Christian Science Monitor Research Articles

Interview with Clay Bennett

Clay Bennett is the editorial cartoonist for the Christian Science Monitor, based in Boston. Bennett joined the Christian Science Monitor in 1998 and produces five cartoons a week, which are nationally syndicated by the Christian Science Monitor News Service. Previously, he was the editorial cartoonist for the St. Petersburg Times from 1981–1994. He began his career as a staff artist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Fayetteville Times after graduating from the University of North Alabama in 1980 with degrees in Art and History.

Petition

Petition Ellen Steinbaum (bio) My daughters know anything can happen.Holding their babies close, they tell mestories they have heard: neighbor childrenburned in their colorful beds, struck down indriveways by their parents' shining cars, or,from far away, other unthinkable shrugging-offthe trifling weight of their only lives: murdered by marauders while tending goats,caught between bullets on an unblessed street.And it does not end, of course, as the mothersof soldiers always know; the ever-presentscythe is sharp to cut down what we love.I have no wisdom here, no rights, no hard experiencegained through famine or bad luck. My ancestors were loath to temptthe evil eye. Poo, poo, poo, they spat,refused to praise too much lest the angelof death covet their prize, knowing all the whilethe ruse had doubtful value. I desperatelyrejoice at minor colds, small naughtiness.No, we have no perfection here—seethis tiny blemish, this one is a picky eater,that one sleeps poorly, pouts sometimes.No jewels for your crown here, dark angel.Not one is unflawed: pass them by. [End Page 188] Ellen Steinbaum Ellen Steinbaum's poems have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, Midstream, and Fulcrum, among others. She is the author of the collection, Afterwords (Blue Unicorn P) and a one-person play, CenterPiece; and writes a literary column for the Boston Globe. Copyright © 2007 University of Nebraska Press

Adolescent Overscheduling: The Relationship Between Levels of Participation in Scheduled Activities and Self-Reported Clinical Symptomology

The past 20 to 30 years has seen an increase in the time children and adolescents spend in structured activities outside of the regular school day. This has resulted in a significant reduction in the amount of free time children and youth have for leisure time activities. While much discussion has been given to this topic in the popular press, little systematic research has been conducted addressing this issue. The purpose of this study was to identify whether there is a relationship between the number of regularly scheduled activities in which adolescents are involved, the amount of time adolescents spend participating in these activities, and self-reports of anxiety, depression, and physical complaints. Results indicated that the greater the amount of time students reported participating in activities both at the time of the study and for the entire year, the higher their self-reported level of anxiety tended to be. Similar results were not observed for depression or somatization.

John Wilson Ruckman: Scholar, Soldier and Public Figure

This paper presents the first comprehensive scholarly overview of the life of John Wilson Ruckman (1858-1921), a native of Sidney, Illinois. Ruckman's educational credentials, scholarship and military career path might well warrant separate papers in themselves, but this paper will discuss those aspects of his life only briefly, and primarily as background information to a more thorough discussion of his prominence as a high ranking military officer and public figure. The Washington Post first printed Ruckman's name in 1880, before he had even graduated from West Point. But, by the time his amazing career had ended, his name and photograph had appeared in the Post, the New York Times, the Boston Daily Globe and Christian Science Monitor alone well over 300 times. Thus, this paper will give particular attention to a few key episodes which enhanced Ruckman’s name recognition and highlighted persistent themes that clearly played a central role throughout in his life and career.

Of Note: Home Ownership the Islamic Way: Sharia-Compliant Mortgages in the United States

Of Note:Home Ownership the Islamic Way: Sharia-Compliant Mortgages in the United States Jennifer Murray With as many as 130,000 homeowners facing foreclosure each month in the United States, homeowners with adjustable-rate mortgages worry about making mortgage payments as adjustable rates climb.1 While these adjustable rates understandably cause homeowners sleepless nights, at least most homeowners do not consider their mortgages a sin. For many Muslim would-be homeowners, however, neither a fixed nor an adjustable-rate mortgage is acceptable. Quranic prohibitions against interest (riba)2 and uncertainty (gharar)3 render mortgages available in the United States to be considered forbidden under Islam by many U.S. Muslims.4 Increasingly, U.S. commercial lending institutions are responding to the growing market among Muslims for Sharia-compliant mortgages that satisfy Quranic prohibitions against interest and uncertainty. Pioneer institutions such as LaRiba in California, Guidance Financial Group in Virginia, Devon Bank in Chicago, and University Bank in Ann Arbor, Michigan offer Sharia-compliant mortgages in a majority of U.S. states. Lenders create Sharia-compliant mortgages through several financing mechanisms. Under murabaha financing,5 a lender buys a home on behalf of the homebuyer and sells it to the homebuyer at cost plus a pre-defined profit. The pre-determined profit margin for the lender eliminates interest charges, while a fixed schedule of payments eliminates uncertainty in the contract. Devon Bank claims its murabaha financing allows homeowners to make payments identical to those under a fixed rate mortgage.6 Ijarah-wal-iqtina7 financing is similar to a rent-to-own program in which a lender purchases a home on behalf of a homebuyer, who then buys the property at cost over time while simultaneously paying rent, earning sole ownership of the property upon full payment. Devon Bank likens this arrangement to an adjustable-rate mortgage.8 Musharakah9 financing is another rent-to-own program, but the lender and homebuyer are co-owners of the property. The homebuyer pays rent and part of the principal, with the lender's share in the property diminishing [End Page 93] with every payment made by the homebuyer. Musharakah's co-ownership model also includes profit and loss sharing in the case of the sale of the property.10 Institutions offering these financing instruments must secure sanctioning from Muslim scholars, most often from the Sharia Supervisory Board of America or from prominent scholars such as Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi and Sheikh Muhammad Taqi Usmani. These new 'Islamic mortgages' expand Muslim home ownership which has lagged behind overall home ownership rates; even in states like Michigan, where the Muslim population has steadily increased over the last ten years, Muslim home ownership rates are as much as seven percent lower than the state average.11 The ability of LaRiba and Devon Bank to partner with the government sponsored enterprise Freddie Mac12 expands the liquidity of these institutions, allowing them to offer more mortgages and increase the possibilities of home ownership for U.S. Muslims. For many Muslims who continued to lease despite their desire to become homeowners, who were forced to save hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for a home in cash, or who simply swallowed their feelings of guilt and took a regular mortgage,13 these methods of Islamic financing provide a viable, guilt-free alternative to standard mortgages. That sense of peace ensures the market for these mortgages will continue to increase, even as other homeowners suffer sleepless nights. Notes Marks, Alexandra, and Ron Scherer. "As US Foreclosures Mount, States Step In." Christian Science Monitor, April 5, 2007, USA section, page 1. For Quranic passages on riba, see 2:278, 2:275, 2:276, 3:130, 4:161, and 30:039. For Quranic passages on gharar, see 2:219, 5:90. For several examples of Hadith concerning gharar, see Vogel, Frank E., and Samuel L. Hayes, III. Islamic Law and Finance: Religion, Risk, and Return. Edited by Mark S.W. Hoyle. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1998. Healy, Patrick O'Gilfoil. "For Muslims, Loans for the Conscience." New York Times, August 7, 2005, section 11, page 1. Murabaha is "resale with specification of gain." Wehr, Hans. The Hans Wehr Dictionary...

Nospaces.com

Nospaces.com Martin Galvin (bio) He wanted always to live in the empty places Between words, talked only so he could pause And settle down in that easy chair of silence. The bigger the novel, the more the houses Where he could rest and work the puzzle. And then he grew up and the world hurried downThe clueless street and into his house. The internet jammed his time with addresses That didn't have houses, that didn't have pauses, Just hurry-up words that didn't make sense If you loved spelling, if you loved spaces.He dot-commed and googled, he sighed for his loss But sighing took time and sighing took space That meant little and less as it wandered around With nothing to do but continue the flow Which threatened, that flow, to fill up the worldThat used to be filled with comfortable places Where a boy could hide and a man could go To escape the babble that filled up the spaces, To ponder in silence and empty the puzzles. Martin Galvin Martin Galvin’s Wild Card won the 1989 Columbia Prize, judged by Howard Nemerov. His narrative poem “Hilda and Me and Hazel” won first prize in a national narrative poetry contest sponsored by Poet Lore in 1992. He has been published in many national magazines, including the Atlantic Monthly, the New Republic, Commonweal, the Christian Science Monitor, Texas Review, Kansas Quarterly, On the Bus, and Poetry. His poems have been included in numerous national anthologies including Best American Poetry 1997 and Poets Against The War edited by Sam Hamil. In addition to Wild Card, he has two chapbooks: Making Beds and Appetites. Copyright © 2007 Michigan State University

Mentors for Teachers from outside the U.S.

EVERYONE READING this journal has either heard of or had direct experience with the growing shortage of qualified teachers for U.S. classrooms. While some of the most critical shortages stem from problems with the distribution of teachers to schools where they are most needed, the U.S. Department of Education estimates that the nation will need more than two million teachers by the end of this decade. (1) The causes of the shortages in supply are myriad, ranging from increasing student enrollments to the retirement of the baby boomers. (2) In addition, the requirement imposed by No Child Left Behind that every classroom be staffed by a highly qualified teacher has exacerbated the problem. But whatever the causes, what we need now are solutions. We can't afford to leave any classroom behind--or teacherless. In the last several years, states have adopted a wide range of initiatives in an effort to recruit new candidates into teaching. Programs such as Troops-to-Teachers and Teach for America have sought to tap new pools of talent. A variety of incentives, such as signing bonuses, student loan forgiveness, housing assistance, and tuition reimbursement, have also been offered in the hope of attracting talented people to the profession. Yet, despite these efforts, the need for additional teachers, especially in large urban school districts, has continued to grow. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Because such initiatives have fallen short of meeting their needs, several states have been hiring experienced teachers from other countries to fill positions in areas of critical shortages. As early as 2000, Stephanie Cook wrote an article in the Christian Science Monitor that was headlined Foreign Teachers Find a Place in U.S. Schools. (3) Barely two months later (2 October 2000), Newsweek devoted its cover to the same issue, posing the question: Who Will Teach Our Kids? Even the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has given its blessing to increasing the numbers of foreign teachers. And a report commissioned by the National Education Association indicates that as many as 10,000 international teachers are working in public school systems on nonimmigrant or cultural exchange visas. (4) If all new teachers are likely to face induction-related issues, imagine how much more daunting the problems must be for teachers--even experienced ones--from foreign countries and cultures. These educators are encountering not just a new school but a new nation and often a new culture. It behooves districts that hire international teachers to help ease their transition into the classroom, and recent studies have suggested that teachers facing several cross-cultural issues would benefit from tailor-made mentoring. (5) In this article, we base our recommendations on a combination of the findings of these studies and the personal and professional experiences of both authors. Charles Hutchison was born and raised in Ghana and was an international himself for nine years at the middle and high school levels in the southeastern U.S. In the course of writing his 2005 book, Teaching in America, he interviewed many international teachers and their employers. Michael Jazzar grew up as first-generation American and was employed by the ARAMCO Schools in Saudi Arabia. Together, the authors have worked, consulted, and traveled in 26 countries. SELECTION ISSUES International teachers face several special challenges, including cultural and logistical issues, unfamiliar structural and organizational arrangements, differing understandings of assessment, communication gaps, and problems with teacher/student relations. Moreover, to become successful in their new teaching environments, international teachers need to become active learners themselves. The challenges posed by cross-cultural teaching are clearly evident, and the participants in Hutchison's 2005 study described them in detail. …

Monitoring 2005 corn belt yields from space

The U.S. corn belt, centered on Illinois, suffered extreme drought conditions during the 2005 growing season (Figure l).The April–September rainfall ranked 10th lowest of the past 113 years (see http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/monitoring.html#state). Throughout Illinois, counties were declared agricultural disaster areas and corn yields were predicted to be 30 percent less than the record year of 2004, which had the highest corn yields in the last 50 years [Christian Science Monitor, 2005].However, the Illinois Agricultural Statistics Service estimated the overall corn yield was 145 bushels per acre, or just seven percent below the previous five‐year average, with “many farmers…surprised by the better than expected yields after the drought conditions” (see http://www.agstats.state.il.us/releases/crop.pdf and http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports/nassr/field/pcp‐bb/2005/crop 1005.pdf).This better‐than‐expected yield has been attributed to advancements in seed genetics, equipment, and water‐management practices [Barrionuevo and Bradsher, 2005].

A Brief History of the Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll

Phi Delta Kappa and the Gallup Organization have been asking the public what it thinks of the public schools since the late 1960s. Mr. Rose describes the evolution of the PDK/Gallup poll itself and how educators and policy makers are influenced by its findings. THE 37th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/ Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools was released in August 2005 at a press conference held at the Gallup Building in Washington, D.C. Members of the national media were in attendance; the president of Phi Delta Kappa International came from Denver to preside; and the poll's director, PDK's executive director, and a consultant to the poll responded to questions for over 40 minutes. The conference was carried on C-SPAN, and numerous media outlets reported the poll results. The poll was subsequently printed in a 16-page article in the September issue of the Phi Delta Kappan. Major publications, such as the Christian Science Monitor and Education Week, analyzed the results, and some reprinted the poll in part or even in its entirety. Those who started this poll in the late 1960s would be amazed at the way it has endured and grown in both content and purpose. Its annual release is widely anticipated. It is disliked by some, respected by others. A former secretary of education, having reviewed the approval ratings given the public schools, commented, We will never bring about the needed change if people continue to believe that they have good schools. Today's PDK/Gallup poll is a cooperative effort between PDK and the Gallup Organization, a tie established after the first poll had been published in 1969 in the IDEA/ Reporter. The poll was the brainchild of James Kettering and Edward Brainard, two members of the prestigious Kettering Foundation's board. Envisioning a poll that would provide educators with insights regarding the public's views on day-to-day issues, they enlisted the expertise and support of George Gallup, Sr., who was on the way to establishing public-opinion polling as a true science. Gallup, strongly committed to the public schools, liked the idea of an education poll and used his expertise to make it a reality. He was the poll's first director. In a 2004 conversation in Colorado, Brainard recalled that, while the first poll was judged a success, there was general agreement that it needed wider distribution. Stanley Elam, who had established the Phi Delta Kappan as a leading education journal since he took over as its editor in 1956, readily signed on with the understanding that the Kappan would be the poll's publisher. Thus began the partnership between the Gallup Organization and Phi Delta Kappa that has so far endured for nearly four decades. THE EARLY DAYS In the early days, Gallup convened a national panel of experts to discuss the issues the poll should explore. He chaired the meeting, asked questions, listened intently, and took copious notes. At some point, he would thank everyone and declare the meeting over. Then he would draft the questions, prepare the questionnaire, and direct the polling process. When the surveying was complete, Gallup analyzed the results, picked out the significant findings, and wrote the report. Elam edited it, checking frequently with its author, and the poll was published in the Kappan. From 1969 until his death in 1984, this was George Gallup's poll, and he delighted in it. Alec Gallup, co-chair of the Gallup Organization, became the point person for the poll after his father's death. He monitors the questions and co-authors the report. Stan Elam remained a co-author of the report until 1995, and I joined Stan and Alec in 1991 and became co-author, with Alec, in 1995. THE PROCESS TODAY The poll cycle starts in October, when potential questions are sought from and proposed by a variety of sources. Roughly half the questions are trend questions, whose meaning is enriched by the valuable data collected when they were asked in previous years. …

Countering Islamic Radicalism in Central Asiа

Radical Islamist groups make up the bulk if not all of the terrorist organizations presently found in Central Asia. Despite the loss of their bases in Afghanistan, terror groups in the region have adapted, and are mounting increasingly potent operations. New alliances have sprouted up as well. These groups and their message have produced an increase in discord between neighbors in the region, as some states blame others for cross-border terrorist activities, as when Uzbekistan accused Kyrgyzstan of harboring terrorist training grounds for those responsible for the Andijan uprising. According to Nurliman Abdulhasan, a professor at Tashkent Islamic University, there is a growing threat from Islamist extremism throughout Central Asia. These groups are increasingly diverse and are actively engaged in efforts “to initiate strong ties with religious extremist organizations abroad and to involve the latter in the training of militant groups and providing material and technical support for their activities.” Abdulhasan notes a lack of regional cooperation in combating these groups, and specifically criticizes Kyrgyzstan for “failing to take serious measures against religious extremist organizations.” Poverty, rampant corruption of political elites, and a lack of political freedom have caused many in the Central Asian population to align themselves with terrorist groups, because they feel such groups offer them a better avenue to participate in the political process. As one young man was quoted saying in the Christian Science Monitor, “All we have got [from the post-Soviet secular order] is poverty, unemployment, strife, and immorality all around. People need to be brought up properly. If we had Islamic law here, we would have peace and order.” In terms of locating the main geographic hotspots of religious extremism, in the past Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have traditionally been identified as the most problematic and explosive locales. The high level of Islamist radicalization among their populations, along with a repressive form of governance, was considered objectively conducive to extremist activity. On the other hand, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were seen as less problematic due to their societies’ nomadic traditions, high degree of secularization, and better governance. Some experts consider Islamist radicalism in Kazakhstan

Post-Deconstructive?: Negri, Derrida, and the Present State of Theory

Post-Deconstructive? Negri, Derrida, and the Present State of Theory Jeffrey T. Nealon Penn State University Today it seems that we live in discouragingly post-theoretical, or even anti-theoretical, academic times. Venerable interdisciplinary journal Critical Inquiry, whose advertising materials used to hail it as "Theory-Driven," held a kind of high-profile wake for theory after 9/11, with many of theory's luminaries (now somewhat flickering, as they approach retirement age) pronouncing the entire operation dead in the water. Even Terry Eagleton (who, to hear The New York Times tell it, in fact invented theory sometime in the late 1970s) pronounced the enterprise over and done with in his 2004 book, After Theory. The Times story on Eagleton's book ran under the headline, "Cultural Theorists, Start Your Epitaphs." Indeed, an epicedial discourse surrounds theory in North America: from gasbag neocon wordsmythe Christopher Hitchens in the New York Times Book Review, to articles in Slate, Salon.com, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.1 Even the Christian Science Monitor ran a feature-story obit for theory (see Kirby). And, according to their website, "Christian Science . . . speaks to the dumb the words of Truth, and they answer with rejoicing"; so when Christian Scientists speak these words of Truth, you might begin to think there's something to it. However, having already lived through several deaths of theory, I'll have to say that I'm not very impressed with the pitch and tonality of this latest rendition of "Danny Boy," though I think it is undeniably true that a certain kind of theory (let's call it English Department or Comp. Lit. theory circa 1980-something) is in fact over and done with, [End Page 68] and effectively has been for at least a decade. From the vantage point of the present, it's very hard to understand why, if I recall the statistic correctly, a late-80s MLA survey found that more than 10% of English professors surveyed thought their primary job was to show students how binary oppositions in a text cancel themselves out. If that version of "theory" is over, good riddance, one might say. You'd never know theory was dead, though, if you ran a citation index on the big names associated with it. In 2003, the Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences index turns up 913 hits for Michel Foucault, 564 for Jacques Derrida, 317 for Gilles Deleuze, and 245 for Jacques Lacan. And these numbers have remained more or less consistent for the last several years: Foucault consistently leading the pack with 900-some citations, Derrida steadily in the 500-600 range, Deleuze and Lacan holding their own. And, contra the "theory is over" hypothesis, these numbers are up considerably from the supposed heydays of theory: Foucault, always leader of the citation pack, scores only 699 hits for 1986, and 700 for 1993. Of course Derrida's death, still so personally difficult for the many people whose lives he touched, has only intensified this anxiety in the theory world, broadly conceived. As The New York Times put it shortly after Derrida's passing: "with the death . . . of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, the era of big theory came quietly to a close" (Eakin 2004). In short, Derrida's death also painfully reminds us that all the "master thinkers" are gone, with the most-cited theorist (Foucault) having been dead for more than two decades. Which inevitably brings up these kinds of hand-wringing marketing questions: Who's next on the throne? Rancière? Agamben? Badiou? Can Žižek continue to write five books a year? Or is the age of big theory and big theorists indeed over? Negri and Derrida The latest "big thing" on the North American theory horizon, arguably, has been the work of Antonio Negri. Among all the provocations contained in Negri's recent work (with and without Michael Hardt), perhaps none is more memorable than a series of polemical provocations concerning postmodern thought in...

Jokes, Fiction, and Lorrie Moore

The opening sentences of Lorrie Moore's You're Ugly, Too present a superbly comic picture of the contemporary intellectual faced with the arid, earnest culture of middle America: You had to get out of them occasionally, those Illinois towns with the funny names: Paris, Oblong, Normal. Once, when the Dow Jones dipped two hundred points, the Paris paper boasted a banner headline: NORMAL MAN MARRIES OBLONG WOMAN. They knew what was important. They did! But you had to get out once in a while, even if it was just across the border to Terre Haute, for a movie. (Like Life 67) It is passages such as this, with its spunky prose and keen sense of the absurd, that have made Moore one of the most widely read writers in contemporary fiction. Yet the sort of humor exhibited here has not appealed to everyone. This is not because it betrays intellectual elitism or exhibits symptoms of what, since the story was first published in 1989, has become known as blue state snobbery. As we know from the rest of the story, Moore takes aim at folly with an eminently egalitarian eye, and urbanites escape her wit no more than yokels. Rather, the question that has dominated the critical response to Moore has been how legitimate or probing her humor ultimately is, regardless of its target. Most of the discussion of her work has come in the form of book reviews in newspapers and magazines, and the question commentators most frequently pose concerns what we might call the moral weight of Moore's humor. Are the one-liners of her stories merely, as a reviewer for the Christian Science Monitor wrote about Like Life, the collection in which You're Ugly, Too first appeared, an entertaining feature of her work, something distracting us from deeper concerns (Lives on a Short-Story Roller Coaster)? Is she only interested in furnishing us, as another reviewer wrote in a review of Like Life, with enough verbal glibness to provide material for all the stand-up comics in Los Angeles (Rubin)? Are all her stories simply about articulate career women quipping their way out of pain (Cryer)? One way to answer these critical questions would be to appeal to later Moore stories such as Like That Are the Only People Here, a powerful story from Birds of America that, though not without its comedy, is written in a more somber register than You're Ugly, Too. Yet while it may be true that such later texts elicit fewer chuckles from readers, recourse to Moore's later work is not the only way to rebut her critics. I want to offer here an extended reading of You're Ugly, Too in order to suggest that, as early as her second collection of short stories, Moore engages the moral and aesthetic questions that readers sometimes pose about her work. Anyone, that is, interrogating the moral weight of the comedy in You're Ugly, Too must confront a major complication--namely, that such questions are at the heart of the text itself. As I'll be arguing here, it is a layered, self-reflexive text that thematizes and questions its own dark comedy in a way that most reviewers, favorable and skeptical alike, have failed to notice. Moreover, the self-reflexiveness of You're Ugly, Too extends not only to a consideration of laughter and comedy but can also be seen as part of a wider act of self-reflection on fiction generally. To ask questions about the particular form of humor on display in You're Ugly, Too is also to ask questions about the nature of storytelling itself. Not only, in other words, does the text initiate critical questions about the legitimacy and depth of Moore's humor, but it also places us smack in the middle of debates about the ontological status of fiction. What does a fictional story mean? What kind of reality does a fiction represent? What sort of world does it depict, and how is it related to other worlds that are said to exist? Moore has never been explicitly preoccupied with philosophical questions; her work is not intellectualized in the manner, say, of Richard Powers or Jonathan Franzen, her close contemporaries. …

Improving Patient Flow and Overcrowding in Emergency Departments

Anne E. Stein is a Chicago-based freelance writer and editor who focuses on health, fitness, and sports. She has written for a number of national publications, including the Chicago Tribune and the Christian Science Monitor. Correspondence:[email protected]. This article was previously published in Advances, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation quarterly newsletter, Volume 1, p. 10 (2004). Reprinted with permission.

The Changing Face of Diplomatic History: A Literature Review

SHORTLY BEFORE CHRISTMAS IN 2004, departing Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed a luncheon meeting hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. Powell described to his Boston audience the readjustments that his cabinet post had imposed on him. When I came into the job, it was an entirely different world than the world I left, he revealed. It was a world the Soviet Union gone and many of these new nations that used to be behind the Iron Curtain now anxious to develop a friendship with us.' Powell went on to discuss how he was tested in the Middle East and Asia, and the universal dilemmas posed by poverty and AIDS. It was clear that simple bilateral diplomacy could no longer encompass the enormity of the world's challenges, and that foreign policy would adjust to reflect these changed circumstances. Historical scholarship has recognized the vast variety and subtlety of world affairs that preoccupied Powell. We currently enjoy something of a renaissance in the study of foreign relations. As a sub-field of history, diplomatic history will always be concerned in great measure with power relations among states, and particularly with bilateral relations, but in the last few decades it has discovered new ways to reveal and interpret these. Several factors account for the growing interest in the area, often from unlikely contributors, and for the journey of diplomatic history from the

Not just any land: a personal and literary journey into the American grasslands

Though he'd lived in Iowa all his life, the allure of the prairie had somehow eluded John Price - until, after a catastrophic flood, a brief glimpse of native wildlife suddenly brought his surroundings home to him. Not Just Any Land is a memoir of Price's rediscovery of his place in the American landscape and of his search for a new relationship to the life of the prairie - that once immense and beautiful wilderness of grass now so depleted and damaged as to test even the deepest faith. Price's journey toward a conscious commitment to place takes him to some of America's largest remaining grasslands and brings him face to face with a troubling, but also hopeful, personal and environmental legacy. It also leads him through the region's literature and into conversations with contemporary nature writers - Linda Hasselstrom, Dan O'Brien, William Least Heat-Moon, and Mary Swander - who have devoted themselves to living in, writing about, and restoring the grasslands. Among these authors Price observes how a commitment to the land can spring from diverse sources, for instance, the generational weight of a family ranch, the rites of wildlife preservation, the 'deep maps' of ancestral memory, and the imperatives of a body inflicted with environmental illness. resulting narrative is an innovative blend of memoir, nature writing, and literary criticism that bears witness to the essential bonds between spirit, art, and earth. John Price is an associate professor of English at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. His essays on nature have appeared, among other places, in Orion, The Christian Science Monitor, and Best Spiritual Writing 2000.

News Readers and other Handy Utilities

MY DAILY ritual at the office starts with reading the morning news using Internet Explorer (IE) with a customized homepage at Netscape.com. I used to use Netscape's browser, but, after installing Mac OS X, I didn't like the way it worked -- or, rather, didn't work. If you haven't gone to the trouble of customizing a homepage, I encourage you to do so. My homepage has three columns, with panes or sections for news such as CNN Main Top Stories, CNN Tech, Market News from CBS Market Watch, Top News from Netscape, Tech News from ZDNet, and, of course, current weather in three cities from the Weather Channel. See what you are missing if you don't customize your home page? I am not especially happy with IE and prefer Apple's Safari browser, but I have been putting off upgrading it since it requires me to upgrade my entire operating system to OS 10.3. As I mentioned in a previous column, Safari is three to four times faster than either IE or Netscape. I tried to download FireFox 0.9.3, the new browser from mozilla.org, but I could not get it to install. By all reports, FireFox is the browser to have. But again, I will probably need to upgrade my operating system -- I must stop procrastinating. If you are using FireFox, I would like to hear from you. I doubt that I will change my routine, but lately I have been trying out an Internet News Reader. An Internet News Reader is a small program that reads various RSS news feeds from all over the Internet. Depending on whom you ask, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary -- probably the latter. But Web browsers don't read RSS feeds; instead, Internet News Readers do. A number of these readers are available as free or inexpensive downloads. I use NetNewsWire on my Mac (http://ranchero.com/netnewswire). Those who use PCs might try such readers as FeedReader, NewzCrawler, or AmphetaDesk. (The last works for PCs, Macs, and Linux systems.) After you download and install a news reader, you simply select the feeds you want. Most readers come with a fairly comprehensive list of feeds to choose from. If yours doesn't have the RSS feed from your favorite news source, simply use your browser to go to your favorite news site and use the site's search button to find RSS. For example, if you do this at National Public Radio (www.npr.org), you will find the RSS feed address for NPR Top Stories is www.npr.org/rss/rss.php?catId=2. Highlight and copy this address; then paste it into the Add Feed or Add Channels menu of your news reader. There are advantages and disadvantages to using an Internet News Reader instead of a Web browser. The major advantage is that you can read the headlines and short summaries of news articles from dozens of sources quickly. I find it fascinating to compare what various news organizations consider to be their stories. For example, on August 10, the BBC News had substantially more international top than any other source. Having students compare various news sources from around the world would certainly be an excellent social studies or media literacy activity. Another advantage to news readers is that you get a short text-only summary of the news, with less advertising. If you want to read the entire news article, you simply click on the provided link and your Web browser takes you to the originating site, such as the site for the New York Times or the Christian Science Monitor. I should also mention that there are news feeds in several languages other than English. About the only real drawback to news readers is that the software opens your browser whenever you want to read the entire text of a news article. And if you are a news junkie, there is another disadvantage: you can while away hour after hour with a news reader. I read news stories so long that I almost didn't meet the deadline for this column! A good source of useful information on RSS news feeds is located at Harvard (http://blogs. …

State >Legitimacy and the (In)significance of Democracy in Post‐Communist Russia

A few apocalyptic predictions of a post‐communist ‘maelstrom’ notwithstanding,1 the break‐up of the USSR was initially greeted by optimistic assessments of the prospects for democracy in the ‘new R...

Gender Differences in Public Attitudes toward the Use of Force by the United States, 1990–2003

In their study of gender differences in public reactions to the 1990–91 Persian Gulf crisis and war, Virginia Sapiro and Pamela Conover analyzed a number of American survey items dealing with hypothetical security policies as well as concrete questions involving the use of military force and its consequences. The results were clear: Although a gender difference on the more abstract, hypothetical questions was weak or nonexistent, when the analysis turned to the speciac questions of using force against Iraq and the civilian and military casualties that could result, the differences became large indeed. Sapiro and Conover concluded that “when we moved from the abstract to the concrete—from hypothetical wars to the Gulf War—the distance separating women and men grew, and on every measure, women reacted more negatively. These gender differences are some of the largest and most consistent in the study of political psychology and are clearly of a magnitude that can have real political signiacance under the right circumstances.”1 Less than ten years later, as NATO warplanes continued their attacks against Serbia, the Christian Science Monitor reported that the gender difference in public opinion concerning the war over Kosovo was far smaller than it had been in previous wars: “As debate persists in America over how much to use force, Gender Differences and the Use of Force

Street children and child labour around the world

According to the Christian Science Monitor, there are 35 000 homeless children in Central America.5 Of these, about 6000 live in Guatemala. There are an estimated 400 human rights cases pending in Guatemala for abuses against street children. Although the Guatemalan government has pledged to treat street children more humanely, these children continue to suffer from extra-judicial executions, arbitrary detention, and other abuses.6

The Internet galaxy: reflections on the Internet, business, and society

From Publisher: Manuel Castells is one of world's leading thinkers on new information age, hailed by The Economist as the first significant philosopher of cyberspace, and by Christian Science Monitor as pioneer who has hacked out a logical, well-documented, and coherent picture of early 21st century civilization, even as it rockets forward largely in a blur. Now, in The Internet Galaxy, this brilliantly insightful writer speculates on how Internet will change our lives. Castells believes that we are entering, full speed, Internet Galaxy, in midst of informed bewilderment. His aim in this exciting and profound work is to help us to understand how Internet came into being, and how it is affecting every area of human life--from work, politics, planning and development, media, and privacy, to our social interaction and life in home. We are at ground zero of new network society. In this book, its major commentator reveals Internet's huge capacity to liberate, but also its ability to marginalize and exclude those who do not have access to it. Castells provides no glib solutions, but asks us all to take responsibility for future of this new information age. The Internet is becoming essential communication and information medium in our society, and stands alongside electricity and printing press as one of greatest innovations of all time. The Internet Galaxy offers an illuminating look at how this new technology will influence business, economy, and our daily lives.