Sad Day Research Articles

Predictors of drinking immediacy following daily sadness: An application of survival analysis to experience sampling data

Previous studies of daily assessments show modest mood–drinking covariation as a function of gender and coping motives; however previous analyses also assume a fixed interval across all individuals in the onset of drinking following negative mood. The current study used survival analysis and experience sampling methods to test whether gender and coping motives predicted shorter sadness-to-drinking intervals among those with greater alcohol-related drinking consequences. A sample of 85 college students (46% male; 78% Caucasian) completed daily assessments over 28 days. Survival analyses showed that women drank more on days following elevated sadness when they reported being motivated to drink to cope and having experienced alcohol-related consequences. For men, the two groups showing greater drinking risk following days of elevated sadness did not report alcohol-related consequences, with those reporting the presence of coping motives showing the greatest risk. Implications of these findings for self-medication mechanisms are discussed.

Mission Creep in the IRB World

The system in the United States for protecting human participants in research engages the earnest efforts of thousands of scientists, community volunteers, and administrators. Through untold hours of service on Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), they watch over the safety of human research subjects. Unfortunately, much of that effort is increasingly misdirected as the system succumbs to “mission creep” that could compromise its central goals. Our IRB system is endangered by excessive paperwork and expanding obligations to oversee work that poses little risk to subjects. The result is that we have simultaneous overregulation and underprotection. IRBs were established after the 1979 Belmont Report from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, with the goal of protecting human subjects involved in potentially risky medical and behavioral research. But IRBs' burdens have grown to include studies involving interviews, journalism, secondary use of public-use data, and similar activities that others conduct regularly without oversight. Most of these activities involve minimal risks—surely less than those faced during a standard physical or psychological examination, the metric for everyday risk in the federal regulations. And IRBs are pressured to review an expanding range of issues from research design and conflicts of interest to patient privacy. These are beyond the scope of research protection and are best left to others. The IRB system is being overwhelmed by a focus on procedures and documentation at the expense of thoughtful consideration of the difficult ethical questions surrounding the welfare of human subjects, especially as complex clinical trials burgeon. Their work is afflicted by unclear definitions of terms such as “risk,” “harm,” and “research.” Because ethical behavior is difficult to measure, many IRBs rely on stylized documentation over substantive review, out of concern that one case in a thousand could slip through and generate bad publicity or penalties, or potentially shut down research. The result is that many protocols receive exaggerated review, and the paper piles up. Society loses as potentially productive research is discouraged or self-censored. Ironically, this obsession with paperwork and mechanical monitoring may undermine protection of human subjects. IRB members spend too much time editing documents, marking typos, and asking for more details. One researcher, 10 years into a longitudinal study, was asked by an IRB to remove the term “anemia” from consent forms because participants might not understand it. Such actions, about which we hear frequently, carry a serious risk: They reduce trust in the guidance of IRBs and may alienate some researchers enough to turn them into scofflaws. ![Figure][1] CREDIT: ROYALTY-FREE/CORBIS Oversight of the IRB process by federal agencies reinforces these tendencies. “Poor or missing ‘Standard Operating Procedures'” and “poor minute-keeping” account for about half of all U.S. Food and Drug Administration citations, and quorum failures for another 13%, according to one review. In seeking compliance, universities have multiplied the number of IRBs, depleting the supply of willing and competent faculty. All this has generated a trend in which researchers increasingly think of IRBs as the “ethics police.” In fact, all researchers must take primary responsibility for professional, ethical conduct. Our systems should reinforce that, not work against or substitute for it; the IRB should be a resource, not the source, for ethical wisdom. All compliance systems require the buy-in and collaboration of the regulated, and it will be a sad day if scholars come to see human protection in research as the source of frustrating delays and expensive paperwork. What can be done? Our University of Illinois white paper,[*][2] based on 2 years of study after an interdisciplinary conference of researchers and IRB leaders, addresses the problems of mission creep and offers possible solutions. Our recommendations include the exemption from IRB oversight of some activities that have ethical standards of their own, distinct from the biomedical tradition. We also support gathering information in a national clearinghouse that supports IRBs and researchers alike. This would provide examples of good and poor practices rooted in disciplinary standards, and help IRBs make priority determinations about what constitutes risk and harm in different human research settings. The IRB system is in trouble, and that means trouble for the safety and efficacy of research on human subjects. We should refocus our efforts on the core issues and stop expanding the mission into less productive territory. [1]: pending:yes [2]: #fn-1

Cecile M. Pickart 1954–2006

Cecile M. Pickart, Ph.D., Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, died of kidney cancer on April 5, 2006, in Baltimore, at the age of 51. On this very sad day, the ubiquitin-proteasome field lost a true pioneer and talent, the scientific community lost a beloved leader and colleague, and the world lost a remarkable human being.

The Lost Years of Home Run King Joe Bauman

When Baseball America's bimonthly newspaper polled its readers in 1999 to select the Minor League legend of the twentieth century, Joe Bauman was chosen as the number one legend. (1) If I had voted I would have stuffed the ballot box for Joe because he is my number one baseball hero. To boys like me who grew up in the late 1940s and early 1950s in western Oklahoma, he took on almost mythical status from the moment he arrived in my hometown to play baseball for three glorious semipro seasons. Like Paul Bunyan of the north woods, he seemed to be at least ten feet tall although he stood only six feet four and one-half inches and weighed 230 pounds. Bauman's legend lives in anyone who ever saw him swat a ball. You couldn't put a fence out there that he couldn't knock over. And he did it all without steroids, other muscle-enhancing drugs, or weight machines. (2) I was one of the lucky ones who got to watch him play for free, selling pop at the ballpark. When a panel of Baseball America experts in 1999 were asked to name the significant or spectacular feats in 100 years of Minor League Bauman's hitting 72 homers in 1954 for the Roswell, New Mexico, Rockets of the class C Longhorn League was second behind Robinson signing a minor league contract with the Dodgers on October 3, 1945. (3) I've got a lot of respect for Jackie Robinson, but come on now--signing a contract to begin playing for Montreal, Quebec, way north of the Mason-Dixon line in the International League is simply nothing compared to hitting 72 dingers in a 138-game season in the hot dust storm fields of southeastern New Mexico and the panhandle of Texas. was a sad day for me when Barry Bonds hit his 73rd home run of the season in 2001. Sitting before a television set in his Roswell home as Bonds hit number 73, Bauman watched the hit and later said, It didn't bother me or anything. I just thought, 'There goes my record.' (4) I gave a little cheer when I learned that Minor League baseball at its winter meetings in December 2004 had given its first Joe Bauman Award to Philadelphia Phillie prospect Ryan Howard, who led all Minor Leaguers during the 2004 season with 38 home runs. This award is to be given annually to the leading home run hitter each year in the minors and will be accompanied by a check for the handsome sum of $200 per homer. (5) Many authors have penned well-written articles about Bauman hitting those 72 homers in 1954 and his hitting 337 home runs during his nine seasons in the Minor Leagues. (6) However, only brief comments appeared in those articles about Bauman's baseball exploits during his lost his eight seasons outside the Minor Leagues when he played sandlot, semipro, or service baseball. CAPITOL HILL Joe Bauman was born on April 17, 1922, in Welch, a tiny northeast Oklahoma community twenty-one miles down the road from Mickey Mantle's mining hometown of Commerce. Moving from Welch at a very young age, Joe grew up in the Capitol Hill area of southern Oklahoma City in a strictly run home with his mom, dad, and an older brother. Joe was raised by his dad to play baseball, but he also starred in basketball and football. He was a natural right-hander. His dad helped him learn to both hit and field as a lefty. Jack Baer, later a semipro teammate of Bauman's and the University of Oklahoma's baseball coach for many years, described Bauman's switch from right to left hand as one of the most amazing changes he had ever seen. (7) In the spring of 1939 Bauman was a sophomore and the starting first baseman for the Redskins of Oklahoma City's Capitol Hill High School, the leading athletic school in Oklahoma in that prewar era. In early May the team went to Stillwater, the home of Oklahoma A & M College, now Oklahoma State University. There the Redskins won the state's class A Interscholastic baseball title, the equivalent of a state championship since there were no statewide playoffs. …

Noncommutative QFT and renormalization

AbstractIt was a great pleasure for me (Harald Grosse) to be invited to talk at the meeting celebrating the 70th birthday of Prof. Julius Wess. I remember various interactions with Julius during the last years: At the time of my studies at Vienna with Walter Thirring, Julius left already Vienna, I learned from his work on effective chiral Lagrangians. Next we met at various conferences and places like CERN (were I worked with Andre Martin, an old friend of Julius), and we all learned from Julius' and Bruno's creation of supersymmetry, next we realized our common interests in noncommutative quantum field theory and did have an intensive exchange. Julius influenced our perturbative approach to gauge field theories were we used the Seiberg‐Witten map after his advice. And finally I lively remember the sad days when during my invitation to Vienna Julius did have the serious heart attack. So we are very happy, that you recovered so well, and we wish you all the best for the forthcoming years. Many happy recurrences.

Supporting the NIH before it is too late

Supporting the NIH before it is too late

A Sad Day for Science at the FDA

A Sad Day for Science at the FDA

A Sad Day for Science at the FDA

The FDA has again postponed a decision about making emergency contraception available to women without a prescription. Drs. Alastair Wood, Jeffrey Drazen, and Michael Greene write that this deserves serious scrutiny, since it appears to reflect political meddling in the drug-approval process.

Worries over lab animals decision

The move by a British farm raising animals for research to pull out in the face of animal rights activists has caused widespread concern and fears that new legislation to limit their activities may not be working. Nigel Williams reports. The move by a British farm raising animals for research to pull out in the face of animal rights activists has caused widespread concern and fears that new legislation to limit their activities may not be working. Nigel Williams reports. The British government and some of the country’s leading scientists have reacted with anger and frustration to the decision to end breeding of animals at a farm that has been relentlessly targeted by animal rights protesters, warning that there could be severe consequences for clinical research in the country, in spite of new legislation this year limiting their activities. The decision by the owners of Darley Oaks farm in Newchurch, Staffordshire follows a six-year campaign, one of several by animal rights activists that have caused growing concern in parliament. Though Darley Oaks farm’s announcement caused jubilation among animal rights activists, the government responded robustly, condemning the way that many protesters behaved. “It is wholly unacceptable that a small minority of animal extremists should mount a campaign of fear and intimidation in an attempt to stop individuals and companies going about their lawful and legitimate business,” a spokesman for the Department of Trade and Industry said. The chair of the science and technology select committee, Ian Gibson, who was one of the driving forces behind the government’s initial decision to act, said the decision showed the government “must now do more” to prevent the protesters. “This illustrates how we have got to be even more vigilant and prevent this kind of thing happening in the future. People are feeling really victimized and intimidated. It is completely unacceptable.” His view was echoed across the political spectrum. The Conservative MP Michael Fabricant, whose constituency includes the farm, described the protesters as “animal rights terrorists”. “It is a sad day when terror tactics are seen, albeit wrongly, to have succeeded and the rule of law in our country to have failed,” he said. Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat science spokesman, called the news “a victory for terrorism and extremism”. “The government must do more to protect the remaining sites where animal breeding and research takes place – it is a lawful, legitimate and valuable activity which is a vital tool in producing new medical treatments,” he said. “Animal rights extremists who use violence, intimidation and harassment to further their ends must be shunned and exposed.” Although the government also moved to reassure the scientific community that another supplier would replace Darley Oaks farm, which breeds guinea pigs, the news also prompted fresh fears about research in the UK. More than 500 UK scientists and clinicians pledged their support for animal testing in research in a document drawn up by the Research Defence Society. They supported a statement stating that a “a small but vital” part of medical research involves animals. The declaration, which is not linked to the Darley Oak’s decision, comes 15 years after a similar declaration by the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Simon Festing, executive director of RDS said: “We are delighted to have gathered 500 signatures from top UK academic scientists and doctors in less than one month. It shows the strength and depth of support for humane animal research in this country.” Wherever possible, the statement continues, animal experiments must be replaced by methods that do not use them, and the number of animals in research must be reduced. “We would rather not use any animals and we try hard to find alternatives,” said geneticist Robin Lovell-Badge, of the National Institute for Medical Research in London. The statement also promises to be more open about animal experimentation, urging research establishments to “provide clear information and promote rational discussion”. “We have seen a mood of increased openness amongst researchers over the last two years,” said Festing. “We are building on that and the declaration will help.” The new legislation became law earlier this year but has yet to be fully tested. It aims to crack down on the intimidation of companies involved in animal experimentation, making it an offence to protest outside employees’ homes. It also allows activists to be banned from returning to places with the intention of attempting to force people to stop doing things — such as animal experimentation — which are allowed by law.

Through the Eye of the Needle: Five Perspectives on the Cuban Missile Crisis

The Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy: Volumes 1–3, The Great Crises. Edited by Phillip D. Zelikow, Timothy Naftali, and Ernest R. May. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001; pp xxiv + 691 (vol. 1), pp xxiv + 642 (vol. 2), pp xxiv + 549 (vol. 3). $165.00 cloth. Averting 'The Final Failure': John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings. By Sheldon M. Stern. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003; pp xxx + 459. $35.00 cloth. Awaiting Armageddon: How America Faced the Cuban Missile Crisis. By Alice L. George. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003; pp xxiii + 238. $29.95 cloth. October Fury. By Peter A. Huchthausen. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons, 2002; pp v + 281. $17.47 cloth. Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Struggle with the Superpowers After the Missile Crisis. By James G. Blight and Philip Brenner. Lanham, Md.: Bowman and Littlefield, 2002; pp xxvii + 324. $29.95 cloth. The fortieth anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis has produced a wealth of thought-provoking works that examine "the event that might have triggered WWIII." In October 1962, an American U-2 reconnaissance plane recorded photographs of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Ongoing tension between President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev concerning both Berlin and the placement of Soviet weapons in Cuba motivated the president to act. He selected a group of seasoned advisors, referred to as the Executive [End Page 133] Committee (ExComm). ExComm, with the participation and leadership of President Kennedy, created the strategies and tactics of diplomacy that averted potential nuclear catastrophe. This review essay offers a collection of variegated viewpoints. First, The Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy: Volumes 1–3, The Great Crises, edited by Philip D. Zelikow, Timothy Naftali, and Ernest R. May, noted scholars and professors of public affairs and history, includes declassified presidential transcripts from July 30 through October 28, 1962. A CD with audio recordings of meetings accompanies the publication. Volume 3 covers transcripts of President Kennedy and the ExComm. The transcripts capture decision makers navigating their way through the quicksands of international diplomacy, escalating tension, and the management of public information. Examples of problem definition, reframing, and consensus building provide rich resources for rhetoricians, public policy analysts, and graduate students. This three-volume collection provides a captivating and comprehensive sense of the presidency as an institution. Civil rights, South American regime changes, currency fluctuations, along with lesser ceremonial responsibilities, convey the multifaceted tasks the chief executive faces daily. Next, Sheldon M. Stern's Averting 'The Final Failure,': John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings provides a narrative approach to the ExComm transcripts. Stern, as an historian, chief librarian of the Kennedy Library for over two decades, and a compelling storyteller, captures personality and contextual nuances, adding rich dimensions to the collective wisdom on this topic. The author, having studied the Kennedy tapes for decades, conscientiously retranscribes and reinterprets a number of the transactions presented in The Presidential Recordings. In Awaiting Armageddon: How Americans Faced the Cuban Missile Crisis, historian Alice L. George details a social history of Middle America's world during the Cold War. As a unique contribution to the available literature, she provides a diorama of children's lives as they experience the attempts of government, schools, and the media to manage and communicate the threat of nuclear war. Then, retired navy captain Peter A. Huchthausen's October Fury breaks new ground by dramatically recounting moment-by-moment decision making and lifestyles of both the Russian and American naval crews aboard submarines and ships participating in maneuvers during the crisis. The author effectively builds the case that a combination of exceptional political and naval leadership, plus superior American naval power, determined the outcome of events. Finally, Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Struggle with the Superpowers After the Missile Crisis, authored by international...

Will New Ways of Creating Stem Cells Dodge the Objections?

It's almost enough to make one yearn for the days when we knew little about human embryos. Now, thanks to the science of embryology, the possibilities for creating, slicing, and manipulating embryos are hard to keep track of. First there was in vitro fertilization. Soon it became possible to mix eggs and sperm to create embryos by the thousands. They could be sorted, graded, implanted, or frozen. If a man's sperm couldn't make it into an egg on its own, it could be sucked up into a needle and injected into the egg. After a few divisions but prior to implantation, a cell or two could be plucked from an embryo and analyzed for genetic defects--or to determine if it was compatible with an older sister or brother, so that if and when it became an infant the umbilical cord blood could be transplanted into that sibling to treat disease. Then we learned that scientists could take a five-day-old embryo--at that stage a hollow sphere with a collection of roughly a hundred cells stuck to an inside surface--break it open, spread out those hundred or so cells, and, with luck and skill on their side, create what are now called embryonic stem (ES) cell lines. Some embryos, it seems, are worth more busted up than whole. That, at least, is the opinion of scientists who create or work with embryonic stem cells. For people who believe a human embryo is a full, morally significant human being, taking apart a living embryo is murder--not tantamount to or like murder--but murder itself, and cold-blooded, intentional, utilitarian murder at that. For them, no promise of resulting good, no relief of human suffering from new therapies, could possibly justify the unjustifiable. So it's now no surprise that proposals for creating ES or ES-like cells without creating or destroying embryos have been floated. Two of them were taken up recently by the President's Council on Bioethics. One idea requires genetically manipulating a nucleus from a somatic cell before transferring it into an egg whose own nucleus has been removed. This is cloning, but with a twist: one or more genes necessary for orderly development would have been inactivated so that while all the types of tissues found in the human body could still form, they would do so in a haphazard, unorganized way. Proponents of the idea argue that with the developmental program missing an essential part, there is no embryo, and therefore nothing is wrong with cutting it apart to make stem cells. The concept is hardly novel. Scientists working at a biotech company with a penchant for grabbing headlines, ACT, applied for a patent on it in 2002. No one is sure it would work or that the cell lines derived would be fully functioning stem cells, but even if the technical problems were solved, ethical objections would persist. Consider this scathing critique, offered to Science magazine, of the proposal floated before the President's Council: I think this is an abuse of cloning technology ... It will be a sad day when scientists use genetic manipulation to deliberately create crippled embryos to please the Church. The source? Another scientist working at ACT. spokesman for the National Council of Catholic Bishops suggests that the Church might not be all that pleased anyway: A short-lived embryo is still an The other idea taken up by the President's Council relies on an analogy with brain death and organ transplantation: If scientists could reliably determine that an embryo is not viable, couldn't we take stem cells from it, just as we recover organs and tissues from newly-dead cadavers? Some difficulties are obvious: How do you know when an embryo is not viable? Also, there is likely to be a tradeoff between how certain you are that the embryo is not viable and the usefulness of the cells you can then take from the embryo. And to top if off, you may still fail to satisfy defenders of embryos such as a spokesman at the National Catholic Bioethics Center quoted in Science. …

Aggressive behavior in children's dolls' house play

AbstractThe present study addressed the question of whether there are gender and age differences in aggressive behavior when it is studied as the spontaneous expression of mental contents and not as the result of immediate social interaction. This study also investigated whether aggression, in terms of mental content, is related to temperamental aspects. Aggressive behaviors were examined in make‐believe play, in relation to age, gender, and temperament in a near‐ecological context, i.e., the Dolls' House Play. The participants, 55 boys and 47 girls, subdivided into three age levels (4 years–4 years and 6 months; 5–6 years; and 7 years and 6 months–8 years and 6 months) were requested to represent what happens in their family 1) during Mealtimes; 2) at Bedtime; 3) on the Saddest day; and 4) the Happiest day; their Dolls' House Play was then recorded. Children's temperaments were measured with the TABC‐Teachers' form [Martin, The Temperament Assessment Battery for Children, Brandon, VT: Clinical Psychology Publishing, 1998]. Data analysis was conducted considering aggressive behaviors in their distinct expressions—physical, verbal, direct, and indirect. Results revealed no statistical differences between boys and girls when all aggressive behaviors were compounded. However, when the distinct types of aggressiveness were considered, boys presented statistically higher levels of physical aggression than girls did. Moreover, boys and girls reacted with different types of aggression in the different emotional contexts created by the four episodes. Few age differences were observed. Surprisingly, there was a significantly greater presence of indirect verbal aggressiveness in younger children. With respect to temperament, a higher level of negative emotivity was significantly linked to a greater degree of aggressive behaviors in some of the episodes. In conclusion, this paper confirms gender differences in the type of aggressive behavior children display even in the absence of any immediate social interaction, which might itself trigger aggression. Aggr. Behav. 30:504–519, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Struggle with the Superpowers after the Missile Crisis, and: Democracy Delayed: The Case of Castro's Cuba, and: Unfinished Business: America and Cuba after the Cold War, 1989-2001 (review)

Reviewed by: Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Struggle with the Superpowers after the Missile Crisis, and: Democracy Delayed: The Case of Castro's Cuba, and: Unfinished Business: America and Cuba after the Cold War, 1989-2001 Michael Erisman James G. Blight and Philip Brenner. Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Struggle with the Superpowers after the Missile Crisis. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002. 352 pp. Juan J. López . Democracy Delayed: The Case of Castro's Cuba. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. 232 pp. Morris Morley and Chris McGillion. Unfinished Business: America and Cuba after the Cold War, 1989–2001. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 253 pp. According to Webster's Universal Unabridged Dictionary, "asymmetry" is best defined as "the want of proportion between the parts of a thing." In a political sense, however, the term is commonly used to refer to a relationship wherein there are major inequities (e.g., in power) between the parties involved, and it is this concept that provides the common thread linking the three books under consideration here. In other words, the three studies exhibit a thematic convergence in the sense that all of them, despite differences in their analytical emphases and priorities, are examining the dynamics of the asymmetries in the Cuban Revolution's foreign relations. As might be expected, there are significant variations in their attitudes toward these asymmetries; both the Blight-Brenner and the Morley-McGillion volumes are basically sympathetic with regard to the difficulties that Havana has confronted while López is quite forthright in his desire to see Washington take full advantage of the situation to destroy Castro's government. Undoubtedly the Blight-Brenner effort is the most conceptually ambitious and analytically elegant of the three books. Its main thrust focuses on Cuba's perceptions of and reactions to its asymmetrical association with the USSR and the implications thereof with respect to current U.S.-Cuban relations. Within this context the authors emphasize the 1962 Missile Crisis as an extremely traumatic primal event that triggered well-established and deeply rooted Cuban fears about the dangers inherent in any asymmetrical relationship. It is, they stress, very important to understand that there inevitably were tensions between Moscow and Havana—the Missile Crisis did not create them, but rather they were inherent in the relationship because of its asymmetrical nature and would have had a negative impact in any case. What the crisis did was to function as a catalyst that brought these preexisting strains to the surface and severely exacerbated them. Among the Soviet actions during the crisis that infuriated the Cubans were such moves as reaching an agreement with the United States to end the crisis without ever consulting Havana about the terms of the settlement or even informing the Cubans that a deal had been made. Likewise Moscow's decision, in response to pressure from Washington, to withdraw bombers and troops from Cuba was seen in Havana "as tantamount to inviting a U.S. invasion, because it demonstrated to the United States that the Soviet Union would not stand with Cuba in the face of U.S. threats" (31). These developments generated, say Blight and Brenner, a poisoned climate wherein Havana would never again really trust Moscow. In other words, the relationship would never escape the pall cast over it by the Cubans' conviction that they had been betrayed by the USSR at the height of the Missile Crisis. Indeed the basic lesson that the authors believe the Cubans took away from the Missile Crisis was that they could not trust and had to protect themselves against both of the superpowers, and that henceforth their cold war foreign policy became characterized by an [End Page 143] effort to maximize the political maneuvering space available to them within the context of these two asymmetrical relationships. This analysis of the Missile Crisis's legacy works very well when dealing with the cold war period. The epilogue then tries to incorporate the contemporary U.S.-Cuban relationship into this framework, arguing that the essential nature of the cold war Cuban-Soviet relationship that flowed from the crisis (i.e., serious tensions rooted in a mutual lack of empathy) is...

Sad, blue, or depressed days, health behaviors and health-related quality of life, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 1995–2000

BackgroundMood disorders are a major public health problem in the United States as well as globally. Less information exists however, about the health burden resulting from subsyndromal levels of depressive symptomatology, such as feeling sad, blue or depressed, among the general U.S. population.MethodsAs part of an optional Quality of Life survey module added to the U.S. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, between 1995–2000 a total of 166,564 BRFSS respondents answered the question, "During the past 30 days, for about how many days have you felt sad, blue, or depressed?" Means and 95% confidence intervals for sad, blue, depressed days (SBDD) and other health-related quality of life (HRQOL) measures were calculated using SUDAAN to account for the BRFSS's complex sample survey design.ResultsRespondents reported a mean of 3.0 (95% CI = 2.9–3.1) SBDD in the previous 30 days. Women (M = 3.5, 95% CI = 3.4–3.6) reported a higher number of SBDD than did men (M = 2.4, 95% CI = 2.2–2.5). Young adults aged 18–24 years reported the highest number of SBDD, whereas older adults aged 60–84 reported the fewest number. The gap in mean SBDD between men and women decreased with increasing age. SBDD was associated with an increased prevalence of behaviors risky to health, extremes of body mass index, less access to health care, and worse self-rated health status. Mean SBDD increased with progressively higher levels of physically unhealthy days, mentally unhealthy days, unhealthy days, activity limitation days, anxiety days, pain days, and sleepless days.ConclusionUse of this measure of sad, blue or depressed days along with other valid mental health measures and community indicators can help to assess the burden of mental distress among the U.S. population, identify subgroups with unmet mental health needs, inform the development of targeted interventions, and monitor changes in population levels of mental distress over time.

“How Much I Have to be Thankful for.”1 The Story of Catherine Hadfield (née Williams)

Catherine (Kate) Hadfield was born into one of the most highly regarded Church Missionary Society (CMS) families in the early days of the CMS mission New Zealand. She was baptized Catherine (Kate) Williams, the eighth child and third daughter of Henry and Marianne Williams, at Paihia on 24 February 1831. By the time of her birth, Catherine's parents had already been in the Bay of Islands for eight years and the mission station was well established. Catherine's mother, Marianne, was fully engaged in mission work from the time of her arrival in New Zealand. The first mission school was begun at Paihia in 1823, where Marianne taught the Maori women and girls. She had agreed go New Zealand as Henry's partner in mission work, as he explained the CMS Committee before their departure for New Zealand, With regard Mrs Williams, I beg say, that she does not accompany me merely as my wife but as a fellow-helper in her work. (2) Marianne was a strong role model for her daughters as they observed her bringing up the family, offering hospitality, teaching in the schools and exhibiting to the Natives the instructive example of a happy Christian (3) Kate grew up fluent in Maori. Later, one of Kate's daughters noted in her account of her mother's life that she spoke Maori freely. Kate learnt courage as a young girl when it was decided that the family should remain at the mission station during times of unrest, rather than take up the offer of the bishop's wife stay with them in Auckland. In 1851, at the age of twenty, Kate left for Otaki help her cousin and sister-in-law, Mary Williams, who was recovering from a severe illness. It was here that Kate met and married the Revd Octavius Hadfield at the Rangiatea Church on 19 May 1852. She was twenty-one years old; Octavius was thirty-six. They had a long and happy marriage until Kate's death on 8 January 1902. Her life was a full and busy one. Like her mother, Kate had a big family--ten children, nine of whom survived. (4) The family lived at Otaki until 1858 when they travelled England visit Octavius' family. The family returned Otaki in 1859 and lived there until 1870 when they moved Wellington in order for Octavius take up the position as the second Bishop of They remained at Otaki during the troubled times of the 1860s when others withdrew from isolated situations. In 1884 they paid one last visit England visit family, including their fifth son Ernest who was about enter the University of Cambridge. In 1890 Octavius was elected Primate and retired three years later, in 1893, at which point the family moved Marton where they lived until Kate's death in 1902. Kate was loved by many and her influence and personality extended many places. (5) The CMS Committee passed a Resolution expressing their sympathy Kate's husband at the time of her death. (6) The Girls' Friendly Society also passed a resolution of sympathy, That this Council desires place on record its grief at the death of Mrs Hadfield, one of its earliest friends, for many years Vice President of the Girls Friendly Society in Wellington. (7) A letter of sympathy from Bishop Abraham, while very much writing of Kate as the wife who fulfilled her husband's needs, acknowledged her independent interest and service, You so exactly shared alike the great interest of your lives, and she was able advise and cheer you in the trials and difficulties of the trying Maori ordeals. (8) Kate's daughter testified at the beginning of her account of her mother's life that, My father told me that my mother's work among the Maoris was equal anything he had done. (9) This was an honest assessment of Kate's life and work by her husband her daughter. As we examine the life and work of Kate Hadfield it shall become evident that she was not only an indispensable partner for Octavius but also a mission worker in her own right. The single years and independence The 21 May 1850, when Kate was still living with her parents at Paihia, was a profoundly sad day for her family. …

Acceptance of the Society of Economic Geologists Ralph W. Marsden Award for 2002

President Price, members of the Society, ladies and gentlemen: I remember the sad day in 1986 when Ralph Marsden died. It happened during the annual meeting of the Society in San Antonio and Ralph, a key figure in the affairs of the Society, was greatly missed. He was treasurer to the Society, the Foundation, and the Economic Geology Publishing Company. He was conservative, hard working, efficient, and modest. I am the first to admit that I am not cast in the same mold as Ralph, but I am greatly honored to have been selected to receive the medal and for it to bear the name of Ralph Marsden. It was …

October 1962: The "Missile" Crisis as Seen from Cuba (review)

Reviewed by: October 1962: The "Missile" Crisis as Seen from Cuba Virginia W. Leonard Tomás Diez Acosta . October 1962: The "Missile" Crisis as Seen from Cuba. New York: Pathfinder, 2002. 350 pp. Tomás Diez Acosta is well positioned to write this book. A 37-year veteran of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), since 1987 he has headed the [End Page 152] Department of Military History at the Institute of Cuban History, Havana. He has published four books on Cuban military history, including one on the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. He has used Cuban and American archives and the Fidel Castro–Nikita Khrushchev 1962 letters that were published in 1990. Missing is the secret speech made by Fidel Castro in January1968 to members of the Central Committee that documented the high-handed way the Soviet Union treated the Cubans during the "October Crisis." Diez conveys well the betrayal felt by the Cubans who were prepared to die to defend their national sovereignty and the worldwide socialist revolution (11–12, 101). The Soviets, who were not ready to die for Cuba and world socialism, left Cuba out of the decision to withdraw not only most of their troops, but the missiles and IL-28 jets. Instead of relating how "disillusionment and bitterness" (199) upset relations with the Soviets, and how the Soviets were ready to cut off aid to the Cubans by 1967–68 (as described by James Blight and Philip Brenner in Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Struggle with the Superpowers after the Missile Crisis), Diez saves his ire for the United States. Hence this book gives Castro's version of events, which is important for an American audience that has focused on reactions of the Soviets and the United States. In 1962 the Cubans were being harassed by John Kennedy's administration. In addition, Cuba had been expelled from the Organization of American States; was negotiating over the fate of the Cuban exiles taken prisoner in Cuba during a U.S.-backed invasion of the Bay of Pigs in 1961; was facing a stepped-up U.S. trade embargo; and was being sabotaged and terrorized by Operation Mongoose, a covert operation against Cuba headed by Robert Kennedy. Soviet and Cuban intelligence took seriously the threat of an imminent U.S. invasion. This threat loomed larger during the "Caribbean Crisis" (as the Soviets called it) and led to Castro's accepting Soviet missiles, rocket launchers, and 40,000 troops on Cuban soil. Soviet acquiescence to U.S. demands left Cuba vulnerable to a U.S. attack. Diez reasons that the United States did not invade because it was afraid of the casualties it would receive from the patriotic and mobilized Cuban masses (13– 14). U.S. actions are simplistically categorized as sheer imperialism. Diez does not understand U.S. perceptions of Cuban behavior in the cold war context. He forgets that the Soviet Union also was imperialist, as Castro charged in his 1968 speech, kept secret because Cuba depended on Soviet aid. In the end, both larger countries ignored Cuba, the fate of smaller nonnuclear countries when superpowers lock horns. For the Soviets, rapprochement with the United States took precedence over dying for the Cuban cause. From the beginning, the Soviets ignored Cuba, discarding Castro's advice to publicly announce the placement of missiles in Cuba. As a result, Cuba-U.S. relations remained tense, and the Torricelli and Helms-Burton acts tightened the trade embargo in 1992 and 1998 (57). However, Diez overlooks efforts by Jimmy Carter and Bill [End Page 153] Clinton to loosen the embargo, attempts that were rebuffed by Castro. He fails to note that Gerald Ford relaxed the trade embargo. Simultaneously ignoring the interests of the great powers in avoiding a nuclear confrontation, and praising the willingness of Castro to expose Cubans to a nuclear attack as a sacrifice for sovereignty and socialism, Diez provides an unbalanced and biased account of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Virginia W. Leonard Western Illinois University Copyright © 2004 University of Pittsburgh Press

Sad and luminous days: Cuba's struggle with the superpowers after the Missile Crisis

Prologue: The Discovery and Meaning of Fidel Castro's Secret Speech Chapter 1: The October Crisis Chapter 2: Fidel Castro's Secret Speech Chapter 3: October/November 1962: The Shadow of the Missile Crisis Descends on Havanna and Moscow Chapter 4: June 1967-August 1968: From the Shadow of the Missile Crisis to the Shadow of the Future Epilogue: Cuba's Struggle with the United States after the Missile Crisis: The Case for Realistic Empathy Appendix A: Chronology of Events: 1963-1968 Appendix B: Text of Letter Dated 15 November from Prime Minister Fidel Castro of Cuba to Acting Secretary General U Thant Appendix C: Speech Given By Major Fidel Castro Ruz, Prime Minister of the Revolutionary Government and First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, Analyzing the Events in Czechoslovakia Friday, August 23, 1968-Year of the Hero

World War II Homefront: A Historiography

In recent years, the World War II homefront has become a fertile field for historical scholarship. For several decades after the war, historians wrote extensively about the New Deal and the Cold War but neglected the wartime homefront. Then, in the 1970s and 1980s, scholars began to fill that gap with a number of outstanding comprehensive accounts and many more specialized studies. As the United States celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the war in the 1990s, historians looked at the impact ofthe war even more closely than before, and we now have a rich collection of scholarship dealing with the entire wartime experience. following are highlights of that scholarship, dealing with the themes appearing in this issue ofthe OAH Magazine of History, for students and teachers interested in pursuing these issues further. Two recent books provide the best brief introduction to the war at home. Allan M. Winkler's Home Front, U.S.A.: America during World War II, 2d ed. (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2000) deals with the economic, social, and political effects ofthe struggle and argues that the war was a watershed that laid the framework for the postwar years. John W. Jeffries's Wartime America: World War 11 Home Front (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996) likewise offers a clear overview ofthe changes that occurred but suggests that continuities with the past were equally impor tant and argues that basic American values survived the conflict intact. Both of these books contain full bibliographies of all the recent scholarship. Other books help fill out the picture. William L. O'Neill's A Democracy at War: America's Fight at Home and Abroad in World War 11 (New York: Free Press, 1993) offers a good overview of all sides ofthe struggle. two best books from the 1970s, still useful today, are Richard Polenberg, War and Society: United States, 1941-1945 (Philadelphia:J.B.Lippincott Company, 1972); and John Morton Blum, V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During World War II (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976). Polenberg provides an evenhanded and useful assessment of the important wartime developments. Blum in cludes a fuller sense of the culture and its constraints in his more extended account. Two other older works that are likewise still helpful are Richard R. Lingeman, Dont You Know There s a War On? American Home Front, 1941-1945 (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1970); and Geoffrey Perrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph: American People, 1939-1945 (New York: Coward, McCann, and Geohegan, 1973). Lee Kennett's For the Duration: United States Goes to War, Pearl Harbor-1942 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1985) published more recently, exam ines the first six months of the struggle. Anthologies that can be used to supplement the above works include: Richard Polenberg, ed., America at War: Home Front, 1941-1945 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968); Chester E. Eisinger, ed., 1940s: Profile of a Nation in Crisis (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1969); and the much more recent Mark P. Parillo, ed., We Were in the Big One: Experiences of the World War II Generation (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2002). On the issue of whether the struggle was a good war, see Studs Terkel, uThe Good War1: An Oral History of World War II (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984). Paul Fussell paints a much more devastating picture of the impact of the conflict in Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). Richard Polenberg, who authored one ofthe best early analyses ofthe homefront experience in 1972, returned to the subject twenty years later in The Good War? A Reappraisal of How World War II Affected American Society published in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 100 (1992). In this latter essay, he focuses less on the positive accom plishments of the struggle and more on the way the war narrowed individual freedom and reinforced conservative tendencies in all areas of American life. On Franklin D. Roosevelt, such a dominant figure during the war, there is a vast literature. A number of the standard books

Quo vadisDemocratic Control? The Afghanistan Decision of theBundestagand the Decision of the Federal Constitutional Court in the NATO Strategic Concept Case

The parliamentary control of executive power in foreign affairs in Germany suffered two severe blows last November; one may wonder whether it will ever recover. First, on 16 November 2001, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder transformed one of the most important foreign policy debates in theBundestag(Parliament) into a more general policy debate by combining the decision regarding the provision of German troops to the American-led, so-called “War on Terrorism” in Afghanistan with a vote of confidence with respect to his government, pursuant to Article 68 of theGrundgesetz(GG – Basic Law). With the fate of the Red/Green coalition government hinging on the vote, and the very existence of the Green Party at stake, it was not surprising that Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer (Greens), in his speech on the issue, took a tone more suited for a party convention than for a foreign and security policy debate. And although deploring that posture, most of the opposition speakers followed suit. It was a sad day for German parliamentary democracy. The failure of theBundestagto live up to its responsibilities is even more apparent in the declarations that accompanied the vote, which show that a considerable number of members of theBundestagvoted for thegovernmentin spite of their continuing opposition to theprovision of Bundeswehr (German Army) forces, the very conjunction rendered impossible by the use of Article 68. The use of this Article both quashed the existing strong parliamentary backing for the provision of German troops to the anti-terrorism effort in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and denied theBundestag, and the German public, a serious debate about the first German military operation outside Europe since World War II, excepting the humanitarian contributions to UN missions in Cambodia, East Timor and Somalia.