Love Of Things Research Articles

Augustine Today (review)

Reviewed by: Augustine Today Raymond Canning Richard John Neuhaus, editor. Augustine Today. Encounter Series, 16. Grand Rapids, Mi.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1993. Pp. ix + 158. $13.00. This sixteenth and final volume in the Encounter Series has its origins in a conference held at the Union Club in New York on 27–28 October 1988 to mark, one year after the event, the 1600th anniversary of the baptism of St [End Page 590] Augustine of Hippo. The conference brought together twenty eminent scholars resident in North America to consider “the question of the meaning of Augustine’s thought for the Christian faith in the modern world” (111). The two-day discussion, the story of which is engagingly told by John R. Muether (111–56), was framed by a set of four papers dealing with various aspects of love in Augustine. These papers—by William S. Babcock, Ernest L. Fortin, Robert J. O’Connell, and Eugene TeSelle—are reproduced in Augustine Today. William S. Babcock’s basic contention, in his paper “Cupiditas and Caritas: The Early Augustine on Love and Fulfillment” (which would have benefited from closer proofreading, particularly in the Latin), is that Augustine discriminates between loves by distinguishing their objects. “. . . Augustine converted the question of happiness into a question of two loves—two loves differentiated, not first in the lover, but first by the loved . . .” (33). Cupiditas refers to the “love of things that can be lost” (10), whilst caritas stands for the love which knows and enjoys the eternal—God, who alone cannot be taken away (33). Both caritas and cupiditas, however, count as amor (32; see also note 30 which summarises the argument for designating cupiditas as amor) because both fulfill Augustine’s definition that to love something means “precisely to love it for itself” (propter se) (9). The opposition between the two loves extends beyond their objects to the social order to which each of them gives rise. Cupiditas sets person against person; but caritas “in seeking and attaining the eternal, also unites persons in the common bond of a love shared without threat or envy . . .” (31). Babcock, however, explicitly distinguishes “this shared love of the eternal from the love of neighbor” (30, note 28), provoking the conference participants to bring into the foreground the question of what happens to neighbor-love in the light of Augustine’s discussion of human fulfillment (113–23). I would have questioned whether a shared love for God, along with its social implications, may be validly discounted as a form of neighbor-love in Augustine. Ernest L. Fortin, in the second part of his paper, would appear to agree that it should not (46–47). In the first part of “Augustine and the Hermeneutics of Love: Some Preliminary Considerations,” Fortin offers a series of general remarks on the way in which Augustine “[attributed] to God the ideas that the Bible seems to deny him” (59), and, in so doing, came to dominate the intellectual scene for more than a thousand years with “a new mode of knowledge, based on love and incommensurable with anything to which the philosophical tradition was accustomed” (36). Only of the truth of divine revelation—rerum diuinarum atque salubrium scientia (De Doctrina Christiana, IV.5, 7)—can it be said that it is, “in one and the same act, both theoretical and practical” (42), “a truth whose object cannot be grasped unless it is also loved” (45). On this basis, Fortin contrasts the ineffectualness and divisiveness of the pagan philosophers’ elitism, arrogance, and noble lying, with the intrinsic persuasiveness of the one divine truth which, even as known by the brilliant Augustine, “is not something other that what every Christian knows or should know” (45). In the discussion of Fortin’s paper, sparks flew over this matter of Augustine’s moral superiority to the pagans, with a particularly sharp reaction being drawn to Fortin’s pointed claim that “there’s no commitment to the neighbor on their [the pagans’] part” (129). [End Page 591] Robert J. O’Connell’s “Sexuality in Saint Augustine” presents itself as an educated common sense reading of the Confessions in an attempt to answer the following questions: “What was...

Evaluation of Functional Fit of Chemical Protective Gloves for Agricultural Workers

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the functional fit of commercially available protective gloves recommended to agricultural workers and to investigate the effect of polymer type, thickness of glove materials, and glove shape on such fit. The study was conducted in two parts. First the hand dimensions of the user population were estimated by conducting an anthropometric survey of 380 agricultural workers. This was followed by a fit evaluation of four test gloves by 38 farmers whose hand dimensions were representative of the user population. Fit was assessed by subjective evaluations of 15 specific hand dimensions for each glove and by conducting two standardized dexterity tests with participants bare-handed and wearing each of the four gloves. Significant differences in fit were found among gloves differing in polymer type, thickness and shape. Thinner gloves made from flexible polymers gave the most acceptable fit. Major design and sizing problems were identified for each of the four gloves. Gloves that fit snugly and enabled participants to complete dexterity tests at a rate comparable to bare hands received the highest subjective fit ratings. To enable agricultural workers to achieve optimum performance while completing fine manipulative tasks, the fit of gloves, especially in the fingers, must be improved.

Four Works on Women in Islam

This book is a penetrating study of several of the Qur'anic verses andhadiths used to construct and justify a "skewed" understanding of femininity:"He created you from a single soul, and then He created fromit/like-nature its mate" (4:1); " ... mighty is your snare" (12:27); "Fair inthe eyes of men/people is the love of things they covet: women and sons..." (3:14); the concept of shahawiit (earthly desires); and the hadith"she was created from a rib."The discussion is based on a close reading of several tafasir. One noticesimmediately that many of these sources dignify women and do notadvocate the conventional view prevaling in contemporary Muslim societies.The book makes no apology to any author or source that presentsa stereotypical view of women; instead, it criticizes their methodology onthe ground that they followed the traditions of the Bible and the Jews.In the second section, the discussion departs from a direct analysis oftexts to elaborate on an Islamic typology of modem Muslim women. Theauthor, now writing as an activist, no longer argues with others, but isconcerned with getting his own understanding across. Therefore he is notconcerned with nonnative understanding, but rather seeks the best Islamicjudgment, within the context of present circumstances and world culture,on this issue. The book is totally progressive, straight to the point, anddoes not make compromises to please traditionalists.Al Mar'ah bayna Ta'lim al Din wa Taqalid al Mujtama'By Hasan al Turabi: Jeddah: al Dar al Sa'udiyah li al Nashr waTawzi, 1984 ...

Glove permeation by semiconductor processing mixtures containing glycol-ether derivatives.

Results of permeation tests of several glove materials challenged with semiconductor processing formulations containing glycolether derivatives are described. Commercial glove samples of nitrile rubber (Edmont), natural rubber (Edmont and Baxter), butyl rubber (North), PVC Baxter), a natural rubber/neoprene/nitrile blend (Pioneer), and a natural rubber/neoprene blend (Playtex) were tested according to the ASTM F739-85 permeation test method (open-loop configuration). The liquid formulations examined included a positive photoresist thinner containing 2-ethoxyethyl acetate (2-EEA), n-butyl acetate, and xylene; a positive photoresist containing 2-EEA, n-butyl acetate, xylene, polymer resins, and photoactive compounds; a negative photoresist containing 2-methoxyethanol (2-ME), xylene, and cyclized poly(isoprene); and pure 2-methoxyethyl acetate (2-MEA), which is the solvent used in a commercial electron-beam resist. With the exception of the negative photoresist, butyl rubber provided the highest level of protection against the solvent mixtures tested, with no breakthrough observed after 4 hr of continuous exposure at 25 degrees C. Nitrile rubber provided the highest level of protection against the negative photoresist and reasonably good protection against initial exposure to the other solvent mixtures. Gloves consisting of natural rubber or natural rubber blends provided less protection against the mixtures than either nitrile or butyl rubber. For most of the glove samples, permeation of the glycol-ether derivatives contained in the mixtures was faster than that predicted from the permeation of the pure solvents. Increasing the exposure temperature from 25 to 37 degrees C did not significantly affect the performance of the butyl rubber glove. For the other gloves, however, exposures at 37 degrees C resulted in decreases in breakthrough times of 25-75% and increases in steady-state permeation rates of 80-457% relative to values obtained at 25 degrees C. Repeated exposure of nitrile rubber samples resulted in shorter breakthrough times for all mixture components. In fact, exposure for as little as one-half of the nominal breakthrough time followed by air drying overnight resulted in measurable quantities of one or more of the component solvents at the inner surface of the gloves at the beginning of the next exposure. This effect was not observed with the butyl rubber samples. With the exception of the negative photoresist, heating previously exposed nitrile rubber samples at 70 degrees C for 20 hr prior to retesting reduced or eliminated the effects of residual solvents, permitting reuse of the gloves. The use of thin PVC or natural rubber gloves adjacent to the nitrile gloves provided moderate increases in permeation resistance.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

A New Approach to the Resection of Pulmonary Osteosarcoma Metastases

Pulmonary metastases are the primary cause of death from bone and soft-tissue sarcoma. Recognition that even multiple resections of metastases can improve survival has led to a more aggressive surgical approach to these patients. The authors instituted an aggressive approach and a new technique and retrospectively analyzed the results of multiple, pulmonary metastasectomies for pulmonary metastases in 34 patients, 21 of whom had osteogenic sarcoma (OGS). A number of cases were referred from other institutions, where they had been considered inoperable because of extensive or recurrent disease. Using lateral thoracotomies, laser technique with minimal parenchymal excision, and thin gloves for palpation, aggressive metastectomy was carried out. A mean of 3.1 thoracotomies were performed, with an average of 10.6 nodules resected per thoracotomy. Operative morbidity and mortality were minimal. Evaluation of potential prognostic factors revealed no statistically significant survival difference on the basis of disease-free interval (DFI), number of nodules resected, number of thoracotomies, or size of largest nodule resected. There was a clear trend toward decreased survival of patients with larger nodules (greater than 2 cm), but because of the small number of patients in this group, no firm conclusions can be drawn. Five-year survival was 49% for the study group as a whole, and 39% for the OGS patients. Aggressive surgical resection of pulmonary metastases from bone and soft-tissue sarcoma should be considered when there is control of local disease, no evidence of extrapulmonary metastasis, and adequate postresection pulmonary reserve. The presence of bilateral, extensive, or recurrent disease is not a contraindication to thoracotomy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Permeability of latex and polyvinyl chloride gloves to 20 antineoplastic drugs

Permeability of latex and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) gloves to 20 injectable antineoplastic drugs was studied. Four types of gloves were evaluated: latex surgical gloves, latex examination gloves, and PVC gloves in two thicknesses. Each glove material was exposed to each drug for 90 minutes, and permeation was tested using a mutagenicity assay. Individual fingertips of thin PVC gloves and latex surgical gloves were tested for permeability at five time points (2-30 minutes) using a doxorubicin coloration assay. All drugs permeated the thin PVC gloves. Latex surgical gloves were definitely permeable to two drugs (carmustine and thiotepa) and exhibited borderline permeability to mechlorethamine hydrochloride. The thick PVC gloves were definitely permeable to four drugs (carmustine, thiotepa, mechlorethamine hydrochloride, and daunorubicin hydrochloride) and exhibited borderline permeability to two drugs (doxorubicin and mercaptopurine). The latex examination gloves were permeable to carmustine, thiotepa, mechlorethamine hydrochloride, and cyclophosphamide. Doxorubicin permeation of individual fingertips of thin PVC gloves varied in time and amount. Doxorubicin did not permeate the latex surgical glove material, but testing with thiotepa showed that individual fingertips of this material also varied in permeability. Glove thickness was a major determinant of permeability; latex surgical gloves were the least permeable and thin PVC gloves the most permeable to the antineoplastic drugs tested. Within individual gloves and glove types, time and amount of permeation were not uniform.

Permeation of Fingerprints Through Laboratory Gloves

Repeated controlled tests have shown that impressions from laboratory gloves will print onto optical components in 20 to 40 min and, in some cases, sooner. Careful testing demonstrated that palmar sweat passed through the glove material; the problem was not that gloves conform to the friction ridges of the fingers and then transfer some contaminant. The problem can be alleviated to a great extent by wearing thin cotton gloves like those commonly used in the film industry.

Love's Double Cross: Language Play as Structure in the Libra de Buen Amor

The Libra de buen amor is the masterpiece of the Spanish Middle Ages. This rollicking, witty, satirical book, which purports to teach about the good love of things beyond this earth, manages to convey extremely well the temptations and vicissitudes concerned with that variety found in the present. It has charmed and fascinated readers both Spanish and foreign since the fourteenth century. A number of critics have sensed a kind of spiritual similarity between Juan Ruiz and Chaucer and it has been recently pointed out that the English poet might even have known the Libro de buen amor.

The Theme of Loneliness in Modern American Drama by Winifred L. Dusenbury (review)

BOOK REVIEWS THE THEME OF LONELINESS IN MODERN AMERICAN DRAMA, by Winifred L. Dusenbury, University of Florida Press, Gainesville, Florida, 1960, 231 pp. Price $6.50. Loneliness in itself may not be tragedy but loneliness is at least an essential concommitant. Nowhere in her book, The Theme of Loneliness in Modern American Drama, does Viinifred Dusenbury belabor this thesis, but it is implicit in her exegesis of almost every play she has 'chosen to consider. Her book faithfully reflects a widely held attitude, particularly in America, that loneliness is evil, that loneliness is always to be avoided if possible, that loneliness is always a direct cause or result of personal failure, of homelessness, of unhappy family life, of unhappy love affairs, of ovcr-powering socio-eeonomic forces, or of the compulsive urge to be a hero. The first obvious question which comes to mind concerns precisely what Winifred Dusenbury means by loneliness, and the answer appears to be that she considers it a condition of mind and soul which is protean rather than Promethean. In O'Neill's play she shows Anna Christie's loneliness as an exhausted emptiness which results from the physical abuse received from lecherous men; Harriet's, in Craig's Wife, is the inordinate love of material things; Willie Loman's, in Death of a Salesman, is bewildennent in his failure after a lifetime of trying to be "well-liked"; Mio's, in 'Vinterset, is the consuming, vengeful urge to clear his father's name. The cause and the result are the loneliness, and although isolation, separateness, and inability to communicate are common to each of the cases, the loneliness in each is of its own kind. In the twenty-six plays she has chosen for analysis, Miss Dusenbury shows almost as many different facets of this universal condition which sooner or later, in one way or another, affects evcry man who passes this way. Curiously, she has not found a modem American play which deals with what may be the one true loneliness, the one which flows through an aging individual when he arrives at that moment between "riping and riping and rotting and rotting" and grasps, in a sudden consciousness of man's mortality, the terrible intensity of the human dilemma, the moment when he cries with Hamlet "now I am alone." In this country where the life span constantly lengthens and the productivity span shortens, the problem of loneliness in the aging years would seem to be an acutely pertinent one, but one which our major playwrights have largely left alone. The Silver Whistle by Robert McEnroe comes to mind as a wistfully comic treatment of the crises of the aged, and On Borrowed Time is a sentimental presentation of what happens when Grandpa gets Death cornered in the apple tree, but a great play of the tragic stature which another O'Neill could produce is lacking. So the omission of such a play is not Professor Dusenbury's fault but rather, a bearing out of her oblique suggestion tllat a truly great American tragedy remains to be written. And when it is written, it well may be that the loneliness of its protagonist will be of a Promethean nature, a triumphant suffering (suffering in the Aristotlean sense of undergoing, experiencing) which results from a magnificent contribution to the cause of Man. The problem of loneliness is a popular one with our dramatists probably because as artists engaging in the lonely profession of writing they come to 107 108 MODERN DRAMA May understand it. The last act of Anderson's Winterset, one of the pieces analyzed in the book, might possibly be considered as an allegorical one-act play which dramatizes this fact. Mio, symbolizing the artist, must find his way out, out to a world which will receive him, or else die in the attempt. No one can help him, not Miriamne his love, nor Esdras his ideal, nor Carr his fellow man. He must make his own effort to communicate with a world that lies outside, and he dies, not even certain that he has achieved love, that he has found his way into the heart of another, for only after...

The Conclusion of the Marriage Group Chaucer and the Human Condition

ITTREDGE, in 1912, first defined the Marriage Group as a dramatically integrated unit within the Canterbury Tales. It begins, he suggested, with the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale; after an interruption it is resumed in the Clerk's treatment of the patient Griselda and the Merchant's cynical denial of happiness in marriage; and it is concluded, after the interruption of the Squire's Tale, by the Franklyn's compromise between Christian marriage and courtly love.' There followed a protracted discussion, in which some critics denied that these tales form any kind of a group, while others, accepting the notion, suggested that the Squire's Tale, the Nun's Priest's Tale, and the Melibee are also related to it.2 But in all this no one has questioned the fundamental premise, implicit in Kittredge's argument, that the Marriage Group has at base a radically secular cast which reflects the private opinion of the author: the group is thought to end with the Franklyn's suggestion for a method of establishing domestic concord, and this solution is believed, in Kittredge's words, to be what Chaucer thought about marriage.3 This picture of the poet as a thinker disposed chiefly toward secular notions which were ahead of his time is-or should be-qualified by the fact that Chaucer wrote many works of a Christian and ascetic character. Putting to one side all those minor poems which might be considered conventional and perfunctory,4 we find that one of the greatest secular works, the Troilus, ends with an epilogue which counsels readers to turn from the love of worldly things; and recent scholarship has supported the opinion that the epilogue is seriously intended and integral with the poem. And the Canterbury Tales ends with the Parson's sermon on penitence, followed by Chaucer's retraction. Lately, however, this wholly justifiable view of Chaucer as a religious writer and thinker has been carried to an unprecedented extreme. Those critics who have come to be called pan-allegorists are interpreting notably secular tales, like the Nun's Priest's Tale, and even the Mer-

On the Meaning of Catalinon

and he calls upon Heaven either to enslave all of nature or to give him that liberty enjoyed by the least of creatures. Concurrently Boissy makes Basile confess that it is his cruelty and not the inexorable power of the stars that has made Sigismond the evil creature that he is: Mon fils était né bon, vertueux, débonnaire, Ma cruauté pour lui, mes ordres rigoureux Ont aigri son orgueil, allumé sa colère. J'ai moi seul, malheureux! Fait un tiran d'un Prince généraux. (I, 7) While in Calderón Segismundo is the victim of the stars or fate, in Boissy he is the victim of his father's tyranny. In making Segismundo a victim of fate, Calderón was faced with the problem of reconciling that idea with the theological question of the freedom of the will, and he treats the question with considerable obscurity, whereas Boissy is able to make his character speak frankly and resolutely with a free will thus: Je vais . . . convaincre mon Père . . . Que les Astres malins n'ont sur nous de puissance Qu'autant que notre coeur est d'accord avec eux: Que notre volonté règle leur influence; Et qu'on est à son gré cruel ou généreux. (111,10) Likewise Clotalde had warned Sigismond that all the grandeur that he has seen in his dream was vain; and to overcome his love of worldly things he had only to exercise his will: Et pour en triompher vous n'avez qu'à vouloir (III, 2) The eighteenth century French author found a theme of liberty in Calderón which was timely. He brushed away the words that hid the message in romantic obscurity and emphasized the twin themes of human freedom and freedom of the will. As has been noted above, Boissy's heroic comedy became rather popular as the century wore on. This growth in popularity would tend to confirm the idea that the theme of personal freedom stressed by Boissy was understood better and appreciated more by the public as time went on. Indeed, it may not be stretching the imagination too much to attribute the popularity of La vida es sueño in both France and Italy in the eighteenth century to the fact that the theme of personal freedom coincided with the growth of the idea during the century of Voltaire and Rousseau. 1 It was done in five acts by an anonymous writer, and called a tragi-comédie. (Nouveau Théâtre Italien ou recueil général des comédies représent- ées par les Comédiens Italiens Ordinaires du Roi, Paris, 1758, Vol. I, p. xcii) ^ Farinelli: La vita è un sogno, II, 411. 3 Charles Franklin Zeek: Louis de Boissy, Auteur comique (1694-1758), Grenoble, 1914, p. 189. * Ibid., p. 191. 5 Ibid. 6 The theme of La vida es sueño received considerable attention in Italy as well, probably for the same reason as given above. Comediantes Will Convene Dec. 28 at Hotel Statler The seventh annual meeting of the Comediantes will take place in connection with the MLA Convention in New York during the Christmas recess. The topic for discussion at the morning session is: The Technique of the Sub-Plot in Lope de Vega. Discussion leader: Dr. Courtney Bruerton. See the MLA Program for time and place. At noon of the same day the Comediantes' Luncheon will be held at A. Schiavi's restaurant , 311 W. 33 Street, the downstairs of a brownstone house, one block from the hotel. The prices of the entrées (which include the meal) range from 85 to 99 cents. The food is reported to be "excellent and plentiful." No reservations needed. On the Meaningof Catalinon by Frank B. Sedwick The name of Don Juan's servant in Tirso de Molina's El burlador de Sevilla is still a lexical puzzle, both regarding its linguistic origin and its precise significance. On the bases of retorts between servant and master, Catalinón is generally thought to mean coward. Catalinón himself says (Act I: 11. 880-885): Aunque soy Catalinón, Soy, señor, hombre de bien, Que no se dijo por mí: "Catalin...

The Boyhood of a Naturalist

THIS genial account of his boyhood by a naturalist, writing under the pseudonym Fred Smith, will afford unlimited interest to any youngster with a love for live things. That Fred Smith did not shine in school, and was only with difficulty made to play cricket fairly regularly, rather adds to his winsomeness. Indirectly, the book should prove useful in demonstrating the educational value of the study of nature at first-hand. Fred's education was unmistakably of the kind which it is at present fashionable to call “heuristic,” and his progress in his numerous researches is further evidence of the possibility of a boy, though considered a dunce at school, arriving at manhood educated in the better sense of the term, since his faculties are properly trained and his perceptions keenly alert. As a gift book for a child with a natural proclivity for biological work the volume can be thoroughly recommended; it is both instructive and amusing.