Daily Hardships Research Articles

War on the Home Front: The Farm Diaries of Daniel MacMillan, 1914–1927 (review)

Reviewed by: War on the Home Front: The Farm Diaries of Daniel MacMillan, 1914–1927 David Mackenzie Bill Parenteau and Stephen Dutcher, editors. War on the Home Front: The Farm Diaries of Daniel MacMillan, 1914–1927. Goose Lane. 112. $16.95 This book offers a view of the First World War from a rural New Brunswick perspective, as revealed in the diaries of Daniel MacMillan. MacMillan appears as an average farmer who worked hard and fulfilled his social responsibilities, and he is representative of the sturdy, God-fearing folk of rural Maritime Canada. Through a series of brief diary entries the reader is exposed to the daily hardships, sacrifices, occasional joys, and constant tragedies that framed Maritime life in the war years. MacMillan had no special attributes, was blessed with no apparent genius, and had neither powerful friends nor a unique vantage point from which to view the unfolding of important regional or national events. The diary, then, serves as a 'portal into the mind of one man as he experienced a tragic four-year event that changed the lives of all Canadians. The fear, anxiety and uncertainty as well as the sense of duty and fortitude that characterized the war experience on an [End Page 347] individual level come through more clearly in the diaries than they ever could in second-hand accounts.' MacMillan was in his early fifties during the war and did not serve in uniform, but wrote, 'I really think I can do my bit better here on the farm than any other place.' The arc of his war experience, however, would have been familiar to thousands of other Canadians, and his perspective on the world beyond his local community is expressed not in regional or Maritime terms but through national – Canadian – ones. In the early years he did his patriotic duty by attending speeches and rallies, following foreign events in the newspapers, and contributing seventeen bushels of potatoes to the Belgian relief effort. But by 1917 the war had dragged on much longer than he anticipated and the number of local men killed and wounded rose dramatically, and his early interest, if not enthusiasm, turned to war-weariness. The end of the war brought more tragedy, thanks to the flu epidemic that seemed to devastate his community, and his early postwar thoughts turned not to the joys of victory but to the rising radicalism and the spectre of bolshevism that seemed intent on sweeping the country. The entries are short and MacMillan appears to have been a man of few words. Conscription, for example, is dealt with succinctly: the French-speaking population was against it, but 'it is what should have been done from the start of the war.' This is not to suggest that he wrote without intelligence or wit. 'This time last fall,' he wrote in the dark days of 1917, 'we were saying the Allies will have them on the run before another year. They are certainly on the run, but not in the direction we wish.' The diaries continue into the postwar era and reveal how MacMillan, his family, and community fared in the recession of the 1920s. It was tough times and MacMillan sold his farm and found himself approaching old age with little security and fewer prospects. The wounds and scars of the war lingered as well, and continued to affect his family's ability to succeed. The diary ends in 1927, and by then MacMillan had no farm, his friends and family were slipping away, and there is pervading sense of gloom about his future. Still, he lived until 1960, dying at the age of ninety-seven. In 1923 MacMillan turned sixty and began to reflect on his life. In one of the longest and most moving passages in the diary he wrote, '[Y]et there is a vast contrast between the daydreams of forty years ago and the reality of today. Then, when walking behind my plow or walking to and from work, what pictures I used to fancy of orchards I would plant, of the barns and stables I would build, of cows, horses, sheep, pigs and poultry I would have some day; of the new...

The Comic Book Project: The Lives of Urban Youth

Between October and December of 2002, 733 fourththrough eighth-graders in New York City sketched, plotted, wrote, and designed original comic books. The project involved 48 teachers at 33 sites. The goal of the project was to forge an alternative pathway to literacy via the visual arts. While the results demonstrated that the pathway had been realized, something equally important came to light. The children used the comic book format to depict their lives as American urban youths-what they experience, how they respond to extraordinary circumstances, and how they struggle with daily hardships.

'Verlorenes' gefunden: Zwei Varianten des mittelalterlichen Liedtextes 'Och starcker got'

It was a mere coincidence that I happened upon a CD which among others contained a late medieval song with neumes (14th c.): 'O starcker got' (= W), written in a dialect of the Upper Rhine region and attributed to Peter of Arberg, whose authorship is still uncertain. Fortunately the signature Cod. 1995 (L germ 78) of the University Library of Strasbourg (BNUS), where it is kept, was mentioned in the booklet accompanying this CD. The same text, now as a prayer (= Ja), is part of a 14th/15th century book of hours written in Ripuarian, a medieval dialect from the Cologne area. Parts of this primer were published by the author in his dissertation (Amsterdam 1996). Text Ja consists of five stanzas, whereas W has only three. But luckily three stanzas of Ja' s text (I, IV and V) are similar, only a few lines or parts differ from those in W (a stanza here is called: gesecz). The corresponding parts have been compared with one another as to their language, structure, metre and contents. This type of prayer is generally called 'morning prayer' or 'passion song', as indicated in the first verse of this song and because the various parts are linked to Christ's Passion. In the different stanzas of both texts a presumptive female narrator refers to Christ's physical sufferings, these being a constant reminder that her suffering, however great, cannot be compared -with his and that she is thus safe from the devil's temptations -des duuels velsch beger (Vb). On the one hand she is the supplicant asking Mary for help, Mary as the mother who grieves for Christ; on the other hand she addresses Mary as the mediatrix, as the only person who is able to understand. By meditating on Christ's wounds and the torture he had to suffer through the arma Christi - flagellation rod, the three nails, the spear, the crown of thorns - and finally the cross itself, the woman is able to cope with her own daily hardships. With every pain she suffers, she hopes to become more and more acceptable to God, that her last hours will no longer be frightening and that she, in the end, will gain eternal life. The two additional stanzas in text Ja (IIa+b and IIIa+b), which W does not have, bring an even more detailed description of Christ's sufferings and bloodshed. This leads us to the environment where prayers and songs of this kind originated, to the time when pictures like these were customary. It was common practice to meditate on these in certain circles of the Devotio Moderna. This pre-Reformation renewal, which started in the eastern provinces of the Low Countries, is seen as the background against which personal meditation on Christ's Passion took place.

Global Childhood and the Politics of Contempt

When in 1978 I first came to the coastal village of Poomkara in Kerala, India, to carry out an anthropological inquiry into the work of children as part of a research project on poverty and survival strategies of poor households,1 I witnessed, not surprisingly, a fair degree of indigence and heavy involvement of children in their families' daily hardships. About half of the village children did not get three meals a day, were scantily dressed, and suffered from a range of poverty-related ailments. Most of the three hundred or so households lived in thatched huts, without piped water or bathrooms; only a handful had electricity or radios, and telephones and TV sets were unknown. Lifestyles were very much imbued by an orthodox interpretation of Islam that justified resistance against both Marxist-inspired mili tan tism and Western ideas and values. Revisiting the village several times, I was able to observe gradual changes in the lives of children under the impact of a massive migration of young men to the Gulf countries that had begun in the early 1980s. About 150 of these young men have regularly been transmitting money to their relatives, introducing them not only to an array of consumer items but also to the symbols and rituals of the type of modernity that has developed in the Gulf. Some have built multistory houses, fitted them with piped water, telephones, TVs and VCRs, and bathrooms and modern kitchens; they have bought lorries, cars, and motorcycles, and opened shops that sell a choice of processed food and consumer goods unknown in the locality until then. The migrants have also introduced the local Muslim population to a modernized version of Islam that seems better equipped to reconcile orthodoxy with the search for individual advancement and economic gain.

Reception analysis: a qualitative investigation of the parasocial and social dimensions of soap opera viewing

SUMMARY This article investigates the possibility of viewers making imaginary friends with soap characters and the pleasure they (viewers) derive from this friendship. A basic assumption of this study is that by investigating the parasocial and social dimensions of soap opera viewing, an explanation may be found of why and how viewers make imaginary friends. This qualitative audience analysis is situated within the broad theoretical and methodological framework of reception analysis where the emphasis is on the negotiation between texts and readers situated within specific socio-cultural and historical contexts. To determine the social and parasocial dimensions of soap opera viewing, the focus group method was used to gather data for this investigation. The results of the focus group interviews indicate that viewers develop a parasocial relationship with soap characters whom they regard as their friends, friends they can talk to and share in their daily joy and hardships. It is this daily encounter with soap characters that feeds the imaginary relationship between viewers and characters. Parasocial interaction spills over to social interaction when viewers discuss soaps with family members and colleagues. Discussions between colleagues also lead to the development of a soap opera culture in the workplace. An important finding of this study is the role of play in the appropriation of messages. From the results it can be deduced that although viewers get emotionally involved with characters and their problems, it is a playful, light-hearted interaction where viewers can distance themselves from the events and characters on the screen, because they commute between involvement and distancing while watching television soaps.

Encounters with the Israeli Health Service: Impressions from a support group for people with HIV

The article which follows documents one of the first short-term support groups for HIV-infected people (PWH) in Israel. The group enabled its members to cope in a positive way with issues of life and death and with the daily hardships that accompany their condition, and became an essential supporting factor in their lives. Four main areas of difficulty emerged in the group pertaining to PWH encounters with the health service, of which all may have detrimental effects on compliance with treatment: (a) sensitivity to the patient; (b) ensuring the patient's privacy; (c) consistency in procedures and in providing information; (d) communication between doctor and patient. The importance of recognizing these difficulties and the need for improvement are underscored.

Yugoslav seismological research threatened

We in the Western scientific community have had the luxury, throughout most of our careers, of working in an environment insulated from the terrors of war and political violence. Well distanced from these horrors, we are often numbed by headlines reporting political turmoil elsewhere in the world—whether in Afghanistan, South Africa, or Yugoslavia. There are times, however, when personal contact with a colleague caught within one of these political wildfires reminds us of the very human tragedy that underlies these headlines.In studying a number of large earthquakes that took place in Central Asia in the 1930s and 1940s, we have been collecting seismograms from the well established European seismic observatories that recorded the events. Among them was the Zagreb Observatory, operated by the Mohorovicic Geophysical Institute of the University of Zagreb. The city of Zagreb—along with its scientific and cultural institutions—is now under siege, a result of the violent military conflict between the Yugoslav federal government and the Republic of Croatia. The following letter, which accompanied the Zagreb seismograms, provides a vivid picture of the daily hardships that our colleagues in Yugoslavia must be facing and a call to members of the international scientific community to help put an end to the rapidly escalating violence in Yugoslavia.

Women Workers And The Struggle For Cultural Transformations

(1988). Women Workers And The Struggle For Cultural Transformations. Agenda: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 49-61.

PRESENT STATUS OF THE UROLOGY OF WAR

It is the fortune of war that great renown is the lot of those who happen to be among the first of the wounded or the killed. But after these first few the names are lost in numbers. To this rule the members of the Medical Corps and notably of the Medical Reserve Corps of the United States Army have been a glorious exception. They were literally the first at the front, they were the first to shed their blood for their country. Hundreds of them were sent silently to the support of the British as early as May and June of last year, and from that time to this they have paid their toll of dead and wounded—they have been gassed, they have suffered the interminable daily hardships of mud and privation, of gas and shell fire. Their valiant action, their fidelity to duty are unrecorded. We may well