Good Fight Research Articles

Fighting the good fight from Lambeth to Cambridgeshire.

Please join us for the next meeting of Lambeth Keep Our NHS Public on Thursday November 21, from 7pm at the Duke of Cambridge, 74 Lansdowne Way, London SW8 2DR. For further details, email lambethkonp@gmail.com.

Encomium: Giovanni Neri—Polyhedral and down‐to‐earth mentor

Encomium: Giovanni Neri—Polyhedral and down‐to‐earth mentor

Latin Justice

Latin Justice

Good and Bad Bacteria Fight for Iron in the Gut

A probiotic strain, E. coli Nissle 1917, uses multiple iron transporters to outcompete Salmonella in the inflamed gut.

Character Debitur Bank Syariah dalam Memenuhi Kewajiban

Observing the NPF ratio of Syariah Banking which is compare with the NPL in Conventional Banking, it is found out that NPF usually higher than the NPL. Syariah Banking is a Bank which applies the Islamic morality in approaching or interacting with it’s customer. This kind of approaching will bring in or encourage a good character of customer, but it’s questionable why the NPF still high. Weber’s theory explain that there is a relationship between religion and behavior, so this research will describe what are the causal factor of NPF, what are the character’s of the debtor in sharia banking and try to analyze how the correspondence of the Weber’s theory in this field. This research is a kind of socio religious research which use statistical descriptive analysis. The population of this research is the all of sharia bank in north sumatera, which took BPRS Puduarta Insani addresses in Kabupaten Deli Serdang as a sample. Source of data are documents, records such a list of non performing financing on the Agustus 2011. Besides collecting the information through study documents, some interviews to officers and staff are conducted. The results of this study shows that the factors influenced the NPF are bad character (37%), followed by uncomfortable condition (27%) and lack of collateral (20%). capacity only influ- enced 10%, while capital only 6%. The Decreasing of NPF in BPRS by religious approach, good fight, and high pressure, have positive effect for the NPF. By this research Weber’s theory has correspondence with the empirical fact.

Inequalities in access to care in Africa

Social inequalities in health are increasingly in the news in Africa. While appeals, international declarations and new strategies for health in Africa have succeeded one another over the years, we must admit that the health inequalities are increasing. It is perhaps time to take health out of its compartment and understand that it is one of the components of overall development and that we cannot act effectively against these health inequalities unless we also act on the pressing need to see all States (in the North and South) finally meet their financial commitments, demand of African leaders that they provide good government and fight against corruption, the leaders of African good government and a fight against corruption, and finally ensure that the strategies proposed in Africa focus on the health priorities of each country. If we mention the Scandinavian example, we must admit that the Nordic countries have demonstrated their capacity to obtain excellent results in health, to narrow social inequalities, and provide public transparency and aid to development. They constitute today an excellent example for most Western countries and for African countries -and also for African and western civil societies, which can be inspired by the concrete measures of transparency and strong public activity, which promote improvement in the overall statistics of their societies, in particular, in health. Accordingly we propose a new approach that looks at health statistics in the light of inequalities (especially via the Gini coefficient) and public transparency (especially via the benchmarks of perceived corruption). A New Deal for health in Africa is needed, and all the organization involved should be asked to act together for a holistic public health vision that will benefit the populations of Africa. Health cannot be separated from a political, ethical and equitable vision of society.

Copyright Questions and Answers for Information Professionals, by Laura N. Gasaway

Copyright dos and don’ts have never been more complicated. With the rise of digital content and technologies such as ebooks, video streaming, file sharing and click-through licensing, librarians could hardly be blamed for throwing up their hands in desperation and conceding defeat. Copyright Questions and Answers for Information Professionals could just be the reference they need to continue the good fight.

Imagine a Place Where Teaching and Learning Are Inspirational: A Decade of Collected Wisdom from the Field

Some middle grades educators find ways to engage and inspire their students in an era of high-stakes testing and rigid accountability policies.I love my job, I love to teach and learn. ... I will never give up the good fight for the rights of my students to get the best from me as a teacher. ... I sadly and strongly feel our current direction with assessment is the wrong way and that there are other acceptable ways to move forward [that] don't take away quality teaching and learning. I love the kids, but the picture on a student's face today, knowing he was the only one not to finish the test, brought tears to my eyes. (MS-U.S. middle grades teacher, excerpt of an e-mail to his school's principal)After a decade of collaboration and research on middle grades education, the wisdom of dozens of teachers, administrators, and university faculty has led us to a compelling set of observations (e.g., Dalton, Samek, Olson, Greene, Caskey, & Musser, 2004; Greene, Caskey, Musser, Samek, Casbon, & Olson, 2008; Greene, Caskey, Musser, Samek, & Olson, 2005; Musser, 1998; Samek, Kim, Casbon, Caskey, Greene, & Musser, 2010; Samek, Musser, Caskey, Olson, & Greene, 2006). Teachers and principals know what is best for their students, value collaboration, and are passionate about teaching and learning. Yet, these educators also express deep concern stemming from the tension of trying to enact their heartfelt vision of teaching within a culture of standardization and accountability.The purpose of this article is to share wisdom collected from the field and offer a view of meaningful learning, explore the tensions that exist in educators' work, and invite conversation about the future of educational practice. The anecdotes and data come from a series of research studies conducted from 2001 to 2011 by a cadre of middle grades researchers- university faculty from public and private universities across Oregon. Over the past decade, we studied the perspectives of middle grades principals, middle grades teachers, university faculty, and district personnel directors representing distinct communities (urban, suburban, rural), disparate demographics (e.g., low SES to high SES), and varying school size (i.e., small to large middle schools). We guided each study with research questions such as: How are national policies affecting how teachers view the nature of their work? How does national policy affect the way middle school teachers balance the academic-cognitive needs of young adolescents with their social-emotional needs (Dalton et al., 2004)? How have high-stakes accountability measures based on yearly academic testing influenced teachers' curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices (Greene et al., 2008)? What are the perceptions of middle grades university faculty, classroom teachers, and principals regarding well-prepared middle grades teachers (Samek et al., 2010)? We used a variety of data collection methods including surveys, interviews, and focus groups to build an understanding of school and university perspectives.What we learned is that teachers often find themselves caught between the expectations of external influences and their responses to the deep needs and yearnings of their students. In the words of one veteran middle grades teacher, tired of my inability to do what's best for my kids. When teachers like this one act on their inclinations to do what is best for students, they may feel their behavior is subversive. Another middle grades teacher explained during a focus group interview,I feel like I do it a lot more, but I feel like I kind of have to hide it a little bit. If I'm going to be talking to some kids about something real, authentic, something emotional, I kind of have to go shut the door, you know what I mean? (Samek et al., 2006, p. 28)Although principals recognize the pressures placed on teachers, they are not positioned to question mandates because one of their roles is to enforce policy. …

Fighting the Good Fight: Persisting in Dissent Requires Self-Regulatory Resources (WITHDRAWN)

This paper examines the role of self-regulation in the decision-making process that produces and sustains dissent. While dissent can benefit collective functioning, the person who enacts it is not always met with a warm reception. We therefore argue that remaining silent in the face of opposition is usually the easier choice, whereas dissent can be more difficult. As with other self-control problems, we posit that it requires self-regulatory resources to take the more difficult road – in this case, to articulate dissent in the face of disagreement. The results of the current study demonstrate that strong identifiers who contemplate the potential harms of a social norm to their group will dissent after they encounter disagreement from other group members, but only if they have not been depleted. Strong identifiers who were depleted and then encountered disagreement were less persistent in their dissent, and the data suggest that this was not to a general increase in selfish responding under depletion. We demonstrate that dissent does, in fact, require self-control, and that even the people who care most about the groups to which they belong can fall silent, because it represents the path of least resistance.

Betrayed by Nature

You can teach an old dog new tricks, as evidenced by this beguiling book. As a sometimes jaded cancer researcher who has been fighting the good fight over the past 20 years, it was a pleasure to read this fresh look at the historical perspectives and basic concepts underlying this challenging collection of diseases. The style taken by Robin Hesketh immediately warms one to the book. His approach is akin to a “Hitchhikers Guide” to the cancer field. Indeed, the book serves up some pleasurable Douglas Adams-esque moments, such as the “Beasty Biologicals” that act as causal agents in cancer.

Fighting the good fight? Legitimating violence in a world of contested and contingent moral frameworks

Starting from violence's widely acknowledged status as a wrong, this article critically explores attempts to legitimate violence through appeals to moral frameworks that determine the ends for which violence may be employed. Recognizing that such frameworks exist on all sides of violent conflict, it argues that since there will never be complete agreement on their content or application, nor complete certainty about which moral framework is the ‘correct’ one, it becomes impossible to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate violence either non-controversially or with certainity. Two problems result: our own ‘legitimate’ violence may reproduce rather than limit violence by sparking ‘legitimate’ violence in return, and our own use of violence may actually be unjust, despite our intentions. If we wish to avoid these problems yet maintain our moral commitments – however contested or contingent – we must employ nonviolent means to wage our conflicts, as such means remain legitimate despite disagreement or uncertainty regarding ends.

The Good Fight: Battle of Britain Propaganda and The Few. By Garry Campion. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Pp. xviii+358. £65.00 (cloth); £18.99 (paper).

<i>The Good Fight: Battle of Britain Propaganda and The Few</i>. By Garry Campion. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Pp. xviii+358. £65.00 (cloth); £18.99 (paper).

Referral liability and interdisciplinary craniofacial or dentofacial anomaly care

Referral liability and interdisciplinary craniofacial or dentofacial anomaly care

Sound and Fury in the Microbiology Lab

He's imaginative, rebellious, and often disdainful. Above all, France's most productive microbiologist loves a good fight.

Legacy (review)

Reviewed by: Legacy Kate Quealy-Gainer Cochran, Molly. Legacy. Wiseman/Simon, 2011. [432p]. Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-4424-1739-7 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-4424-1741-0 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 7–10. Sixteen-year-old Katy Jessevar is descended from a long line of witches, but she doesn’t know it until her father, occupied with his latest blonde conquest, sends her packing to an old boarding school in rural Whitfield, Massachusetts. In just the first few days of attending Ainsworth, Katy learns that her mother was a powerful sorceress who may have been insane or demonically possessed when she attempted to murder her best friend’s adopted baby and then set fire to herself, successfully ending her life. Yikes. That’s a lot to take in as the new girl, and her classmates’ venomous [End Page 247] looks and pointed mutterings about “the Darkness” aren’t helping, especially those originating from the stunningly handsome and accordingly brooding Peter Shaw. Katy and Peter are soon brought together in an effort to save the town from the aforementioned Darkness, and, wouldn’t you know it, romance ensues, evil is defeated, and our heroine lives on to fight the good fight. Overall, this is an agreeable, engaging journey into an intriguing setting that will most certainly appeal to readers fascinated by Salem (Whitfield is supposedly founded by Salem’s castoffs) and witch hunts in general. The holes in the plot are large enough that the characters often have to take huge leaps in logic to hurdle them, but the speedy pace and action-driven scenes will help the readers brush over them as well. Unfortunately, the inclusion of several tired stereotypes, such the disabled ingénu and the magical minority elder, are a bit more difficult to overlook. Rachel Hawkins’ Hex Hall (BCCB 5/10) outweighs this one in both storyline and wit, but the witch-obsessed will find this a suitable fix. Copyright © 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Shabbes Wife

Growing up as a totally secular Jew, I was always intrigued by the idea of the shabbes goy—a non-Jew who would perform certain tasks for Jews on the Jewish Sabbath, tasks they were forbidden to do themselves (such as turning on a light, which would count as “work” on the day of rest). It seemed pretty sneaky to me—a way to follow the letter of the holy law while violating it in spirit. By which I mean to say: I dug it. The only flaw, it seemed to me, was that you would then be dependent on the presence of a Gentile—Elvis Presley, say, or the Pope (just to pick two at random)—who was willing and able to perform these mundane tasks for you. What if Elvis had a Friday-night concert? Or if the Pope wanted to go bowling on Saturday afternoon? Then you’d be stuck.Of course, since I myself observed none of the Jewish laws (unless, perhaps, by accident), this wasn’t a real issue for me. I could turn on (or, to use the language of my immigrant grandparents, “open”) the light whenever I wanted to. So I never spent that much time grappling with the whole shabbes goy concept. But now, in middle age, I’ve begun exploring certain aspects of Jewish practice: I go to temple (sometimes), I read the Torah (in portions, and in English), I even believe in God (not really, but I just wanted to hedge my bets here). This year, for the first time, I totally fasted for Yom Kippur—going so far as to forswear my beloved coffee (resulting in the holiest headache of my life). And I think it was during this fast that I looked over at my wife, who is not Jewish, and thought: hey, maybe she could be my shabbes goy!It seemed perfect! After all, we live together, so she wouldn’t have to drive in from somewhere. And as a school-teacher, she’s usually at home all weekend, grading papers and such, so there wouldn’t be many schedule conflicts. The more I thought about it, the more this idea made sense to me. But then I was visited by a shocking insight: My wife had already been my shabbes goy for years—only not just on the Sabbath! For instance, she’d long done most of the housework and the cooking, even though her job is infinitely more exhausting than mine. In fact, in all her interactions, she is profoundly ethical—often spending lots of time and energy on little thoughtful things (like sending out thank-you notes) that would never occur to me to do (busy as I am with important tasks like opening the refrigerator, closing the refrigerator, and napping).This, in turn, was followed by a revelation: it was my Gentile wife who had inspired me to explore Judaism. Living with someone who is so profoundly loving and moral, who does work (at school and at home) that is so often selfless, I had become aware of an absence—or at least an incompleteness—at my own center: call it spiritual. And as it happens, my neighborhood shul is a place where people grapple with such issues all the time, seeking wisdom from tradition and from one another. By necessity, as we are all imperfect, we do this imperfectly. Sometimes, some of us may even cut corners. (Though, to reiterate, I totally stayed off coffee this Yom Kippur!) But we fight the good fight, and we do it together.Looking around at my fellow congregants, I am often struck by how they know the prayers so much better than I do. Certainly, most if not all of them are far more observant than I am. And even though we’re in Berkeley, I’d daresay that many of them even believe in God. But that’s OK. Because I realize now that I am in training for something I have yet to become. I know it won’t be easy. I’m sure there will be ups and downs. But one day, if I study Judaism as deeply as I can, and get off my butt more around the house, perhaps I can achieve my new goal: to become my wife’s shabbes Jew—for one day a week, at least, or maybe even seven.

Fighting the good fight

Fighting the good fight

An Interview with Thomas Kinsella

An Interview with Thomas Kinsella Adrienne Leavy At eighty-three years of age, Thomas Kinsella stands as something of an elder statesmen among Irish poets, and he is widely acknowledged as one of Ireland’s most important contemporary authors. Born in Dublin, Kinsella began his long and distinguished literary career in the 1950s, and has continued to this day to publish innovative and challenging poetry that reflects his lifelong preoccupation with both eliciting order, and imposing order, on the direct experience of life. Kinsella’s first major collection, Another September (1958), was a Poetry Book Society Choice. Subsequent collections garnered great critical acclaim in Ireland and England, and he received the Denis Devlin Memorial Award in 1967. In 1965 Kinsella abandoned a promising career in the Department of Finance and moved to the United States, where he was writer-in residence at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, for three years. Kinsella accepted an invitation from Temple University in Philadelphia in 1970 to join the faculty as professor of English, a position he held for the next twenty years. Nightwalker and Other Poems (1968), which marked Kinsella’s departure from his early formalism, first introduced his work to a large American audience. In this volume, Kinsella’s evolving poetic view of life as an ordeal and the importance of an artistic response to this ordeal, surfaced clearly. In 1972 Kin-sella published Butcher’s Dozen, a response to the Widgery Report on the killing of thirteen civil rights demonstrators in Derry on Bloody Sunday. The poem first appeared under Kinsella’s own imprint, the Peppercanister Press, which has continued to publish all his new work before he revises and reissues the material in trade editions. Butcher’s Dozen was followed by A Selected Life, Finistere, and Notes from the Land of the Dead that same year, and Vertical Man and The Good Fight in 1973. The second series of Peppercanister publications, appearing in the years 1974–1978, includes One, A Technical Supplement, and Song of the Night and Other Poems. Later Peppercanister work has included The Messenger, Songs of the Psyche, Her Vertical Smile, Out of Ireland, St. Catherine’s Clock, One Fond Embrace, Personal Places, Poems from Centre City, Madonna and Other Poems, Open Court, The Pen Shop, The Familiar, Godhead, Citizen of the World, [End Page 136] Littlebody, Marginal Economy, Man of War, and Belief and Unbelief. Two new Peppercanister publications are forthcoming. Kinsella has devoted a considerable portion of his career to translating Gaelic literature, most notably with his 1969 translation of the epic the Táin Bó Cúailnge, and the anthology An Duanaire 1600–1900: Poems of the Dispossessed (1981). Among his most influential critical interventions is his examination of the contemporary Irish writer’s relationship with the dual heritage of Gaelic and English literature, which he first considered in a 1966 address to the Modern Language Association, “The Irish Writer,” and subsequently developed in The Dual Tradition: An Essay on Poetry and Politics in Ireland (1995). Kinsella is also the editor of The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse (1986). I interviewed Kinsella on July 27, 2010, at his daughter’s home in Booter-stown, a suburb of Dublin, where he and his wife Eleanor were spending the summer. Prior to beginning our interview, Kinsella asked me about my own experience as an Irish person who had lived and worked in the United States and about my decision to leave my career as an attorney and return to university to study literature. TK: You’re reminding me of my own early indecisions. I began by wanting to be a physicist and studied science one term in University College Dublin, until I realized I couldn’t spend my life at science. Meanwhile I had succeeded at an entrance exam for the civil service, and began a ten-year period in the Department of Land, and later in the Department of Finance. I met some impressive people there, and the work was fascinating—but it was very demanding, especially in Finance. That presented a problem. My writing was increasingly demanding, and my project of translating The Tain had stopped. In 1965 I was given an offer from the...

Pearn Peter Niiler (1937–2010)

Peter Niiler, great friend, valued colleague, and AGU Fellow since 1986, will be remembered for his scientific achievements and as one of the most colorful physical oceanographers of his generation. Indeed, the Tropic Heat experiment's colors of mauve on pink, complete with Peter's matching ensemble, remain a vivid memory of that otherwise orthodox 1980s program championed by Peter to target equatorial Pacific mixing. Peter always sought understanding: to get things right for the right reason. Therefore, he held a healthy skepticism of numerical modeling and remote sensing, while utilizing both satellites and his own brand of diagnostic modeling. Peter's science motives were noble and would lead him to fight the good fight when necessary, especially when advocating his views on the Gulf Stream path, trapped inertial currents, heat and vorticity balances, and other subjects evoking his passion.

The Life of the Party

This essay explores the life of Alice Greenfield McGrath, a key player in the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee and a longtime activist whose involvement in social justice issues spanned eight decades. While best known for her role in the Sleepy Lagoon case in the 1940s, Alice fought the “good fight” for virtually her entire life, supporting the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, joining the Communist Party in the 1930s, organizing delegations to Nicaragua in the 1980s, and defending civil liberties and constitutional rights under the “war on terror.” Controversy continues to surround the racial and gender composition of the Sleepy Lagoon defense committees and the central role of McGrath, a white Jewish woman. Following Alice’s lead, I suggest that rather than seeing these organizations as a one-person effort, it is more fruitful to see them as they were: multiracial coalitions that successfully brought about limited social change. Throughout her life as an activist, Alice McGrath never stopped believing in the importance of issue-based, rather than identity-based, coalitions as instruments of social justice.