Ugly Truth Research Articles

Conversion and Coercion in American Prisons

PMLA invites members of the association to submit letters, printed and double-spaced, that comment on articles in previous issues or on matters of general scholarly or critical interest. The editor reserves the right to reject or edit Forum contributions and offers the PMLA authors discussed in published letters an opportunity to reply. Submissions of more than one thousand words are not considered. The journal omits titles before persons' names and discourages endnotes and works-cited lists in the Forum. Letters should be addressed to PMLA Forum, Modern Language Association, 26 Broadway, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10004-1789.What obligations does literary scholarship have to its society, culture, and laws? The question arises in Tanya Erzen's “Religious Literacy in the Faith-Based Prison” (123.3 [2008]: 659–64). The problems with this account of Florida's Lawtey Correctional Institution and its religious-right rehabilitation program begin with the essay's title. One would take “religious literacy” to mean something like “competence in religious history and/or religious doctrine,” but in this essay it does not: for here “religious literacy” is a euphemism for total immersion in and complete acceptance of the Southern Baptist belief system. The author calls such brainwashing “religious self-knowledge” (660), though it seems aimed at the obliteration of any vestiges of selfhood. Even the phrase “faith-based prison” is a smokescreen: “faith,” a term that in our highly religious and religiously diverse culture has generally positive associations, here conceals the ugly truth that the only faith that counts at Lawtey is fundamentalist Christianity.

Evidence Based Clinical Practice: A Primer for Urologists

Evidence based clinical practice has been defined as the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of the current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. It refers to a broad set of principles and methods intended to ensure that medical decisions, guidelines and health policy are based on well designed studies of therapeutic effectiveness and benefit. We review the principles and practice of evidence based clinical practice using examples from the urology literature. We further provide a guide to currently available web based evidence based clinical practice resources and guidelines for urologists. Evidence based clinical practice integrates a hierarchy of evidence and patient values with practitioner judgment to guide decision making for the individual patient. Important steps in the evidence based clinical practice process include the formulation of an answerable question and a systematic search of the literature. In the absence of pre-appraised evidence or disease specific guidelines, the practice of evidence based clinical practice relies heavily on the evaluation of the primary literature by the individual urologist. Depending on the question domain (therapy/prevention, etiology/cause/harm, diagnosis or prognosis) and study design, a given study is critically appraised for validity, impact and applicability. Evidence is then integrated with clinical judgment, and patient circumstances and preferences. Finally, the practice of evidence based clinical practice includes a self-assessment of provider performance. Knowledge, practice and documentation of evidence based clinical practice are of increasing importance to every urologist. Urologists should embrace evidence based clinical practice principles by acquiring the necessary skills to critically appraise the literature for the best evidence applicable to patient care.

Comment on Gray

34 Historically Speaking January/February 2006 flux. Violence, to offer one example, he described as a "pulsation" (Pulsieren) rather than a constant.6 In any case, ifwar's common elements were constants, the zealots would be justified in canceling them out oftheir formulae for success, as indeed they try to do now. I suspect Gray would agree with this portrayal ofthe nature of war. My concern, however , is not with his interpretation, but how it might be received by those who lack his breadth and depth of knowledge. His argument can be taken as claiming that all one needs to know about the nature of the weather , for instance, is that it consists of a few common and inescapable elements, such as barometric pressure, heat index, dew point, wind velocity, and so on. This line of reasoning does not allow us to appreciate that there is indeed a qualitative difference between a rain shower and a hurricane—so much so in fact that we might do well to consider them two entirely different types of weather and prepare ourselves accordingly. We ought, therefore, to recognize not only the elements common to all forms ofweather, but also how those elements relate to each other, and how changes in one or more of them will affect how we should prepare ourselves before stepping outdoors. After all this, I think Gray and I are largely in agreement, except ofcourse on those niggling details. Antulio J. Echevarría II is the Director of Research andDirector ofNational Security Affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute, U. S . Army War College. He is the author o/After Clausewitz: German Military Thinkers before the Great War (University Press ofKansas, 2001), and is currently working on two books, one that examines Clausewitz 's On War as an "unfinished symphony " and one that compares amateur andprofessional military views offuture war in the West before 1914. 1 See, for example, the U.S. National Intelligence Council, Mapping the Global Future (National Intelligence Council, December 2004). 2 Antulio J. Echevarría II, "The Trouble with History in Military Education," Historically Speaking: The Bulletin ofthe Historical Society (September/October 2005): 11-15. 3 Vom Kriege, Book I, Ch. 2, 214.·* Vom Kriege, Book I, Ch. 1, 212-13. 5 Vom Kriege, Book VIII, Ch. 3B, 970-74. 6 Vom Kriege, Book I, Ch. 2, 210. Comment on Gray Andrew J. Bacevich I concur with Colin Gray. Indeed, I am almost tempted to say that I agree with every jot and tittle of his essay and to leave it at that. Almost, but not quite. Gray expects others to find his essay "shocking" and "unfashionable" and "controversial ." He should prepare to be disappointed . Serious students of war will judge his views to be commonsensical and even conventional . There is not a lot new here. Simplifying only slightly, Gray's argument reduces to a single sentence: "Clausewitz got it about right." Indeed, he did, especially in fixing the relationship of war to politics. The ugly truth is that as long as politics persists so too will large-scale, politically motivated violence. That the innocent, the naive, and the idealistic will bridle at that prospect is to be expected. As with those who rail against the market or deny the existence of Original Sin, theirs is an exercise in futility. To be sure, those opposing all war as a matter of principle serve a useful purpose: they make it harder for ambitious or bloodthirsty politicians to portray the conflict lurking over the horizon as high-minded, moral, and unavoidable. So two cheers for those who protest and demonstrate and proclaim "hell no, we won't go." Yet no amount of emoting for peace, however well intentioned, will succeed in making an end to war. Gray puzzles over the fact that some of those actually in the war business fall prey to their own peculiar version of romanticism. The counterparts to the pacifists denying the utility of war are the visionaries—soldiers as well as strategists—who entertain dreams of perfecting war, liberating it from Clausewitzian risk and uncertainty. Since the end ofthe Cold War, Americans have shown a particular susceptibility to such fantasies. Theorists have developed...

The ugly truth: Some managers are just inept

Usually I am in awe of managers and leaders for the phenomenal job that they do running our health care organizations. Most of the time they are true heroes who manage endless requirements and pressures with skill and compassion.

Anglicanism and the Poetry of John Betjeman

The critical fate of John Betjeman is a sharply divided one. His work endures the dubious distinction of being enjoyed by millions of readers, many of whom would never read poetry. spite of his popularity, which earned him the laureateship in 1972, Betjeman has been for the most part either ignored or disdained by critics, although this neglect is palliated by praise for Betjeman from many of his fellow poets, including W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin. (1) The astonishing paucity of scholarly attention to Betjeman is attributable in part to his popularity. It is an ugly truth, and one most critics prefer to hide, that there is an innate prejudice against a successful poet, and even more so against one who used the medium of television so adroitly to advance his favorite causes. (2) If the masses approve, the poetry must be inferior, or so goes a way of thinking since T. S. Eliot. Prejudice also exists against modern poets who so openly eschew the tenets of modernism, and Betjeman's verse is certainly traditional. Instead of innovating with meter and form, he preferred to cast his poems in molds successfully employed by Victorian poets and hymnodists. Although in structure Betjeman was an avowed anti-modernist, he was clearly engaged with his culture, and his language is informed by the sensibility of modernism. tone Betjeman is frequently a prophet of doom. Like many of his fellow poets, Betjeman rejected the popular fantasy of endless progress and advancement, using poetry as a vehicle to excoriate society for its cultural, spiritual, political, and aesthetic failures. A further explanation for his rejection by critics is that Betjeman was a religious man. Critics have little trouble coping with the religious poems of seventeenth-century writers, poets who lived in what was still an age of faith, but what should we do with a troublesome twentieth-century poet who persisted in believing the tenets of Christianity despite the overwhelming counter-claims of science and philosophy? Betjeman's faith was public knowledge, and he often spoke fervently of his beliefs, as in this letter written on Christmas Day, 1947, acknowledging his philosophical and theological distinction from other poets: Also my view of the world is that man is born to fulfil the purposes of his Creator i.e. to Praise his Creator, to stand in awe of Him and to dread Him. this way I differ from most modern poets, who are agnostics and have an idea that Man is the centre of the Universe or is a helpless bubble blown about by uncontrolled forces. (qtd. in Hillier, John Betjeman 400) Indeed, Betjeman was committed not just to Christianity but to the Church of England. His poems describe the perils of faith and the struggle to believe; they celebrate the social and cultural significance of the Church of England; they reveal the intersection of architecture and faith, of aesthetics and the spirit; and they also demonstrate the social and spiritual failure of the Church, particularly the snobbery and hypocrisy of its clergy and parishioners. Betjeman could be a brilliant ironist, but he could also be sentimental about the Church of England; and even though he was never an unabashed apologist for his church, his rejection of skepticism may be perceived by critics as an intellectual weakness. However, it is the remarkable fact of Betjeman's studied faith in an age of skepticism that makes him interesting and worthy of critical attention. To appreciate Betjeman's complex and contrasting stances toward religion, let us consider In Westminster Abbey and Sunday Morning, King's Cambridge. (3) These poems are set in two of the most aesthetically and socially important centers of Christian worship in England, though the former has political and the latter academic significance. Together the two poems epitomize the tonal are between outrage and affection that typifies his verse about the English Church. …

Perfect Books

Having accepted SubStance's kind invitation to contribute to its hundredth issue, I found myself more and more troubled by the questions I had been asked to address, "What are the questions that fascinate you?" and "What do you want to know?" Not that they are unreasonable ones; quite to the contrary in fact. I realized nonetheless that, while there are a great many questions that fascinate me, the ones that fascinate me the most are the ones I find most difficult to articulate. Moreover, as fascinating as those questions may be to me, they are undoubtedly far less interesting to the readers of SubStance. I came to that sad recognition much less calmly than my account here may suggest, gnashing my teeth and wailing like any good academic will when confronted with an ugly truth. In the end, with iron in the soul, I accepted it. Somewhat later it occurred to me that there might be another avenue of approach. Since after all I profess literature, and since many of SubStance's readers likewise profess literature, why not recast those questions in literary terms, changing their shape but remaining relatively faithful to their original spirit? Faced with questions of this new ilk—"What are the books that fascinate you?" "What do you want to read?"—I could begin to see my way. The verbs are far too weak however: allow me to substitute "obsess" for "fascinate," and "ache" for "want." Here, then, are my short answers: I am obsessed by perfect books. I ache to read perfect books.

Afghan refugees: The ugly truth

[Halimi KM. Afghan refugees: the ugly truth. Ann Emerg Med. February 2002;39:200-202.]

Leonardo da Vinci: beauty or human suffering in the world. Notes on pathological cutaneous alterations in the ‘Adoration of the Magi’

AbstractThe authors have individuated and evidenced in this study some of a series of very suggestive minute figures and signs of pathological conditions, including common cutaneous lesions, portrayed by Leonardo da Vinci in his famous painting ‘The Adoration of the Magi’ (‘L'Adorazione dei Magi’) which is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. These figures and lesions are mostly ‘hidden’ and become visible only by close, attentive observation of specific points extrapolated from the vision of this magnificent picture as a whole. Possible clinical interpretations are attributed to the ‘lesions’ evidenced, with the conviction the they were portrayed consciously by Leonardo and the they represent a confirmation of his extraordinary capacity for observation and ability to reproduce faithfully the which he saw, including the obvious signs of diseases which it is known he had ample occasion to observe. In this painting, as in others, Leonardo presents the horrors of life and sickness manifestly and skillfully disguised behind the mantle of beauty. We wonder if the monks who had commissioned the painting and then refused to take it did not recognize the ugly truth under the beautiful surface representation.

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviewed in this article:Frances Hesselbein, Marshall Goldsmith, and Richard Beckhard (Editors). The Leader of the Future: New Visions, Strategies, and Practices for the Next Era.Rabindra N. Kanungo and Manuel Mendonca. Ethical Dimensions of Leadership.Alan Downs. Corporate Executions: The Ugly Truth About Layoffs—How Corporate Greed Is Shattering Lives, Companies, and Communities.Chris Hendry, Michael B. Arthur, and Alan M. Jones. Strategy Through People: Adaptation and Learning in the Small‐Medium Enterprise.Bernice Lott and Diane Maluso (Editors). The Social Psychology of Interpersonal Discrimination.Anne Donnellon. Team Talk: The Power of Language in Team Dynamics.Neil Brewer and Charlene Wilson. Psychology and Policing.Meni Koslowsky, Avraham N. Kluger, and Mordechai Reich. Commuting Stress: Causes, Effects, and Methods of Coping.Steven E. Gross. Compensation for Teams: How to Design and Implement Team‐Based Reward Programs.Arlene Fink (Editor). The Survey Kit (Volumes 1–9).Jane Close Conoley, James C. Impara (Editors) and Linda L. Murphy (Managing Editor). The Twelfth Mental Measurements Yearbook.Lawrence T. Pinfield. The Operation of Internal Labor Markets: Staffing Practices and Vacancy Chains.Dean Keith Simonton. Greatness: Who Makes History and Why.Barbara A. Gutek. The Dynamics of Customer Service: Reflections on the Changing Nature of Customer/Provider Interactions.Thomas G. O'Brien and Samuel G. Charlton (Editors). Hand‐book of Human Factors Testing and Evaluation.Mike Vance and Diane Deacon. Think Out Of The Box.Alan Auerbach. The World of Work: An Introduction to Industrial/Organizational Psychology.Robert Wright. The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology.StatMost 3.0 for Windows: Statistical Analysis and Graphics.20/20 Insight (Version 2.1 for Windows).

Consonant gradation in Fula suffixes the ugly truth

In this paper, I will argue that Skousen's account of the differences between stems and suffixes requires substantial revision and elaboration. I will argue further that the complexities of the behavior of suffixes preclude the possibility of providing an insightful analysis in terms of auto segmental phonology/morphology (contra Lieber [1983, 1984], Marantz [n.d.]). Instead, the alternations found in suffix-initial consonants, like those in stem-initial consonants [Churma 1986b], require a fairly extensive use of morphophonological diacritics. Indeed, it would appear that an optimal account of gradation phenomena (or at least those that have been heavily grammaticized, such as in Fu1a and Celtic), will never crucially make use of autosegmental tier-separation and association (cf. Churma [1986b], Willis [1986]), although I will not be able to address this issue here.

Incensed by Alleged Avarice

Ross's commentary, "Stretching a Minute"1 exemplifies much that is wrong with the health care delivery system as it exists today. Ross accurately described many of the different types of anticipatory guidance that are available to providers. He should have ended his commentary at that point. However, he chose to continue by pointing out the ugly truth that much of the reason for the lack of time devoted to preventive health care and anticipatory guidance is sheer avarice on the part of the physician.

The Political Economy of Hunger in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe

The first-time visitor to Salisbury cannot help but be impressed by the exceptionally clean and modern downtown area. The well-kept parks and spotless boulevards put any city in the United States to shame. Supermarket shelves are well stocked, and the near total absence of beggars makes one wonder if this is in fact part of the African continent. If one stays inside the downtown area and its rich suburbs, one can easily miss the ugly truth that millions of people in this relatively affluent nation are suffering from malnutrition and that whole communities have been destroyed by starvation.

The ugly truth about consumer's surplus

30. We have seen that most of the heresies rejected in Mishan have at least an element of truth in them formal or real. Either the conflict is apparent, not real; or Mishan is incorrect in his understanding of the problems which all relate to interpretation of measurement, and are nothing to do with the rational status of ordinalism. From a practical point of view the following propositions may be asserted: (A) For the question most frequently asked of consumer's surplus the EV provides a correct answer. (B) The CV cannot always be relied on to do so. (C) But there are other circumstances, in which the reverse is true. (D) The Marshall Measure is easier to use than either and requires less data. It will frequently provide a correct answer, but requires for its full validation certain conditions which can be expressed in terms of the marginal utility of income. (E) Use of the Marshall measure implies that one has to face the problem of “path dependence”.

The Origins of the Second Anglo-Burmese War (1852–53)

Historical accounts of the Second Anglo-Burmese War (1852–53) emphasize national bias, monocausality and events immediately preceding the outbreak of hostilities. Asian historians find Europeans culpable. Governor-General Dalhousie ‘was an imperialist of the deepest dye, who longed to extend his Indian empire at the cost of the Burmese.’ The East India Company in its unquenchable ‘thirst for conquest’ coveted Burma. ‘There was a desire for war on the part of the British trading community in Burma … as it would permanently safeguard commercial interests in the country.’ Anglophile historians blame the Burmese. The ‘intransigence and xenophobia which radiated from the court of Ava… drove [Dalhousie] into war.’ Dalhousie himself blamed an unrestrained military officer whom he labeled the ‘combustible commodore.’ Despite imperial apologetics, critical Englishmen felt unease at the ‘double government's’ Blue Book coverup and sought with mixed success to disclose the ‘whole ugly truth.’

Politics Through Tinted Glass (Brightly)

AbstractWhat should have been the Soviet Union's great lesson—that beautiful Socialist dreams can easily turn into something far worse than a repressively tolerant bourgeois society, while those with eyes to see refuse to look—is an example that many with eyes to see and ears to hear have yet to consider. The prevailing cold war consensus was responsible for policy errors and misapprehensions of serious consequence, but its perception of Stalin's Soviet Union as an evil and dangerous despotism was correct. Those who had thought otherwise before Khrushchev's famous speech of 1956 were wrong.Hard facts and disturbing clues were available long years before Stalin's fans flip-flopped on cue. The more sophisticated had deliberately refrained from looking at the ugly truth, or had looked and were not repelled. But a majority simply were incapable of assimilating information incompatible with their political mindset, unless it was directly related to matters of personal concern.