Re: boring IO profs
From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." [EMAIL PROTECTED] This may have made them boring, sort of, much of the time, but I think they were worthy of respect anyway. Hear hear, re FM Scherer.
Re: Cultural Politics (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 01:02:24 -0400 From: Mine Aysen Doyran [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Cultural Politics http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2000/480/cu2.htm Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 May 2000 Issue No. 480 Cultural politics By Edward Said... neither Adonis nor Darwish actually exists in anything like a comprehensive decent English translation. As for Qabbani, and others of his stature, he is simply not known, nor is there any immediate likelihood of forthcoming translations on an adequate scale, done by first-class translators and publishing houses. Whatever exists is intermittent, spotty, uneven and, as in Mahfouz's case, seems to supply a momentary albeit steady and appreciative demand. Youssef Chahine, for instance, has acquired the status of a master but his films are routinely unexhibited in theaters in London or New York. What we need is an immediately available infusion of contemporary Arabic cultural production in the English-speaking world (now at the centre of the world cultural debate), and that simply is not there. The idea of an integral library in English of Arabic works is simply unthinkable in the present political and cultural climate, where Arabs are either viewed as a problem, or as possible candidates for a dubious "peace process." Perhaps Said could spend some time translating things? It would seem to be the natural thing to do if one is bemoaning the absence of good translations... Brad DeLong
Re: Full employment
Nice post, Tom. But I'm also attracted by a seemingly simplistic opposition between the "Big Boys" who favoured a buyer's market for labour and the advocates of government planning who clearly and unequivocally insisted on the superiority of a seller's market -- not just a marginally less harsh buyer's market. Some would call that a "maximalist slogan". But wait. Which is more "maximalist": a planned, moderate labour shortage or a planned, moderate labour surplus? Looks like Greenspan's moderate labour surplus plan is working nicely. I see US unemployment is up beyond expectations this morning (and wage growth down). Workers consigned to the slagheap and shareholders celebrating the sweetness of the moment by buying the DJI and the NASDAQ up a coupla hundred points. Economics is getting pretty simple, eh? Rising unemployment = low wages = the very definition of a healthy economy. And that's all there is to it. Certainly, the Beeb finance journalist feeding me this news is almost lasciviously worshipful of Big Al's genius and the sheer beauty of these numbers. Well, the nice young men in their long white coats here at the Home For The Perpetually Appalled tell me it's time for my cocoa ... Rob.
Full employment II (today's perverse world)
NEW YORK, June 2 (Reuters) - Stocks held strong gains in late morning trading on Friday after a jobs report suggested that recent interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve are succeeding in slowing the economy. The U.S. Labour Department reported that the May unemployment rate climbed to 4.1 percent from its 30-year low of 3.9 percent. The closely watched hourly earnings figure -- an indicator of wage-level inflation -- rose only 0.1 percent to $13.65 while a 0.4-percent boost had been expected. ``The unemployment rate picked up, which in today's perverse world is seen as good,'' said Michelle Clayman of New Amsterdam Partners. . . Tom Walker
Re: Full employment II (today's perverse world)
It's my understanding that the rate would have gone even higher without the hiring of 200,000+ census workers. Since these jobs are temporary, Wall Street must be quite confident that the trajectory for the unemployment rate will likely trend upward in the next few months. Joel Blau Timework Web wrote: NEW YORK, June 2 (Reuters) - Stocks held strong gains in late morning trading on Friday after a jobs report suggested that recent interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve are succeeding in slowing the economy. The U.S. Labour Department reported that the May unemployment rate climbed to 4.1 percent from its 30-year low of 3.9 percent. The closely watched hourly earnings figure -- an indicator of wage-level inflation -- rose only 0.1 percent to $13.65 while a 0.4-percent boost had been expected. ``The unemployment rate picked up, which in today's perverse world is seen as good,'' said Michelle Clayman of New Amsterdam Partners. . . Tom Walker
Re: Re: Full employment II (today's perverse world)
The U.S. Labour Department reported that the May unemployment rate climbed to 4.1 percent from its 30-year low of 3.9 percent. Joel wrote: It's my understanding that the rate would have gone even higher without the hiring of 200,000+ census workers. Since these jobs are temporary, Wall Street must be quite confident that the trajectory for the unemployment rate will likely trend upward in the next few months. Though we shouldn't conclude too much from a month-to-month change in the unemployment rate, it sure looks like the U-rate is bouncing upward (never to attain its recent minimum again for a long time), as indicated by the declines in various indicators of the demand for goods. That of course, is what Alan G. and the Feds want. They hope, of course, that the US economy will attain the Holy Grail of monetary policy, "the soft landing" (a slower, but not negative, GDP growth rate). I don't know if they're conscious of the possibilities for a "hard landing" or worse resulting from consumer indebtedness, the large US deficit on the current account, the accelerator effect, etc. I get the feeling that Alan G. flies by the seat of his pants, following intuition more than anything else. That method didn't work well in the early 1990s, when the attempted soft landing turned into a serious recession that undermined George W's father's attempts at reelection. The news sources I've seen (mostly US NPR) suggest that "Wall Street" (that collective animal) doesn't care about the rise in the U-rate as much as the perception that Alan G. won't raise interest rates again in the immediate future. Though WS doesn't care if, say, 20 million people become unemployed (as long as they're not brokers or other members of the club), I don't think their speculations revolve around the U-rate as much as expected changes in interest rates, profitability, etc. For such powerful people, they are remarkably superficial. Maybe Alan G. sees the need for a reserve army of the unemployed to preserve profitability and/or prevent inflation, but I doubt that the WS people have anything close to this understanding. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Full employment II (today's perverse world)
Jim: The collective animal "Wall Street" may not be quite so fixated on the unemployment rate per se, but wouldn't you agree that broadly speaking, it and the other indicators you cite tend to move together as a cluster? Joel Blau Jim Devine wrote: I don't think their speculations revolve around the U-rate as much as expected changes in interest rates, profitability, etc.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Full employment II (today's perverse world)
At 12:51 PM 6/2/00 -0400, you wrote: Jim: The collective animal "Wall Street" may not be quite so fixated on the unemployment rate per se, but wouldn't you agree that broadly speaking, it and the other indicators you cite tend to move together as a cluster? right, but the WS herd has a tendency to stampede on occasion. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
funny dough
I've been trying to imagine what Doug Henwood would be like after going to a "funny" coffeehouse in Amsterdam. Would he spout poetry by Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth? Or would he start to mumble incoherently about all kinds of obscure financial data? I think he might become poetic and combine the two. I can see it now, a special poetic supplement to the next issue of LBO: "Don Juan and the Databases" (by Doug Henwood), :-). Barkley Rosser
Re: Re: Full employment II (today'sperverseworld)
Detroit papers headline today is that car sales are down. CB Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/02/00 12:16PM The U.S. Labour Department reported that the May unemployment rate climbed to 4.1 percent from its 30-year low of 3.9 percent. Joel wrote: It's my understanding that the rate would have gone even higher without the hiring of 200,000+ census workers. Since these jobs are temporary, Wall Street must be quite confident that the trajectory for the unemployment rate will likely trend upward in the next few months. Though we shouldn't conclude too much from a month-to-month change in the unemployment rate, it sure looks like the U-rate is bouncing upward (never to attain its recent minimum again for a long time), as indicated by the declines in various indicators of the demand for goods. That of course, is what Alan G. and the Feds want. They hope, of course, that the US economy will attain the Holy Grail of monetary policy, "the soft landing" (a slower, but not negative, GDP growth rate). I don't know if they're conscious of the possibilities for a "hard landing" or worse resulting from consumer indebtedness, the large US deficit on the current account, the accelerator effect, etc. I get the feeling that Alan G. flies by the seat of his pants, following intuition more than anything else. That method didn't work well in the early 1990s, when the attempted soft landing turned into a serious recession that undermined George W's father's attempts at reelection. The news sources I've seen (mostly US NPR) suggest that "Wall Street" (that collective animal) doesn't care about the rise in the U-rate as much as the perception that Alan G. won't raise interest rates again in the immediate future. Though WS doesn't care if, say, 20 million people become unemployed (as long as they're not brokers or other members of the club), I don't think their speculations revolve around the U-rate as much as expected changes in interest rates, profitability, etc. For such powerful people, they are remarkably superficial. Maybe Alan G. sees the need for a reserve army of the unemployed to preserve profitability and/or prevent inflation, but I doubt that the WS people have anything close to this understanding. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Full employment II (today's perverseworld)
At 12:53 PM 6/2/00 -0400, you wrote: Detroit papers headline today is that car sales are down. the LA TIMES says that's not true for imports... BTW, in yesterday's TIMES, they had a story about a study of "welfare reform" in Minnesota, that indicated that the most generous substitute for ADFC that they tried in that state had all sorts of positive results, including discouraging wife-beating. Of course, they made the whole program less generous (adding a time-limit for recipients) when they made the program state-wide, so that it looks as if the positive results won't happen. It also indicates (to me, at least) that the types of "welfare reform" instituted in other states, which are clearly less generous, will have more negative results. And those time-limits are going to pose a problem when the recession comes... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Dialectical materialism and ecology
Yes, point is Hegel and Engels are confirmed on the generality of dialectics by these developments in the natural sciences subsequent to their period. CB "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." [EMAIL PROTECTED] 05/30/00 05:01PM Yes, although there are obviously levels within each of those that overlap and intersect in complicated ways. Barkley Rosser -Original Message- From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tuesday, May 30, 2000 3:52 PM Subject: [PEN-L:19760] Re: Dialectical materialism and ecology "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." [EMAIL PROTECTED] 05/25/00 11:27AM For those who are curious, I have a recently published paper on these issues. "Aspects of dialectics and non-linear dynamics," _Cambridge Journal of Economics_, May 2000, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 311-324. It is also available on my website without the figures at http://cob.jmu.edu/rosserjb. Barkley Rosser - Finally there is the idea of wholes consisting of related parts implied by this formulation. For Levins and Lewontin (1985) this is the most important aspect of dialectics and they use it to argue against the mindless reductionism they see in much of ecological and evolutionary theory, Levins (1968) in particular identifying holistic dialectics with his ?community matrix? idea. This can be seen as working down from a whole to its interrelated parts, but also working up from the parts to a higher order whole. This latter concept can be identified with more recent complex emergent dynamics ideas of self-organization (Turing, 1952; Wiener, 1961), autopoesis (Maturana and Varela, 1975), emergent order (Nicolis and Prigogine, 1977, Kauffman, 1993), anagenesis (Boulding, 1978; Jantsch, 1979), and emergent hierarchy (Rosser, Folke, Günther, Isomäki, Perrings, and Puu, 1994; Rosser, 1995). It is also consistent with the general social systems approach of the dialectically or! iented post-Frankfurt School (Luhmann, 1982, 1996; Habermas, 1979, 1987; Offe, 1997). __ CB: Do the levels of organization of reality corresponding to the various sciences come to mind ? Biology is an emergent level from chemistry. Chemistry is an emergent level from subatomic physics. Human society is an emergent level from biology.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Full employment II (today's perverseworld)
I am very dubious about these studies. First, Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation is among the quantoid (and therefore tunnel-visioned) of the institutes researching welfare. Second, while income did rise 15%, this figure brought it to just $10,800 a year. Third, when they record increased work effort (from 37% to 50%), we should all remember (drawing on Kathryn Edin Laura Lein's Making Ends Meet) the big lie about AFDC: recipients worked (they'd have to with benefits in the median state of $370 a month for 3 people), but just didn't report it. Clearly, Minnesota is, like Wisconsin, one of the more generous states. And plainly, the information on marriage rate is significant (up 50%). But this just confirms what we all know about social reproduction: pay people even a little bit more, and they will start forming families. Joel Blau Jim Devine wrote: BTW, in yesterday's TIMES, they had a story about a study of "welfare reform" in Minnesota, that indicated that the most generous substitute for ADFC that they tried in that state had all sorts of positive results, including discouraging wife-beating. Of course, they made the whole program less generous (adding a time-limit for recipients) when they made the program state-wide, so that it looks as if the positive results won't happen. It also indicates (to me, at least) that the types of "welfare reform" instituted in other states, which are clearly less generous, will have more negative results. And those time-limits are going to pose a problem when the recession comes... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
goodbye for now
Folks, I am about to unsub from pen-l, in anticipation of the power shutdown. However, I would have been unsubbing anyway. I will be out of town for two months with not as good internet access and also need to work on a book (second edition of Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy, to be published by MIT Press). Hope to reappear maybe in August. Also, Second edition of my _From Catastrophe to Chaos: A General Theory of Economic Discontinuities, Volume I: Mathematics, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, and Finance_, will appear on June 9 from Kluwer Academic. For those interested in my Weltenschauung, this is where it is at. I thank Michael Perelman again for playing a role in the first edition getting published back in 1991 by Kluwer. The book had been rejected by 13 publishers prior to that... Until mid-July I shall continue to be accessible by my regular email. Then I shall be incommunicado for about three weeks while I go on a trip across the western US. Will be in Madison, Wisconsin otherwise at the UW until returning to Harrisonburg, VA in early August. Also hope to see some of you at the Seventh Post Keynesian Workshop in Knoxville at the end of June. You can all find my latest papers at my website listed below. I note that both the crucial second chapter (on math) and the references for my book coming out next week are on my website. Anyway, Michael, I think the list is doing fine. Bye for now. J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. Professor of Economics MSC 0204 James Madison University Harrisonburg, VA 22807 USA tel: (001)-540-568-3212 fax: (001)-540-568-3010 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] website: http://cob.jmu.edu/rosserjb
BLS Daily report
BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 2000 RELEASED TODAY: In the first quarter of 2000, there were 1,268 mass layoff actions by employers that resulted in the separation of 232,874 workers from their jobs for more than 30 days. Both the number of layoff events and the number of separations were sharply lower than in January-March 1999, with separations at their lowest level in 2 years. With this release, the mass layoff statistics program has reported statistics for 5 years. ... Data compiled by the Bureau of National Affairs in the first 22 weeks of 2000 show a weighted average first-year increase of 3.7 percent in newly negotiated contracts, compared with 2.6 percent in the same period in 1999. Manufacturing contracts provided a weighted average increase of 3.3 percent, compared with 2.7 percent in 1999. Excluding construction contracts, the nonmanufacturing industry weighted average increase was 3.9 percent, compared with an average of 2.3 percent one year earlier. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-4). The index of leading economic indicators edged down 0.1 percent in April, pointing to a continuation of the economic expansion, but at a slower pace, the Conference Board reports. After rising 0.1 percent in March, the leading index declined to 106 percent of its 1996 base in April. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-3). Sales of new homes tumbled 5.8 percent in April, while a key index of future economic activity slipped 0.1 percent, two signs that the Federal Reserve's higher interest rates are beginning to slow the economy. ... (Washington Post, page E1)_New home sales fell in April to their lowest level in 5 months, indicating that six increases in interest rates by the Federal Reserve over the last year may be starting to cool the economy. ... The biggest slumps were in the Midwest and West. A month earlier, sales rose 5.8 percent. ... Purchasing managers in the Chicago area also reported today that their factory index fell in May, and the Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators dropped in April, for the second time in 3 months. ... (New York Times, page C12)_Fresh economic data suggest that some sectors of the economy have plateaued. But market watchers wondering whether the long-awaited slowdown has begun will have to wait for clearer signals due later this month about the strength of consumer spending, a key economic driver. New home sales fell an unexpectedly hard 5.8 percent in April, as the housing sector felt the growing pinch of rising interest rates. ... Another sign of possible slowing in economic growth showed up in the Index of Leading Economic Indicators, which is designed to forecast business conditions 3 to 6 months ahead. The index slipped 0.1 percent in April, driven down by a decline in manufactures' orders for consumer goods. ... Separately, a report showed that Internet commerce continued to grow in the first months of 2000. In the first quarter of the year, customers bought a nonseasonally adjusted $5.26 billion of goods such as televisions, books, and stereos over the Internet, an increase of 1.2 percent from the $5.20 billion in sales recorded in the closing months of 1999, the Commerce Department said. ... (Wall Street Journal, page A2). More than half of tax code Section 401(k) plan participants who changed jobs in 1999 cashed out their Section 401(k) balance in lieu of rolling it into another tax-deferred cash arrangement, according to Hewitt Associates. The analysis of 170,000 defined contribution plan distributions to participants aged 20-59 showed that 68 percent opted for lump-sum cash payments when they changed jobs. Twenty-six percent of plan participants rolled their balances into individual retirement accounts; and 6 percent of plan participants moved their money into their new employer's plans. ... (Daily Labor Report, page A-6). DUE OUT TOMORROW: The Employment Situation: May 2000 application/ms-tnef
Re: Cultural Politics (fwd)
By Edward Said... neither Adonis nor Darwish actually exists in anything like a comprehensive decent English translation. As for Qabbani, and others of his stature, he is simply not known, nor is there any immediate likelihood of forthcoming translations on an adequate scale, done by first-class translators and publishing houses. Whatever exists is intermittent, spotty, uneven and, as in Mahfouz's case, seems to supply a momentary albeit steady and appreciative demand. Youssef Chahine, for instance, has acquired the status of a master but his films are routinely unexhibited in theaters in London or New York. What we need is an immediately available infusion of contemporary Arabic cultural production in the English-speaking world (now at the centre of the world cultural debate), and that simply is not there. The idea of an integral library in English of Arabic works is simply unthinkable in the present political and cultural climate, where Arabs are either viewed as a problem, or as possible candidates for a dubious "peace process." Perhaps Said could spend some time translating things? It would seem to be the natural thing to do if one is bemoaning the absence of good translations... Brad DeLong well, literary theorists, especially of Said variety, write and think sophisticatedly... Mine
Blaut on ENVIRONMENTALISM AND EUROCENTRISM
Continuing the CrashList celebration of the California School's critique of Eurocentrism, Jim Blaut's essay ENVIRONMENTALISM AND EUROCENTRISM is posted today (from the GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW 89(3):391-408, July 1999 (published April 2000). The CrashList website is at: http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList the message archive is open to non-listers Mark Jones
BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 2000 RELEASED TODAY: Boosted by the hiring of 357,000 temporary workers to assist with Census 2000, total nonfarm payroll employment grew by 231,000 in May. Private-sector payroll employment declined by 116,000 over the month, and the unemployment rate edged back up to its March level of 4.1 percent. Average hourly earnings increased by 1 cent over the month and by 3.5 percent over the year. ... One of the biggest questions in the labor market isn't whether the unemployment rate will post another decline when the rate for May is released this morning. What market watchers really want to know is whether benefits costs, a key inflation driver, are continuing to accelerate. If they are, that could have negative consequences for the economy. The government's next look at employment cost data comes out late next month, but some anecdotal reports may shed light on the trend well before then. In the past few years, stable benefit costs have kept companies from raising prices, despite one of the tightest job markets in U.S. history. Health-care costs, for example, stabilized and in some cases declined in the mid-1990s, as more and more companies adopted managed-care plans. The surging stock market allowed firms to reduce the amount of money channeled into pension plans. And an ever-growing number of companies began to award stock options -- at essentially no cost to themselves -- in lieu of expensive cash bonuses or benefit increases. But in recent months, nearly all of those harnesses have come loose. ... (Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal, page A2). In the first quarter of 2000, both the number of mass layoffs and the number of workers involved declined to their lowest levels in 2 years, according to BLS. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-3). New claims filed with state agencies for unemployment insurance benefits rose a slight 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 286,000 during the week ended May 27, the Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration announces. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). Auto sales dropped 2 percent last month from May of last year, the first year-to-year drop since the summer of 1998. ... (New York Times, page C1) Retail sales climbed in May, with consumers buying housewares, appliances, and summer fashions, many of the nation's merchants reported, even as higher interest rates and gasoline prices threatened to crimp spending. Sales in stores open more than a year, a crucial industry measurement, rose 4.3 percent in May, according to the Goldman Sachs retail composite index. Rising wages and consumer confidence and the lowest jobless rate in 30 years helped fuel spending. ... (New York Times, page C21)_Retailers reported mixed sales for May, with some discounters and specialty chains posting strong increases, while several apparel retailers were hurt by factors ranging from unusually cool weather to unappealing fashion assortments. The scattered results made it difficult to determine whether higher interest rates and rising fuel prices had begun to slow America's long-running consumer spending spree. ... (Wall Street Journal, page B4). __The long-awaited cooling of the red-hot U.S. economy may have finally begun, according to a number of economists poring over an array of recent soft economic figures. ... Among the signs: Sales of domestically produced new cars and light trucks, which include sport-utility vehicles, are still relatively strong, but they have been declining since they peaked in February. ... In the first 3 months of this year, consumers increased their purchases at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 7.5 percent, but so far it looks as if the figure for the current quarter will be only about half that large, analysts say. One explanation is that the six interest rate increases by the Fed over the past year have begun to bite. ... Another unexpectedly weak number was that for new orders for durable goods that were received in April. Orders for such items as new vehicles, computers, and industrial machinery fell 6.4 percent, back to roughly the level of November. That decline was reflected in a report by the National Association of Purchasing Management that also unexpectedly indicated that the manufacturing sector of the economy was still growing last month, but at a pace slower than in April. ... The employment and unemployment figures for May will be reported this morning, "but analysts weren't expecting them to shed a great deal of light on whether economic growth is slowing, because changes in labor markets often lag changes in economic growth. ... (Washington Post, page E1). __Two economic reports pointed to a further slowdown in the economy, with growth in construction and manufacturing slackening this spring. ... The survey by the National Association of Purchasing Management reported fewer price increases for raw materials, and an executive of the group said it appeared that such
Bio news (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 18:39:48 -0400 From: Mine Aysen Doyran [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Bio news http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/06/02/embryo6_2.a.tm/index.html When a couple divorces, who owns the embryo? June 2, 2000 Web posted at: 1:28 PM EDT (1728 GMT) By Jessica Reaves (TIME.com) -- It's a perplexing question, but one befitting our increasingly scientific approach to parenthood: Who controls the fate of frozen embryos? According to a New Jersey state appeals court opinion handed down Thursday, the biological mother maintains a constitutional right to decide what happens to embryos extracted during an in vitro procedure. The case, which draws on some of the most emotionally charged aspects of life and conception, revolves around a couple who conceived one child via in vitro fertilization and stored the remaining seven embryos at a facility that promised to destroy the embryos if there was a divorce. The couple did divorce, and the biological father sued for possession of the embryos. As a strict Catholic who believes life begins at the moment of conception, he equated the destruction of embryos with the end of a life, and decided to take the embryos back, apparently wanting to have them implanted in his new wife. His ex-wife fought his case, arguing her right not to have her biological children born without her consent. And the New Jersey appeals court agreed with her. "Technology and science are leaping way ahead of the law," says TIME legal reporter Alain Sanders. "The law is struggling mightily to catch up and to deal with these scientific developments, all of which are putting strain on the principle on which our legal system is based, which is the notion of personal autonomy and personal responsibility. These new technological developments challenge the idea of personal autonomy and create a situation in which a person may no longer control their ultimate destiny." In fact, it is the notion of personal autonomy to which the New Jersey court turned in deciding this case. The ruling calls on language from Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case cementing a woman's sovereignty over her reproductive capabilities. And while the cases are miles apart in technical terms, they follow similar philosophical paths, and raise equally fundamental questions the problematic idea of "owning" an embryo. In the end, however, such cases may center around parental rather than reproductive rights. After all, should a man faced with a similar situation -- after a divorce, his ex-wife decides to use the embryos he helped create to have a child -- be thus compelled to become a biological father? Other courts considering similar cases have ruled consistently that no one, male or female, should be forced into such parenthood without their express consent. Both ex-wives and ex-husbands have been barred from turning embryos from their former marriage into the seeds of a new family without the consent of their ex. And it would be a very big person indeed who could stomach the idea of donating genetic material to a union they may want nothing to do with. -- Mine Aysen Doyran PhD Student Department of Political Science SUNY at Albany Nelson A. Rockefeller College 135 Western Ave.; Milne 102 Albany, NY 1 _ NetZero - Defenders of the Free World Click here for FREE Internet Access and Email http://www.netzero.net/download/index.html
White farm families pack as Zimbabweannounces land seizures (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 18:46:57 -0400 From: Mine Aysen Doyran [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: White farm families pack as Zimbabweannounces land seizures http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/africa/06/02/zimbabwe.landoccupati.ap/index.html White farm families pack as Zimbabwe announces land seizures June 2, 2000 Web posted at: 10:07 AM EDT (1407 GMT) HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- Some white farmers in Zimbabwe began packing their belongings Friday, fearing landless blacks would take over their property after the government announced it would immediately start seizing 804 mostly white-owned farms. Farmers' leaders urged farmers to avoid panic in the southern African country where the government has ignored constitutional ownership rights and laws protecting private property during the often-violent occupations of more than 1,400 white-owned farms that began in February. "Our biggest fear is that there will be an influx onto the farms by people who are just going to go shopping" for land, equipment, livestock and property, said Colin Cloete, an official of the Commercial Farmers Union. District union officials were preparing community programs to help farmers in the event of new occupations sanctioned under new land nationalization laws, Cloete said. The programs would help farmers relocate families, protect farm workers, manage cattle, other livestock and existing crops, and remove household goods. The state-run Herald newspaper today published the government notice listing 804 properties and their title deed numbers over seven full pages. A handful of farms on the list were identified as black-owned. Friday's notice, signed by Agriculture Minister Joyce Mujuru, said the "compulsory acquisition" of the farms was being carried out under amended laws passed by ruling party lawmakers in April. Those laws empower the government to nationalize land without paying compensation. The farms were among those on a list issued by the government in 1998 after their owners had fought the state's seizure plans in court. That list included 841 farms, and there was no indication given why some had been omitted from today's list. The Herald, in an accompanying report, said the notice gave owners 30 days to submit written objections to the nationalization of their farms, but that the new land laws gave them no rights to contest seizure. Vincent Kwenda, director of land acquisition in President Robert Mugabe's office, told the newspaper that the farms would be resettled by landless blacks immediately after owners received individual notices of seizure from the government, possibly next week. New settlers would move onto the land first, with access roads, water points and other infrastructure being developed later, he said. Cloete, the farmers union official said that under the new law, the state was obliged to hold off any resettlement for at least 30 days once notice was given. That would mean the state could not act before July 2. But the government, which has ignored ownership rights in the past, said it would start seizing the farms immediately. It was not immediately clear whether squatters on farms not among the 804 to be nationalized would be forced off land they have claimed. Since February, ruling party militants and veterans of the bush war that ended white rule in Rhodesia -- as Zimbabwe was known before independence from Britain -- have taken over more than white-owned 1,400 farms, saying they are protesting the slow pace of the government's land nationalization program. Mugabe has described the illegal occupations as a justified protest against unfair land ownership mainly by the descendants of British settlers. About 4,000 white farmers own about a third of productive land that supports 2 million farm workers and their family members, while 7.5 million people live on the rest. Most of them are subsistence farmers. The Movement for
The United Nations - Can it Keep the Peace? (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 19:26:36 -0400 From: Mine Aysen Doyran [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: "The United Nations - Can it Keep the Peace?" Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm Comment No. 40, May 15, 2000 "The United Nations - Can it Keep the Peace?" The fiasco of a United Nations peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone being captured and put out of commission raises once again the question of the possible and appropriate role of the United Nations in this exercise called "peacekeeping." When the UN was founded in 1945, the theory was that it would deal with "threats to the peace" by decisions of the Security Council which would be enforced, if necessary, by troops at its disposition. Of course, this turned out to be an absolute fantasy. The five permanent members of the Security Council were seldom in agreement about major issues, and specifically each of the permanent members was ready to veto any proposal that seemed to impinge on its national interests. The Military Affairs Committee of the UN, provided for in the Charter, has never met. The only time the UN took a military action that went against the interests of a permanent member of the Security Council was in Korea in 1950. And the UN could do this only because the Soviet Union had made the tactical error of boycotting the meetings of the Security Council, an error it would never repeat. This did not however mean that the UN had no role to play. A different role was invented. There were some situations in which the five permanent members all preferred to see a calming of the waters. In these cases, and provided that the local parties in conflict also were ready for a calming of the waters, a truce of some kind could be arranged, and then UN contingents were sent in, ostensibly to monitor the arrangements but really merely to symbolize international endorsement of the truce. Normally, this required that contingents be drawn from countries that were not permanent members of the Security Council and therefore presumably somehow more "neutral." But it also required that the costs of the operations be borne by all the UN members, which means of course in significant proportion by the United States, a provision increasingly resisted by members of the U.S. Senate. In the past half-century, there have been numerous instances of such peacekeeping missions. Many of them have been quite successful, in the sense that the presence of these UN forces has contributed to maintaining these truces in the face of continuing local tensions. We almost never read about such successes in the newspapers, since the sign of their success is that nothing happens which warrants an item in the newspapers. But these are all cases where the local forces in conflict are somewhat exhausted and are essentially grateful to have the facekeeping presence of UN troops to legitimate their non-resumption of hostilities. UN peacekeeping problems of course vary with each particular situation. The Sierra Leone operation illustrates well however the general difficulties. A civil war has been going on in Sierra Leone for quite some time now. It has been particularly gruesome. There seem to be no real ideological issues dividing the two camps, and scarcely any "ethnic" issues. Rather, after several corrupt civilian governments and military coups, the central government structure, never very strong, seemed to collapse. A similar collapse of the center and subsequent civil was occurred first in neighboring Liberia, and in a sense spread to Sierra Leone. Various West African neighbors sought to intervene in various ways, and for various motives, but on different sides. For a while, a sort of peace was enforced by troops from several of these countries, particularly Nigeria which has a large and relatively effective armed forces. But Nigeria has tired of this role, and has turned inward to solve its own problems. Sierra Leone, to its misfortune however, is a country wealthy in mineral resources. It made civil war profitable. Military activity led to the control of diamond wealth which in turn supported arms purchases. Greed fueled the civil war, as it seems to have fueled the interventions of some neighbors. The crucial fact is, however, that Sierra Leone was of no strategic interest to any of the world powers, who have been unwilling to commit soldiers, money, or even much diplomatic effort to contain the damage. After a long period of doing nothing, the world decided to try to end the slaughter. To do this, it decided to ignore the inhuman ferocities committed by the troops. A shaky truce was brokered, and UN troops went in to "keep the peace." These troops however were from countries that were themselves too poor to sustain highly trained, well-equipped armed forces. And the UN troops were vastly outnumbered by
FLASH NEWS!!!Re: funny dough (fwd)
Does it really matter who does what in Amsterdam coffeehouse? Mine -- Forwarded message -- Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2000 13:42:55 +1000 From: Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:19846] Re: "funny" dough I think Doug is more the American Lit. man, Barkley. Hawthorne, mebbe. I can see a red-eyed Doug teetering on the coffeehouse steps, regaling the passing throngs with 'Ethan Brand Goes To Wall St' ... "What is the Unpardonable Sin' asked the retrenched bluecollar; and then he shrank farther from his companion, trembling lest his question should be answered. 'It is a sin that grew within our besuited breasts,' replied besuited Brand, standing erect with a pride that distinguishes all enthusiasts of his stamp. 'A sin that grew nowhere else! The sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of brotherhood and reverence for the C that must abide between M1 and M2, and sacrificed a workforce that for a moment interest rate projections might slacken! The only sin that deserves a recompense of immortal recession!" Let 'em have it, Doug! Er, while I get back to the #!* marking ... Rob. -- From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:19832] "funny" dough Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2000 12:33:46 -0400 I've been trying to imagine what Doug Henwood would be like after going to a "funny" coffeehouse in Amsterdam. Would he spout poetry by Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth? Or would he start to mumble incoherently about all kinds of obscure financial data? I think he might become poetic and combine the two. I can see it now, a special poetic supplement to the next issue of LBO: "Don Juan and the Databases" (by Doug Henwood), :-). Barkley Rosser
Black School shut down: Is this accidental? (fwd)
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/06/02/one.room.schoolhouse.ap/index.html Miss Ruby's one-room school in South Carolina closes after almost a century June 2, 2000 Web posted at: 1:57 p.m. EDT (1757 GMT) PAWLEYS ISLAND, South Carolina (AP) -- After Friday, young girls and boys will no longer come to Miss Ruby's School for classes. The one-room schoolhouse, where generations of black children have been educated, will shut its doors permanently as a result of budget and maintenance problems. The 35 students in preschool through fourth grade will be sent to other schools. "Everything must come to an end," said Bertha Smith, a graduate who became one of two volunteer teachers at the school. "It's done a lot for me and for the people in the community. Miss Ruby especially -- she taught me and I consider her to be my mentor." For 53 years, until her death in 1992, Ruby Middleton Forsythe was headmistress of Holy Cross-Faith Memorial School, as it is formally called. Founded in 1903 by the Episcopal Church, the school moved to its current gray-blue clapboard building in 1932. At the turn of the century, the church ran 19 day schools for black South Carolinians. "I really don't think the community realizes what it is losing," said Carolyn Wallace, who graduated from the school in 1951 and became headmistress after Miss Ruby's death. In the 1980s, Newsweek magazine named Miss Ruby an American hero. She had taught generations of students in as many as 11 grades at the school, which is sheltered under oaks off a busy highway about 25 miles southwest of Myrtle Beach. "Small girls, small boys, come into Miss Ruby's school," the children would sing. "Small girls, small boys, come to learn the golden rule." Miss Ruby's philosophy was not to charge tuition. In recent years, students have paid a modest fee, perhaps a few hundred dollars per year, based on their parents' ability to pay. That meant the school had to raise about $30,000 a year from donations, bake sales and similar fund-raisers. Wallace is the only paid employee. "My reaction is bittersweet, recognizing time is progress and that we have had here for 97 years a successful institution," said Norman Deas, a 1950 graduate who volunteered to teach after retiring from a federal job. "I'm getting more than I'm giving," he said. "These young people are really amazing. It's hard to cut loose from them once you're attached to them." Nine-year-old Lavern Dozier, sad at being one of the last graduates, said he enjoyed helping the younger students at their desks across the room. "I helped them write their ABCs correctly and I helped them with their numbers," he said. In 1997 there were about 1,600 one-room schools nationwide. That probably has not changed much as public schools close and some religious and private schools open, said Mark Dewlap, an education professor at Winthrop University and an expert on one-room schoolhouses. Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, -- Mine Aysen Doyran PhD Student Department of Political Science SUNY at Albany Nelson A. Rockefeller College 135 Western Ave.; Milne 102 Albany, NY 1 _ NetZero - Defenders of the Free World Click here for FREE Internet Access and Email http://www.netzero.net/download/index.html
