The Stranger in Everyday Life

Seated by my window as the sun rises. Monk's Dream on the blaster on top of the fridge. Our neighbors are arguing. Their voices, an Irish father and a Dominican mother, rise into notes of the birds and the jazz in our backyard of air.

Last night's "Jane Jacobs Night" was a revelation. The nine readers each read aloud a quote or two from her book, then burned their own activism with it. Some read letters from Jane herself, weighing in from Toronto up until her death, one city-defending campaign after another. The arc of the evening became a many-faceted look at her work, and our work. This morning I have this lesson.

In the city we meet in public and create the city as we meet each other. The improvisation of our everyday living is the city. This idea would seem simple enough, but it is in direct conflict with the agenda of the official city. We insist, though -- I mean I hope we are insisting -- on a charged level of accident, pitched responses, a musical free-fall through crowds, a gift economy full of surprises, neighborhoods that keep being hilarious and finally long spells of stillness ...

Strangers are important in this musical choreography, they rub certain rhythms into the air as they pass through. We trust them, we are strangers ourselves, and we confront one another in a you-tip-me I-tip-you kind of play. We build safety this way without products or guns. This is not the official "security" of this city. The citizens are out-maneuvering the fear of suddenly-encountered people. We may be wary of strangers but we are drawn to them and want to enter harmonized chaos with them. How strangers treat strangers is the landmark of any city.

Why try to slow down our concentrated co-response? We are a city. The over-designed universities, the chain stores and big boxes, the gentrified styles and miles of pavement that try to seep under the asthmatic children ... They want to distance us. We the people only keep this anti-city going with our exhausted consumerism. The city-as-monoculture can only continue with surveillance, stop-and-frisks, eminent domain, developer tax windfalls and all the illegal activity brazenly called Progress and New York Greatness and The Future by the teleprompter readers.

The music of people improvising as they play the sidewalks with chattering souls - this is more like a child's gaze at the deep night sky than we ever realized. Or the moment we can't explain when we make love. Or the thing the world's worshipers hope to catch when they raise cupped hands to the sky. It is the thing the immigrants bring the city, when they stand shell-shocked or starry-eyed on the A train from JFK. They come to us the way we came ourselves -- with best wishes in so many languages that our backyard has a new thrilling whisper.


Fergie urged Rio to have Hodgson chat

Sir Alex Ferguson has revealed that he encouraged Rio Ferdinand to have face-to-face discussions with England manager Roy Hodgson over his international future.

"He did the right thing to go down and see Roy," said Ferguson. "I encouraged him to go down and do it face to face."

Ferguson continued: "He needed to explain how we handle him now and how he prepares for games. I think Roy appreciated that."

The United boss also said he had no issue over Ferdinand's trip to Qatar, which caused such consternation among the England fans.

Hodgson has said there needs to be further discussions between the Football Association and United before Ferdinand could be considered again for his country. But Ferguson is not sure that is necessary.


Natasha Carthew’s top 10 revenge reads

Revenge is sweet...especially when it’s experienced through the pages of gripping read. Natasha Carthew picks her favourites, from Moby Dick and the Count of Monte Christo to Mockingjay and Carrie

Icy revenge: Tilda Swinton as the White Witch in the 2005 film adaptation of  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Icy revenge: Tilda Swinton as the White Witch in the 2005 film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Photograph: PR

As a YA writer and avid reader I know that I am not alone in my obsession with revenge-based dramas. Ancient Greek myths and Biblical stories understood that the most direct route to justice often requires travelling along the bumpy roads of revenge. In every era in human history, artists have reflected the moral urgency of vengeance, from the high art of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama to the lowbrow makers of heart-stopping horror films. There’s nothing like watching a score being settled and payback justly received.

1. True Grit by Charles Portis

The theme of justice and revenge is explored to great effect in one of my favourite childhood adventure books of all time, True Grit. Young, gritty, female protagonist Mattie Ross fully expects that the local sheriff will bring her father’s murderer to justice. When he refuses to give chase, Mattie must find someone of sufficient true grit who will restore moral balance by doing what’s just and necessary; ultimately it is she who possesses this trait the greatest.

Throughout the course of the adventure in True Grit, the central themes are obtaining justice, revenge, duty, and doing the right thing. No matter what the motivation is for retribution and how it is carried out, Portis shows there is a price to pay for those determined to seek justice: it can change you, kill you, do you in.

2. Heart-Shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne

This is a gritty psychological thriller set in the psychiatric unit of a young offenders institution. It’s a compelling, brutal and heart-breaking story about identity, infamy and how far a person might go to seek revenge.

The White Witch in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe rules through fear, terrifying her subjects and keeping order with her spies and secret police. She is the embodiment of selfishness, greed, and power. This classic children’s book asks questions of truth and lying, love and hate, good and evil, and forgiveness and revenge... It’s brilliant.

Gregory Peck in the 1950s film adaptation of Moby Dick.
Gregory Peck in the 1950s film adaptation of Moby Dick. Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/WARNER BROS

4. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

The villain in Herman Melville’s ultimate story of revenge, Moby-Dick, isn’t the monstrous white whale of the title, but the monomaniacal quest of the man that wants to kill him: Captain Ahab of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, who had previously destroyed Ahab’s ship and severed his leg at the knee.

5. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

This, the most famous of revenge stories, it is an adventure story primarily concerned with hope, justice, vengeance, mercy, and forgiveness. The youthful Edmond Dantès is betrayed by a small group of friends and framed for a crime he did not commit. Sentenced to solitary confinement on the island prison of Chateau d’If, he meets a fellow inmate named Faria who takes Dantès under his wings. After spending 14 years locked away under the harshest of conditions, Edmond Dantès escapes his imprisonment and finds a lost treasure on the uninhabited isle of Monte Cristo, a fortune that the now deceased Faria had originally located. Armed with wealth beyond his imagination, Dantès transforms himself into the Count of Monte Cristo and returns to his native France to enact an elaborate plot against those responsible for his incarceration. However, his plans have devastating consequences for the innocent as well as the guilty. Romance, loyalty, betrayal, and selfishness, are all shown throughout the story as characters slowly reveal their true inner nature.

6. Carrie by Stephen King

This is the chilling story of a girl out for revenge. The book revolves around the “Carrie” White, a misfit and bullied high school girl who uses her newly discovered telekinetic powers to exact revenge on those who torment her, while in the process causing one of the worst local disasters in history. Much of the book is written using newspaper clippings, magazine articles, letters, and excerpts from books to tell how Carrie destroyed her fictional home town whilst exacting revenge on her sadistic classmates. Not for the faint hearted!

7. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Wuthering Heights may be more usually thought of as a romantic novel but it revenge that leads the protagonists to their dismal fate that captivates. Bronte shows there is no peace in eternal vengeance and that, in the end, the self-injury involved in serving revenge’s purposes will be more damaging than the original wrong. Genius.

8. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

In The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth reaps revenge on Arthur Dimmesdale for his affair with his wife, Hester Prynne. As the novel progresses, Chillingworth fits the profile of “vengeance destroys the avenger”.

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, seeking revenge in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, part two.
Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, seeking revenge in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, part two. Photograph: Allstar/LIONSGATE

9. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Katniss is out for revenge! She has only one thing on her mind, to kill President Snow. Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she’s made it out of the bloody arena alive, she’s still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol also wants revenge...There’s nothing like retaliation when both sides are in the game.

10. You Against Me by Jenny Downham

When Mickey’s sister accuses Ellie’s brother of date rape, he’s out for revenge. Mickey crashes a welcome home party that Ellie’s wealthy parents are hosting for their son, meets Ellie, and sees a way to get even. This is a morally and emotionally complex book that doesn’t take the easy way out when addressing issues of social class, justice, sexual responsibility, and loyalty. It is a brave and unflinching novel from the bestselling author of Before I Die, a book about loyalty and the choices that come with it. An intense, intelligent YA read.

The Light That Gets Lost

Natasha Carthew is the author of Winter Damage. In her latest book, The Light That Gets Lost, the main protagonist Trey must avenge his parent’s murderer in order to find some kind of closure. Buy it at the Guardian bookshop and find out more about Natasha’s books on her website.


What is Radiating Back Pain?

Radiating back pain is any type of pain in the back that radiates, or spreads, to another part of the body. The most common cause of this pain is a pinched nerve; this occurs when a muscle, bone, or other part of the body compresses around a nerve ending, sending pain throughout the entire area of the body connected to that nerve. One of the most common types of back pain is sciatic nerve pain, in which a muscle or bone in the lower back compresses on the sciatic nerve. The pain then radiates through the lower back, buttocks, and legs.

The sciatic nerve is a long nerve that runs from the lower back to the bottom of the leg. If a muscle compresses the nerve at any point along its length, pain can be felt throughout the course of the nerve. Very commonly, a muscle in the leg might compress the nerve — especially if the person spends a significant amount of time sitting in a chair — and radiating back pain may occur. The nerve may also get pinched somewhere in the lower back or hips, sending pain down the leg. In either case, the point of compression is not always necessarily the place where pain is felt.

Other causes of back pain may have more to do with muscles compensating for the failure of another muscle. If, for example, a muscle in the lower back becomes strained or torn, other muscles in the back, legs, or even stomach may overcompensate to keep the spine supported. The original site of pain where the injury occurred may give off a sensation of radiating outward as other muscles struggle to support the spine. This may lead to subsequent muscle strains or tears, and the sufferer should allow for ample recovery time before attempting physical activity.

Other nerves within the back can cause radiating back pain. If such pain occurs, ample rest is needed, though sometimes this is not enough to solve the problem. Over-the-counter painkillers can help relieve some of the pain at least temporarily, but if the pain persists, it may be wise to consult a doctor. He or she might prescribe a stronger painkiller or anti-inflammatory medication to help relieve the cause of the pain rather than just the symptoms. Physical therapy may also be in order, especially if the nerve pain is being caused by a damaged muscle or joint.

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Discuss this Article

Post 3

@ddljohn-- There are a lot of possible causes relating to the spine and nerves that could be causing it. It could be stenosis (narrowing of the spine), a pinched nerve or some kind of injury. It's just not possible to know without diagnostic testing.

If you're unable to get medical care right now, I would recommend rest (avoid bending or lifting anything heavy), and you can take pain relievers and apply heat to the area to relieve the symptoms for now. There are some back pain exercises too, but don't do anything until you see a doctor or you might make things worse.

Post 2

@ddljohn-- No one can diagnose you over the net, so you need to see your doctor.

Your symptoms do match mine though and the cause of mine is a herniated disc in my back.

When a spinal disc becomes herniated, the fluid oozes out and compresses nerves around the disc. This causes back pain that radiates to the hip and legs. Sometimes the pressure on the nerve is relieved (when you rest and take muscle relaxers for example) and the pain can go away temporarily. This is also why pain travels and shows up in one leg sometimes and the other leg at other times.

Like I said though, you need to see your doctor and have an MRI done to find out what's causing your radiating back pain symptoms.

Post 1

I've had lower back pain for about a week now. The pain sometimes radiates down my left leg and sometimes my right leg. What might be the cause?

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Steelheart Steelheart (MCA) (STAR)(STAR)(STAR...

February 21, 1991|By Brenda Herrmann.

Steelheart (MCA)

The words and music of this five-piece band aren`t so different from those in most debut records by that ever-multiplying genre of long-haired, hard-rock musicians. What does set Steelheart apart is the vocals by songwriter Michael Matijevic, who can hit a high note and hold it longer than Mariah Carey. Discovered by Bruce Dickinson, Steelheart has a gritty, bluesy feel (especially on Side 2) that nicely balances its sweet power ballads. Currently on tour with Lynch Mob, Steelheart should fit well into any collection that includes heavy doses of both rock and heavy metal.

Poor (STAR)


Games Monitor

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The sporting legacy - Inspired to watch

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A waterlogged Legacy

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Who's Dieter kidding?

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A Lottery of a Legacy!

So what exactly is an Olympic sports legacy? The Government seems to think it is more spectacles of elite sport. George Osborne has decided to waive tax rules to allow Usain Bolt and other top athletes to attend the Grand Prix event to be held at the Olympic Stadium in the summer. He says this is to ‘secure the Olympic Legacy’. Bolt hasn’t yet said he will come. Boris, son of John, has also weighed in with a spectacle of his own, a two day cycling festival to be attended by up to 70,000 including elite cyclists like Wiggo and Trott. Spiffing away Boris said: ‘"Following the superhuman efforts of our Team GB cyclists last year, thousands of cycling enthusiasts, both experienced and amateur, riding a fantastic route through the streets of our fine city is surely a fitting legacy’.

Elsewhere local media are now regularly reporting so-called ‘Olympic Legacy grants’ being made to clubs around the country. Featherstone Rovers Rugby League Club, for example, has been given £50,000 to ‘revamp facilities’. Warlingham Squash and Racketball Club in Surrey has also got £50,000 to make improvements like putting in a boiler and building women’s changing rooms. Several clubs in Northamptonshire are to share £500,000 to do up their facilities. These grants are described as ‘Olympic legacies’. However, it is hard to see what is specifically Olympic about the grants. They are just National Lottery funds which are being distributed by Sport England from a pot of £16.6million from something called the Inspired Facilities Fund.

A couple of sports festivals and a £16.6million fund are not going to make much impression on the present furore surrounding the decline in school sports funding. Far from inspiring a generation London 2012 saw sport participation in the target group of 16 to 25year olds fall.

Nor does it make up for the £2.175billion taken from the National Lottery for the Olympics. This raid on the Lottery included the loss of hundreds of millions of pounds taken from children’s sport in the name of elite sport. Nor has the DCMS repaid the Big Lottery Fund from which it grabbed £638.098million. After over a year of lobbying and a campaign now supported by more than 3,200 charities demanding the return of £425million of the stolen funds it has indicated it may repay £100 to £150million, but not until 2014 at the earliest. Jowell originally promised to repay all the Big Lottery Fund money. The DCMS also say in an attached Freedom of Information response: 'Repayments will not include interest based on inflation'. Most of that is probably lost for good. The rest, of course, will not be repaid at all.

A full rundown of the money taken from the Lottery, which could have been spent on other, better causes was provided in the DCMS Freedom of Information response:

'a total of £2.175 billion of Lottery funding is included in the £9.298bn public sector funding provision for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games…

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A legacy of 'no clemency, no kindness'

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The Olympic stadium - it's all Crystal clear

While they are trying to figure out what to do with their East London white elephant in Stratford the LLDC has 'ambitious' plans to get its hands on the summer athletics grand prix, usually held at that other place in South London, er Crystal Palace? So that's a two for the price of one legacy of white elephants then?

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What? Now it's 'the largest new urban park for a century' - in the world?

The lie of the 'Largest new park in Europe' has now become so well established that the Press regularly restates it and other Legacy myths even when the Olympic authorities don't use the term. Both the Evening Standard and the Huffington PostUK have informed their readers that the Olympic Park will be the 'largest new urban park for a century'. No attempt is made by these publications to distinguish between the different definitions of the Park, the Olympic Park as a whole, which includes the housing, stadiums and other facilities, and the park or green space. It is the latter space that the ODA and others have successfully sold as this illusory 'Largest new park in Europe' not the Olympic Park as a whole to which these journalists refer. Now the journalists just call it 'the largest new urban park for a century' - what, in the whole world?

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Oh! What a lovely legacy!

London 2012 gets another award! In December the Estates Gazette presented the London Legacy Development Corporation with its Outstanding Contribution to Property award to celebrate 'the outstanding progress London has made in securing a lasting legacy'. Outstanding progress? We can’t even get into the Park!

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Celebration Capitalism!

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Lies and ignorance about the legacy - it's not academic

No wonder people get confused about Stratford City, the Athletes’ Village, the Olympic Park and the Legacy. Earlier in the autumn we had the fiction from the Centre for Economic and Business Research of the 'highly rated' E20 postcode's Chobham Academy even though it hadn't yet opened. Recently the Academy opened its doors to children who wanted to apply. The Evening Standard told us the Chobham Academy is an Olympic Legacy, forgetting to mention that it's the community school described in the West Leyton part of the Stratford City project, created under a separate non-Olympic planning application and not an Olympic legacy. Another commentator, the recently launched London Olympic Park Watch, which describes itself as an 'independent...constructively critical observer', says the school is 'in the Olympic Park' which of course it isn't. Stratford City, where the Academy, like the Athletes’ Village, is situated, is not in the Olympic Park but on the Stratford Rail Lands, the large piece of land which includes the Westfield Shopping Centre.

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The vertical scale changes the cloud altitude and its temperature. The numbers on each side of figure show the altitude and corresponding temperature, assuming standard atmospheric conditions.

You can modify the surface temperature with the horizontal sliding scale.

This example Java applet developed by Tom Whittaker and Steve Ackerman of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.


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2.2. Continuum emission from dust

The dust emission process is thermal, with dust grains emitting a modified blackbody spectrum. Grains of interstellar dust, distributed throughout the ISM of a galaxy, are heated to temperatures between about 20 and 200 K, depending on the spectrum and intensity of the interstellar radiation field (ISRF), and the size and optical properties of the grains. Higher dust temperatures can be produced close to a powerful source of radiation, with dust subliming at temperatures of order 2000 K. Very small grains can be heated far above their equilibrium temperatures by absorbing hard-UV photons (see Draine and Li, 2001). Lower dust temperatures, always exceeding the CMB temperature, are possible in opaque regions of the ISM that are shielded from intense heating, in the intergalactic medium or in regions with an intrinsically weak ISRF. Unless dust is heated by the ISRF in addition to the CMB the galaxy will not be detectable. We now consider the properties of the dust emission that are relevant to observations of high-redshift galaxies.

2.2.1. The emission spectrum, dust mass and temperature

The minimum parameters necessary to describe the emission from dust grains are a temperature Td and a form of the emissivity function epsilonnu. In any galaxy there will be a distribution of dust temperatures, reflecting the different nature and environment of each grain. It is useful to use Td to describe the coolest grains that contribute significantly to the energy output of a galaxy when discussing submm observations. In most cases, spatially and spectrally resolved images of galaxies are not available, and so it is reasonable to assume a volume-averaged description of the emissivity function as a function of frequency nu, epsilonnu propto nubeta. Values of beta in the range 1-2 are usually assumed. Scattering theory predicts that beta -> 2 at low frequencies, while a value beta appeq 1 at high frequencies matches the general trend of the interstellar extinction curve that describes the properties of absorption of optical and UV radiation by the ISM (see Calzetti et al., 2000 and Section 2 of the review by Franceschini, 2002).

The simplest form of the emission spectrum/SED, fnu is given by assuming that fnu propto epsilonnu Bnu, in which Bnu is the Planck function (2k Td nu2 / c2 in the Rayleigh-Jeans limit, in units of W m-2 Hz-1 sr-1). This assumes that the emitting source is optically thin. For fitting spectra of galaxies found in deep submm surveys, we assume the simple epsilonnu Bnu function to describe the SED. Dunne et al. (2000) and Dunne and Eales (2001) also use this functional form to fit the observed submm spectra of low-redshift galaxies. At the expense of adding another parameter to describe the SED, there is some physical motivation for a SED that includes an optical depth term,

Equation 1 (1)

where taunu is the frequency-dependent optical depth of the cloud, and is a multiple of epsilonnu. This equation tends to the simpler epsilonnu Bnu function at long wavelengths, and is assumed by, for example, Benford et al. (1999), Omont et al. (2001), Priddey and McMahon (2001) and Isaak et al. (2002), whose submm data for high-redshift AGNs tends to correspond to rest-frame frequencies that are relatively close to the peak of the SED. The extra parameter required to relate taunu and epsilonnu can be defined as the frequency at which taunu = 1 and the cloud becomes optically thick. If the opacity near a wavelength of 100 µm is large, then the form of the peak of the SED tends to that of a blackbody spectrum. This suppresses the emission near to the SED peak relative to the emission in the Rayleigh-Jeans regime, and so this functional form provides a good fit to a set of submm and far-IR data with a higher value of Td as compared with the epsilonnu Bnu function, usually by about 10-20%. However, because most observed SEDs for high-redshift galaxies have fewer than four data points (see Fig. 2), the difference is unlikely to be very significant.

It is reasonable to assume that the mid-IR SED can be smoothly interpolated from a modified blackbody function at low frequencies to a power-law fnu propto nualpha in the mid-IR waveband on the high-frequency side of the spectral peak, in order to prevent the high-frequency SED from falling exponentially with a Wien spectrum. Hotter components of dust, emitting at shorter wavelengths, and ultimately stellar emission in the near-IR waveband, are certain to be present to reduce the steepness of the SED in the Wien regime. That an exponential Wien spectrum is inappropriate can be seen from the well-defined power-law mid-IR SEDs of Arp 220 and Mrk 231 shown in Fig. 2.

It is not always necessary to relate the SED fnu and luminosity L of a galaxy to the mass of dust Md that it contains; this can of worms can remain closed by normalizing fnu in a self-consistent way. However, if a dust mass is required, perhaps in order to estimate the metal content of the ISM, and so provide information about the integrated star-formation activity in the galaxy at earlier times (Hughes et al., 1997; Omont et al., 2001), then it is conventional to define a frequency-dependent mass-absorption coefficient kappanu (Draine and Lee, 1984; with units of m2 kg-1), which is proportional to epsilonnu. kappanu is the `effective area' for blackbody emission by a certain mass of dust,

Equation 2 (2)

Values of kappanu at a conventional frequency of around 1 mm are in the range 0.04-0.15 m2 kg-1 (Hughes, 1996). Recent comparisons of optical extinction and submm emission from partially resolved edge-on spiral galaxies have tended to give values of 0.05-0.4 m2 kg-1 (see Fig. 4 of Alton et al., 2001). Domingue et al. (1999) derive 0.09 m2 kg-1 from similar far-IR, optical and submm data. Dunne et al. (2000) adopt a value of 0.077 m2 kg-1. Note that there is at least a factor of 3 uncertainty in these conversion factors.

An alternative dimensionless function Qnu (Hildebrand, 1983) is sometimes used, which includes information about the mass/volume and surface area of a typical grain. If grains are assumed to be spherical (a big if), with bulk density rho, radius a, and an emissive cross section pi a2, then kappanu = 3Qnu / 4a rho. Qnu Bnu is the effective emissivity function describing the energy flux from unit area of the dust grain surface. However, dust grains are more likely to be irregular in shape, possibly colloidal or in the form of whiskers. In that case, the emissivity per unit mass would be increased, and the dust mass associated with a fixed luminosity would be overestimated.

This geometrical uncertainty will inevitably result in uncertainty about the mass of dust. Hence, dust masses quoted in papers must be treated with caution, and may be best used as a comparative measure to distinguish galaxies. In general, we will avoid quoting dust masses, as this is unlikely to provide a reliable physical measure of the properties of galaxies until detailed resolved images are available, which is likely to require observations with the ALMA interferometer. This will be a recurring theme: observations with excellent sensitivity and spatial resolution using a large interferometer will resolve many of the questions raised throughout the paper.

Working from submm data, it is also difficult to assess the dust mass of a galaxy, even subject to the caveats above, without knowing its dust temperature. In the Rayleigh-Jeans spectral regime, the flux density from a galaxy Snu propto nu2+beta Md Td. If Td is uncertain to within a factor, then Md is uncertain to within the same factor. The dust mass is at least easier to estimate from a single long-wavelength observation than the luminosity L. As L propto Md Td4+beta, or equivalently L propto Snu Td3+beta, an uncertainty in Td corresponds to a proportionally much larger uncertainty in the inferred value of L.

However, even if the dust mass can be determined reliably at low redshifts, it remains unclear whether the same procedure can be applied to determine the dust mass in more luminous and more distant systems. In order to determine the dust properties of high-redshift galaxies, data of the same quality that has been obtained for nearby galaxies is required. High-frequency submm/far-IR observations are necessary to provide information about the rest-frame frequency of the peak of the SED for a high-redshift galaxy.

Given the current lack of resolved images of distant galaxies in the submm and far-IR wavebands, it is important to neither over-parametrize the descriptions nor overinterpret the results of observations of their SEDs. When spatially-resolved, high-spectral resolution images are available, building on existing interferometric images of low-redshift dusty galaxies (Downes and Solomon, 1998; Sakamoto et al., 1999; Wilson et al., 2000), it should be possible to study the radiative transfer from sites of intense star formation and AGN in these geometrically complex opaque galaxies (see Ivison et al., 2000a, 2001). Models of the SEDs of dust-enshrouded AGN at different viewing angles have been developed by Granato et al. (1996), while star-forming regions embedded in a disk geometry have been analyzed by Devriendt et al. (1999). More powerful and efficient radiative-transfer codes are being developed (for example Abel et al., 1999), and it should be practical to develop detailed models of the appearance of galaxies with realistic geometries to account for future, high-resolution multi-band submm images.

At present, we prefer to use a few simple parameters - alpha, beta and Td - to describe the essential features of the SEDs of dusty galaxies. Although such a model can encapsulate only a small part of the true complexity of the astrophysics in a galaxy, it can account for the existing SED data for a wide variety of dusty galaxies. A simple parametrization is preferable to a more baroque, and necessarily at present unconstrained, combination of geometry, dust mass and temperature. In the following section we list plausible values of our SED parameters and discuss the associated degeneracies in fitted values.

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