Half Feet Research Articles

Innovative Ecofriendly Coconut Husk Brushes

AIM : To reduce the time, energy and labours to cleaning the floor and bathroom by using the of innovative ecofriendly cocnut husk brushes. INTRODUCTION : The outer of almost houses are made by favors, interlocks or tiles or cement. Those are made dirty due to walking or by own vehicles or green algae of thallophytes are grown on the outside floor due to rain and also bathroom become dirty due to daily use. We can easily clean the floor and bathroom by using of the innovative ecofriendly cocnut husk brushes (Innovative Indigenous Floor And Bathroom Cleanig Brushes) in very less time which is made by coir husk. This is eco friendly brush. This brush worked on the principle of Simple Mechanism Theory. METHODS: Take two plates of 1.5x5 inches size of metal plate and these are bent as an arc. 4-5 holes are made on those plates equally for screw nuts. 3 pieces of desirable size of coir husk are cut at one end which becomes a brush. Each coir husk has a hole at another end as shown in the figure. Now, these coir husks are inserted between arc plates and fixed by the help of bolts tightly. Half feet of bent pipe is welded to this one with 60 degree angle as shown in the figure. And then two feet length wooden handle is fixated to this pipe as a handle. Now we can easily clean by rubbing it against the bathroom tiles or outside floor with the help of water. It takes only one minute to clean 1 sq mt area. Comparatively with plastic brush takes three to four minutes. So we can save plenty of time along with being eco friendly. It costs 100 rupees only.

Myths and Realities of the Salt Lake Temple Foundation

Myths and Realities of the Salt Lake Temple Foundation

Design and Development an Ergonomic Transfer Lifter Assistor From Wheelchair To Bed Transfer For Patients Under 50kg

Moving a patient from their bed to some other places for daily routine is such hard work. Caregiver usually using a wheelchair to move a patient from place to place. Nevertheless, they are facing a problem in lifting the patient from bed to wheelchair. The caregiver needs to use lots of energy to lift the patient into a wheelchair, and it may take a long time. This study focuses on design and develop a transfer lifter assistor to assist the caregiver move the patient from bed to another place. It was flexible and easy to conduct. This innovation's advantages are that the height could be adjusted, making the patient more comfortable to sit on from a bed. The size could be adjusted up to 3 and a half feet. The structure mostly from steel and can be disassembled for storage purposes. The result shows that Transfer Lifter Assistor can perform effectively to lift patients with a maximum weight of 50 kilograms. It can support one patient at a time. This innovation has been successfully produced with cost-effective and can be owned by everyone.

Half Foot Training Footwear for Safer and Faster Running from Masters Athletes to Professional Athletes

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) session in 2013 had chosen Tokyo as the host city for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games (Tokyo 2020 Games). After that, the preparation organization for Tokyo 2020 Games was established and Japan Olympic Committee (JOC), Japan Paralympic Committee (JPC) and other committees have continued various activities [1]. Thus, further development of international friendship and sports promotion has been expected. It can give various beneficial influences for wide range of sports, medical, economic and social fields [2].

Perforated obturator Littré hernia in an elderly woman

Obturator hernia is an uncommon condition. It carries the highest mortality amongst abdominal wall hernias, usually presenting in elderly, multiparous and thin ladies. Meckel diverticulum is a rare cause of intestinal obstruction and its existence in an obturator hernia is extremely rare; our literature search revealed only two reported cases. We report the case of a 70-year-old woman who presented with signs and symptoms of intestinal obstruction and peritonitis. An exploratory laparotomy led to diagnosis of a strangulated obturator hernia. The sac contents included a Meckel diverticulum with a perforation at its base and a loop of the ileum. The ischemic ileal segment including the Meckel diverticulum was resected and a loop ileostomy was created.

Joining in Fellowship with the Hobbits

October 28th, 2004, was a big day for paleoanthropology—the study of human evolution. On that day two papers were published in the scientific journal Nature announcing the discovery of what has become known as the “hobbits” of human evolution. With a tiny brain and an estimated height of about three and a half feet, the first hobbit described was an almost complete skeleton recovered from a cave on an isolated Indonesian island. The authors of the Nature papers proclaimed that these remains were so different that they represented a new species, Homo floresiensis. If that were not remarkable enough, this hobbit was buried deep within the cave and dated to 18 thousand years ago! The shock-waves of this discovery rippled rapidly through the paleoanthropological world as the hobbits took an immediate and well deserved place in the public consciousness. When I first heard this incredible news, I was standing in a hotel lobby while attending meetings of the Canadian Association for Physical Anthropology. My eyes suddenly caught a glimpse of a CNN news

The Strike

The Strike Shellie Richards (bio) She really couldn’t say what came over her that day. Maybe it was the scene from her bedroom window as she folded laundry. Across the street, a neighbor pulled purple winter pansies and one by one, replaced them with red tulips, which in a few short weeks would become a spectacular display of red beauties visible from any window in the house. Next door, another neighbor cleaned his grill for family steak night. It was “T-bone Tuesday.” Two doors down from the red tulips, Cheryl Sanderson slid like a mink into her brand new Mercedes wagon. It was beautiful—white with tan leather interior—the exact model Cheryl had wanted. The effort Cheryl’s husband Jeff had devoted to the vision in white totaled 623 miles, 7 dealerships, and 41 phone calls. He’d surprised her on Christmas Eve—and in the glove box, he’d left a letter he’d written listing the reasons he’d loved her from the moment he first put eyes on her, how her laugh always lifted his spirits no matter the circumstances and how he’d never forget that yellow sundress she’d worn on their first date. She turned her attention back to her bed and surveyed her handiwork; the bed was completely covered with towers of neatly folded shirts in various colors and sizes, which, now that she considered it, looked like a city full of miniature skyscrapers. Downtown Cincinnati, maybe. She rolled her neck from side to side and listened to the bones popping and the crackle of what most certainly had to be cartilage, something keeping the bones from floating away right out into her bloodstream down to the bottoms of her feet. A chiropractor might be a good idea. Her lower back ached from scrubbing the tub and sweeping, and leaning over the bed to fold clothes had only made the pain worse. But the thought of another appointment jolted her out of her musings. What time was it? She purposely avoided looking at the digital alarm clock on the bedside table. Something about the digital display of time reminded her of a race—a swim race or a half marathon—and so she always felt like she immediately needed to begin rushing around regardless of her destination, or of whether she even had one. She would not look at the stick-like numerals that always reminded her of the displays on the iconic ticking time bombs in the movies but rather, she’d check the kitchen clock instead. She found the undetectable, fluid movement of the minute hand reassuring, especially given the physical [End Page 114] distance between the numbers. The oversized parisienne styled clock boasted eight or nine inches between the numbers and so a minute physically stretched further. She had one and a half feet before she needed to get the kids. In the kitchen, she examined the countertops with the mental acuity that years of housecleaning experience bring. They were covered with a variety of crumbs in all sizes, shapes and textures. The evidence suggested that the kids had eaten Eggo waffles for breakfast, and that Dan had made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with corn chips for lunch. A few mushed up grapes that didn’t make the lunch cut lay lonely near the edge of the sink. She grabbed a sponge and began wiping in large circles, and while she wiped, she thought of Cheryl. Of the Mercedes wagon and how Jeff had gone to such lengths to be sure it was the exact one she wanted—the E-63 AMG wagon in white with the tan leather interior. She smeared the mushy grapes around in angry circles thinking about the beautiful letter he’d written, and she thought about Dan and the kids. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d written her anything—a birthday card, a valentine, or a smiley face on the kitchen note board—anything other than “need milk and toilet paper.” She pushed the morning’s carnage around in circles, and then suddenly she froze. She just stopped. And without sliding the crumbs into the garbage...

J. Richard Hackman (1940-2013)

When J. Richard Hackman died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 8, 2013, psychology lost a giant. Six and a half feet tall, with an outsize personality to match, Richard was the leading scholar in two distinct areas: work design and team effectiveness. In both domains, his work is foundational. Throughout his career, Richard applied rigorous methods to problems of great social importance, tirelessly championing multi-level analyses of problems that matter. His impact on our field has been immense.

By Proxy of His Black Hero: The Bonus March (1932) and Eitarō Ishigaki’s Critical Engagement in American Leftist Discourses

By Proxy of His Black Hero: The Bonus March (1932) and Eitarō Ishigaki’s Critical Engagement in American Leftist Discourses ShiPu Wang (bio) In 1932, artist Eitarō Ishigaki (石垣荣太郎, 1893–1958) created an oil painting titled The Bonus March (Figure 1). Standing at nearly five feet tall and three and a half feet wide, the picture depicts a towering Black figure cradling a Caucasian-looking figure, whose limp body drapes over the muscular arm of his rescuer, his right fist tightly clenched and raised. Centrally positioned, the figures’ shirtless, interlocking torsos form an unwavering triangle that dominates the image. Encroaching on this pair, however, are two men in uniform on the left and an artillery tank with its main gun threateningly aiming at the Black figure’s head. Undeterred, the central figure appears to stare down the tank with unflinching determination, and the plain-clothed people behind him on the right seem to echo his action as they also defiantly face the approaching threats, forming a united front. A work that attests to Ishigaki’s superb draftsmanship, The Bonus March, with its pictorial style, may not look dissimilar to other paintings produced in American art during the 1920s and 1930s. The sculptural modeling of the faces, the meticulously constructed brushstrokes that highlight the central figures’ musculature, and the compact composition, all seem to reflect a kind of aesthetics that would flourish in the New Deal era—evident in the public art projects by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), established in 1935 as part of the Roosevelt administration’s effort to combat unprecedented economic [End Page 7] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Eitarō Ishigaki, The Bonus March, 1932. Oil on canvas, 56.9 ×41.7 in. (144.5 ×106 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama, Japan. devastations throughout the country. The subject matter of social unrest also places The Bonus March within the tradition of the so-called American social realist art produced in the same decades, for the painting’s title refers to a historical event underlined by grave economic and sociopolitical struggles. [End Page 8] Ishigaki depicts a critical moment in WWI veterans’ famous march into Washington D.C. in the summer of 1932 to demand that the U.S. government distribute the promised “bonus checks” to compensate for their wartime services in a time of severe economic difficulties. The pictorial representation of the masses, particularly the working class, fighting for their rights and welfare (often against the capitalistic Establishment), was indeed one that often appeared in the artistic production of many American progressives and leftists in the 1920s and 1930s.1 However, one is also likely to recognize that Ishigaki’s Bonus March is an unusual work in at least two respects. The artist’s Japanese name may not be familiar to those who are well-versed in pre-WWII American art and thus raises immediate questions of who the artist is, what his oeuvre looks like, and why he painted a large canvas about the march. A cursory search in most English-language surveys of twentieth-century American art, or even those focusing on the art produced in the interwar years, yields little substantial information about Ishigaki. Mentioned only in passing, the artist’s name appears in art historian Andrew Hemingway’s Artists on the Left: American Artists and the Communist Movement, 1926–1956, and indicates that Ishigaki was not only an established artist but also an active member of progressive organizations in New York in the early decades of the twentieth century. Yukiko Koshiro’s “Beyond an Alliance of Color: The African American Impact on Modern Japan,” is the rare piece of scholarship that offers extended discussion of Ishigaki’s political activism, but his artwork did not receive much critical analysis.2 Furthermore, Ishigaki’s rendition of a heroic Black figure stands out from the majority of artwork produced by his contemporaries, who largely chose to depict African Americans as passive victims of racism and injustice. This different pictorial strategy by a Japanese immigrant artist, who is hardly mentioned in the American art canon, not only provokes curiosity but also suggests that an investigation into the meaning, the historical context, and the...

Giants in an All-Too-Human World

Giants in an All-Too-Human World John Ernest (bio) John Stauffer. Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. New York: Twelve, 2008. xiv + 432. Notes and index. $30.00. During the past presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton challenged Barack Obama to a “Lincoln-Douglas style” debate, and for a background visual to the commentary on this from the hosts of the show Fox & Friends, the network featured striking pictures of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, apparently unaware that Clinton was referring to those other famous debates, the ones that actually occurred between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas during their Illinois Senate race. But if the moment provided us with the lesson we already knew—that many in the nation need to learn more about U.S. history—it also spoke of the need to examine another famous relationship. The interactions between Lincoln and Frederick Douglass have, for many, particular resonance following the election of President Obama, the nation’s first black president and one who has made a point of looking back to Lincoln for inspiration and guidance. This call was first answered before the Fox network even (inadvertently) sounded it—in James Oakes’s authoritative and accessible The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics (2007). One suspects, though, that we’re only getting started and that Douglass will be called upon again and again to provide the missing historical link that connects Lincoln to Obama. Younger readers can now explore Douglass and Lincoln’s famously brief but significant acquaintance through Nikki Giovanni and Bryan Collier’s Lincoln and Douglass: An American Friendship (2008). Older readers looking for a good introduction to the two men will do very well to turn to John Stauffer’s engaging and insightful Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Stauffer is right to think of the lives of these two men as largely parallel, since they didn’t intersect directly very often, though each was deeply cognizant of the other as a major presence in the cultural and political scene. The parallels, though, as Stauffer notes, are striking: [End Page 163] They learned to read and remake themselves from the same core set of books: The Bible, Shakespeare; Lord Byron; Robert Burns; Aesop’s Fables; and The Columbian Orator, a popular anthology of speeches for boys. They avoided tobacco and alcohol at a time when people regularly chewed and drank on the job. They became dazzling orators when public speaking was one of the few forms of entertainment, equivalent to professional sports or popular music today. And they were strapping men, at least a half foot taller on average than their peers, when physical prowess could determine success or failure, even life or death. (p. xi) Exploring such parallels enables Stauffer to tell a compelling story of two men who were both improbable leaders and, in retrospect, seemingly inevitable ones. Stauffer draws from their similarities while accounting for their differences; and he traces the path by which two men so deeply but discomfortingly rooted in nineteenth-century U.S. culture, with all of its ideological tensions and philosophical contradictions, came to seem like defining national heroes in their different spheres, and why the two are being brought together now to explain a cultural and political history whose recent turns might otherwise seem nearly inexplicable. Stauffer stages this tale carefully in five chapters framed by a prologue and an epilogue. The prologue focuses on the first meeting between these two men, on August 10, 1863, “the first time that an African American and a U.S. president had met as near ‘equals’ in the sense that they were cultural ambassadors of their respective races” (p. 24). Douglass had come to Washington, with no appointment, to meet with the president so as to “confront Lincoln and air his complaints about the administration’s treatment of black soldiers” (p. 3). Although many were waiting that day, Douglass was invited into Lincoln’s office almost immediately after sending his card. It was a successful meeting. “In the space of a morning,” Stauffer notes, “Douglass had received signatures from the president, two cabinet members, and a...

Excerpt from The Užupis Republic

Excerpt from The Užupis Republic Haïlji (bio) Translated by Bruce Fulton (bio) and Ju-Chan Fulton (bio) Yonas the Taxi Driver When the Asian man appeared at immigration control, the official, a young woman in an olive-colored uniform, was startled. It seemed that Asians were not a common sight in this country. With an amiable smile the Asian man presented his passport. As the young woman flipped through it, a concerned expression came to her face. She spoke briefly into a telephone, a note of urgency in her voice. Then she turned back to the man. "Mr. Hal, someone will be with you shortly." And soon two other officials arrived, border control agents. Like the young woman they wore olive-colored uniforms; they were also armed. One of the men was gigantic, six and a half feet tall. The first thing they did was size up this Asian man named Hal. What they saw was a clean-shaven, neatly dressed gentleman in his mid-forties at the most. His expression was calm and thoughtful, his demeanor refined. "Your boarding pass, please," said the big agent. Hal's only response was an uncomprehending look. Granted, it wasn't easy to understand the big man's accented English, but who expects to be asked for a boarding pass at the immigration booth? Besides, the other arriving passengers were going through [End Page 35] immigration without a hitch-why the absurd request only for his boarding pass? "Boarding pass," said the other agent, also in English, extending his hand. "Boarding pass." Finally Hal responded, his voice polite but firm. He had presented his boarding pass to the airline agent upon boarding in Amsterdam. Why were they demanding it now? He didn't understand. The two agents seemed taken aback. Was their command of English so weak that they could not understood Hal? At this point the young woman stepped in: "You are 'no visa,'" she explained to Hal. "Which means your stay in this country is limited to fifteen days. But before we can admit you, we need proof that you will leave the country within that time. That's why we're asking for your return ticket to Amsterdam." Hal shrugged. "But I'm not returning to Amsterdam, I'm going somewhere else, and so I didn't purchase a round-trip ticket. You're not saying you're denying me entry because I don't have a round-trip ticket, are you?" The young woman interpreted for the two agents, who then conferred with each other, their expressions serious, before giving the woman instructions. The woman turned back to Hal: "When do you plan to leave the country?" "As soon as I can. By the end of the day if possible." The woman looked dubious but interpreted for the agents. The two men instructed the woman further. "And where is your final destination?" "The Užupis Republic." When this response was relayed to them, the two agents once again conferred, this time at some length, and then appeared to reach a decision. After one last directive to the woman they left. The young woman produced a form and asked Hal to sign it, and when this was done she stamped his passport. "We are [End Page 36] admitting you for forty-eight hours. If you are unable to exit the country in that time, it's your responsibility to report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs authorities who deal with foreign nationals; the address is here," said the woman as she returned Hal's passport along with the form. After thanking her, Hal was proceeding toward the arrival area when she asked him one last question. "The Užupis Republic?" "That's right." "Where is that, anyway?" Hal looked dubiously at the woman without answering. After changing money Hal left the terminal with his overcoat draped over his arm. It was snowing and there was a sodden chill to the air. Hal quickly donned the coat. It was stylish and of high quality but looked too lightweight for the severe winters of this country. Evidently Hal didn't realize what winter was like here. The plaza outside the...

Portland's tri-met light rail system celebrates ten years [Transportation systems

The Norwegian National Railways (NSB) awarded an order for a total of 50 Flinker Leichter Innovativer Regional Triebzug (FLIRT) trains (Figure 1) plus an option for 100 further trains to Stadler Rail in August. This fleet renewal represents the largest order ever placed by the NSB. The order consists of 26 five-car train sets for the S-Rail operation in the Oslo area. An additional 24 train sets will be supplied by Stadler for medium- length routes throughout the whole of Southern Norway up to the area around Bergen. The first train set of 32 FLIRT trains to be used on the 5-ft gauge Helsinki S-Bahn was rolled out of the Stadler plant in Switzerland in October. All windows are triple-glazed and double-thick to cope with the severe winter temperatures that can go down as low as -40 degF. Heaters and warm air blowers are installed at the entrances to keep the cold outside air from entering the cars. The trains being built for Finland are configured in four-car sets with 260 seats. With a loading gauge of ten and a half feet, the three and two seating is expected to be a little more comfortable than the three and two seating common on commuter lines in the Unites States where the loading gauge is ten feet. The trains are designed to operate at speeds up to 100 mi/h. The signaling installed on the trains will be the Bombardier EBICAB standard in Finland, but the design is such that conversion to the new European standard of the European Control and Command System (ETCS) can be easily accomplished in the future.

MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING FINDINGS OF DESMOPATHY OF THE COLLATERAL LIGAMENTS OF THE EQUINE DISTAL INTERPHALANGEAL JOINT

We report the use of a low-field magnetic resonance (MR) imaging system for the detection of desmopathy of the collateral ligament of the distal interphalangeal joint and the long-term outcome. Twenty horses were studied and their medical records and MR images were reviewed retrospectively. Long-term follow-up information was obtained by telephonic questionnaires of owners, trainers, or referring veterinarians. Desmopathy of the medial collateral ligament (80%) and enthesopathy of the affected collateral ligament (80%) were common MR imaging features. Treatment consisted of stall rest followed by a rehabilitation period. Additional treatments included shoeing, extracorporeal shock wave therapy, application of a half limb or foot cast, and medication of the distal interphalangeal joint. Twelve (60%) horses returned to their previous level of exercise and maintained their previous level, whereas eight horses had a poor outcome. Low-field MR imaging in the standing patient can be used to detect collateral ligament desmopathy of the distal interphalangeal joint without a need for general anesthesia.

Old Rugged Cross, and: Saxophone on Yvonne Dupree's Backyard Fence

225 I have to be honest with you, when I first came back and saw the devastation to my church, all that mud, all that foulness, I fell to my knees and wept. I am one of the chosen , my grief piled up like the gut from the houses. I’ve been a minister for forty years, but I lost my faith. I got angry, told God you want it fixed, you fix it. How am I supposed to live? Am I not one of His apostles? My home in ruin and my sanctuary destroyed. Eighty years old and I am offered a job with the city, riding a truck and picking up trash. What had I done to be beaten so? My God had brought me through a lot of hard times, had enabled me to prosper, just to snatch it all away? I was on a crew of Haitians removing flood debris, and they never allowed me to get out of that truck to pick up anything. All day I rode the truck through the wards, seeing the swamp of furniture, swollen Bibles, rusted pistols, color TVs, the big picture; the righteous and the sinners, all get hit with the same blessed hand. Old Rugged Cross Two poems by gary copeland lilley 226 Didn’t I drink a hurricane in a French Quarter bar that didn’t have more than a half foot of water out front? And didn’t I wade through the tourists buying novelty charms in the voodoo shops as I searched for High John the Conqueror Root? Didn’t I watch the Indians march through the dancing exile crowd and the motorcycles parked all down Jackson Street? I cleaned up a vacant lot and gave the police the rusted gun frames and the mudcovered ammo box that was under the only remaining doorstep. Didn’t I see Survivor’s Village outside the projects where they won’t let the folk return? Every soul in a tent waiting word from a personal Moses, black mold spreads like a rash as they pray for their living rooms while politicians pray for condos and casinos and sip the FEMA water. I saw the Mississippi River, and I pulled an old gray house toward the curb after placing the crystal, the wedding silver, the china dinner plates, and a coffee can full of money and insurance documents on a white tablecloth beneath the tarnished saxophone caught in Miss Yvonne’s backyard fence. Saxophone on Yvonne Dupree’s Backyard Fence ...

The 2006 New Orleans Mayoral Election: The Political Ramifications of a Large-Scale Natural Disaster

On Monday, August 29, 2005, the Gulf Coast of the United States was hit by the sixth most destructive Atlantic hurricane on record, Hurricane Katrina. Katrina formed in the Bahamas on August 23 and entered the Gulf of Mexico two days later, on the twenty-fifth (Knabb 2005). Twelve hours after entering the gulf, Katrina grew from a Category 3 to a Category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with winds up to 160 miles per hour. Katrina made landfall on the twenty-ninth as a powerful Category 3 storm with winds up to 145 miles per hour. However, once Katrina made landfall she maintained a storm surge equivalent to a Category 5 storm. For the city of New Orleans, the greatest threat without question was to be from the storm surge. Lake Pontchartrain—which normally sits at one foot above sea level—was elevated to eight and a half feet above sea level. On Tuesday, August 30, the city's levees broke in three places—along the Industrial Canal, the 17th Street Canal, and the London Street Canal (Mihelich 2005). As a result, 80% of the city was flooded, in some places with water as high as 20 feet above sea level (Knabb 2005).

Experimental scale model study of cracking in brick masonry under tensile and shear stress

This article discusses the results of research conducted on the failure behaviour of brick masonry under tensile and shear stress. The study was designed to develop test models and generate experimental results able to provide greater insight into tensile and shear stresses cracking in brick masonry. The results of a campaign conducted with two types of specimens are discussed: 1) double-edge notched specimens under non-symmetrical compression stress, and 2) three point bending specimens under nonsymmetrical loading. Tests were run on specimens of similar size (similarity rate 2) and different bed joint orientation to determine how bed joint orientation affects crack propagation. The tests were conducted on scale models (1/4) of a single wythe, stretcher bond brickwork masonry wall one half foot thick.

E Pluribus Oneidum

E Pluribus Oneidum Timothy J. Shannon (bio) Joseph T. Glatthaar and James Kirby Martin. Forgotten Allies: The Oneida Indians and the American Revolution. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006. 434 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. $30.00 (cloth); $16.00 (paper). During a recent trip to the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., I examined up close the sculpture Allies in War, Partners in Peace, a photograph of which serves as the frontispiece to this new history of the Oneidas' role in the American Revolution. The statue is an imposing work, nineteen and a half feet tall, featuring three human figures standing beneath a tree. At the center is the Oneida woman known as Polly Cooper, who according to oral tradition, accompanied forty-seven Oneida warriors who visited Valley Forge in the spring of 1778. The men had come to serve as auxiliaries to the patriot army, but Cooper had a more peaceful mission. She brought corn to the hungry Continentals and showed them how to prepare the Iroquoian dietary staple corn soup. The other two figures stand behind Cooper. On her right, George Washington holds a wampum belt. On her left, the Oneida chief and patriot ally Skenandoah holds a peace pipe. Each human figure is complemented by an animal associated with Iroquoian clan totems. Cooper stands above a turtle. A bear sticks its head out between Washington and Cooper, and a wolf does the same between Cooper and Skenandoah. Cooper, her hair dressed in long twin braids and topped with an odd-looking headband, seems to have walked off a box of Land O Lakes® butter. One of her hands is open and extended downward in a gesture of invitation; the other clutches a hefty, overflowing basket of corn. The Indian-maiden-as-earth-mother motif is accentuated by her starry-eyed gaze, her animal attendants, and the tree that towers above her. Washington and Skenandoah strike more masculine but also contrasting poses. Skenandoah stands tall but relaxed, his eyes fixed with gentle confidence directly ahead, the hint of a smile crossing his face. Washington is stiff as a board and frowning. His empty eyes stare off in the same direction as Polly Cooper's, but he does not seem nearly as pleased with what he sees. While no doubt intended to inspire and enlighten, this sculpture left me feeling a bit queasy. The braids, corn, and animals all smacked of contemporary [End Page 344] Native American kitsch, and the message seemed to be yet another iteration of the Squanto and Pocahontas stories: selfless Native Americans rescue imperiled colonizers, so that said colonizers can survive to cheat and murder them at a later date. That is certainly one way to tell the story of the Oneida nation during the American Revolution. They fought on the side of the patriots (unlike most of their Iroquois brethren), and were repaid with dispossession and dispersal in the years that followed. The Polly Cooper story, however, renders the Oneidas' complex motives for allying with the patriots into a tart morality play. As in so many similar tales from American history, it pits generous and innocent Indians against villainous Europeans. No wonder George Washington has such a grim look on his face. He has seen this movie before and he knows how its ends. Even worse, this time he is playing the heavy. Allies in War, Partners in Peace provides a fitting visual cue for the theme that drives this book. Joseph T. Glatthaar and James Kirby Martin, two distinguished military historians, have decided that "rather than trying to embellish the harsh realities" of the Oneidas' Revolutionary experience "with some sort of artificial theoretical analysis," they would instead commit themselves "to preparing a swift-moving narrative" (p. 405). Their title, Forgotten Allies, provides all the theory they need. There are two ways to justify the claim that the Oneidas' alliance with the patriots was forgotten. First, the authors could prove that in the aftermath of the Revolution, the victorious Americans conveniently "forgot" that the Oneidas had allied with them, so that they could dispossess them with a clear conscience. Second, the authors could blame the historical profession for...

The “Heavenly Stone” (Kök Tash) of Samarqand: A Rebels' Narrative Transformed

Travellers to the fabled city of Samarqand will not miss the opportunity to visit the tomb of Tīmūr (Tamerlane), the famous conqueror of much of Central Eurasia in the fourteenth century. In the courtyard of the Gur-i Amir, Tīmūr's mausoleum, stands a stone of greyish marble, approximately ten feet long, four feet wide and two and a half feet high, decorated with arabesques. A relic of a glorious past, this stone, known as the Kök Tash, is reputed to have served as the great coronation stone for Central Asian rulers ever since it was used as Tīmūr's throne.

Leah Chase

Leah Chase Charles Henry Rowell and Leah Chase (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Leah ChasePhoto by Wendell Gorden, © 2006 [End Page 1227] ROWELL: I think of your restaurant, Dooky Chase, as a New Orleans institution. I have known it since the 1960s—the period I lived and worked in Baton Rouge. It is closed now. Why did you close it? CHASE: We had a lot of water from the flooding. We had five and half feet in some places and two and a half in others in this neighborhood. Water was all over the floors. We had to rip out everything. The water didn't just come in and move back out, as it did with Hurricane Betsy. This time the water came in and stayed for over a week. The water stayed so long that there was water all over the place. We had to rip out all of the walls, and we had to take out every nail to get all of the mold out. There could be different kinds of mold. We learned that that isn't good; it's dangerous. You have to do what is called "remediation" in order to get the mold out of your house or building. It takes a long time to get it out. We had to tear the walls out to get the mold remediated. The electrician is there now. He had to take out all of the electrical wiring. He had to do a lot of work. People have been very kind to me—people all over the city and all over the country. I have been all over this country, and people want to come back. I want to come back. I can do any kind of work; I can do anything. I'll take in washing and ironing, if necessary. There is nothing wrong with that kind of work. You can make a fortune on it. You could make a fortune ironing clothes, but it's not about me; it's about the neighborhood. The restaurant was like an anchor in this neighborhood. You could look across the street at the public housing units over there, and you didn't see a bit of graffiti on those walls, because they always said, "We can't have people coming into the neighborhood to Dooky Chase's see writing all over the walls." The only thing you'll see on the wall now—and it baffles me to see it—is, "Dog food dropped here." I looked at it, and I said, "Well, they got reading dogs these days." That's my USA government. ROWELL: You told me earlier that you evacuated to Birmingham, Alabama. CHASE: Yes, I went to Birmingham, and Dooky, my husband, went with his daughters to Houston, because we all thought we were returning soon. We thought it would be just as [End Page 1228] we had done before: we'd go away for a short period and then come back. But it wasn't that way this time. After I looked back at all of what happened, you know what I then thought? "Our city was in serious trouble before Katrina. We were in serious trouble." That's what I think about even now. ROWELL: Are you talking about before Nagin became Mayor? CHASE: Yes, before. I'm talking about way back. We had too many people who couldn't fend for themselves. Somebody, even me, should have tried to uplift those people. We should not just throw them a little welfare check and little food stamps; we should have tried to give them some kind of direction. Say, "You listen. We have to do this. You can help me." I think if you go to a person and say to him, "I need your help," he will begin to feel good about himself; he will begin to feel needed. Maybe you didn't do that, and maybe I didn't do that. None of us did that. We just said, "Hey! That's it. Let them go." We cannot to continue to do that. You cannot run a city like that, you cannot run a business like that...

Carlos Mijares:<br>I. Sketches: about language, the speech agreement (Mijares)<br>II. Carlos Mijares and brickwork architecture (Adell)<br>III. A few ideas… and a belief or two (Mijares)

Spatially speaking, Carlos Mijares’ oeuvre is based on the simple construction of, semi-circular concentric archivolts, each cantilevering one half foot beyond the one below, generating huge corbels that rest on the two intersecting sides of squares. In his architecture, the author skilfully combines ceramic materials and reinforced concrete. This type of construction requires no centring, since each successive archivolt rests on the one below; their different radii in space might be described by an imaginary cord attached to the base. The overall effect is enhanced by a play on the geometry of cube-shaped bodies whose square plan view becomes octagonal via a 45o turn on their axes.