Town Meetings Research Articles

Building the History of Working-Class America

SOME SIXTY years AGO, Charles Beard and Mary Beard speculated in The Rise of American Civilization that when the full story of self-government in America is written, reviewing the commonplace no less than the spectacular, pages on the cellular growth of local craft unions will be placed besides the records of town meetings; while chapters on the formation of national labor structures will comple ment the sections on the origin and development of the federal Constitution. Someday historians would recognize and document the prosaic effort of trade union agents and secretaries that had helped bring about an immense and compact organization of industrial workers capable of supporting their demands

Health care and consumer control: Pittsburgh's Town Meeting for Seniors.

Since 1988 two hospitals in Pittsburgh have conducted a semiannual Town Meeting for Seniors designed to provide community- based health education so that seniors can make informed decisions not only about medical care, but also about issues such as Medigap insurance, advance directives, and proper nutrition. Attendees have been predominantly white and middle class, reflecting the demographics of the surrounding area. The Town Meeting has been enthusiastically received by consumers and has led to the creation of several new community programs, including exercise classes, driver education classes, durable power of attorney workshops, and expanded insurance counseling services.

NASA town meetings scheduled

The dates and locations for a series of public town meetings sponsored by NASA have been set. The meetings will give the public a chance to learn about NASA's projects and to express their opinions on aspects of the space program, according to NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin. Presentations at the town meetings will be made by top NASA officials, university researchers, members of the business community, educators, and individuals from aerospace associations. The public will be able to ask questions.Each of the town meetings will be held from 2:00 to 6:30 P.M. local time. Dates and locations are listed below.

Public meetings on NASA's future

NASA is holding six “town meetings” in November and December to discuss the agency's future. According to NASA, the purpose of the open meetings is to discuss the new vision of the agency with the public, to make contact with businesses that do not now participate in NASA programs, and to seek input on how NASA can reach its goals more cheaply and effectively.NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin and other agency officials will attend the meetings, along with local reesearchers and business figures.

The Other Side of Discovery

Abstract The Context for the Creation of This Play This play was written to fit into the pattern of Missouri Readers Theater. This is a tradition of short one-act plays that are taken to small towns and presented in town meetings, civic gatherings or local theater. The plays are intended to be simple to produce, but to have thematic material that might well lead to discussion by the townspeople and with the cast. The actors/readers sit in chairs and read from scriptbooks, but with feeling. There is, in orthodox Readers Theater, no movement around the stage. It is, in fact, a reading that is presented. With the Columbus Quincentennial on the horizon—and with the increasing shift in the way in which the arrival of Columbus is being perceived—it is hoped that this play will initiate dialogue on the impact of what Christopher Columbus set in motion with his arrival 500 years ago this year. The Play takes place in a small theater sometime in 1992. The Time Keeper has brought together two players who are attempting to explain the significance of the arrival of Christopher Columbus 500 years earlier. Note: The Other side of Discovery may not be performed as a play without the expressed written permission of the author.

The Massachusetts Situation

Nlassachusetts takes pride in its From the celebrated Boston Tea Party to more recent times, the state has revelled in its heritage of giving birth to a nation, its freedom trails, town meetings, and pioneer valleys. Also, it relishes going against the grain. Bay Staters will still remind you that Massachusetts was the only state in the nation that voted for McGovern and against Nixon in 1972 (bumpersticker: Don't blame me. I'm from Massachusetts), although they have far less to say these days about their support for native son Michael Dukakis in his bid for the presidency. Politics in the state is never dull, and usually lives up to its reputation for being unlike politics anywhere else in the country. Religiously, too, the state has a distinctive heritage. Of the four states examined in The Third Disestablishment, Massachusetts is distinctive in three important ways: 1) The state is significantly more liberal religiously. Historically influenced by religious groups that were to become America's liberal Protestant denominations, it is characterized still by an open-minded and rather tolerant religious climate. Massachusetts leads the way in having the lowest scores for religious orthodoxy, the lowest scores for personal piety as measured by saying grace and reading the Bible, and the highest scores for individual autonomy. 2) Historically the state has experienced dramatic changes in its religious establishment. No other state has a religious history reaching farther into the past, or a history of so many changing hegemonies. As Hammond observes, the transformation from a Puritan stronghold to a significantly Catholic state is one of the most astonishing changes in the annals of religious history. 3) In recent years, as well, Massachusetts has experienced the greatest religious changeover. Here we refer to the impressive growth in the past several decades of conservative Protestants who now nearly equal liberal and moderate Protestants, and to the striking increase in the number of non-adherents. The new conservative Protestants and those falling away are, as might be expected, disproportionately ex-Catholics. Yet there are, as Hammond observes, some curious features. These features are most apparent when we compare Massachusetts with California, the two states among the four that in many respects are most alike. Still, there are differences. Massachusetts has a higher level of parish involvement than does California, but people in California are more likely than those from the Bay State to say that religion is important in their lives (47% vs. 37%). So levels of institutional involvement are higher in Massachusetts,

National Institutes of Health: North and South?

AS DIRECTOR of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the Washington, DC, suburb of Bethesda, Md, Bernadine Healy, MD, is undertaking initiatives ranging from examination of women's roles in biomedical research evaluating procedures dealing with scientific integrity to developing strategic plan for the institutes. And now new NIH campus may be possibility. Her latest step is to hold town meetings with intramural researchers, inviting their complaints. In the first of these, scientists gave Healy an earful of their concerns, ranging from parking working space to government purchasing travel procedures. Responding to these concerns, Healy says that the NIH's $9 billion budget gets congressional attention. Once you break the billion dollar barrier there is scrutiny of every penny you spend, she says. Similarly, travel, especially foreign travel, is a lightning rod, always subject to close scrutiny, Healy says, and it's never going to be

New NIH Director Holds Town Meeting

New NIH Director Holds Town Meeting

The Electronic Commonwealth: The Impact of New Media Technologies on Democratic Politics by Jeffrey B. Abramson, et al

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 195 The Electronic Commonwealth: The Impact of New Media Technologies on Democratic Politics. By Jeffrey B. Abramson, F. Christopher Arterton , and Gary R. Orren. New York: Basic Books, 1988. Pp. xiv + 331; notes, index. $21.95. It took Jeffrey B. Abramson, F. Christopher Arterton, and Gary R. Orren, along with a supporting group of fourteen scholars, three years for the research and another three to produce The Electronic Commonwealth, a study of the effect of new media technologies on democratic politics in the United States. The outcome was not worthy of the expense of time and the financial support provided by the Markle Foundation. Evaluating this book as a communications researcher with great interest in the influence of new communications technologies on society and as a person who is less knowledgeable about political theory, I found that only two or three chapters had new things to say about new media and the political process. The rest was warmed-over descriptions and predictions of how those technologies might be used, with lengthy summaries of the work of one of the original members of the study group, Ithiel de Sola Pool. And as anyone who works in this area knows, descriptions of today’s technological capability quickly become outmoded. The problems in conducting research for a book that aims to deal with a topic alien to the primary expertise of the authors could be alleviated through an interdisciplinary approach. Apparently the study group was insufficient in this regard, and the authors needed long-term advice from someone well versed in the field. Chapters reviewing the history of FCC policy, describing the various forms of electronic delivery of information, and comparing the broadcast philosophies of several European countries with that of the United States have been written before, have been treated with greater depth, and have more accurately assessed the situation. For example, the authors fail to note that the advent of cable, direct broadcast satellite, and VCRs in Europe, along with the trend to privatization of broadcast channels, are leading European media to look more like the U.S. model than the reverse. Financing European public broadcasting has become an increasing problem, with Britain taking the lead in asking the BBC to pay for itself. The exclusion of critical scholars in the study group eliminated the possibility for any radical evaluation of technology’s role in a capital­ istic society. That is not to say that the authors write a glowing account that assigns quick-fix technological solutions to the problems of lower voter turnout, lack of participation in discussions of social issues, and general public apathy to politics. In fact, the most interesting sections of this book are the realistic assessments of what can be expected of 196 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE communication technologies. Although the authors would like to see the public become more involved in the political process through home voting, electronic town meetings, and such, they do a good job of evaluating the failures of Qube, the Reading, Pennsylvania, elec­ tronic town meeting experiments, and the Hawaii televote case. And they are generally pessimistic about the idea that multiple channels offered through cable systems and increasingly sophisticated polling techniques will cause the electorate to be more informed or the politicians to pay more attention to the desires and opinions of their constituents. The authors instead call for changes in broadcast policy that would allow a public broadcast system financed by commercial stations and dedicated to representing a wide range of social groups in the United States, instead of the elite groups PBS now serves. And they worry that the speed and reach of new media will lead to greater control over the plebiscite rather than increasingly involving the citizens in debates, discussions, and dialogues with political representatives. So in the end, the authors note that it is those in control of the technology who will decide how it is to be used. That use will most likely support the maintenance of the present system rather than bring any funda­ mental expansion of democracy. So what else is new? Christine Ogan Dr. Ogan is an associate professor in the School of Journalism, Indiana...

Philosophy and Technology II: Information Technology and Computers in Theory and Practice ed. by Carl Mitcham, Alois Huning

196 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE communication technologies. Although the authors would like to see the public become more involved in the political process through home voting, electronic town meetings, and such, they do a good job of evaluating the failures of Qube, the Reading, Pennsylvania, elec­ tronic town meeting experiments, and the Hawaii televote case. And they are generally pessimistic about the idea that multiple channels offered through cable systems and increasingly sophisticated polling techniques will cause the electorate to be more informed or the politicians to pay more attention to the desires and opinions of their constituents. The authors instead call for changes in broadcast policy that would allow a public broadcast system financed by commercial stations and dedicated to representing a wide range of social groups in the United States, instead of the elite groups PBS now serves. And they worry that the speed and reach of new media will lead to greater control over the plebiscite rather than increasingly involving the citizens in debates, discussions, and dialogues with political representatives. So in the end, the authors note that it is those in control of the technology who will decide how it is to be used. That use will most likely support the maintenance of the present system rather than bring any funda­ mental expansion of democracy. So what else is new? Christine Ogan Dr. Ogan is an associate professor in the School of Journalism, Indiana University. She teaches courses in new communication technology issues and international communication and combines these interests in her research into the role of commu­ nication technology in developing countries. She recently conducted research on issues related to video piracy and the role of video in cultural preservation. Philosophy and Technology II: Information Technology and Computers in Theory and Practice. Edited by Carl Mitcham and Alois Huning. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1986. Pp. xxii + 352; notes, bibliography, index. $59.00. Available from Kluwer Academic Publishers, 190 Old Derby Street, Hingham, Massachusetts 02043. Typically, a collection of papers from a conference tends to lack the focus that one expects from a book-length work, primarily because the expected thematic unity generally emerges only out of the deliberations of the conference itself. This collection, based on the proceedings of a 1983 conference organized by the Philosophy and Technology Studies Center of the Polytechnic University in conjunc­ tion with the Society for Philosophy and Technology, proves to be an exception to the rule. It is not only well focused topically, there is an underlying consistency of voice somewhat unexpected in an area of inquiry that as yet lacks a certain amount of maturity. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 197 The volume advertises itself as only the second book to attempt to explicitly bridge the theory-practice gap in studies of information technology (the other being Zenon Pylyshyn, ed., Perspectives on the Computer Revolution, 1970). While the gap is not bridged by individual authors, the overall character of the volume does exhibit an integra­ tive tendency. To support the effort, a respected collection of authors have been assembled, including some of the main voices in the philosophy of technology such as Friedrich Rapp, Heinrich Beck, Fred Dretske, Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus, Albert Borgmann, and Langdon Winner. Carl Mitcham does his usual fine work in setting up the historical and structural tendencies of the issues surrounding the developments in information technology. There are three major divisions: the metaphysical and epistemo­ logical character of information; philosophical analyses of the inter­ actions between human beings and computers; and ethical and political issues associated with information technology and comput­ ers. The topics in the first two sections flow naturally into each other and are a continuation of the same structure. The third section, concerned with more practical issues such as data pollution and the use of computers as diagnostic tools, is not explicitly connected to the work in the first two. Topically, these readings also lack a unifying principle, serving more as a set of examples of possible issues related to the implications of computer use than as an overview of the significant issues in the field. It is no coincidence that four of the five authors in the first part come...

Editors' Statement: Critical Issues in Public Art

We are in the midst of a public art boom. Articles appear daily in national and local presses documenting yet another project. Percent-for-art programs proliferate at all levels of government, and involve both local artists and international art-world stars. Surrounding and certifying this activity are competitions, symposia, panel discussions, and town meetings. The movement has acquired a momentum of its own.What has been missing is a body of serious writing about public art. Although art journalism in the form of glorified press releases or reportage of controversies is plentiful, significant issues remain to be addressed. We need a critical history of modern public art. We need analyses of the changing relationship of architecture, art, and ornament. We need sociopolitical studies of recent public art patronage and the role of the public in public art. We need a critical vocabulary to discuss issues of site and to address the different forms of public art. Clearly, the study of public art requires an ...

The Sag Harbor Initiative: The Town Meeting as Model

Sag Harbor is an old and proud town that nestles among the low hills, inlets, and bays of the Hamptons, some sixty miles east of Manhattan. Formerly a whaling town, Sag Harbor is now home to world-renowned writers, artists, film producers, playwrights, and intellectuals of all sorts. It is the summer and weekend resort for many wealthy New Yorkers. Sag Harbor, like many other communities, is racially segregated. Middle and upper-middle class blacks live in one neighborhood; their white counterparts live nearby, with both communities tending to go their separate ways.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

"Measures So Glareingly unjust": A Response to Hamilton's Funding Plan by William Manning

A RARE example of a self-taught farmer's essay on political economy, dating from I790, is contained on nine small sheets of paper, closely written on both sides, folded in half, and sewn through fold with heavy string. The author, William Manning, had served alongside other young men from Massachusetts countryside at Battle of Bunker Hill and subsequent siege of Boston. Soon after, on death of his father in I776, he inherited Middlesex farm where he was born in I747. This land, on main road leading northwest from Boston to New Hampshire, had been in Manning family from time his great-grandfather Samuel settled in town of Billerica. Its favorable location enabled young William to augment his farm income by continuing tavern that his father had operated in family homestead. Although more prosperous than most of his neighbors, he shared both their day-to-day experiences and their sense of alienation from moneyed class of urban merchants.' William Manning took to heart his civic obligations. Like his father and grandfather before him, he served as a selectman for Billerica in I785 and I786. At other times, not content to limit his political participation to annual elections or intermittent town meetings, he followed public affairs assiduously in newspapers and attempted, on at least two occasions, to influence course of events by writing out his opinions. Manning's essay, The Key of Libberty (I798), was his response to policies of Federalist administrations, policies that he found inimical to welfare of nation and especially to needs of the many. Following an ambitious review of American political structure and principal events from Revolution onward, he introduced his key, an association of farmers and artisans that would publish a monthly national

Critical Issues in Public Art

e are in the midst of a public art boom. Articles appear daily in national and local presses documenting yet another project. Percent-for-art programs proliferate at all levels of government, and involve both local artists and international art-world stars.' Surrounding and certifying this activity are competitions, symposia, panel discussions, and town meetings. The movement has acquired a momentum of its own.

Health Policy on the Town Meeting Agenda

American Health Decisions, a movement that started in Oregon, has spread to several other states. Through the media and widespread public discussion, the projects aim to increase public awareness about the individual and societal dimensions of ethical choices in health care.

The Town Meeting for Technology

DURING the past 7 1/2 years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has sponsored 50 consensus development conferences assessing a wide diversity of important biomedical topics. The first five years of this new effort were a time of experimentation. Formats and approaches of these first-generation conferences changed to some extent with new topics. Gradually, however, a set of common principles emerged for conducting a consensus conference effectively. Starting in 1982, the second generation of consensus conferences were held in conformance with these principles. Careful assessment of these more recent experiences stimulated plans for a new approach to this effort, involving formal methods for data synthesis. At the onset of a new generation of consensus conferences, it is worthwhile to examine the evolution of the consensus development process to its current status and its potential for further growth as a part of the complex decision-making apparatus of our health care system.

Health Care Decisions: The Greek Polis, Oregon Style

A grass roots effort known as Oregon Health Decisions is involving Oregonians in local discussion groups and town meetings, preparatory to a statewide meeting on bioethical issues that is scheduled for October 1984. Oregon citizens have also been polled about particular issues. According to early tabulations, most of them agree that patients' rights to choose or refuse treatment need better safeguards and that Oregon's health system should provide incentives to encourage healthy lifestyles. Opinion is divided on whether Oregon should provide unlimited care for those who cannot pay, and on whether everyone should be guaranteed access to any available lifesaving technology.

Catholic Doctrine and Nuclear Dogmatics

Martin Luther once wrote, If I preach the Gospel fully and completely, and in every particular, only excepting the besetting issue of the age, I might as well not preach it at all. Some idea like this may have been what led the National Conference of Catholic Bishops to prepare their pastoral letter on nuclear weapons.1 The fear of nuclear holocaust has, for millions of people, indeed become the besetting issue of the age. The nuclear rhetoric of the Reagan Administration has stirred controversy at home and abroad. The Physicians for Social Responsibility and similar organizations have explained in wellpublicized conferences precisely what the medical consequences of a nuclear attack might be. Thousands of Americans, in town meetings and referenda, have voted for a nuclear freeze. Hundreds of thousands have marched in New York and many European cities. The bishops must have been asked repeatedly what position the Roman Catholic Church takes on all this.2 Furthermore, the bishops may have realized that, for the sake of consistency, their outspoken opposition to abortion as the unjust taking of human life had to be matched by a defense of the innocents who would die in a nuclear exchange. The time being ripe, the bishops appointed a committee to prepare a pastoral letter on modern war, thereby initiating a slow, painstaking process during which the committee held fourteen meetings and met with strategic weapons experts, ethicists, and officials of the U.S. government. Pastoral letters such as this are published only occasionally and are disseminated to both laity and clergy. Their importance is derived in part

Materials on Acid Precipitation

Across New Hampshire citizens at town meetings are petitioning the federal government to force reductions in sulphur emissions. Canada's film, “Acid from Heaven” is being labeled “political propaganda” when it is shown to American audiences. In California, the fog stings the eye; in the Adirondacks, some lakes are now crystal clear but devoid of fish and all other life—victim, some scientists claim, of highly acidic snow melt and rain; in Wheeling, West Virginia, rain has been recorded that is sourer than vinegar. There seems to be a consensus that acid rain, the catchall term being used for all kinds of acidic deposition from the air, is a problem. Why them the controversy? In this country, the electric utilities, which emit sulphur and nitrogen compounds, the coal industry, and some scientists argue that not enough is yet known about the precise relationship between specific sources of emissions and particular damaged sites. Environmental groups, some scientists, and the New England states and Canada, which find their areas particularly threatened, argue that there is sufficient evidence to begin a cleanup now. Libraries need to be collecting information for their patrons on this hot dispute. Luckily, some of the best is free or inexpensive.

AN 18TH CENTURY ACCOUNTING PROJECTION FROM PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS

A cost study for the 1768 Plymouth Town Meeting.