Nation's Ability Research Articles

Western Masculinities in War and Peace

IT WAS A COMMONPLACE for America's founding fathers to evoke the ideal of the ancient Greek and Roman citizen-soldier as a model for their own times, nurtured as they were on the principles of republican discourse. Even before the proclamation of independence, George Washington affirmed that When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen; and we shall most sincerely rejoice with you in that happy hour when the re-establishment of American Liberty, upon the most firm and solid foundations, shall enable us to return to our Private Stations in the bosom of a free, peaceful, and happy Country.' The reinvigoration of this tradition in North America was made possible by the presence of self-reliant property owners who were willing to take up arms against distant authority in defense of emerging political rights. This is the standard political narrative of the American Revolution, but there is a gender tale to tell as well. The men who made the transition from citizens to soldiers were obliged to leave behind a sense of manly competence as heads of household for a life in which they lived rough, submitted to discipline, and survived on their fighting skills and personal courage.2 Thus began the first modern experiment in the creation of a form of masculinity peculiar to the modern nation-state, in which the citizen must carry within himself the qualities of a warrior, but as a warrior must also remain the citizen he will become again at conflict's end. Much in modern history has depended on a nation's ability to manage this transition between civilian and military masculinities in ways that neither jeopardized the efficient conduct of warfare nor troubled civic peace. Indeed, one might argue that the greater process of nation building has been successful to the extent that national identity has been effectively embodied in the identity of the individual soldier as a national masculinity that attenuates masculinities of class, region, and ethnicity. In the crucible of modern warfare, states have disintegrated when they have failed to bestow rights and services in proportion to the sacrifices their soldiers have made, or when unincorporated social elements have undermined the unity of national re-

DECONTAMINATION AND REMEDIATION AFTER A DIRTY BOMB ATTACK

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001 and Hurricane Katrina, the United States government has spent tens of billions of dollars to improve the nation's ability to respond to a natural disaster or terrorist attack, but the emphasis on immediate first response has left many long-term environmental, political, and technological challenges unaddressed. Although a dirty bomb attack is unlikely to yield the same amount of physical devastation and death as caused by Katrina or a nuclear weapon, the social, psychological, and economic impact would be enormous. At present, however, the United States lacks the technology necessary to decontaminate a large, densely populated urban area under time, political, and economic constraints. This article reviews past cleanup experiences and current decontamination capabilities to consider the long-term implications of a dirty bomb, identifies weaknesses in America's existing response capabilities, notes possible areas of political friction, and considers the implications of the failure to adequately prepare. Having the appropriate decontamination techniques established and long-term plans in place before an incident occurs will significantly improve the government's ability to protect public and environmental security, establish a viable decontamination strategy, allow residents to return to their homes, and get the local economy back on its feet.

Uncovering the Connections Among Sustainability, Governance and GDP

Abstract This paper examines the connections among sustainability, governance and GDP, using the data from 123 countries. Sustainability is found to be related with GDP in two contradictory ways. On the one hand, growth in GDP strengthens a nation's ability to maintain favorable environmental conditions into the future. On the other hand, GDP growth is built on more consumption of natural resources, and therefore generates a larger “footprint” on the Earth. Governance plays a key role in sustainable development. However, it is not helping to reduce our footprint on the Earth. In fact, good governance is linked to a larger footprint. This reflects our materialist value and human impulse. When a society prefers the comfort and well-being of human beings to the welfare of its environment, democratic governance might be used as an effective tool against nature.

President Nixon on Problems of Population Growth

By the official estimate of the US Census Bureau, America's population crossed the 300 million mark on 17 October 2006. That day, although obviously bracketed by a generous error‐term, was, unsurprisingly, occasion in the media for an outpouring of descriptions of the country's demographic path from the last similar benchmark 39 years earlier, when the US population reached 200 million. Projections for continued rapid population growth in the future were also matter‐of‐factly presented—an expected 400 million by 2043 with no stop in sight beyond that.In the press, influential editorial opinion about the meaning and significance of the event was generally upbeat and self‐congratulatory. The New York Times, for example, reminded its readers that “In America, growth and vitality are the same thing…. Our teeming immensity keeps us from growing stale.” Readers who might question that sentiment were reassured that “population issues have mysterious ways of working themselves out.”The Wall Street Journal's editorial page observed that the US population could comfortably be housed in the State of Texas (two acres for every US family of four), leaving the rest of the country deserted. On 17 October, the White House issued a presidential statement to “celebrate a significant milestone.” The closing sentences of its two short paragraphs convey the substance of its message: “Our continued growth is a testament to our country's dynamism and a reminder that America's greatest asset is our people.”“We welcome this milestone as further proof that the American Dream remains as bright and hopeful as ever.”This celebratory welcome to the arrival of the 300 millionth American is in remarkable contrast to the somber national soul‐searching that followed the crossing of the 200 million benchmark in 1967. In the context of the unprecedented pace of global population growth and reflecting the shock of the unanticipated US baby boom, the desirability of indefinitely sustained US population growth was then commonly viewed as far from obvious: certainly it was seen as an issue calling for careful examination and analysis. The demand for assessing the national interest in this matter was articulated and given a major impetus by a Message to Congress issued by then President Richard M. Nixon on 18 July 1969. The full text of this document is reprinted below. Drafted by the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then Counselor to the President (later US Senator from New York State), the message was primarily devoted to consideration of US population issues. It raised questions about the effects of the next 100 million Americans, expected “by the year 2000 or shortly thereafter,” on the economy and society. Those questions, it stressed, must be answered with a new sense of urgency. “Perhaps the most dangerous element in the present situation is the fact that so few people are examining these questions from the viewpoint of the whole society.” The message suggested that the Federal Government has “a special responsibility for defining these problems and for stimulating thoughtful responses.”To assemble those responses, the President proposed the “creation by Congress of a Commission on Population Growth and the American Future.” In the following years the resulting Commission, chaired by John D. Rockefeller 3rd and with Charles F. Westoff of Princeton University serving as Executive Director of the Commission's staff, carried out a thorough examination of the issues surrounding US population growth. The seven hefty volumes in which its findings and supporting documents were published are quintessentially summarized in Rockefeller's letter of transmittal of the Commission's Final Report to the President and Congress of the United States on 27 March 1972: “After two years of concentrated effort, we have concluded that, in the long run, no substantial benefits will result from further growth of the Nation's population, rather that the gradual stabilization of our population through voluntary means would contribute significantly to the Nation's ability to solve its problems. We have looked for, and have not found, any convincing economic argument for continued population growth. The health of our country does not depend on it, nor does the vitality of business nor the welfare of the average person.” Notwithstanding the urgency accorded the matter in his message, Nixon ignored the recommendations of the Commission.

National hurricane research initiative proposed

The U.S. National Science Board (NSB) has proposed in a draft report the creation of a focused, sustained, and multi‐agency government initiative that would enhance the nation's ability to predict, mitigate, and respond to the effects of hurricanes, several board members announced at a 29 September briefing.Steven Beering, chairman of the NSB, said, “This is a critical area for national science policy that requires a focused research effort to address the destructive social, economic, and physical infrastructure impacts from hurricanes…We have experienced altogether too many in the last few years.”

‘Tis not, what once it was, the world’ Andrew Marvel's Re-Mapping of Old and New in Bermudas and Upon Appleton House

Seventeenth-century England was a country newly rooted in geography. Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first of the great sixteenth-century atlases, was translated into English in 1606, and Mercator's Atlas followed it thirty years later. Christopher Saxton's wall maps and his atlas of the counties of England and Wales had introduced a new level of cartographic precision to the late sixteenth century, and by the 1650s these new technologies, and the rising expectations of cartographic accuracy and precision which they embodied, had become all but ingrained in the wider culture. Voyages to Guiana, Virginia, and Bermuda had laid the groundwork for English colonies in the Americas so that by mid-century even the most exotic lands had become imaginatively accessible and cartographically familiar. As these outposts of the New World grew more settled, the older sense of 'the strangeness of the boundaries'1 was overlaid with a new domestication. These foreign lands were described and imagined as little extensions of England, still lost in the distance, but now largely wrapped in the comfort of familiar customs, products, and agricultural goods.But if the New World's sense of the foreign and exotic was markedly diminished, it did not simply disappear. It was instead incorporated into a new and changing balance of Old World and New. For while the faith in mapped accuracy and representational power of the cartographic imagination allowed even the world's exotic edges to be folded back into the familiarity of the centre, it also brought a countering pressure in which the very familiarity of the domestic landscape came to be seen through the lens of the exotic. The centre became de-centred, and the aura of mystery and instability linked to distant lands was transmuted, internalized, and brought home to the most domestic of spaces.By the middle of the seventeenth century, the precision and certainty of England's mapped representations stood in sharp contrast to other perceptions in and of the country. The political and social instability of the English Revolution filled the historical moment until even that most ancient and solid of foundations - the enduring nature of kingship, itself - was overthrown. The ability of maps to represent a fixed and orderly country now exceeded the nation's ability to embody it. New levels of political anxiety and instability created an altered relationship between the map and the territory, so that the orderly delineation of geographical outline and landscape would have seemed all but illusory in the face of so much fundamental disruption. In such a revolutionary period, the possibilities of cartography altered to reflect a new relationship of map and nation, signifier and signified. Mapping became an expression of political and poetic licence - a way, not just to represent an ordered country, but to limit and confine the extent of its disorder.In such a period the political and poetic become fundamentally interleaved, and for no one was this more true than Andrew Marvell. As a poet he strove for a unique kind of linguistic refinement, an almost alchemical distillation of order and precision in the face of pervading anxiety. And of the various scientific and cultural discourses he incorporated into his poetry, the cultural power of maps and geography were of particular, and surprising, value. In his hands the discourse of cartographic precision became an unexpected tool for addressing the unsettling ambiguities of historical action. He focused his particular blend of lapidary precision and interrogative intelligence on to the cartographic expectations of his time, and bent them to his use. By inserting a new and lurking instability into the epistemology of precision, he turned the cultural assumptions of cartographic accuracy and objectivity back on themselves as a means of highlighting, not the familiar expectations of fixity and control, but a new and widespread anxiety about political unravelling. …

Selecting patients for osteoporosis therapy

There is a global need to identify individuals at risk for osteoporotic fracture so that those at high risk can be treated and unnecessary treatment for those at low risk can be avoided. Bone mineral density (BMD) information is not sufficient to identify patients at high risk; approximately half of patients in the community with fractures do not have osteoporosis by the 1994 World Health Organization BMD criteria. Furthermore, BMD information is not easily accessible worldwide. The use of clinical risk factors with or without BMD information will improve our ability to identify patients at high risk for fracture. These risk factors can be integrated to predict a 10-year absolute risk or probability of fracture. Intervention thresholds based on absolute risk will be defined regionally based on each nation's ability and willingness to pay.

Networking and Collaboration: The Keys to Success in Grant Funding for Water Sector Preparedness

Recognized as a critical infrastructure, the water sector is eligible for a portion of the $1.7 billion that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will be allocating in fiscal year (FY) 2006 under Homeland Security Grant Programs (HSGP). These grants will enhance the nation's ability to prepare for and respond to malevolent, accidental, or natural events. Utilities of all sizes can be successful in obtaining federal grant dollars following a stepwise collaborative approach. This article presents a case study of a successful collaboration, along with steps for obtaining grant funding.

Spatial information opportunities for government

Land administration systems (LAS) are now challenged by new technologies and radically different demands for land information for modern governments. Spatial information is good enough to support spatial identification and location enablement applications available in every significant type of software (word processing, spread sheets, professional applications, Web systems, GIS and databases). A place on earth can be defined with precision on the ground and in computers. Digital data can be attached to a location as never before. With appropriate computer facilities and the underpinning interpretative information layers which translate computer language into understandable descriptions of places, governments can potentially identify ‘where’ their policies are happening. A nation's ability to reap the benefits of the spatial enablement of information requires the highest level input from its government and private sectors. These challenges are discussed in the context of developing a vision of iLand, a concept of spatially enabled information for modern government. This article sets this vision in the history of land administration, and the growing reliance on a new kind of information about land and its attributes that is relative and aspatial in regulation of activities and taxation.

An Informatics Blueprint for Healthcare Quality Information Systems

There is a critical gap in our nation's ability to accurately measure and manage the quality of medical care. A robust healthcare quality information system (HQIS) has the potential to address this deficiency through the capture, codification, and analysis of information about patient treatments and related outcomes. Because non-technical issues often present the greatest challenges, this paper provides an overview of these socio-technical issues in building a successful HQIS, including the human, organizational, and knowledge management (KM) perspectives. Through an extensive literature review and direct experience in building a practical HQIS (the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Outcomes Research Database system), we have formulated an "informatics blueprint" to guide the development of such systems. While the blueprint was developed to facilitate healthcare quality information collection, management, analysis, and reporting, the concepts and advice provided may be extensible to the development of other types of clinical research information systems.

RADIOLOGICAL THREAT ASSESSMENT AND THE FEDERAL RESPONSE PLAN???A GAP ANALYSIS

The ability of the federal government to effectively and efficiently respond to nuclear or radiological terrorist attacks has been the subject of intense discussion and analysis for many years. Because of recent terrorist activities and intelligence information, there is strong sentiment that it is not a question of if, but when, a radiological or nuclear terrorist attack will occur. As a result, there is considerable concern that the federal government may not be adequately prepared to respond to an attack involving a radiological dispersal device or improvised nuclear device. In response to these concerns, federal departments and agencies have initiated actions to develop a better understanding of the magnitude of the radiological/nuclear terrorist threat, assess the ability of the federal government to support state and local responses to such attacks, and improve the Nation's ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from these types of attacks. In an era of limited fiscal growth and competing priorities, the federal government will have to enhance its collaboration with state and local governments, the private sector, and academia to ensure that the Nation is capable of responding to a terrorist attack involving radioactive or nuclear material.

L'education et les militaires canadiens (review)

Reviewed by: L'éducation et les militaires canadiens Serge Marc Durflinger L'éducation et les militaires canadiens. Edited by Yves Tremblay, Roch Legault, and Jean Lamarre. Outremont: Athéna éditions, 2004. Pp. 264 , illus. $19.95 Over the last few years Canada's French-language academic community has shown an increased interest in Canadian, especially francophone, social-military history. Much of this energy and output can be attributed to a handful of scholars working at the Department of National Defence's Directorate of History and Heritage, the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC), and l'Université du Québec à Montréal. The editors of and many of the contributors to this collection of essays, treating the history of Canadian military education and professional training, are drawn from the first two of these institutions. There is a difference between military education and educating the military. The latter is the attempt to broaden the horizons of military personnel, especially the officer class, by sensitizing them to the elaborative contexts in which they ply their trade. Military education, meanwhile, is more akin to in-house professional development, seeking to deepen understanding of the profession of arms. The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century views were that an educated, thinking soldier was a danger to military discipline, itself based on conformity and blind obedience. And so it generally was in Canada until well into the twentieth century. General Andrew McNaughton, who headed the Canadian army overseas for the first four years of the Second World War, noted, 'L'ingrédient le plus important d'un corps d'officiers demeure ... une solide éducation dans tous les domaines.' But until recently the seemingly [End Page 382] anti-intellectual bias of succeeding generations of Canadian military leaders has prevented the widespread integration of a liberal arts background in the basic education of the officer corps. Today it is clearer than ever that education promotes innovation, whereas anti-intellectualism breeds obsolescence. The end of the Cold War and the new strategic environment thus engendered has obliged Western militaries to refocus their military priorities and activities, often harnessing the power of education to improve the combat skills of their personnel. The last decade's so-called revolution in military affairs, driven by excessively rapid technological change, has led to profound operational and doctrinal overhauls. In Canada, one can add to these major environmental shifts the scandal resulting from the activities of some soldiers in Somalia in 1992–3. The tarnished image of our soldiery forced a re-evaluation of the military's educational and philosophical foundations and brought the issue of Canadian military culture and education to the public's attention. Given that the sixteen short articles contained in this volume are drawn mainly from the proceedings of a French-language conference held at RMC in 2002, the book yields the vagaries, disjointedness, and mixed quality of most such collections. About one-third of the group are preliminary surveys with little context; they undoubtedly made better presentation papers than scholarly articles. Moreover, submissions on Quebec's post-secondary education system, Poland's Cold War military education, and France's educational system over the last 150 years will prove of little benefit to readers interested in the Canadian military scene. But there are a number of fine articles as well. Among the contributors are a mix of established senior Canadian academics (Desmond Morton, Stephen Harris, Serge Bernier, Allan English) and younger historians rapidly earning reputations as prolific scholars (Yves Tremblay, Jean Martin, Claude Beauregard). Demonstrably concerned with the dangers posed by a poorly educated officer corps, Desmond Morton chips in a thought-provoking essay linking a meaningful, imbedded system of educating Canada's military with the nation's ability to promote its interests abroad. Serge Bernier's strongly anti-RMC piece on the origins, development, and purpose of Collège militaire royal (CMR) in St-Jean, QC, shows that bilingualism became 'un élément intrinsique du métier d'officier dans le contexte canadien,' though with widely varying degrees of success, as the unhelpful and rather bizarre rant by former Lieutenant-General Richard Évraire makes clear at book's end. Yves Tremblay's excellent piece on the army staff college during the...

Internet-based business among knowledge intensive business services: Some Irish regional evidence

Technological innovation associated with e-business is now widely appreciated as one of the key drivers of positive economic change and innovation performance and provides a potentially important test of a region or nation's ability to generate and sustain competitiveness. Specifically, the importance of the knowledge-intensive business service sector to economic growth will increase significantly with rapid development of the service economy and the rise of e-business. Using a quantitative methodology, the research described in this article was aimed at exploring these issues relative to e-business activities within the two regions of Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland. We examined e-business ‘global’ drivers, barriers, uses and benefits, and found (among other things) a high level of website ownership (64 per cent). The main perceived barrier to future e-business plans was a lack of government support.

Homeland Health: How Environmentalism Can Regain Lost Ground

One lesson that stands out from the 2004 elections is that the environmentalist stance is due for an overhaul. Few voters treated the environment as a decisive issue. John Kerry and other pro-environment candidates had little or nothing to say about it, presumably for fear that strong comments could cost votes. Fifteen years ago the first President Bush matter-of-factly declared himself an environmentalist. Today, few Republicans and many Democrats would accept the label only with qualifications, if at all. Substantial credit for this anti-green shift goes to the capable and well-funded environmental opposition, which has been aided by journalists unwilling or unable to navigate polemical minefields. But just as much credit (or blame) belongs to the environmental movement itself, which is fragmented, incoherent, and disinclined or unable to defend itself against opposing claims. People are confused about what the cause seeks to accomplish and about the resulting costs. They worry also about the effects that environmental rules will have on liberty, private property, and the nation's ability to compete internationally.

A National Assessment of the Status of Planning for Public Health Preparedness for Chemical and Radiological Contaminating Terrorism: CSTE's Findings and Recommendations/Executive Summary

An association of epidemiologists looks at the state of regional public health preparedness in a time of terrorism in a report that gauges regional readiness. The report examined the status of preparations to deal with chemical and radiological events, and looked at planning gaps, resources, and interagency agreements to coordinate emergency response. The research found inadequate levels of preparedness, planning, and established interagency partnerships and puts forth recommendations to improve the nation's ability to respond.

Syndromic surveillance and bioterrorism: embracing the network‐centric warfare paradigm

Military operations today more than ever are carried out by large coalitions, usually distributed between several organisations and often separated by substantial temporal and spatial scales. To facilitate such military operations, network‐centric warfare is often cited as the panacea of command and control, possessing the characteristics of elevated speed of command, high levels of self‐synchronisation and shared situational awareness. A nation's ability to respond to infectious diseases resulting from an act of bioterrorism or naturally occurring pathogens depends on a framework that supports operations by a large number of distributed organisations facing inherent temporal and spatial challenges. The effects of infectious diseases, whether intentionally inflicted or naturally occurring, can threaten a nation's security. Syndromic surveillance is a detection methodology that encompasses systematic collection, analysis, interpretation and application of real‐time indicators for disease and outbreaks. This paper introduces the NCW paradigm and highlights the inherent characteristics that would facilitate syndromic surveillance in support of an expedient public health response in the event of a bioterrorist attack.

Will the United States Ever Have Universal Health Care?

The profession of social work has long been linked with efforts for health reform. At dawn of 20th century, Jane Addams, Lillian Wald, and others advocated reforms to prevent spread of communicable diseases in urban areas and raised concern about high rates of infant mortality. During 1930s Frances Perkins, a settlement house worker, became secretary of labor and advocated compulsory universal health insurance. Social workers also played central roles in enactment of Medicare and Medicaid, and during 1990s, NASW developed its own legislative proposal for health care, which Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) introduced in 1992 (Moniz & Gorin, 2003). The 1999 Delegate Assembly enacted a policy statement committing NASW to a national health policy that ensures right to universal access to a continuum of health and mental health care (NASW, 2003, p. 172). The failure of efforts to reform health system during 1990s led to a period of disillusionment about nation's ability to expand coverage to uninsured population (Gorin, 1997). In recent years, however, interest in this issue has resurfaced. Since 2001, Institute of Medicine has released a series of in-depth studies on problem of health coverage in United States (http://www.iom.edu/project.asp?id=4660). The National Coalition on Health Care (NCHC), which consists of large businesses, labor unions, religious organizations, health providers, and others representing least 150 million Americans, has advocated fundamental reforms aimed at instituting universal coverage (NCHC, 2004, p. 2). Other groups, such as Universal Health Care Action Network and Physicians for a National Health Program have accelerated their efforts for reform and universal coverage. Despite this, serious problems remain with our health system, particularly in terms of access and coverage. Tens of millions of individuals lack health coverage for an entire year, and millions more have only partial or inadequate coverage. Despite efforts by Clinton administration to enact policies for universal health care, United States remains only industrialized nation that does not provide universal access to health care. Problems with health system have only grown worse during Bush administration. This National Health Line column examines current status of health coverage, considers proposals for expanding coverage, and concludes with a discussion of implications for social workers. HEALTH CARE COVERAGE IN THE UNITED STATES The precise number of individuals without health coverage is open to debate (Congressional Budget Office [CBO], 2003). The figures most often cited come from U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS), which every March asks individuals about their insurance status during preceding year (CBO). By this measure, in 2003 (the most recent year for which we have figures), 45 million individuals went without health insurance for entire year (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004). However, some analysts believe that these figures exaggerate scope of problem (Institute of Medicine, 2001). Although CPS ostensibly captures information about individuals who were without coverage for an entire year, data from other surveys suggests that it really measures number of people who lack coverage at time of survey (CBO). According to CBO estimates, in 1998 between 21 and 31 million people were without coverage for entire year, whereas between 39 million and 42.6 million were without it at a particular point in time; between 56.8 million and 59 million individuals were without coverage at some time during year. By CPS measure 43.9 million people were without coverage in 1998, and 45 million were without it in 2003, so we can conclude that CBO estimates for 1998 are roughly comparable to 2003. In any event, however one measures it, the number of uninsured Americans is substantial and increasing (Institute of Medicine, 2001, p. …

The Report of the Teaching Commission

At beginning of this year, New York City-based Commission, established and chaired by former IBM Chairman Louis V. Gerstner, released Teaching at Risk: Call to Action (The Commission, 2004) on status of teaching in America's schools. Supported by private donations, 19-member blue-ribbon Commission was made up of prominent leaders from business, government, and education. Directly linked to goals of No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) (P.L. 107-110, 2002), purpose of Teaching at Risk was to create a sense of national urgency about recruiting and retaining highly qualified and to propose a plan of action. In opening pages, Gerstner warns that nation's role as a world leader is in jeopardy and that an educational system that does not promote quality teaching is part of problem: The United States enters 21st century as an undisputed world leader. Despite difficult challenges at home and abroad, we still have world's strongest economy, and American business continues to inspire growth and development across globe. But our nation is at a crossroads. We will not continue to lead if we persist in viewing teaching ... as a second-rate occupation. (pp. 9-10) The report asserts that despite two decades of reform, achievement is still disappointing (p. 12) and overall test scores are still at about levels they were in 1970 (p. 13). The report also notes that there continue to be large disparities between academic achievement of poor and minority students and their peers. The commission calls for four reforms. First, teachers' salaries would be made competitive with other professions with potential of higher pay for those who increase pupils' achievement or teach in hard-to-staff subject areas and schools. Second, college and university presidents would be held accountable for revamping teacher preparation by raising admissions standards, recruiting stronger students, and ensuring that prospective teachers have knowledge of subject matter, scientifically based practices, and schools. Third, there would be drastic revisions of state licensing and certification, including more rigorous teacher tests and encouragement of streamlined certification programs. Fourth, school principals would provide scientifically based mentoring and professional development for all teachers and would have increased authority to hire and promote teachers who raise test scores and get rid of those who do not. The commission's action plan includes working with governors, state school officers, and university presidents on teacher quality goals and joining hands with federal government to support goals of NCLB. AT RISK, REDUX The report of Commission reflects a recurring historical pattern of blueribbon critiques of teaching and teacher education based on assertion that nation is in danger of losing its global position (Cochran-Smith & Fries, in press). The immediate past iteration was A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), published when country was in an economic depression and there was concern it was not keeping pace with changing world economy. In 20 years since A Nation at Risk, there have been debates about whether there actually was a crisis in educational achievement at that time and whether teaching and school quality actually are linchpins in nation's ability to compete in global economy (e.g., Berliner, Biddle, & Bell, 1995; Bracey, 2003; Cremin, 1991). In addition, there have been differing assessments of legacy of two decades of reforms set off by report (see, for example, range of viewpoints in Gordon, 2004). Twenty years after A Nation at Risk, its namesake, Teaching at Risk (The Commission, 2004), asserts that the capacity of America's educational system to create a 21st-century workforce second to none in world is a national security issue of first order. …

From Frontier to Terrorism

I'm proud of you. We are depending on you to develop the tools we need to lift the dark threat of terrorism for our nation-and for that matter, the world. All of us here today, whether we're scientists or engineers or elected officials, share a great calling. It's an honor to participate in a noble cause that's larger than ourselves. President George W. Bush "Anti-Terrorism Technology Key to Homeland security," speech delivered to scientists and engineers at the Argonne National Laboratory on July 2002 President Bush's call for scientists and engineers to save the nation from terrorism was not the only one, nor even the first. Just four months after September 11, 2001, Rita Colwell, Director Of the National Science Foundation (NSF), delivered a speech entitled "Science as Patriotism" at the annual meeting of the Universities Research Association. In her words, Every discussion, whether it is about airline safety, emerging diseases, failure of communication links, bioterrorism directed at our food and drinking water, assessment of damaged infrastructure, the mind/body response trauma, or a myriad of other concerns, depends on our scientific and technical knowledge. . . . If the science community can be hands-on to inspire young people to a future in science, we would be performing one of the most enduring acts of patriotism for the nation. (Colwell, 2002) Shortly after Colwell, the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Science and Technology for Countering Terrorism issued Making the Nation Safer: The Role of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism, arguing that America's historical strength in science and engineering is perhaps its most critical asset in countering terrorism without degrading our quality of life. . . . The nation's ability to perform the needed short- and long-term research and development rests fundamentally on a strong scientific and engineering workforce. Here there is cause for concern, as the number of American students interested in science and engineering careers is declining. (Committee on Science and Technology for Countering Terrorism, 2002, 23) Almost immediately program managers at the NSF Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) issued a solicitation titled Approaches to Combat Terrorism (ACT): Opportunities in Basic Research in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences with the Potential to Contribute to National Security, with an expected initial funding of $3.5 million. By June 2003, NSF had funded $20 million worth of exploratory research and education programs dealing with terrorism. History and Theory The image of the United States under the threat of terrorism has allowed the President, the NSF Director, and others to issue calls for scientists and engineers to save the nation. Scientists and engineers have responded by creating programs to secure federal funds for education and research, with many colleges and universities developing activities to train students for jobs in homeland defense (Barlett, 2003). Students in turn have enrolled in the relevant science and engineering courses. This entire process, from the emergence of images of the nation under threat, to the creation of a discourse about saving the nation with science and technology and the development of federally-funded programs to educate scientists and engineers, constitutes policymaking to create scientists and engineers. But this process and its ideology, that science education is necessary to national strength, are not new. All that has changed in recent rhetoric is the image of the nation under terrorist threat, the particular actors issuing the calls, the content of their discourse, and the specific characteristics desired in scientists and engineers. The policymaking process-from the emergence of an image and its associated discourse to the struggle of actors for budget allocations and the creation of programs-has remained strikingly consistent for at least the last half century. …

International Law as Part of Our Law

What did the United States Supreme Court mean when it famously said, “International law is part of our law, and must be ascertained and administered by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction, as often as questions of right depending upon it are duly presented for their determination”? Perhaps the Court was suggesting that, in an interdependent world, United States courts should not decide cases without paying “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind,” in the memorable words of the Declaration of Independence. The framers and early Justices understood that the global legitimacy of a fledgling nation crucially depended upon the compatibility of its domestic law with the rules of the international system within which it sought acceptance. Their recognition seems both prudent and sensible. Even today, for any nation consciously to ignore global standards not only would ensure constant frictions with the rest of the world, but also would diminish that nation's ability to invoke those international rules that served its own national purposes.