Ragdoll Research Articles

Épidémie de teignes à Trichophyton tonsurans dans une école maternelle de la région parisienne

In March 2001 a school and family survey was conducted in a nursery school in the Southern suburbs of Paris, during an epidemic of Trichophyton tondsurans tinea. One hundred twenty-nine children aged 3 to 6 were examined as well as 15 adults working in the school. A survey of the contaminated children or asymptomatic carriers was performed. All the children and adults concerned were treated at the same time, without eviction from school. T. tonsurans was detected in 10 cases of tinea (7.7 p.cent of the persons examined), in 18 cases of cutaneous lesions (13.9 p.cent) and in 25 asymptomatic carriers on the scalp (19.4 p.cent). The majority of the positive cases came from the same school class as the original case: 23 of the 26 children (88 p.cent), with 6 tinea, 14 asymptomatic carriers and 13 cutaneous lesions. Only one of the 15 adults exhibited a T. tonsurans cutaneous lesion. Among the 13 families studied, 2 had several members involved, the first being that of the original case (3 tinea and 2 asymptomatic carriers). Several important points are underlined by this study: 1) the high contagiousness of T. tonsurans; 2) the detection of 2 mechanisms of indirect contamination (rag doll mascot in the class and the family hair-clipper); 3) the one-year time lapse between the arrival of the contaminating child in the class and the survey, explaining the extent of the contamination; 4) the underestimation of the epidemic due to the lack of mycological examinations; 5) the identification of several dermatophytes in the same school:M. canis, T soudanense and T. tonsurans, and 7) the futility of eviction from school when all the children can be treated.

Working Through the Archive: Trauma and History in Alejandro Morales'sThe Rag Doll Plagues

Alejandro Morales'sThe Rag Doll Plaguesis a metafictional novel that comments on literary history. In its three books, Dr. Gregory Revueltas battles a mysterious and ravaging plague, during the 1780s, 1980s, and mid–twenty-first century. In each book he leaves a legacy of writing for the next Gregory to read. By reading and writing this archive, or library of cultural knowledge, the final Gregory develops a historical consciousness that helps him see beyond his episteme's limited science and derive a cure for the recurring plague. His confronting the plague by reading his own writing both intimately and critically is an allegory for the efficacy of literature as a response to historical trauma. Gregory does not gain agency over history, but through the self-conscious reading of his archive he is able to place himself in a cultural trajectory otherwise inaccessible in each book's bracketed historical moment.

Rag Doll Nations and the Politics of Differentiation on Arbitrary Borders: Karelia and Moldova*

“Tell a man today to go and build a state,” Samuel Finer once stated, “and he will try to establish a definite and defensible boundary and compel those who live inside it to obey him.” While at best an oversimplification, Finer's insight illuminates an interesting aspect of state-society relations. Who is it that builds the state? How and where do they establish territorial boundaries, and how are those who live within that territory compelled to obey? Generally speaking, these are the questions that will be addressed here. Of more immediate concern is the fate of peoples located in regions where arbitrary land boundaries fall. Are they made loyal to the state through coercion or by their own compulsions? More importantly, how are their identities shaped by the efforts of the state to differentiate them from their compatriots on the other side of the borders? How is the shift from ethnic to national identities undertaken? A parallel elaboration of the national histories of the populations of Karelia and Moldova will shed light on these questions. The histories of each group are marked by a myriad of attempts to differentiate the identity of each ethnic community from their compatriots beyond the state's borders. The results of such overt, state-initiated efforts to differentiate borderland populations by encouraging a national identity at the expense of the ethnic, has ranged from the mundane to the tragic—from uneventful assimilation to persecution and even genocide. As an illustration of the range of possibilities and processes, I maintain that the tragedies of Karelia and Moldova are not exceptional, but rather are a consequence of their geographical straddling of arbitrary borders, and the need for the state to promote a distinctive national identity for these populations to differentiate them socially from their compatriots beyond the frontier.

Making a difference

Having been trained to carry out smear tests, and with the help of her trusty rag doll, Julie Wilkins now helps women with learning disabilities to take advantage of health screening programmes

Acromial impression fracture of the greater tuberosity with rotator cuff avulsion due to hyperabduction injury of the shoulder

A heavy-set, muscular, 23-year-old, right hand–dominant male office worker who participates in basketball, weight lifting, and some throwing sports had a hyperabduction injury (without evidence of glenohumeral dislocation) of the right shoulder after falling down a cliff. As depicted in Figure 1, the fall was a sheer 15-foot free fall onto the hyperabducted arm, as he had placed his forearm over his head for protection. After this, there was a further 40-foot sloped descent whereupon the patient reports that he “tumbled like a rag doll through trees and rocks.” Upon landing the final time, his arm was out to the side (in abduction), feeling locked, with normal motor function in the hand. He also had multiple ligamentous injuries to the left knee. The radiographs depicted in Figure 2 demonstrate the lateral defect in the greater tuberosity. Subsequent ultrasound examination of the shoulder (not shown) suggested rotator cuff avulsion. Axial computed tomography (CT) (Figure 3, A) demonstrated the extensive lateral impression fracture of the superolateral greater tuberosity and anatomic neck, which left an extensive cavitary bony deficit. In Figure 3, B, the reconstructed sagittal CT section better demonstrates the bony defect and its extent, as well as defining the fragments of subacromial bone, which were presumed to represent avulsion of the supraspinatus tendon from the greater tuberosity. After the patient’s knee was reconstructed, operative treatment involved positioning the patient supine and semiupright in the beach-chair position. A longitudinal lateral incision was made from the acromion down the deltoid, followed by a deltoid split to explore the damage. After finding the crater of the humeral head defect, which appeared to key together with the acromion, the rotator cuff was explored and the deltoid dissected subperiosteally from the acromion for proper exposure. We did not enter the rotator interval anteriorly. The substance of the rotator cuff tendons appeared to be entirely intact, and they mobilized remarkably well, considering that the operation was at 18 days after injury. The rotator cuff could not be classified as a tear,2,3 as the substance of it was in full continuity. However, we did keep in mind the principle of regaining tension of the tendon, which has been noted in rotator cuff tears to be more Dr Kaspar holds research grants from McMaster University and from the Physicians’ Services Incorporated (PSI) Foundation of Ontario, neither of which had any bearing on this report. From McMaster University. Reprint requests: Scott Mandel, MD, FRCSC, 414 Victoria Ave N, Suite M8, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8L 5G8. J Shoulder Elbow Surg 2004;13:112-14 Copyright © 2004 by Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery Board of Trustees. 1058-2746/2004/$35.00 0 doi:10.1016/S0009-9236(03)00177-0 Figure 1 Diagrammatic representation of the mechanism of injury. The patient’s body weight landed onto his right upper extremity, which he had used to protect his head, hence yielding a hyperabducted right shoulder. After this 15-foot free fall, he continued tumbling for a further 40 feet.

Bio-Politics and the ContamiNation of the Body in Alejandro Morales' "The Rag Doll Plagues"

With the rise of the modern nation-state during the eighteenth century, power, discourse, and knowledge have constituted central elements controlling the populace. Especially the West, the nation-state has governed the lives of its people, creating the mirage of and external security, economic growth, and cultural identity exchange for power, money, and certain rights. In addition, the positioning or, rather, projection of an Other as a potential threat to the nation has played a crucial role the discursive construction of national communities. Part of this construction has been the projected fear that alien elements infect and ultimately destroy the ostensible unity of the national body through racial and cultural difference. As a method of self-constitution, discourses of the nation have generally excluded marginal voices of race, ethnicity, gender, age, or sexual preference and have thus desired to keep the collective body pure from radical alterity. While national narratives have been designed to level out certain differences within the ethnos, there always remains a certain degree of otherness which cannot be assimilated but is fact necessary to delimit the ideal social body from certain nationalities and groups that reside within the confines of the nation. Similar to nation-building processes the centers, the ignition of national consciousness the peripheries was also based on an imagined cultural substratum. Within many anti-colonial and civil rights struggles, those control of discursive practices have often silenced voices of alterity order to unify a people the struggle against colonial, hegemonic orders. (1) In recent years, scholars and New Americanists have focused on these topics of national inclusions and exclusions their analyses of cultural and literary texts. For example, New Americanists have introduced the term to convey a sense of opposition to the discursive constructedness of the nation cultural representations. A postnational perspective hence exposes the exclusionary practices of national discourses by debunking and criticizing the embedded patriarchal, essentialist, and heterosexual hegemonies. (2) Such a research perspective also seeks to explore critically the points of intersection between American studies and theory order to explore notions of empire relation to the US. This marks an important intervention because, the past, many literary and cultural critics have discarded the notion of the United States as postcolonial. It has often been claimed that the US had its postcolonial moment after 1776, but soon developed its own distinct colonial and imperial endeavors, domestically and abroad. (3) However, recent debates have suggested an inclusion of certain experiences the United States for instance, slavery, migration, internal colonialism, and minoritarian struggles for civil rights under the auspices of studies (cf. King). The relations between Anglo America and Mexican Americans call for an incorporation of the Chicana/o experience into the field of studies because they were historically marked by many features of proper: political oppression, economic exploitation, and cultural dominance. Since the 1960s, a number of Chicana/o critics have adopted the theoretical concept of internal colonialism to account for their group's subordinate socio-economic and cultural position within US society) Supporting this claim, Fredric Jameson has suggested that in the United States itself, we have come to think and to speak of the emergence of an Third World and of Third World voices, as Black women's or Chicano literature (151). Hence, a growing number of Chicana/o studies scholars are debating and testing the applicability of certain paradigms--colonial discourses, national liberation projects, border crossings, or hybridity--to literary and cultural representations of the Mexican American condition (see, for instance, Arteaga; Aldama and Quinonez; Perez-Torres; Karrer). …

The Politics of Blood:

In The Rag Doll Plagues ( 1992), Alejandro Morales employs the epidemic as a metaphor for sociocultural transformations initiated with the conquest of the Americas and continuing into the twenty-first century. The present essay centers on the trope of blood-in terms of the representation of plagues and the possibilities ofmiscegenation- in order to show how The Rag Doll Plagues highlights the fear of intercultural contact and the shortcomings of concepts such as mestizaje to resolve social inequalities, advocating instead a multicultural agenda able to address the socioeconomic complexities of contemporary society. Morales’s assessment of different forms of transculturation is germane to current debates on cultural hybridity, issues of race and class, and the use of science and technology as forms of social control.

Sender 2001: Actas del congreso centenario celebrado en Sheffield by Anthony Trippett (review)

MLR, 99.3, 2004 817 Sender 2001: Actas del congreso centenario celebrado en Sheffield. Ed. by Anthony Trippett. Bristol: H/PLAM. 2002. xiv +187 pp. ?32. ISBN 0-86292-524-x. Conference proceedings occasionally compensate for lack of unity by range of treat? ment and the collection edited by Anthony Trippett presents some excellent historical and literary analysis of Ramon J. Sender's work, with interesting thematic surveys and a few 'sideways' glances at content. What the volume lacks most, perhaps, is an overall assessment ofthe author's place in world literature, although ithints that some of his early novels, notably Imdn (1930), rank near the top, while others, including Tupac Amaru (1973), do not. Francis Lough's scholarly discussion of how the Left perceived the experimental novelists of the 1920s and 1930s as bourgeois goes on to assess Sender's own attempts to write social novels with love as their essential theme, and the uncertain relation? ship between intellectual culture and proletarian spirit, a dichotomy/dilemma which he never resolved. Patricia McDermott's splendid study of the author's admiration for Valle-Inclan focuses on their use of the 'pelele', rag doll or puppet image, in Sender's case to depict the people as anonymous victims, exemplified by Viance, the living-dead soldier in Imdn. On the thematic level, Donatella Pini highlights persecution linking Requiem por un campesino espanol (1953) and El fugitivo (1972), wondering whether the latter somehow continues the former or whether the author simply reused parts of his earlier texts. Stephen Hart studies the figure and qualities of (non-military) subalterns as symbolizing the disproportion between the individual and (Aragonese) society, where landlords-people, powerful-powerless, rich-poor, and even CastilianAragonese inequality is reflected in language. Eduardo Godoy Gallardo examines the reality-fiction mixture in four novels in which today's reality is violent while the memory of yesterday is always gentle. Juan Carlos Zuazola's 'sideways' psychoanalytical portrayal of Sender as essentially an instinctive writer suggests some points that could be studied from a Freudian per? spective, such as the conflict between the forces of life and death. Shelley Godsland views the protagonist of La tesis de Nancy (1962), the American cultural tourist, as embodying the author's own literary frustration as an exile in the USA and his identification with the older Spanish men that gape at Nancy. Antonio Sanchez classifies Tupac Amaru as a historical essay, since it relates faithfully the historical facts of the Inca rebellion of 1780 against the Spanish colonial administration , and Margaret Turner considers Sender's portrayal of Lope de Aguirre, the sixteenth-century conquistador, as basically accurate, Aguirre having been, not mad, but irrational. For Jesus Vived Mairal, Sender was an uncomfortable anarchist in the early 1930s, becoming enthusiastic about the USSR during his 1933 visit, but breaking with Russia and Communism later, mainly because they did not share his feeling for 'lo humano'. On the whole, then, despite neglecting much of his work, the volume's sound li? terary analysis and interesting sidelights provide a dignified testimonial to Sender's literary standing a century after his birth. University of Salford Leo Hickey Postmodern Paletos: Immigration, Democracy, and Globalization in Spanish Narra? tive and Film, ig$o-2ooo. By Nathan E. Richardson. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press; London: Associated University Presses. 2002. 260 pp. $45. ISBN 0-8387-5498-8. Although the beginning of the title may seem somewhat puzzling, the words 'post? modern' and 'paletos' actually convey the main argument of the text, as they make ...

Arterial thromboembolism in cats: acute crisis in 127 cases (1992-2001) and long-term management with low-dose aspirin in 24 cases.

Records of 127 cats with arterial thromboembolism (ATE) were reviewed. Abyssinian, Birman, Ragdoll, and male cats were overrepresented. Tachypnea (91%), hypothermia (66%), and absent limb motor function (66%) were common. Of 90 cats with diagnostics performed, underlying diseases were hyperthyroidism (12), cardiomyopathy (dilated [8], unclassified [33], hypertrophic obstructive [5], hypertrophic [19]), neoplasia (6), other (4), and none (3). Common abnormalities were left atrial enlargement (93%), congestive heart failure (CHF, 44%), and arrhythmias (44%). Of cats without CHF, 89% were tachypneic. Common biochemical abnormalities were hyperglycemia, azotemia, and abnormally high serum concentrations of muscle enzymes. Of 87 cats treated for acute limb ATE, 39 (45%) survived to be discharged. Significant differences were found between survivors and nonsurvivors for temperature (P < .00001), heart rate (P = .038), serum phosphorus concentration (P = .024), motor function (P = .008), and number of limbs affected (P = .001). No significant difference was found between survivors and nonsurvivors when compared by age, respiratory rate, other biochemical analytes, or concurrent CHE A logistic regression model based on rectal temperature predicted a 50% probability of survival at 98.9 degrees F (37.2 degrees C). Median survival time (MST) for discharged cats was 117 days. Eleven cats had ATE recurrences, and 5 cats developed limb problems. Cats with CHF (MST: 77 days) had significantly shorter survival than cats without CHF (MST: 223 days; P = .016). No significant difference was found in survival or recurrence rate between cats receiving high-dose aspirin (> or = 40 mg/cat q72h) and cats receiving low-dose aspirin (5 mg/cat q72h). Adverse effects were less frequent and milder for the lower dosage.

Resignification and Cultural Re/Production in Japanese Television Commercials

Resignification and Cultural Re/Production in Japanese Television Commercials

Association between patient-related factors and risk of calcium oxalate and magnesium ammonium phosphate urolithiasis in cats.

To determine whether breed, age, sex, or reproductive status (i.e., neutered versus sexually intact) was associated with the apparent increase in prevalence of calcium oxalate (CaOx) uroliths and the decrease in prevalence of magnesium ammonium phosphate (MAP) uroliths in cats over time. Case-control study. Case cats consisted of cats with CaOx (n = 7,895) or MAP (7,334) uroliths evaluated at the Minnesota Urolith Center between 1981 and 1997. Control cats consisted of cats without urinary tract disease admitted to veterinary teaching hospitals in the United States and Canada during the same period (150,482). Univariate and multivariate logistic regression were performed. British Shorthair, Exotic Shorthair, Foreign Shorthair, Havana Brown, Himalayan, Persian, Ragdoll, and Scottish Fold cats had an increased risk of developing CaOx uroliths, as did male cats and neutered cats. Chartreux, domestic shorthair, Foreign Shorthair, Himalayan, Oriental Shorthair, and Ragdoll cats had an increased risk of developing MAP uroliths, as did female cats and neutered cats. Cats with CaOx uroliths were significantly older than cats with MAP uroliths. Results suggest that changes in breed, age, sex, or reproductive status did not contribute to the apparent reciprocal relationship between prevalences of CaOx and MAP uroliths in cats during a 17-year period. However, cats of particular breeds, ages, sex, and reproductive status had an increased risk of developing CaOx and MAP uroliths.

Constructing the Little House: Gender, Culture, and Laura Ingalls Wilder

Ann Romines.1997. Constructing Little House: Gender, Culture, and Laura Ingalls Wilder. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. $55.00 hc. $17.95 sc. xi + 287 pp. It takes a certain kind of courage for an adult literary scholar to analyze books she loved as a child. It can be sobering to revisit a childhood favorite, only to realize it is badly written, or sexist, or racist, or sentimental, or just plain dull. It can be equally sobering to discover that text one remembers is actually movie version, or cartoon version, or television version, with incidents and characters added or deleted willy-hilly Some books are best left closed. Given this, it is all more remarkable that Ann Romines chose to do a full-length scholarly study of her own favorite books from childhood, Little House series. Clearly this study was in part her personal mission to understand why these books meant so much to her while growing in Licking, Missouri, in late 1940s and 1950s. Romines includes kinds of personal details-her collection of Little House-related memorabilia (a rag doll, a nine-patch quilt, a glass bread plate); her reaction to late novels in series (When I read Silver lake and following volume, The Long Winter [1940], I had exhilarating feeling that I was leaving `baby books' . . . behind to become a grown-up reader [139], her grandmother driving her to a bookstore in Springfield, Missouri, to obtain 85-year-old Laura Ingalls Wilder's autograph--that rarely appear in scholarly books. But in this study they seem right at home, even necessary; for as Romines knows well, her intense personal reaction to Little House books is not unique to her. Rather, hers is part of a continuing communal response to texts that explore issues of gender and personal identity. The Little House books have enjoyed extraordinary popularity among several generations ofAmerican girls, from Depression era (when to buy a book was a major expense) to present (when youngsters supposedly have an aversion to printed page). Even more, these books tend to be read and re-read, with Little House fans maintaining their passion into adulthood and actively recruiting their (female) children and grandchildren to share in experience. It is nature of Little House books' continuing personal and national appeal that intrigues Romines; and she brings to bear on that question her impressive knowledge of literary history, feminist criticism, popular culture, and literary theory. She also makes generous use of her gift for astute formalist readings and her sensitivity to nuances of both creative process and internecine strife. The result is a complex and provocative scholarly study Romines's sensitivity to creativity and to mother/daughter relationships is an essential element of her study's success.William Holtz's fine 1993 book, The Ghost in Little House, made a convincing case that Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, was ghost of Little House series, a scenario that renders problematic one's response to Wilder as author. But Romines declares early on that she regards series as the work of a composite author (47)-and much of impact of Constructing Little House comes from her analysis of written exchanges between mother and daughter as they collaborated on texts. Both women were strong-willed, and daughter Rose-globetrotting, independent, market-minded-argued often and hard with her mother. But if Rose was aggressive, Laura was stubborn; and written record of their battles makes it clear that Laura, though not a professional writer like her daughter, nevertheless understood instinctively when to downplay or omit characters (she wrote Rose in regard to characters Lena and Docia, stress them, don't play them up [157)), how to use physical objects (a china shepherdess, a fiddle, a rag doll) as motifs to unite books in Little House series, and how to arrange plots in such a way that Pa's many failures were simultaneously acknowledged but repressed in reader's consciousness. …

Peformance Review: Der Fensterputzer

Reviewed by: Der Fensterputzer Brian Kloppenberg Der Fensterputzer. By Pina Bausch. Tanztheater Wuppertal. Brooklyn Academy of Music. 11 October 1997. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Regina Advento and Jan Minarik in Tanztheater Wuppertal’s production of Pina Bausch’s Der Fensterputzer (The Window Washer). Brooklyn Academy of Music. Photo: Ulli Weiss. Since the premiere of Fritz in 1974, Pina Bausch has created over thirty evening-length productions with her company, Tanztheater Wuppertal. As the company’s name indicates, Bausch’s work owes as much to theatre as it does to dance, utilizing elaborate sets, costumes, props, and spoken text in addition to movement and music. She rarely utilizes plainly dressed dancers on a bare stage. Rather, women clothed in fancy dresses or slips and men wearing suits or dress shirts and pants might dance on a field of carnations, or splash around in a large, shallow pool of water, or in front of a giant wall of concrete blocks that crashes to the floor during the piece. Bausch’s dancers also talk to one another and the audience as well as executing strange scenes that involve any number of unlikely items, from chairs to leaves to cars to cups of coffee. Bausch is strongly influenced by the expressionism of both German and American modern dance, and employs frankly sexual and violent material. The female dancers are often violated by the male dancers, either being thrown around the stage like rag dolls or subjected to more subtle, sexually disturbing kinds of touch. Although the women rarely turn on the men, or the men on each other, Bausch will occasionally make a spectacle of male narcissism, offering a self-adoring man for the audience to admire and laugh at. Bausch packs each dance with a wide range of elements, which are often developed through improvisational collaborations with company members. Rather than following more traditional choreographic concepts of structure and development to communicate clear perspectives on certain themes, Bausch works in an associative, collage-oriented manner that resists straightforward interpretation. Thus, a particularly disturbing section of a work might be followed, without transition, by a passage of fairly abstract, dancerly movement. As a result, there is almost no sense of cause and effect in her work. Der Fensterputzer (The Window Washer) is a characteristic, if ultimately less successful, example of Bausch’s dance theatre. The sets are the most memorable aspect of the production, especially a large, mobile mound covered in red flowers designed by Peter Pabst. Although the work supposedly draws inspiration from the complex cultures of Hong Kong, only a few of its many short vignettes clearly evoke the city. A gloss on Chinese manners involves one woman who gingerly walks across the [End Page 385] stage and repeatedly asks the audience, so very politely, if she can help us. At the end of the first act, the dancers throw a riot of red flowers into the air to the sound of fireworks, suggesting a raucous Chinese New Year’s celebration. The work ends with a dire image: dancer after dancer climbing up and over the mound, struggling onward. In light of current events, the dance seems to imply that the forward march of history is profoundly changing Hong Kong, and its inhabitants have no choice but to move with the times. Most of the rest of Der Fensterputzer appears to relate less to Hong Kong and more to Bausch’s ongoing fascination with human perversity. A muscleman stripped to his underwear poses for the audience, and then dabs perfume on various parts of his body. A woman runs around the space with her shoulders hunched up around her ears and her arms held limply out at her sides. A man whips a woman who is on her hands and knees as they slowly cross the stage. Two women trip a single man repeatedly as he attempts to walk between them. Although Bausch rarely develops these kinds of scenes, she has used such material in other dances with accumulatively devastating power. Here they simply do not add up, the effect remains mere titillation. Thrown into the mix with these various theatrical vignettes are several sections of pure...

Children's knowledge of their internal anatomy.

Children's knowledge of their internal anatomy was investigated in this study of 24 school children aged seven and eight. Data were collected, first using projected drawings, and subsequently using an anatomical rag doll with prompt questions. There was no significant difference between the knowledge of boys and girls but the prompted responses were significantly better than unprompted. The instrument could be used to aid assessment of children's knowledge in the clinical setting and for teaching.

Made to Play House: Dolls and the Commercialization of American Girlhood, 1830-1930.

Dolls have long been perceived as symbols of domesticity, maternity, and materialism, designed by men and loved by girls who wanted to 'play house.' In this engagingly written and illustrated social history of the American doll industry, Miriam Formanek-Brunell shows that this has not always been the case. Drawing on a wide variety of contemporary sources -- including popular magazines advertising, autobiographies, juvenile literature, patents, photographs, and the dolls themselves -- Formanek-Brunell traces the history of the doll industry back to its beginnings, a time when American men, women, and girls each claimed the right to construct dolls and gender. Formanek-Brunell describes how dolls and doll play changed over time: antebellum rag dolls taught sewing skills; Gilded Age fashion dolls inculcated formal social rituals; Progressive Era dolls promoted health and active play; and the realistic baby dolls of the 1920s fostered girls' maternal impulses. She discusses how the aesthetic values and business methods of women dollmakers differed from those of their male counterpart, and she describes, for example, Martha Chase, who made America's first soft, sanitary cloth dolls, and Rose O'Neill, inventor of the kewpie doll. According to Formanek-Brunell, although American businessmen ultimately dominated the industry with dolls they marketed as symbols of an idealized feminine domesticity, businesswomen presented an alternative vision of gender for both girls and boys through a variety of dolls they manufactured themselves.

Made to play house: dolls and the commercialization of American girlhood, 1830-1930

Dolls have long been perceived as symbols of domesticity, maternity, and materialism, designed by men and loved by girls who wanted to 'play house.' In this engagingly written and illustrated social history of the American doll industry, Miriam Formanek-Brunell shows that this has not always been the case. Drawing on a wide variety of contemporary sources -- including popular magazines advertising, autobiographies, juvenile literature, patents, photographs, and the dolls themselves -- Formanek-Brunell traces the history of the doll industry back to its beginnings, a time when American men, women, and girls each claimed the right to construct dolls and gender. Formanek-Brunell describes how dolls and doll play changed over time: antebellum rag dolls taught sewing skills; Gilded Age fashion dolls inculcated formal social rituals; Progressive Era dolls promoted health and active play; and the realistic baby dolls of the 1920s fostered girls' maternal impulses. She discusses how the aesthetic values and business methods of women dollmakers differed from those of their male counterpart, and she describes, for example, Martha Chase, who made America's first soft, sanitary cloth dolls, and Rose O'Neill, inventor of the kewpie doll. According to Formanek-Brunell, although American businessmen ultimately dominated the industry with dolls they marketed as symbols of an idealized feminine domesticity, businesswomen presented an alternative vision of gender for both girls and boys through a variety of dolls they manufactured themselves.

The Sea of Dames

THE SEA OF DAMES / Cynthia Shearer VAN CLEVE USUALLY GOT the best women. It was a given. It started when he and Harry Durrance and I were classmates at West Point. Harry and I would meet our Brooklyn or Bronx girls at Penn Station, but Van Cleve would usuaUy vanish for a while and show up later with some pale blonde who you could smell the money on. Some girl that would fix her icy blues on the view outside the cab window just so, and ride all insulated by her nickname and her good fur. And she'd pointedly not speak to us—or even to Van Cleve— which never seemed to matter much to him. This would be standard for the entire night as everyone got drunker and drunker. Durrance's girl would be in her cheap rayon dress fresh from her job at a five-and-dime and my girl would have on some fierce fire-engine red lipstick that she wouldn't be allowed to wear at her bookkeeping job. They ought to name that shade of red "1940" and restrict its use to girls twenty or under, like our girls were then. Van Cleve's girl would never speak to Durrance's girl or my girl. And it would get to Durrance. You could see him itching to get revenge on the society girl in some way. But we'd all dance, and only if Van Cleve was feeling mean toward his girl would he insist that she dance with his good friend from the Deep South, Durrance, or with his good friend from the Bronx, yours truly. And on those occasions, his piece of ice would just stare over your shoulder and wait for the song to end. Durrance's girl or my girl might dance like a frostbit rag doll with Van Cleve, with a look of fear or worship on her face, depending on her intelligence level. I'll never forget one time, Durrance had dragged us into this dive of a place in Harlem. He had a knack for that. That son of a bitch could ferret out some of the best music you ever heard, and not always in places you could confess to your mother. This one time he insisted that we go to this little joint in Harlem. We get there, and there is this enormous black man, Sgt. Joseph Caliban, playing the trumpet. Caliban was the trumpeter for the 367th Infantry out of Fort Riley, and he was home on leave, playing a few sets with his old buddies. One look at that body The Missouri Review · 9 and you knew that it was the trumpet that got him past the army physical. The music was Uke nothing I ever heard before, better than what you'd get on a record. Van Cleve when he was whistled was not much different from Van Cleve when he was sober. He was sitting with his lanky legs crossed, his face looking Uke it was aU some grand anthropological expedition he was making. Like he was just passing through this lower Ufe on his way to great statesmanship. And Durrance was sitting there sUghtly whistled, with his head cocked just so, Uke he always did when we were being briefed before takeoff, receiving some serious flight instructions. Van Cleve's girl that night was a Bryn Mawr girl. She was sitting there more than a Uttle miffed because she had wanted to go to the ViUage because she knew that was where the clubs were if you wanted to drop names later Uke Thelonius Monk or Bird Parker. She knew that much about music, the right names to drop. And the other two girls, our girls, were probably wondering why in the hell they were wasting their time on guys who wouldn't take them to the Rainbow Room, or they were worrying how the heU they were going to powder their noses in the black chicks' lavatory, but basicaUy enjoying being in a place that they couldn't teU their mothers about. That's the place I remember most fondly, and we had access to the best in those...

Treatment of Non Specific Dyssomnia with Simple Stimulus Control Procedures in a Child with Down's Syndrome

Nonaversive behavioural interventions were used successfully to treat a disrupted sleep pattern in a child with Down's syndrome. A quasi-experimental single-case design was employed to evaluate the treatment efficacy. During the first phase of treatment, the mother implemented a structured bedtime routine and the child was no longer allowed to engage in activities while in bed. During the second phase, a stimulus control paradigm was employed in which a nearly life-sized rag doll was substituted for the mother in bed. Finally, the mother gradually withdrew from the child's bed and room. During baseline, the child spent an average of only six percent of the night sleeping alone. By the second phase, this rose to a mean of 26%. By the end of treatment this was increased to a mean of 78.2%. The increase was accompanied by collateral decreases in crying and distress. Improvements were maintained at follow-up.

To Write of Repeated Patterns

THEY SAY HE'S 16. say in dead of they really do say this, the dead of night ?he sneaks to attic, planned or unplanned nobody yet knows, he lifts his daddy's squirrel its case, then sneaks back down with it, carefully opens door to room in which they're sleeping, and blasts them out of this life, one shot to temple each, in quick succession. The neighbors are interviewed, . . shocked a wonderful boy he loved his parents. Then camera brings him into its painfully clear-edged imagery. He's seated behind a desk at headquarters, confused by himself, by everything and everyone. He doesn't look over 12, a limp rag doll of a child, being questioned for parricide. Skyler and I are at Sarah's and Eric's. Change channel! What we'd wanted was mild diversion floating in over our afternoon beers. There's TV snow and lightningbolts; then, a couple of numbers up or down dial, news is into its loonier wrap-up phase: There was three of them, three feet high. was green. trucker spotted them trotting down a play ground-slideish gangplank from a silver ship. It looked like, you know ... . . shark's fin fitted with lateral wings, one other observer, a priest, chimes in. priest? They peered around, returned to ship, and took off. That's all. I think they were trying to bring us a message. Tonight, while Skyler's asnooze, I'm up with a book. It says, in voice of classical lamentation, A man looks on his own son as his enemy. The heart is aggressive, blood is everywhere, no office functions properly. The rich wake poor, poor wake rich, land whirls around like a pot ter's wheel. Verily. The television yeasayeth this with every snoopy cam corder shot of a Presidential rally or a weekend convention of skateboard and dirtbike enthusiasts. Some group of PTA sex education fanatics, cos tumed ? la birds and bees. Some show of support for a local pastor in jail on charges of fondling a 10-year-old girl. The remains of an airliner: yes, a three member suicide squadron smuggled a plastic gun on board in six unrecognizable segments. Everywhere men are killed wrongfully. This text, however, is Egyptian Old Kingdom ?2500 b.c. Some nights ?this isn't first time I've consulted it after overmuch media brouhaha?its cannily contempo applicability leaves me shaking my

Ecuador: Looking you in the eye

Take some guinea‐pigs, add a back‐strap loom and some rag dolls, stir in one drunken shoemaker, a pinch of husbands' gossip and a hefty dose of selfesteem. What do you get? Just the beginnings of the recipe for a unique women's museum, the Casa Cumbe, located near Cuenca in Ecuador, whose story is told here by the chairperson of ICOM's regional Latin American and Caribbean Organization who, prior to volunteering at Casa Cumbe, was for ten years director of the Museum of Folk Arts at the Inter‐American Centre for Folk Arts and Crafts. She is now overseeing the creation of a museum of metallurgy in southern Ecuador.