central nervous system. Sodium and chloride measurements suggest that neural tissues contain an extracellular space of 30% to 35%, while electron microscopy reveals almost no room between the cellular elements of the brain. Chemical studies employing sulfate, inulin, thiocyanate, and sucrose support the latter view. Most of this volume consists of a detailed and thoughtful analysis of the major chemical, electrical, and ultrastructural procedures pertaining to the above subject. The evidence favoring both sides of the question is carefully presented. Various methods,

Cognition and Thought: An Information-Processing Approach.

This book covers the very interesting subject of computer simulation of such human functions as cognition and thought. Its stated purpose is . . to introduce a general psychological audience to the psychological implications of information-processing concepts and computer simulation and to what theories and theorists in this area are about. At this it succeeds reasonably well, setting forth some background on the theoretical framework involved, and going on to somewhat more concrete discussion of specific information processing models such as the General Problem Solver (GPS) and Argus. There is an appendix on Information Processing Language-V (IPL-V). For the potential reader, it might be important to give some idea of whether this is a book for casual reading as an entertaining introduction to the field, or a book for serious study. Unfortunately —and I believe this is its major failing—it is neither. It requires a good deal of concentrated effort to follow,

Personality traits and behavioral patterns associated with systolic blood pressure levels in college males

1. 1. Seventy-four young white male college students (out of an original pool of 800 examined) were selected for having high or low systolic readings taken on a registration line. These students were then classified according to their paired casual, usual, and sustained levels of systolic blood pressure. Of 21 persons with a high paired casual systolic blood pressure (two independent determinations in excess of 140 mm Hg), 16 were also characterized as belonging to a ‘usual high’ group (blood pressure in excess of 131 mm on resting and repeated home readings). A ‘sustained’ high blood pressure group (n = 11) was further obtained by selecting those who were ‘high’ on their paired casual and their ‘usual’ blood pressure levels. These blood pressure patterns were then related with self ratings on the Cattell 16 PF questionnaire. 2. 2. A consistent elevation to the upper range of normal in the systolic blood pressure of these college males was associated with ‘submissiveness’ and ‘sensitivity’ as defined by Cattell's 16 PF questionnaire. Subjects with ‘high paired casual’ systolic blood pressures described themselves as motivated to obtain social contacts, but in a ‘sensitive’ and ‘anxious’ manner. 3. 3. Subjects who were later selected for having a single high systolic blood pressure reading taken on first entering the physician's office (their second casual reading) tended more frequently to yield in an argument and then afterwards to change their private opinions toward agreement with partners who had an initially low systolic reading. 4. 4. Whereas obesity was highly correlated with higher systolic levels, the psychological correlates of obesity were different from those related to elevated ‘casual’ or ‘sustained’ blood pressure. Obese subjects in this population appeared to be physically active, and more confident, though somewhat anxious under the stress of school examinations.

Presenting Symptoms in Childhood

This book is aimed principally at the general practitioner and is concerned with the common presenting symptoms of childhood disease with a very brief listing of differential diagnosis in these conditions. It has none of the extreme detail of symptoms, signs, laboratory findings, and detailed treatment to be found in the numerous pocket books of pediatrics, and at the same time nowhere is there any discussion in depth resembling that to be found in numerous textbooks of pediatrics. Nevertheless, the book makes somewhat interesting casual reading. The author could not hope to compress very much discussion into a small volume which includes so many common symptoms of the diseases of childhood. The pediatrician may enjoy scanning this for its occasional pearls; the reviewer read it with some degree of thoroughness.