People In Town Research Articles

Conversation with Connie Weisner

Conversation with <scp>C</scp>onnie <scp>W</scp>eisner

Watermarks: intervening in the City of Cape Town

Point of entry This is the story of a man who decided to paint a pink line three kilometres long from the foot of Table Mountain (Molteno Reservoir in Oranjezicht) to the sea. A luminescent line that traces a hidden treasure that lies beneath: water. This gift from the earth, in the form of the Camissa River and the numerous springs (1) in the Table Valley, is one of the major reasons for both indigenous and colonial settlement in the area--yet it has since been paved and tarred over--by roads which echo the secret of the deep, such as Heerengracht and Kaisersgracht Streets. The water which now runs in tunnels underground has, in many ways, become a myth and in an age of global warming and rampant capitalism; a political symbol of wastage, disrespect for the environment and the mismanagement of resources. The site-responsive (2) intervention (Kwon 2004) was part of the 'Infecting the City' (ITC) festival in January 2011. This form of art/performance is, in simple terms, live art, which finds location outside of conventional spaces (galleries/theatre). However, in its engagement with space it becomes politicised, since space is neither 'empty' nor neutral, but as Manuel Castells (in Soja 1989:71) argues, 'socially produced'. Thus, as Miwon Kwon (2004: 24) notes, site-responsive work is 'concerned to integrate art more directly into the realm of the social, either in order to redress (in an activist sense) urgent social problems ... or to relativise art as one among many forms of cultural work'. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the case of the pink line, by subverting the element of control which lines in the city (yellow, white, red) often represent, the aim was to raise awareness around the issue of water generally, but more specifically in the city of Cape Town. The Cape as a region is dry, particularly during the summer months, and prone to drought. Various organisations, in particular Reclaim Camissa Project, (3) spear-headed by Caron von Zeil, have been trying to mobilise around this issue. Von Zeil has done extensive research into the natural and as-yet-untapped water resources in the city that trace a fascinating tale of Cape Town's history (see website) and the people who lived there. Yet these are not the stories being told in this essay. These narratives are of the present. Tracing the hidden water system enabled doung (the artist and member of dala (4)) to tap into the political and social landscape of the people of Cape Town and make some interesting observations about class, race and culture in a post-apartheid/democratic state. Form follows Renowned pedagogue Paulo Freire (1970/1993: 160-164) emphasises that societal transformation that is directed towards humanisation and the dissolution of political divides can only occur through (dialogic) cultural action. The rationale for this is twofold: cultural action whose objective is liberation celebrates the innate creativity of humankind and creativity refutes societal-stasis; and, second, it is in the exchange between people that we are able to conscientise through generating debate/conversation and so we become more human to each other. This may appear 'soft' and 'simple', but in fact it is unequivocally radical since it 'threatens the interests of those who are already served well by the dominant culture' (McLaren 2000: 148). Dressed in municipal overalls and armed with a paintbrush and stencil, doung painstakingly painted the 5cm-thick line. A form of endurance art--doung worked 14 hours a day (5am-7pm) for six days to complete the line. The 'paint' was white paint mixed with a bright pink 'muthi' used by sangomas (5) called ngomanamakosi. In powder form, it is used as a binding agent. The intervention then had the conceptual meaning of 'cleansing' as well as an applied function. This fusion of aesthetic form and function, and the corresponding incorporation of art into everyday practice, as well as the interdisciplinarity of it (art/drama/dance), is what defines authentically African art/performance (Kamlongera 1988; Kerr 1995). …

Crossroads at Clarksdale: the black freedom struggle in the Mississippi Delta after World War II

Weaving national narratives from stories of the daily lives and familiar places of local residents, Francoise Hamlin chronicles the slow struggle for black freedom through the history of Clarksdale, Mississippi. Hamlin paints a full picture of the town over fifty years, recognising the accomplishments of its diverse African American community and strong NAACP branch, and examining the extreme brutality of entrenched power there. The Clarksdale story defies triumphant narratives of dramatic change, and presents instead a layered, contentious, untidy, and often disappointingly unresolved civil rights movement. Following the black freedom struggle in Clarksdale from World War II through the first decade of the twenty-first century allows Hamlin to tell multiple, interwoven stories about the town's people, their choices, and the extent of political change. She shows how members of civil rights organisations, especially local leaders Vera Pigee and Aaron Henry, worked to challenge Jim Crow through fights against inequality, police brutality, segregation, and, later, economic injustice. With Clarksdale still at a crossroads today, Hamlin explores how to evaluate success when poverty and inequality persist.

Simulating dam-breach flood scenarios of the Tangjiashan landslide dam induced by the Wenchuan Earthquake

Abstract. Floods from failures of landslide dams can pose a hazard to people and property downstream, which have to be rapidly assessed and mitigated in order to reduce the potential risk. The Tangjiashan landslide dam induced by the Mw = 7.9 2008 Wenchuan earthquake had impounded the largest lake in the earthquake affected area with an estimated volume of 3 × 108 m3, and the potential catastrophic dam breach posed a serious threat to more than 2.5 million people in downstream towns and Mianyang city, located 85 km downstream. Chinese authorities had to evacuate parts of the city until the Tangjiashan landslide dam was artificially breached by a spillway, and the lake was drained. We propose an integrated approach to simulate the dam-breach floods for a number of possible scenarios, to evaluate the severity of the threat to Mianyang city. Firstly, the physically-based BREACH model was applied to predict the flood hydrographs at the dam location, which were calibrated with observational data of the flood resulting from the artificial breaching. The output hydrographs from this model were inputted into the 1-D–2-D SOBEK hydrodynamic model to simulate the spatial variations in flood parameters. The simulated flood hydrograph, peak discharge and peak arrival time at the downstream towns fit the observations. Thus this approach is capable of providing reliable predictions for the decision makers to determine the mitigation plans. The sensitivity analysis of the BREACH model input parameters reveals that the average grain size, the unit weight and porosity of the dam materials are the most sensitive parameters. The variability of the dam material properties causes a large uncertainty in the estimation of the peak flood discharge and peak arrival time, but has little influence on the flood inundation area and flood depth downstream. The effect of cascading breaches of smaller dams downstream of the Tangjiashan dam was insignificant, due to their rather small volumes, which were only 2% of the volume of the Tangjiashan lake. The construction of the spillway was proven to have played a crucial role in reducing the dam-breach flood, because all the other natural breach scenarios would have caused the flooding of the downstream towns and parts of Mianyang city. However, in retrospect improvements on the spillway design and the evacuation planning would have been possible. The dam-break flood risk will be better controlled by reducing the spillway channel gradient and the porosity of the coating of the channel bottom. The experience and lessons we learned from the Tangjiashan case will contribute to improving the hazard mitigation and risk management planning of similar events in future.

Afyonkarahisar Emre Sultan Zâviyesi ve Türbesi

Emre Sultan Zâviye ve Türbesi, Afyon'un İhsaniye ilçesine bağlı Döğer kasabasında, Döger Çayıyla beslenen Emre Gölü'nün güneydoğusunda, Frig kaya anıtlarının yakınındadır. Bu yerleşim yeri Friglerden 19. yüzyıla kadar bir tapınma ve inanç merkezi olma özelliğini kesintisiz olarak devam ettirmiştir. Emre Gölü'nün kenarındaki mevcut buluntulardan ve arşiv belgelerinden tespit edilen, gölle aynı adı taşıyan Emre Sultan Köyü, H. 1196 (M. 1781)'da Karahisâr Mutasamfi Bekir Paşa'nın tutumu sonucu ortadan kalkmıştır. Bu durumdan köy halkıyla beraber Emre Sultan Zâviyesi de olumsuz bir şekilde etkilenmiştir. Mutasarrıf Bekir Paşa köyün halkını gizli ayin tertip etmekle ve şekâvetle suçlamış, on bir kişinin başlarını kestirip İstanbul'a yollamış, duruma isyan eden halkı da zâviyenin içine kapatarak ateşe vermiş, bir köyün ortadan kalkmasına ve zâviyenin bazı mekânlarının tahrip olmasına ve yıkılmasına neden olmuştur. Arşiv belgelerine göre zaviye başlangıçtan beri heterodoks inancına aittir ve II. Mehmed döneminden beri Bektaşi tarikatıyla ilişkilidir. Anadolu Türk dönemi arkeolojisiyle ilgili çalışmalara katkıda bulunacağını düşündüğümüz bu makaleyle, mimarisinden ve arşiv belgelerinden yola çıkılarak Emre Sultan Köyü ve Zâviyesi'nin tarihi aydınlatılmaya çalışılmış, üzerinde şimdiye kadar durulmamış, büyük olasılıkla 14. yüzyılın sonlarına ait olan zâviyeye ilişkin tespitlerin bilim dünyasına tanıtılması amaçlanmıştır.

Skeletal (in-)visibilities in the city – Rootless: a video sculptural response to the disconnected in Cape Town

This article follows the construction and outcome of a series of installations based on an artwork created by the author, a life-size replica of a human skeleton made of tree twigs and branches, which journeyed across central Cape Town on a day tour. The work drew on museums, heritage and cities research, seminars and colloquia at the University of the Western Cape that problematised memorialisation, land, landscape, tourism, human remains, memory, archive and silences in histories in Cape Town. In a collaboration with another artist, Kitty Dörje, the skeleton was performed and set up in installations at Table Mountain National Park, Iziko Museum, Prestwich Street Memorial, Rhodes Memorial and the Table Mountain view from Blouberg beach. Along the journey new connotations began to occur between the skeleton and the places visited, the skeleton performing as a linking device. The resulting short film, Rootless, combined poetry, visuals and music, and was dedicated to ‘the silenced and forgotten people of Cape Town.’ This article traces the experiential process of the construction of the artwork installations and the performance of the skeleton in different environments, as a creative research process. The skeleton artwork constructs visual and conceptual links between spaces and histories in the city. It is argued that this visually disturbs the material silencing and erasure of past and present communities through evoking plural perspectives and histories, thus raising questions on issues of representation in which landscape and artwork become alternative forms of archive.

Life Satisfaction in Latin America: A Size-of-Place Analysis

ABSTRACT In Latin America, countries can be divided into two groups: those where people in villages and small towns are happier than people in middle sized cities, and those where they are less happy. Four possible reasons for these patterns are explored: level of economic development, social values, public social spending, and presence of indigenous population. In regressions on happiness of each explanatory factor separately, development and public social spending (especially on health, housing, and social security) are the most important. In a joint regression, public social spending is found to be the main explanation of the different happiness patterns.

Plain Tales from the Hills

Plain Tales from the Hills Castle Freeman Jr. (bio) From where we were sitting, out back, we could see katie, Buster’s daughter, get home from work. Her car door slammed, then the house door slammed, then she was in the kitchen. She saw us through the window. She went to the screen door, opened it, kicked off her sandals, and walked barefoot over the grass toward us. “Well, well,” said Katie. “We’ve got the real old boys’ club going out here this afternoon, don’t we?” “Not anymore,” said Stuart. Katie took the chair next to Buster’s. She stretched her back and shoulders and fluffed her hair with both hands. She shook her head. “I don’t know,” said Katie, “I think that woman is going to drive me nuts.” “Why should you be different?” said Arnold. “She doesn’t know what she wants,” said Katie. “That’s the thing. She doesn’t know what she likes.” “She likes you,” said Buster. “Says she does.” “She says that because I’m the only one’s not afraid of her,” said Katie. “I tell her. I let her know exactly what I think.” “I can believe that,” said Buster. “Can’t you?” he asked me. “Yes,” I said. “Listen,” Buster said to Katie. “She’s old. That’s all.” But Stuart started laughing. “Makes me think of Reg,” he said. “Reg and I used to drive in every day, and one day we came around that bend other side of the dam, it was winter, a little slick, and here’s a guy, out-of-stater, and his car’s about halfway in the ditch. The guy’s out of the car, he’s standing there, and he is pissed, just pissed off. “So Reg and I stop, get out, and we’re all standing around trying to decide what to do. You know: get out the chain, try to pull him; try to push him; go for help. And Reg says, ‘Well, you want to know what I think?’ And the guy, the out-of-stater, says, ‘Hell, no, I don’t want to know what you fucking think.’” “She’s getting old,” Buster told Katie. “She’s all by herself. Pay her no mind.” “‘Hell, no, I don’t want to know what you fucking think,’ said Stuart. ‘Hell, no.’ He was pissed.” “She’s the owner, Pop,” said Katie. “She’s my boss. How am I not to mind?” “I told you,” said Buster. “She’s old. She worries. You worry when you’re old.” [End Page 88] “Well, then,” said Katie, “if she’s so old, somebody ought to put her out of her misery. You know?” “Stick her out in the snowbank,” said Arnold. “Put her out there for the winter,” said Stuart. “What?” Katie asked. “But then, don’t dig her up. Leave her out there,” said Arnold. “Goodbye, Rosemary.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Katie. “Do you?” “Talking about the good old days,” said Stuart. “Back when men were men,” said Buster. “Most of the women and children were men, too,” said Arnold. “They had to be,” said Buster. “Back then,” said Stuart. “What it was,” said Arnold, “this reporter’s up in the northern part of the state one time, little town up there, way up on the border. Really poor town, just poverty hollow up there. I guess it’s late fall, starting to be winter.” “Probably sometime in July, up there,” said Buster. “Probably is,” Arnold said. “And he finds the people in town are getting ready to starve to death. I guess the crops were even worse than usual that year. They don’t have enough food to get them through the winter. They can’t feed everybody. No chance. So, what they do—” “What they always do, that time of year,” said Stuart. “When winter really comes,” Arnold went on, “it gets real cold, starts to snow, they take all the old people in town, give them some kind of drug, knock them out, wrap them up in wet blankets, and bury them in the snowbanks. Leave them there.” “For...

An Ecological View of the History of the City of Cape Town

Rapid global urbanization and the knowledge that ecological systems underpin the future sustainability and resilience of our cities, make an understanding of urban ecology critical. The way humans engage with ecological processes within cities is highly complex, and both from a social and ecological perspective these engagements cannot be interpreted meaningfully on the basis of a single timeframe. Historical analyses offer useful insights into the nature of social-ecological interactions under diverse conditions, enabling improved decision-making into the future. We present an historical review of the evolving relationship between the urban settlement of Cape Town and the ecological processes inherent to its natural surroundings. Since its establishment, the people of Cape Town have been acutely aware of, and exploited, the natural resources presented by Table Mountain and its surrounding wilderness area. An examination of this pattern of engagement, explored through an ecological process lens, in particular drawing on the terminology provided by the ecosystem services framework, reflects a journey of the changing needs and demands of a growing urban settlement. Ecological processes, and their ensuing flow of ecosystem services, have been exploited, overexploited, interrupted, reestablished, conserved, and variably valued through time. Processes of significance, for example water provision, soil erosion, the provision of wood and natural materials, and the role of fire, are presented. This historical analysis documents the progression from a wilderness to a tamed and largely benign urban environment. Evident is the variable valuing of ecosystem service attributes through time and by different people, at the same time, dependent on their immediate needs.

Moral Courage at High Noon [Ethically Speaking

One of my favorite movies is High Noon, starring Gary Cooper as Sheriff Will Kane. The movie starts with Will getting married to his new wife (Grace Kelly) in a small western town in the late 1800s. He retired as a very successful sheriff and was leaving town forever with his new bride, when he found out that a bad guy, Frank Miller, was returning from jail (where Will sent him) on the noon train to meet some of his friends and kill the people who sent him to jail. The movie takes place in “real time:” less than two hours. The clock is regularly shown as Will attempts to get people in the town to help him confront the bad guys. The town people had a lot of respect for Will when he was sheriff, but when he postpones leaving in order to deal with Miller and his gang, Will finds that recruiting volunteers to help him confront the four armed men is impossible. Everyone has various excuses for not helping him, including, “It is not my problem.” Will had doubts about his decision and was very scared. At noon, Will goes to meet Miller and his gang all alone. After he kills the gang as the town watches from safety, he throws his sheriff's badge on the ground and rides away with his wife.

Islam in Provincial Indonesia: Middle Class, Lifestyle, and Democracy

Islamic symbols have flourished in the public spaces of Indonesian provincial towns after Suharto. This phenomenon has occurred in parallel with the significant shifts in the social, economic and political fields, which is tied to the mounting impact of Islamization, social mobility, economic growth, and democratization occurring among town people. It is as if we see a parallel move between Islamization, modernization, globalization and democratization. Key concepts associated with these trends are appropriated with those rooted in tradition and local culture to inform the whole dynamics of Indonesian provincial towns today. The key player in this process is the new middle class, who look to Islam for inspiration both to claim distinction and social status and to legitimize their consumptive lifestyle. They are newly pious who act as active negotiators between the global and the local as well as the cosmopolitan centre and the hinterland. They also play a pivotal role as an agency that liberalizes religion from its traditionally subservient, passive and docile posture by turning it into a source of moral legitimacy and distinction to represent a modern form of life. Given its intimate relationship with locality, tradition, modernity as well as globalization, Islam has increasingly assumed a greater importance for local politics. Political elites have used Islamic symbols for the instrumental purpose of extending their political legitimacy and mobilizing constituency support, in a political environment of open competition and increased public participation in decision making. In this process religious symbols have irrefutably been distanced from their religious moorings and narrow, Islamist understandings, in favor of pragmatic political purposes.

"There Is a Lot That I Want to Do": Reflections on the Relief Efforts in Haiti

In October 2010, Harvard Educational Review editor Raygine DiAquoi interviewed Maryse Desgrottes, the mother of a close friend and a visible presence in the relief efforts in Petit Goave, Haiti. Desgrottes, a former physician's assistant turned educator and school superintendent, shares the story of her involvement in Haiti's relief efforts since the January 12, 2010, earthquake. Her story takes us from the initial terror and trauma of the first tremors to the present condition of the Haitian people. In her role as founder of the Henri Gerard Desgranges Foundation, which provides education and medical care to the town's people, Desgrottes reflects on the importance of education in the midst of disaster and the role that her school has played in the lives of Petit Goave's children and families. She also discusses the importance of partnerships with foreign organizations and the delicate balance between helping and hurting after a disaster. Desgrottes travels to Haiti every few months to monitor the rebuilding of the École Village Lucina. Currently, this school serves two hundred children, including a number of students who were orphaned by the earthquake. As the final touches are added to the new school building, Desgrottes looks ahead to the future of the students. Her story reveals themes of the importance of culture, sovereignty,and strength in the face of disaster.

Were the Jews a Mediterranean Society?: Reciprocity and Solidarity in Ancient Judaism (review)

Were Jews a Society?: Reciprocity and Solidarity in Ancient Judaism, by Seth Schwartz. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2010. 212 pp. $29.95. In spite of its title, this has nothing to do with Goiteihs classic A Society (Berkeley, 1967-1993), which is not even mentioned throughout present book. It is, in fact, an attempt to look closely at society in Palestine in Second Temple and rabbinic periods and ask whether that society conforms to what is commonly expected of a Mediterranean society, and to what is known about Hellenistic and Roman societies outside world. To answer that question, Schwartz begins by explaining his understanding of reciprocity, and especially institutionalized reciprocity, as a means for generating social cohesion, as when, for example, a rich Roman would build a new bathhouse for his hometown and in return would be duly honored by town's people with honorific statues, inscriptions, and pubUc speeches. He also notes that Jews had other means for generating social cohesion, such as stress on common descent and celebration of a set of community-binding holidays. In next chapter, he turns to question of Mediterraneanism, a historiographical, anthropological and even literary construct which sees societies as possessing highly institutionalized mechanisms of reciprocity, and as based on elaborate codes of honor and shame. While doubting validity of this construct, Schwartz nevertheless seeks to test ancient society against it, and to do so he turns, in next three chapters, to Ben Sira (second century BCE), Josephus (first century CE) and Palestinian Talmud (third-fourth centuries CE). In each of these test-cases, a detailed analysis of sources in search of their views of reciprocity, benefaction, social hierarchy, deference, honor, and related cultural values and social realia leads to a broader assessment of how they fit into landscape of ancient society as a whole. Seen through this lens, Ben Sira emerges as quite ambivalent on issues of gift-giving and gift- exchange, money, trade, and honor. Josephus, who is the pivotal figure for concerns of this book (p. 81), sees Roman-style benefactions - such as erection of new theaters - as bad, but is full of praise for more Jewish benefactions, such as distribution of charity to poor (especially in times of famine) and subsidizing of religious activities (such as funding sacrifices owed by nazirites upon completion of their vows). …

Balancing people and park: towards a symbiotic relationship between Cape Town and Table Mountain National Park

Tourism is not only an economic but also a social and political agent that affects a wider natural and socio-cultural environment. To be successful as a tool of poverty reduction, tourism must be seen as one dimension of a destination's economy and society. In the context of a world-class urban national park yielding major economic benefits for the Cape Town and Western Cape tourism economies, this paper focuses on a variety of symbiotic relationships existing between the people of Cape Town and the Table Mountain National Park (TMNP). First, the current literature is reviewed to provide a conceptual base for protected areas (PAs) within urban environments and to appraise the importance of the local community's appreciation of this natural resource base. Secondly, the wide user base of the TMNP is placed within its socio-economic context. Thirdly, two poverty-relief projects, Ukuvuku and Mountain of Jobs, are introduced to reflect on TMNP's commitments to biodiversity conservation and social responsibility. Fourthly, the value Capetonians place on being the custodians of this world-class natural heritage site is discussed. Lastly, this paper appeals to other cities in the developing world to manage and nurture salubrious relationships between PAs and their neighbours carefully.

Habits of the heartland: small-town life in modern America

IntroductionPart I: Cultures of Community1. Three Halloweens, Three Viroquas 2. The Alternatives: A Kinder, Gentler Counterculture 3. The Main Streeters: The Busiest People in Town 4. The Regulars: Keeping Things Simple 5. Playing in the Same Sandbox?Part II: Commerce, Consumption, and Community in Viroqua6. Beneficent Enterprise and Viroquan Exceptionalism 7. Retail Morality 8. Consumption and Belonging in ViroquaEpilogue and ConclusionAppendix: Study Methods References Index

The Impact of Household Shocks on Adolescent School Outcomes in South Africa

This paper uses the the Cape Area Panel Study (CAPS), a longitudinal survey of young people in Cape Town, to analyze the impact of short-term household economic shocks on the schooling outcomes of South African youth. In addition to detailed information on schooling and employment, CAPS has collected information on negative shocks experienced by households, including job loss, business failure, theft, property damage, and death of household members. The CAPS panel data allow us to prospectively follow young people as they progress through secondary school, looking at the impact of both initial conditions and household shocks that occur between waves. We follow about 1000 CAPS respondents who were in grade 8 or 9 in 2002. Our results indicate that youth households that experience a negative shock are 12 percentage points less likely to advance three grades between 2002 and 2005.

The Smile Index: Symbolizing People and Place in Colorado's Casino Gaming Towns

Community newspapers often play active roles in tourism development processes, and their published texts and photographs can also symbolize changes in the vitality of a people and place over time. This study asks about patterns in publication of newspaper photographs during two decades of a rural community tourism development, and about symbolic meanings of the photographic images. Photographs published on the front page of the Gilpin County, Colorado, Weekly Register-Call newspaper were evaluated to assess portrayals of the community during 22 years of a casino gaming development. Data show an overall reduction in the total numbers of pictures, people pictures and smile pictures over time, as well as a decrease in the numbers of photographs of community social events and an increase in numbers of photographs showing local government activities. Semiotic analysis of the photographs suggests a pattern of increasing seriousness and professionalization over time, and increased blurring between the gaming industry and local community. The smile index proposed here provides a symbolic assessment of people in place over time, and has implications for research and tourist destination development.

Peddling Scents: Merchandise and Meaning in 2 Corinthians 2:14-17

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) Scholars have long puzzled over diction and imagery that Paul employs in 2 Cor 2:14-17, where, from an attempt to account for his prior travels, shifts abruptly into prayer of thanksgiving. 14But thanks be to God, who in Christ always us in and through us spreads fragrance of knowledge of him everywhere. 15For we are aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16to one fragrance from death to death, to other fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? 17For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word; but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in sight of God we speak in Christ.1 Most exegetes concentrate their attention on word ... in 2:14, rendered above as leads . . . in triumph, and on relationship, if any, between this word and odor imagery that pervades vv. 15-16. Comparatively little attention has been lavished on peddlers (...) of v. 17, and almost none on what role image of peddler might play in connection with scene detailed in preceding verses.2 Harold W. Attridge's article on passage offers both generally persuasive explanation of 2:14-16 and rare if very cursory attempt to integrate v. 17.3 According to Attridge, building especially on work of Paul Brooks Duff, v. 14 references not military triumph but religious processions partly modeled on triumph and undertaken in veneration of likes of Isis and Dionysius.4 Incense and unguents figured importantly in such processions as means of honoring or making manifest deity. Paul thus imagines himself as a slave to triumphing deity, but slave in his ongoing service, heralding deity's approach by strewing incense, or possibly even as the vessel in which fragrant ointment is contained.5 And what of peddlers? In article's final footnote, Attridge ventures that Paul means to underline that he is part of procession itself, not on sidelines working, as ... [sic], for gain.6 While not discounting latter possibility, I argue in this note for different understanding of relationship between 2:14-16 and 2:17. Paul's reference to peddlers in v. 17 depends, I suggest, on prominence of spices in inventory of goods furnished by peddlers. To illustrate their prominence, I draw on evidence from rabbinic literature, which paints vivid portrait of small-scale commerce that is, to all appearances, typical of Mediterranean world in which Paul operated. Greek ... enters into rabbinic literature as ..., shopkeeper or tavern keeper.7 But it and related verbal form ... cover wide range of mercantile activities, indeed, most anything short of wholesale trade. The itinerant peddler falls within this range.8 Thus, nothing precludes us from supposing that Paul has in mind specifically peddler. The positive evidence for this possibility lies in close connection between peddler (lkwr) and aromatics in rabbinic literature.9 Let us consider two illustrative texts, in both of which aromatics serve, as in 2 Cor 2:14-17, as metaphor for knowledge. The first comes from Abot R. Nat. A, ch. 18 (ed. Schechter, 34a). [R. Judah Patriarch] called R. Eleazar b. Azarya peddler's bundle. And to what was R. Eleazar comparable? To peddler who took up his bundle and entered town, and people of town came and said to him: Have you fine oil? Have you spikenard oil [...]?10 Have you balsam [...)]? And they found everything on him. So was R. Eleazar b. Azarya. When students of sages would enter beside him, one would ask him about Scripture and would tell him, about mishnah and would tell him, about midrash and would tell him, about legal traditions and would tell him, about homiletics and would tell him. Thus when left him, would be full of blessed good. …

A multi-level analysis of risk perception, poverty and sexual risk-taking among young people in Cape Town, South Africa

Various studies have underscored the relevance of community-level factors to sexual behavior and HIV/AIDS prevention efforts in Africa. However, there is a paucity of research and theorizing in this area compared to the preponderance of prevention models that focus solely on individual-level factors. Using data from the Cape Area Panel Survey and hierarchical linear models, this study examines the effects of a combination of individual-level factors and community-level poverty on sexual behaviors.Male and female respondents who perceived themselves to be at great risk of HIV infection were less likely to indulge in risky sexual behaviors. For females, race and community-level poverty were confounded such that race mediated the effects of community-level poverty. Results from this study indicate that multiple rationalities affect sexual behaviors in Cape Town, South Africa and that there is a need to consider both the social embeddedness of sexual behaviors and the rational components of decision making when designing HIV/AIDS prevention programs.

Use of traditional medicinal plants by indigenous people in Mekele town, capital city of Tigray regional state of Ethiopia

Northern Ethiopia was carried out from July - September 2009. Thirteen informants between the ages of 18 and 56 were randomly selected for the study. Ethno-botanical data were collected using semistructured interview and field observations. The routes of administration were oral and dermal with equal proportions. The local people utilized 16 medicinal plant species to treat 16 human ailments. Most of these plants (62.5%) were collected from wild habitats. Local people depend on both dry and fresh remedies. In this case, 10 preparations (62.5%) were in fresh form and 6 (37.5%) dried. The majority (75%) of remedy preparations did not have additive substances while the remaining has different additive substances like honey, sugar, oil and hair of female old sheep for the treatment of single ailment. Most (84.6%) of the traditional healers were found to have poor knowledge on the dosage and antidote while prescribing remedies to their patients. Majority (84.6%) of traditional healers indicated the absence of any adverse effects of traditional medicines after administrations. But some (15.4%) of the preparations were reported to have some adverse effects like vomiting and fever on patients. Agricultural expansion, over grazing and lack of awareness are major threats to medicinal plants in the study area. It was found that, there is little practice of bringing medicinal plants under cultivation. It is therefore, recommended that people need to be encouraged to cultivate medicinal plants in their home garden. The participation of the local people and awareness creation through training or education on sustainable utilization and management of plant resources should be encouraged.