Cowboy Hat Research Articles

The Media's Frontier Construction of President George W. Bush

In January 2006, President George W. Bush accepted unscreened questions from students at Kansas State University. David Sanger's New York Times article captured unique exchange when student asked rather unusual and pointed question. The student, curious how president might have responded to currently popular cowboy movie, asked, You're rancher. A lot of us in Kansas are ranchers. was just wanting to get your opinion on 'Brokeback Mountain,' if you've seen it yet (Sanger). The president coyly responded, I haven't seen it ... I'd be glad to talk about ranching, but haven't seen adding further that I hope you go back to ranch and farms [as topic] is what was about to say (Sanger). The student's question proves significant, not because he placed president in awkward position of addressing homosexuality, but because student framed president as a identified him with other ranchers in Kansas, and connected president to movie about cowboys. The student, like other Americans and global citizens, strongly identifies President Bush with cowboys and frontier/western ideology. As Americans we easily identify our leaders through frontier and western mythology because those myths have served as fundamental archetypes in development of this nation (see Slotkin; Regeneration Through Violence; Gunfighter Nation, Smith; Lawrence; Rushing Rhetoric; Rushing Projecting). Kathryn Westcott for BB C News notes that American presidents and politicians have associated themselves with cowboys for nearly century because the cowboy represents popular point of reference in American culture ... Teddy Roosevelt was type of rancher, as was Ronald Reagan, who borrowed heavily from his former film career (Westcott).1 President Reagan, along with other movie stars like John Wayne, was even inducted into National Cowboy Hall of Fame (Faragher 2). Though not quite as influential as President Reagan, President Carter framed himself as farmer in his campaigns (Richardson 1). President Johnson also cast himself as cowboy from Texas, giving cowboy hats as gifts to various dignitaries (Tamony). These presidents easily navigated roles of cowboy and politician, implementing cowboy when needed and then gracefully returning to politician. President Bush's presidency, on other hand, appears marked by permanent role of cowboy, with occasional glimmers of politician. But how did man who was born in Connecticut, attended elite institutions of learning, such as Andover, Yale, and Harvard, and whose father was accused of being blue-blood persuade nation to associate him with foundational cowboy characters like John Wayne, Wyatt Earp, and Buffalo Bill? His east coast elite education would seem to disqualify him from ever achieving working class role of heroic cowboy. How did businessman who failed in oil industry and who managed baseball team, ironically named Texas Rangers, become associated with mythical figures? This paper resolves these questions by exposing how President Bush relies more heavily on media rather than his formal speeches to perpetuate image of western cowboy and new global frontier. Frontier Theory and Mythology In 1890 United States Census officially marked closing of frontier, declaring the unsettled area has been so broken into isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to be frontier line (Turner 1). Frederick Jackson Turner used this declaration by US Census Bureau to urge scholars to begin examining historical significance of frontier, which he describes as meeting point between savagery and (Turner 3). In liminal position between savagery and civilization Turner noted that America began to formulate its own identity by Kstead[ily] move[ing] away from influence of Europe, which first brought explorers and pioneers to America, and moving towards a steady growth of independence on American lines . …

The Satirical Art of George Grosz

The Satirical Art of George Grosz Kris Somerville (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Grosz, George (1893-1959) © Vaga, NY. Circe, 1927. Watercolor, ink, and pencil on paper. Photo Credit: The Museum of Modern Art/Art Resource, NY. [End Page 89] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. Grosz, George (1893-1959) © Vaga, NY. The Street, 1933. Canvas. Photo Credit: Eric Lessing/Art Resource, NY. Berlin artist George Grosz dressed with an air of art-school irony in a variety of costumes—a cowboy hat and spurs, a powdered face, rouged cheeks and lips and a padded, checkered jacket, or a rakish-looking Fedora and an American gangster-styled suit. But the role the young artist played most often was that of the dandified idler, with spats and walking stick, as [End Page 90] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 3. Grosz, George (1893-1959) © Vaga, NY. Before Sunrise, 1922. From the series "Ecco Homo," no. 15. Watercolor. Photo Credit: Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY. he joined fellow artists at Café des Westerns to gossip, debate, play chess and drink coffee and spiked lemonade. Grosz cared about his appearance and about clothing, but he also hoped that by flaunting his eccentricities he would attract the attention of the opinion-makers and journalists who likewise frequented his favorite haunt, renamed Café Megalomania in honor [End Page 91] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 4. Grosz, George (1893-1959) © Vaga, NY. Soiree (Evening party), 1921. From the series "Ecco Homo," no. 9. Watercolor. Photo Credit: Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY. of arty nonconformists like himself. Post–World War I Berlin was a place of ambition, energy and talent; to succeed there was the aspiration of every writer and artist. The youthful defiance of convention that prevailed in this [End Page 92] milieu prefigured the free, liberating spirit of Weimar society that would overcome the city in the 1920s. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 5. Grosz, George (1893-1959) © Vaga, NY. Daum Marries, 1920. Watercolor, pencil, pen, collage on cardboard. Photo Credit: Eric Lessing/Art Resource, NY. In many ways, George Grosz was a young artist home from war—angry, energetic and ready to blast the establishment. In 1914, knowing that his conscription was imminent, he had enlisted in the army, but he was soon discharged with—depending on the source—either "brain fever" or a sinus infection. He returned to Berlin for a short time to write of the filth and idiocy of his experience. He described it as "walking through hell," a hell he [End Page 93] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 6. Grosz, George (1893-1959) © Vaga, NY. Twilight, 1922. From the series "Ecco Homo," no. 16. Photo Credit: Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY. would have to revisit in 1917, when all men, even those deemed previously unfit, were recalled to service. This time, he simply refused to follow orders. In his autobiography, he wrote that he was accused of desertion and was saved from execution by the art collector Harry Kessler. Records do not [End Page 94] exist, however, to support this story. He was, in fact, transferred to a mental institution until he could return to Berlin to resume his work. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 7. Grosz, George (1893-1959) © Vaga, NY. Without title (nudes), 1919. Watercolor. Photo Credit: Eric Lessing/Art Resource, NY. Grosz did not like the army. He vented his spleen in unflattering sketches of seamy officers. The army didn't like him either. In 1920, at the First International Dada Fair, the portfolio of his wartime line drawings—mostly of arrogant German officers and the mutilation and destruction they inflicted—was seized, and he was prosecuted for defaming the army's [End Page 95] reputation. He was fined three hundred marks. In 1923, he provoked the government again, resulting in the confiscation of fifty-two of the hundred lithographs published as Ecce Homo for allegedly pornographic portrayals of female nudes. This time he paid five hundred marks. In all, he endured three public trials for subversion, blasphemy and indecency, though he...

Twisted Ankle While Dancing

About a year ago, after a patient had a cardiac arrest in the waiting room, we decided to bring all of the patients waiting for care into a big open area of the emergency department (ED). It reminded me of a huge open pit mine with its bustle and unstructured space. We named it Flex, put a television in the room, and assigned a paramedic to keep an eye on things. We really had no choice; the main ED was often filled with admitted patients waiting for hospital beds that seemed to be less and less available. Some of the admitted patients would stay for days in the ED. We generally had between 15 and 20 of these patients filling our beds every day. Flex was supposed to be a place where patients could get their treatment started without having to wait for an ED bed to open up. We could order a radiograph for someone with a cough, start an IV, and give a breathing treatment. Metal chairs lined the walls of the room, which was divided into halves by a piece of temporary office wall material someone had picked up for 15 dollars. We were actually supposed to do our history and physical examination in a corner of the room—with a reclining chair and a curtain up for privacy—but it didn’t always work out that way. Sometimes the room in the corner was occupied or dirty. Then we’d try to ask a few discreet questions to the patients where they sat in a chair and maybe poke our stethoscope under a shirt to listen to lungs or a heart. Residents and faculty would often complain about the Flex area (and tried to avoid it if at all possible), but I generally supported the concept and thought we could make it work. Anyway, it seemed better than leaving the patients in the waiting room for hours. One day, I was walking into Flex to examine a man’s ankle. The chart said, “twisted ankle while dancing.” I thought it would probably be a good story, even if the medical problem were straightforward. The paramedic grabbed me as I walked by. “Doc, I’ve got a low glucose of 30 on this guy over here.” He pointed to a middle-aged man wearing a straw cowboy hat with a blue feather in the band. The man was watching Jerry Springer. The print at the bottom of the screen said, “Wife slept with son’s best friend, now she’s pregnant.” “Hmm,” I thought, “Where do they find these people?” Then turning to the paramedic, I said, “He looks pretty good— are you sure about the glucose?”

Brokeback Mountain

North American western historians who are perturbed by mainstream representations of the West in film should be encouraged by Hollywood's efforts in 2005, including not only Brokeback Mountain but also Crash and Transamerica. Only Brokeback Mountain looks like a western; it features white men in cowboy hats on horses. Nothing else about the movie fits the genre. Its genre-busting depiction of same-sex intimacy no doubt strikes most viewers. But film buffs note as well the studied absence of a narrative thread often spun out in classic westerns, anti-westerns, and nihilistic later westerns—the story of tension between “civilization” and “savagery,” and of the hero who negotiates it. Western historians, for their part, should be just as heartened by the sheep cast in the movie as by the humans and their relationships. This is because western history as a field has been about as attracted to sheep as it has been...

Tuna karya, jilbab and cow-boy hat: Youth in Suharto's Indonesia as reflected in the works of Remy Sylado and Emha Ainun Nadjib*

The construction of social coherence out of cultural and ethnic diversity is one of the major challenges faced by Indonesia. It is necessary to work in harmony like musicians in a gamelan group. Two Indonesian cult figures, Remy Sylado and Emha Ainun Nadjib have tackled this dilemma when addressing their audience. During the Suharto period, these two figures, despite their different backgrounds, came to be known as iconoclasts or mbeling. Their unconventional expression enabled them to harmonise the various strands of Indonesian youth and to direct them towards projects which united them in the ideal of one and the same Indonesia. Like all gamelan players, they settled into a shared rhythm, before setting the tone for change.

Healing With Horses: Fostering Recovery From Cancer With Horses as Therapists

Nearly 10 years ago, I looked at a poster exhibit for a nonprofit organization's camping experience for cancer survivors. One of the images in particular remains with me to this day. It was of an elderly man wearing a cowboy hat and the great grin on his wrinkled face as he stood next to a beautiful sorrel horse. The woman at the poster told me the story behind the picture: The man had advanced cancer and had already entered a hospice program, even though he was still physically active. He'd told many people that his biggest regret in life was that he'd never gotten to ride a horse. The photograph was taken the day his wish to ride had finally come true, and he died only weeks later. At that moment, I started thinking about how to describe the benefit the equine experience had given that man. A growing number of experiential programs offer cancer survivors, primarily children, the opportunity to ride horses as one of many recreational activities. But, that man had experienced something that surpassed a momentary recreational thrill. That started a quest that, after 10 years, is coming to fruition.

Being-in-Christ and Putting Death in Its Place: An Anthropologist’s Account of Christian Performance in Spanish America and the American South

It took me many months to finish reading Miles Richardson’s comparison of Latin American Catholicism and Anglo-American Protestantism. The publicists at Louisiana State University (where Richardson is a chaired professor in Latin American Studies, with “no plans to retire”) call it “bracingly original” and “rooted in the author’s personal story of why he became an anthropologist.” I found the early chapters (the first third of the tome) undisciplined and self-absorbed. Topics careened from the author’s youth to the dawn of human awareness, from the brain sizes of hominids, to their feet, their hands, their tools, and their Neanderthal fellows, to Jacques Derrida, Ernest Becker, and Martin Heidegger’s concept of Dasein, and then to participant-observation in anthropology. Such a wobbly trajectory made me wonder if the man in the cowboy hat on the dust jacket (“Whiskey Bent & Hell Bound,” the sign says in his office) has both hands on the reins.At the beginning of chapter 4, he addresses his companion, the mysterious “You” with whom he converses throughout the work: “You, having traveled with me down the twists and turns of the Christian story in the New World, rightly grow impatient. I have promised, you remind me, I have promised that we will find how they find Christ” (p. 134). My patience exhausted, I had to remind myself that three very prominent scholars whose work I admire have written enthusiastic blurbs for this work. Yi-Fu Tuan states that it is “a superb example of what humanist scholarship can offer both specialists and the general reader in our time.” James L. Peacock calls it “fabulous, . . . lucid, poignant, moving, and compelling.” James W. Fernandez remarks that Richardson, “raised a Southern Baptist but now an anthropologist, has been a long-term participant observer of Spanish American Catholicism” and has undertaken “a remarkable journey of Christian comparison and religious revelation.” With these three evaluations encouraging me, I persevered. And I am glad I did.At its core, Being-in-Christ and Putting Death in Its Place compares the religious practices at the Catholic church in Nueva Esperanza de San Pablo, Costa Rica, and the First Baptist Church in Mt. Hope, Texas. The book contrasts their architectural forms (ornate temple vs. foursquare auditorium), their liturgical emphases (Eucharist vs. sermon), their sensory channels (eyes and hands and their palpable icons vs. ears and their dramatic words), their biblical interpretations (sacramentalist vs. literalist), their devotional outpourings (pilgrimages to shrines vs. revivalist homecomings), and their eschatological orientations (suffering with Christ crucified vs. triumphant with Christ ascended). For all their differences, however, both share the aspiration of “being-in-Christ” (Albert Schweitzer’s phrase), which means to live by virtue of his suffering, death, and resurrection. As one Latin American man told Richardson, “‘Christ died so that we too could learn how to suffer and how to die. To live is to die. It is part of the human tragedy. Through his actions, Christ teaches us this tragedy and how we must face death’” (p. 263).For all his discomfort with both Catholic and Protestant practice—expressed repeatedly throughout the text—the author finds the Christian project uplifting. “My contention,” he writes, “is that a Christ nailed to a cross with blood flowing down his face and a Christ strolling through the streets of gold in a heavenly city are, in fact, affirmations of our humanity” (p. 281). “When we are in-Christ,” Richardson continues, “the weak, the tortured, the despised, the crucified, and the dead, normally objects of scorn, become icons of solidarity. This symbolic reversal, so compelling in all religions, is Christianity’s strong suit” (p. 291). The author concludes that “the gift of Christ is the gift of death. . . . The vision of death brings awareness of self, and the self, once awake, knows death. . . . The power of death that is released is the power of our presence. We affirm our solidarity in the face of absence. We, together, repeat with Paul, ‘O, death where is thy sting? O, grave where is thy victory?’ ” (pp. 330-1).

A Picture Is Worth 1000 CDs: Can the Music Industry Survive as a Stand-Alone Business?

The business consequences of combining image and music are significant, not only for those who manage music companies, but also for creative artists and consumers. Today, image is the dominant partner: blockbuster entertainment properties such as Star Wars or Friends have music only at their perimeters, and catch phrases such as video killed the radio star imply that pop culture has moved into an irreversible multiple-media era in which the music industry must capitulate to the business interests of other industries.1 This article proposes a very different path: one of autonomy, not capitulation to synergy. The mainstream music industry speaks in a clear shorthand vocabulary of visual cliches. Established genres such as rap, jazz, reggae, country, Latin, and classical all have performance conventions and looks that provide the currency mass marketers use to efficiently market a new music act to the public. One glimpse of dreadlocks, or a cowboy hat, or white tie and tails speaks volumes and requires little explanation. That is not to say that there aren't hatless country acts, or classical musicians in t-shirts, but the accepted stereotypes are evocative and effective. Established artists may have an alter ego that is a symbol. The Rolling Stones' tongue logo is unmistakable; for a time Prince's pictogram replaced his name; Elvls: 30 #1 Hits is currently being advertised with huge posters that show only his famous lips, chin, and base of his nose.2 It can be argued that Elvis's music was

Memory in Canadian Courts of Law.

Abstract Thousands of people have found themselves facing criminal or civil litigation as a result of questionable memories. Sometimes these involve faulty memory of eyewitnesses to crimes. Psychological science has informed the legal system about memory and enabled productive changes in the handling of eyewitness evidence. The chances of wrongful convictions hopefully go down in the process . But sometimes the questionable memories involve allegations of massive repression of horrible brutalization. In these cases, there is enormous controversy, and downright skepticism, over whether such massive repression even occurs. Unless or until better proof becomes available for these types of claims, a reasonable argument exists for keeping these dubious claims out of the courtroom altogether. Canada has seen its share of problematic, if not downright dangerous, memories being introduced into legal cases. I had a chance to play a role in two such cases. One of them involved the mistaken identification of Thomas Sophonow, described in detail by (Yarmey, this issue). The other involved dubious allegations of repressed memories that forced teacher Michael Kliman to endure three trials before his ultimate acquittal, a case that should probably be considered when evaluating the conclusions drawn by Porter, Campbell, Birt, and Woodworth (this issue). In both of these cases, witnesses came to court to testify based on their memories, and in both cases false or highly dubious memories were accepted by Canadian jurors. For centuries now, we have had experience with people who come to court to testify, and they take the familiar solemn oath. In light of what psychological science has taught us about human memory, I recently proposed that witnesses probably ought to be taking a more realistic oath: Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, or whatever it is you think you remember? (Loftus, 2002). Thomas Sophonow was accused of murdering a young waitress who worked in a donut shop in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Several eyewitnesses testified against Sophonow but there were problems with each one. For example, the photo array shown to a number of witnesses contained a picture of Sophonow, which was significantly different than the other men in the array. For one thing, Sophonow's picture was taken outdoors while the rest of the men were photographed inside. Sophonow is shown wearing a cowboy hat, unlike most of the other possible suspects. Sophonow was also the only man who was depicted in both the photo and the physical lineup, making it possible witnesses chose him because they had seen his picture before. Moreover, Sophonow was the tallest man shown to witnesses, and the killer had been described as a tall man. Despite these and other problems with the eyewitness testimony, Sophonow was convicted of murder and spent nearly four years in prison. Eventually, he was declared factually innocent. An official inquiry was established to investigate what went wrong, to determine just compensation for Mr. Sophonow, and to make recommendations about future cases. Commissioner Peter Cory was eloquent in his description of the suffering of this one man, falsely accused: What has he suffered? ...He is psychologically scarred for life. He will always suffer from the core symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. As well, he will always suffer from paranoia, depression and the obsessive desire to clear his name. His reputation as a murderer has affected him in every aspect of his life, from work to family relations. The community in which he lived believed him to be the murderer of a young woman, and that the crime had intimations of sexual assault. The damage to his reputation could not be greater. .... His reputation as a murder will follow him wherever he goes. There will always be someone to whisper a false innuendo. . In the mind of Thomas Sophonow, he will always believe that people are talking about him and his implication in the murder. …

Teaching Non-English Speaking Students

They sit in the classroom, quiet and polite, waiting for you to speak. They look at you attentively when you do speak, but you have no idea if they understood anything you said. Then, after a slight pause, your interpreter steps in. He/she does his/her best to explain to the class what your thoughts, comments, and ideas consist of, however, you are not sure communication really occurred. This is the challenge of teaching to non-English speaking students. Typically these students are young adults learning English as a second language who have already attended some college in their home country. Here are some techniques that have helped me to successfully penetrate the cultural barrier and make the classroom experience more enjoyable and meaningful for all parties: Rely on Your Interpreter I have found it helpful to establish a relationship with the interpreter by allowing him or her to elaborate on your lecture. He/she can advise you when you give an example the students cannot relate to and suggest a better one. students can ask the interpreter for clarification if they do not feel comfortable speaking directly to the instructor. He/she can also explain cultural differences and thus avoid confusion and misunderstandings. It also works well to speak in simple words with short thought blocks rather than collegiate-level sentences. goal is to communicate, hot to confuse your students or your interpreter. One trick is to prepare your lecture notes a week ahead of schedule and share them with the interpreter. This gives him/her time to review the material and anticipate any trouble spots. Many topics and concepts in English do not have a direct translation, so the interpreter must use English which further slows the rate of understanding. Once I asked a student about how minorities were treated in his country. interpreter explained that the student had difficulty understanding the question, not because it was difficult, but because the class did not understand the concept of minorities. Language Barrier Is the Small Issue. Cultural Barrier Is the Big Issue. Although the language barrier can seem huge, the real barrier is cultural. Student names may be hard to remember and pronounce, but making the effort to do so, as well as learning a few words of their language, will help your relationship tremendously. class can be easily side-tracked due to a lack of cultural understanding. There will be times when the entire class must stop to discuss a cultural difference or misunderstanding before the actual lecture can continue. Traditions, food, clothing, religion, minority and women's roles, and laws are the most common points of confusion. Unfortunately, many individuals' concept of U.S. culture is formed from watching old television shows like Happy Days or The Dukes of Hazard. Often, this only serves to further exacerbate the cultural confusion. One student kept asking where he could purchase an American hat. Thinking he might mean a baseball cap, I suggested a sporting goods store. After further discussion, I realized he wanted a cowboy hat just like John Wayne wears. Classroom Pace and Feel One lesson I learned is to adjust my presentations to a slower classroom pace when working with non-English speaking students. When working with an interpreter, everything takes twice as long. It is important to be concise and precise, so as not to compromise content. However, it is still necessary to teach the entire subject. One solution is to arrive for class early and/or stay late after class, so students can ask questions one-on-one rather than using precious class time. Another approach is to use diagrams and pictures to demonstrate your points whenever possible. …

Two Turntables and a Social Movement: Writing Hip-Hop at Century's End

In eighties, when I was growing up in Los Angeles, Cal Worthington was most famous car salesman in all of Southern California. His television commercials for his Long Beach car lot always presented him in same way: dressed in a two-piece suit, cowboy hat on his head, and twanging—in a dusty drawl that sounded imported direct from Dallas—This is Cal Worthington and my dog Spot while he wrestled with tigers on hoods of Mustangs and promised slashed prices and bad credit sympathies. White, Southern, country, and goofy, Worthington was local TV's reigning pop icon of working-class white suburbia. After disappearing from airwaves for most of nineties, Worthington has finally returned. Now, though, his spots are run- ning on radio, on Beat, one of LA's leading hip-hop and R&B stations. In between Nelly and Snoop is Worthington 2001 style. It's same voice, same country accent, same banjo plucking away behind him, same white car dealer in same white cowboy hat on same lot off 405 freeway, but now Worthington calls Long Beach The LBC and talks about car prices that are the bomb. We all have our ways of registering just how significant hip-hop's impact on mainstream US culture has been and for me this was it: something is definitely up when even Cal Worthington of Worthington Ford has gone hip-hop. hip-hopification of Worthington is, of course, about little more than chasing market trends and profit margins (if polka was dominating Billboard charts, Worthington would be play- ing an accordion on top of a beer barrel). Nevertheless, that it is hip-hop that has been internationally recognized as a dominant commercial force, commercial idiom with which one must be- come fluent in order to sell products, is point here. It could be anything else, but it's not: at turn of twentieth century, US popular culture has become nearly synonymous with hip-hop cul- ture, or at least a commercialized and commodity-ready version

One or Two Things I Know About Us: Rethinking the Image and Role of the 'Okies'

While at work on this paper, I glanced at the headline in the morning newspaper: "SWAT Team Kills Gunman at Sacramento Tax Office," and I said to myself, "Probably an Okie." I read the article and found no reference to Okies—that would never happen in California these days—but the evidence was there: A white man named Jim Ray Holloway, age fifty-three, from Manteca, wearing a cowboy hat, carrying a rifle, a shotgun, and a hand gun, ex-cop, mad about taxes. The name, the age, the hometown in the agricultural Central Valley, the cowboy hat, the kinds of weapons, the career, the lightening rage at the state, all point to his being an Okie.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Clustering Technique for Evaluating and Validating Neural Network Performance

Data used for training and testing a neural network (NN) are often collected from limited sample projects. They may constitute clusters instead of being evenly distributed over the entire space. This paper first studies the effect of clustered data on the performance of an NN model by fitting a cowboy hat surface, followed by an introduction to the fuzzy clustering technique. An NN model is then evaluated cluster by cluster over a representative space. New predictions are validated based on their locations in the space and the model performance in corresponding regions. The analysis improves the confidence of a user on an NN model.

Popular Films and Colonial Audiences: The Movies in Northern Rhodesia

DURING THE 1940S AND 1950S, NO VISITOR to the coppermining cities of colonial Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) in central Africa could escape the visible marks of the impact of American films.1 In the vast company compounds that housed the African miners and their families on the Copperbelt, groups of African boys, dressed in home-made paper 'chaps' and cowboy hats, and carrying crudely carved wooden pistols, were a ubiquitous presence running through the streets and alleys in endless games of cowboys and Indians. Others appeared more sinister, . . . with a black mask over the eyes and a wooden dagger in the belt. As they engaged in their mock battles, they could be heard shouting, Jeke, a local corruption of Jack, the universal term among urban moviegoers in the British central African colonies for the heroes of cowboy films.2 In the same streets, young men affected styles of dress that plainly showed the influence of westerns and gangster films-ten-gallon hats, kerchiefs, and so forth.3 This phenomenon of Copperbelt Cowboys and its manifestation in urban areas across much of British-ruled Africa vividly demonstrates the rapid and pervasive penetration of mythic Hollywood screen imagery into even remote corners of the empire.4 In the early 1950s, the industrial development of the Copperbelt, and the concomitant creation of urban settlements, was scarcely two decades old; even those who regarded themselves as permanent town residents still had strong ties to

Ceremonial Rhetoric and Civic Identity: The Case of the White Hat

Canadians exploit a wide variety of symbolic resources to construct their regional and municipal identities, from the physical characteristics of their area to their community's rich historical past. People in Calgary project their civic identity through the city's distinctive community spirit, which has its roots in the myths of the western frontier. In this article, we analyze, from a cultural studies perspective, Calgary's practice of presenting visiting dignitaries with a white cowboy hat, a symbol of the city and of its unique brand of hospitality. We see the ceremony as a site of struggle, the dynamics of which have become increasingly apparent in recent years. We attempt to clarify how, via this ritual, those who arguably constitute the city's civic and business élite have drawn on the western heritage of southern Alberta – its ranching and agricultural history - to help construct a highly charged civic identity that has served during a period of rapid social change to downplay social cleavages and to promote corporate interests.

Reducing Prediction Error by Transforming Input Data for Neural Networks

The application of neural networks (NNs) in construction cover a large range of topics, including estimating construction costs and markup estimation, predicting construction productivity, predicting settlements during tunneling, and predicting the outcome of construction litigation. The primary purpose of data transformation is to modify the distribution of input variables so that they can better match outputs. The performance of a NN is often improved through data transformations. There are three existing data transformation methods: linear transformation, statistical standardization, and mathematical functions. This paper presents another data transformation method using cumulative distribution functions, simply addressed as distribution transformation. This method can transform a stream of random data distributed in any range to data points uniformly distributed on the interval [0,1]. Therefore, all neural input variables can be transformed to the same ground-uniform distributions on [0,1]. The transformation can also serve the specific need of neural computation that requires all input data to be scaled to the range [1,1] or [0,1]. The paper applies distribution transformation to two examples. Example 1 fits a cowboy hat surface because it provides a controlled environment for generating accurate input and output data patterns. The results show that distribution transformation improves the network performance by 50% over linear transformation. Example 2 is a real tunneling project, the Brasilia Tunnel, in which distribution transformation has reduced the prediction error by more than 13% compared with linear transformation.

Why I Played the Blues

Why I Played the Blues Richard Terrill We were four white guys trying to play the blues in ruralWisconsin. We were patch-jeaned and unshaven at a time when the bar crowd was spackled in polyester and slapped with cologne, overdressed for nightclubs and lounges in towns too smaU to have them. Or the people shot pool in PBRon -tap, plastic-cup saloons, shitheels Ustening to George Jones and Charlie Rich, a big ten-four,partner, before country wasn't cool. Trying to make a Uving at the blues, we spUt a hundred bucks a night four ways—a hundred minus gas money and a twelve pack of Walter's Beer for the ride home from the gig. Walter's slogan was "The Beer That Is Beer," a nifty tautology that matched our youthful cynicism. WaUie's was brewed right in our town, and it had that American-lager clarity of purpose and bargain price that made sense in the days before microbrews. Like microbrews, Walter's was better than the national brands, better even than Leinenkugel's, which, since it was brewed in the next county, we considered an import. In Bloomer, Wisconsin, we have set up in a bar dominated by foosbaU tables and pinbaU machines, our small stage in one corner. Thejukebox blasts out country and western. During our first tune, the FoosbaUers, in work boots and newish cowboy hats, pack up one by one. The young women kibitzing by the bar and pretending not to notice the action at the tables, one by one, go with them. By the end ofthe first set only the bartenders are left in the joint. "Ifyou guys quit now," the owner teUs us, "I'll pay you for halfthe night. Just forget the last three sets and we'U call it square." "Do we have a choice?" Lee the drummer asks WiU, the guitar player. Lee's voice has a throaty rasp, so that even serious things he says are funny. WiU's voice is low and even pitched, perfect for irony. "Not reaUy," WiU answers. We take the fifty bucks and begin to pack: the black speakers with the beer rings on top, the trap case and drum cases, 38 Richard Terrill39 WiUs amp, my axes, the bass player's stuff, the board, the garage-built monitors , the mikes and stands. It aU goes into the traüer rented from Brackett Avenue Sinclair and into the hatchback of Lee's eleven-year-old baby blue '68 Ford Pinto. The trader cost us twenty bucks for the weekend. The car wiU do only thirty-five in second gear uphiU on the interstate. Ted the bass player and I have to hunch over to fit in its bench back seat. Ted is not very tall. By the time the car is loaded, the same FoosbaU players in the same boots are back at the same tables. Their girlfriends continue to pretend to ignore them, seated along the bar. Apparently the word spread down the street to the other saloon in town that the band was leaving. The four ofus are standing in front of the empty stage. "So let's get the heU outta Dodge," Lee says. "Score a six pack first?" "Let's make it a twelve," WiU says, handing Lee a five-doUar biU. "Get Walter's. Go down the street to the BloomerTap, though. I don't think we want to give this guy our business. Bring back the change." And as quickly as that we were off, in our car so loaded that the exhaust pipe scraped. Loaded with equipment, but also loaded down with the burdens of being the Burner Blues Band. The first burden: it was 1979, and disco, having peaked by now on the coasts, had finaUy made it to the heartland ; we didn't play that stuff. Problem number two: not every country bar soldWalter's Beer. I had gone to coUege with the Walter girls. Barb played first chair flute in the concert band and was stern and unapproachably beautiful . Her sister Margaret had dated my friend Gary, a trombone player. Brand loyalty counted and Walter's was our brand. Our third...

Meeting God in Garland: A Model of Religious Tolerance

In the fall of 1997, a number of Taiwanese families bought houses in a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood in Garland, a blue-collar suburb of Dallas, Texas. Gradually the news leaked out that this was a religious group which designated the two-story brick house of their leader Hon-Ming Chen as “God’s Salvation Church” and variously called themselves the True Way Church, or God Saves the Earth Flying Saucer Foundation, or Chen Tao.2 That Chen Tao was not an ordinary immigrant church was obvious from the start. Many of the members of the community dressed in white, wore cowboy boots, and sported white cowboy hats. Apparently, none of the adults worked nor were any of the children enrolled in public schools. They held no formal services, but members of the community visited the leader’s house at all times of the day. The neighborhood’s curiosity was soon addressed in a backyard news conference held on 22 December 1997. Speaking through a translator, Teacher Chen declared that on 31 March 1998 God would appear as a human being in his front yard. Following that blunt announcement was a startling succession of revelations, each one more fantastic than the last. On 25 March, God would make a nationwide television appearance on Channel 18 to preview his arrival a week later. When God came he would appear in the duplicated form of Hon-Ming Chen. He would shake hands with every pilgrim present on that occasion and address them in their own language. He would show off his power by passing through walls. Garland was “God’s Land” where he would set up his office to prepare people for the Seventh Great Tribulation, a global nuclear holocaust which would begin in January 1999. Teacher Chen went on to explain that he had brought his followers to America to flee the countries of the East, which are populated by devils and devil religions. He disclosed

The Possibilities of Nature in a Postmodern Age: The Rhetorical Tactics of Environmental Justice Groups

Mourners trudge up the steps to the imposing Kentucky state capitol. The men, in particular, are dressed in the uniforms of ordinary folk—cowboy hats and overalls or baseball caps, jeans, and polyester shirts. Six pallbearers carry a wooden coffin draped with a Kentucky state flag. To the haunting strains of “Wayfaring Stranger,” they lay the coffin down in the rotunda. A woman in black delivers a eulogy, decrying that “The burial of Kentucky in waste can be witnessed continually and perpetually.”

The Possibilities of Nature in a Postmodern Age: The Rhetorical Tactics of Environmental Justice Groups

Mourners trudge up the steps to the imposing Kentucky state capitol. The men, in particular, are dressed in the uniforms of ordinary folk—cowboy hats and overalls or baseball caps, jeans, and polyester shirts. Six pallbearers carry a wooden coffin draped with a Kentucky state flag. To the haunting strains of “Wayfaring Stranger,” they lay the coffin down in the rotunda. A woman in black delivers a eulogy, decrying that “The burial of Kentucky in waste can be witnessed continually and perpetually.”