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Sunday, June 15, 2008
Woods' knee will hurt; his mind will need to compensate

By Stephania Bell

Tiger Woods will play the final round of the U.S. Open on Sunday on a wounded knee, one that was operated on in April for the third time in 14 years.

How wounded? Nobody knows for sure.

Woods' latest procedure, according to his official Web site, was an arthroscopic surgery (often referred to as a "scope") to address pain he'd experienced in his left knee since mid-2007. Mark Steinberg, Woods' agent, told the Web site that "cartilage damage was found during the procedure, which Dr. [Thomas] Rosenberg was able to correct."

The agent's description suggests there was some flaking or fraying of cartilage, which certainly can occur in a knee joint as a result of wear and tear. It also suggests a debridement, or clean-up procedure, was performed to smooth out the rough edges.

As Woods began the U.S. Open, the knee seemed to be a nonfactor. But as the weekend has worn on, the effects of the recent surgery have become more apparent.

Woods grimaced noticeably on a drive on the 15th hole in Saturday's third round. His left knee, the one on which he had surgery, is the front knee when he drives, meaning he has to transfer his body weight through to that leg as he swings.

"I just keep telling myself that if it grabs me and if I get that shooting pain, I get it, but it's always after impact," Woods said. "So go ahead and just make the proper swing if I can."

This is yet another example of Woods' amazing mental toughness, which certainly factors into how he processes pain. The body's tendency once it learns that a particular movement or position is pain-provoking is to avoid it or, at the very least, tense up the muscles around the painful area to protect against further injury. All this happens involuntarily and could effectively shut down Tiger's long game.

Woods' overriding of that internal protective mechanism on Saturday, particularly on the final five holes, was an amazing display of intensity and focus. Woods made a conscious decision to continue to play with his hard-driving style and simply deal with the consequences, knowing the sharp pain would come at the tail end of his swing.

Video of Woods as he moves through his swing shows his left knee undergoing a great deal of torsion, or twisting force, as he completes his follow-through. The end result is a combined rotation and extension, which significantly increases the compressive force through the knee joint, particularly on the medial (inner) aspect.

A close look at the direction Woods' knee is pointing relative to his foot position during follow-through gives an undeniable look at the degree of the twisting force through the joint. Plus, the speed with which Woods' knee snaps back towards the final rotation/extension position increases the force through the joint, potentially worsening his discomfort. It is thus no surprise that Woods felt the brunt of his pain late in his swing.

Despite his best efforts to the contrary, Woods appeared to favor the knee slightly on shots from the fairway late in the round. Through three rounds, he's hit the fairway exactly 50 percent of the time at the Open (21 of 42 -- slightly less than his PGA Tour average of nearly 60 percent).

Is it getting worse? Yes, it is. Certain shots, I'll feel it. I can't say it's a drive, can't say it's a wedge. I'm not sure what shot it's going to happen on.

--Tiger Woods on his knee

When Woods hits out of the rough, those swings take an additional toll on the body -- especially the lead leg -- as even more force is required to move the ball forward. The more Woods stays in the fairway and out of the rough, the better his knee likely will feel in the long term.

Woods also is at the end of a long week at the U.S. Open (with the possibility lurking of a Monday 18-hole playoff should he tie for the lead after 72 holes Sunday night).

Torrey Pines has played about 7,500 yards this week, meaning Woods has walked more than 40,000 yards during rounds and practice (despite playing only nine holes at a time). That's about 24 miles. The effects of walking the course several days in a row cannot be underestimated. (Plus, Woods had not walked a full course before Thursday.) During regular walking, each step places roughly three times one's body weight through the knee (which is a combination of muscle activation around the knee and reaction forces produced by the ground when the heel strikes it).

With Woods weighing roughly 185 pounds, that translates to approximately 555 pounds of force per step for a near-marathon distance. And he still has one more day to go.

The combination of the highly repetitive but (relatively) low-load stress of walking with the less-frequent but higher-load strain of driving the ball serves to increase the overall toll on Woods' knee.

The fact that he has to take his longest walks after his most vigorous swings adds to his challenges. Near the end of Saturday's round, Woods occasionally used his club as a pseudo-cane as he walked from the tee to his next shot.

By the end of the third day, even Woods had to acknowledge the pain had gotten progressively worse throughout the tournament.

"Is it getting worse? Yes, it is," said Woods after an eagle on the 18th hole Saturday gave him the 54-hole lead at Torrey Pines. "Certain shots, I'll feel it. I can't say it's a drive, can't say it's a wedge. I'm not sure what shot it's going to happen on."

Not that Woods has let any of this knee business get in the way of his taking the lead at the end of three rounds. Nor should anyone expect it to stop him on Sunday. Will it hurt? Undoubtedly. Will it affect elements of his game? Perhaps. Will he find a way to compensate? Most certainly. After all, this is Tiger Woods we're talking about here. Traditional rules don't apply.

Remember, Woods has won before in his first tournament since having surgery. After the December 2002 procedure, Woods won the Buick Invitational the following February … ironically at Torrey Pines.

He's 18 holes -- or maybe 36 -- away from possibly doing it again.

Stephania Bell is the injury expert for fantasy.


Performers and Programs

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Cain, Candice Books: A Treasure Performing Arts- Theater
Prince Nathaniel is held captive by his mother, Queen Octavia. He is kept locked in a room that she turned into a library so that he doesn't get bored. While reading a book, Harley Quinn appears. Together, they solve riddles using books to open a treasure chest which provides them with the answer of how to free Nathaniel of his captivity. Prince Nathaniel escapes, capturing Queen Octavia and leaving her in the library until she learns that she and her son can rule the kingdom together. Face painting afterwards!
$101- $200
Keezing, Jonathan Around The World! Multicultural- Other,
Performing Arts- Puppetry,
Performing Arts- Storytelling
A magical globe hopping trip with multi-cultural puppet tales! Audiences are treated to a wide variety of puppetry styles with beautiful staging and original music.
$201- $350
Virgile, Gloria WHAT COLOR IS LOVE Multicultural- Other,
Performing Arts- Storytelling
Award-winning MULTICULTURAL program. Breaks down the barriers of prejudice and builds self-esteem. Children ACTIVELY PARTICIPATE in STORYTELLILNG, MUSIC, MAGIC,and PUPPETS,searching for the answer to "WHAT COLOR IS LOVE?" What they find infuses them with respect for people of all races and abilities, sensitivity for others, and love of themselves and one another. Video available Nassau BOCES presented WHAT COLOR IS LOVE the Education Partner Award, dubbing LOVE "The Oscar for Education."
$101- $200
Connolly, Carol Story Safari Music,
Performing Arts- Storytelling
Listen and join in as the award-winning musical storytelling duo, Tales ‘n Tunes, leads us on a journey all around the world and to our own back yard. We’ll meet a curious frog, a barnyard hen who thought she knew best, a clever porcupine who outwitted a lion and hippo, and a mischievous mouse. Designed to encourage children to read, this Tales ‘n Tunes’ presentation, invites all to come to this rollicking romp with our furry and feathered friends.There will be plenty of singing, beginning with Tales ‘n Tunes’ original song, Bunches of Beasts. And there’ll be lots of opportunities to make animal noises, too.
$201- $350
Hudert, Christopher Travelin' Jack & Co. Performing Arts- Puppetry,
Performing Arts- Storytelling,
Performing Arts- Theater
An itinerant puppeteer with a hand puppet booth and a knack for tall tales entertains family audiences much as puppeteers did in America’s Colonial days. Three American folk-tales are told with hand puppets by a single puppeteer who serves as both narrator and character in the show. Based on a Jack tale, a slave story-song, and a morality tale, these stories reflect the depth, scope, and humor of early American storytelling. The first story, “Foolish Jack,” is a Jack tale about Jack’s adventures when he first leaves home. The second story tells “Why Dogs Chase Cats.” The final story, “A Bundle of Troubles,” is a morality tales that teaches a valuable life lesson: count your blessings, not your troubles. As contemporary as it is classic, this show is a delight for audiences of all ages.
$351- $500
Steele, Margaret Amazing Magical Margo Performing Arts- Mime,
Performing Arts- Magic,
Performing Arts- Storytelling
Magical Margo is the character of Margaret Steele, one of the world's foremost female magicians. Her illusions, accompanied by beautiful classical music, open audiences to the idea of achieving the impossible. Her programs highlight respect, good manners, history and literacy. A Juilliard graduate, Margaret has designed magical arts-in-education programs for the Queens Symphony Orchestra, The New Jersey Symphony and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. A published author, Margaret adapts her show for featured program themes.
$351- $500
Epstein Kravis, Anna A Fall Harvest Song & Puppetry Concert Music,
Performing Arts- Storytelling,
Performing Arts- Puppetry
Colorful leaves, pumpkins, scarecrows, and harvests abound in songs and stories that include saying Thank You for a bountiful life! Program includes lots of participation, the hilarious antics of LuLu the Singing Llama, synthesizer keyboard, and lots more puppets! Children have a chance to be in the show! A perfect celebration for Fall or Thanksgiving!
$351- $500
Boyer, Jeff Fun with Energy Other,
Performing Arts- Other,
Jeff Boyer takes audiences on an exciting energy-filled ride they'll always remember! Jeff brings kids right up on stage for interactive demonstrations that entertain and amaze. Science is FUN! And the science of energy is as fun as it gets. Jeff shows kids that energy is what makes our world work, through carefully laid out activities illustrating the laws and forces which govern the world around us. Kids learn about sound and light, including solar power, and electric and kinetic energies, with materials ranging from everyday objects like softballs and breakfast cereal, to radiometers and lasers, even a Van de Graaf generator!
$501- $1000
Beekman, Betty It's in the Bag! Disability Awareness,
Performing Arts- Theater,
Performing Arts- Storytelling
$1001- $3000
Performing Arts- Dance
$501- $1000
Records  521-530 of 1026


In the presence of an oxidizer, some gases will burn if ignited by static electricity or by a heat source such as a flame or hot object. Oxygen and other oxidizing gases do not burn but will support combustion of flammable materials. Increasing the concentration of an oxidizer accelerates the rate of combustion. Materials that are nonflammable under normal conditions may burn in an oxygen enriched atmosphere.


Dependency Approaches to International Political Economy: A Cross-National Study, 1970 Mahler, Vincent A. arms trade balance of trade commodities debt defense spending developing nations education exports foreign aid foreign investments government Gross National Product imports international economics military strength national defense nations natural resources population power structures social welfare taxes unemployment wealth This data collection provides cross-national data on the external determinants of the division of power and wealth in lesser developed countries. The study aggregates data, produced by the United Nations, the World Bank, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Seventy lesser-developed countries located in Subsaharan Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, and southern Europe are included. These countries were selected on the basis of data availability. The variables provide information on exports as a proportion of Gross National Product (GNP), export concentration, commodity concentration, trade composition, terms of trade, types of investment, aid concentration, debt service, arms transfers, educational indicators, social welfare indicators, taxes, unemployment, security measures, GNP indicators, index of national resource endowment, and population. 9021 02-16-1992 aggregate data United Nations, World Bank, and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Africa Asia Europe Latin America Middle East West Indies Global 1970


"It's obvious in California the financial pie that is available to be divided for schools is not just a finite thing but a shrinking thing," retired teacher Gary Ravani told Benefield. "It's a zero sum game — if you are giving more somewhere else in a segregated situation, you are taking more from somewhere else. That is just unavoidable."

Moreover, opening more charters doesn't create a larger pool of students. Successful magnet programs don't erase the fact that public school enrollment in Sonoma County has declined nine years in a row.

Offering parents choices is good policy, and school districts deserve credit for developing programs such as Santa Rosa's ArtQuest and Rohnert Park's Tech High to attract more students. But, to use Ravani's phrase, it's still a zero-sum game.

The challenge facing Herrington and other officials is to find a cost-efficient model for educating Sonoma County students, whether they attend charter schools or not.


May 19, 2011

Predicting The Fate Of Personalized Cells Next Step Toward New Therapies

In the past, researchers grew progenitor cells and waited to see what they differentiated into. Now, they aim to use this marker system, outside of a cell's DNA and genes, to predict the eventual fate. This extra-DNA system of gene expression control is called epigenetics.

"We were surprised that there's a difference in the epigenetic marks in the process for liver versus pancreas before the cell-fate 'decision' is made." says Zaret. "This suggests that we could manipulate the marks to influence fate or look at marks to better guess the fate of cells early in the differentiation process."

"How cells become committed to particular fates is a fundamental question in developmental biology," said Susan Haynes, PhD, program director in the Division of Genetics and Developmental Biology at the National Institutes of Health, which funds this line of research. "This work provides important new insights into the early steps of this process and suggests new approaches for controlling stem-cell fate in regenerative medicine therapies."

A Guiding Path

How the developing embryo starts to apportion different functions to different cell types is a key question for developmental biology and regenerative medicine. Guidance along the correct path is provided by regulatory proteins that attach to chromosomes, marking part of the genome to be turned on or off. But first the two meters of tightly coiled DNA inside the nucleus of every cell must be loosened a bit. Regulatory proteins help with this, exposing a small domain near the target gene.

Chemical signals from neighboring cells in the embryo tell early progenitor cells to activate genes encoding proteins. These, in turn, guide the cells to become liver or pancreas cells, in the case of Zaret's work. Over several years, his lab has unveiled a network of the common signals in the mouse embryo that govern development of these specific cell types.

Zaret likens the complexity of this system to the 26-letter alphabet being able to encode Shakespeare or a menu at a restaurant. Many investigators are now trying to broadly reprogram cells into desired cell fates for potential therapeutic uses.

The researchers had previously shown that a particular growth factor that attaches to the cell surface, gives a specific chemical signal for cell-type fate, promoting development along the liver-cell path and suppressing development along the pancreas-cell path. Liver and pancreas cells originate from a common progenitor cell type.

Zaret's group figured out which enzymes -- called histone acetyl transferases or methyl transferases (that add methyl groups or acetyl groups to histones) are relevant to the pancreas arm of the liver-pancreas fate decision. They used mice in which they knocked out the function for one enzyme type versus the other to induce the development of fewer liver cells and more pancreas cells.

The transferases mark genes for liver and pancreas fates differently before a cell moves into the next intermediate type along the way to becoming a mature liver or pancreas cell.

Investigators want to make embryonic stem cells for liver or pancreatic beta cells for therapies and research. To do this, they mimic the embryonic developmental steps to proceed from an embryonic stem cell to a mature cell, but have no way of knowing if they are on the right track. The hope is that the findings from this study can be applied to assess the epigenetic state of intermediate progenitor cells.

"By better understanding how a cell is normally programmed we will eventually be able to properly reprogram other cells," notes Zaret. In the near term, the team also aims to generate liver and pancreas cells for research and to screen drugs that repair defects or facilitate cell growth.

On the Net:


SPII guess you won’t be shocked to hear that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a deeply flawed way of measuring progress (and not just because it doesn’t include Lady Gaga’s work on new songs), especially from a sustainability point of view. Nevertheless, it is still the most important economic indicator used to measure progress of economies around the world.

It’s not that it wasn’t challenged time and again by alternative indicators, but none of them seem to be able to give it a good fight and threaten its dominance. The latest contender comes from no other than Harvard Business School professor, Michael Porter.

Porter, who has managed to make a remarkable impact on the field of CSR with his (and Mark Kramer’s) shared value concept, wants to do the same on a much greater level, this time with a new alternative to the GDP called the Social Progress Index (SPI). Designed by Porter and the Social Progress Imperative, the SPI measures the extent to which countries provide for the social and environmental needs of their citizens.

Actually, the SPI seems like a natural extension of Porter’s work on creating shared value (CSV). In both cases, Porter connects the dots between economic value and social challenges – in CSV he did it on the corporate level and now, with the new SPI he does it at a country level.

Porter explained to the Guardian that it is ridiculous to be measuring success purely on the idea of growth at a time when countries are facing massive social upheavals. “The Arab Spring of 2011 and the challenges in Mexico over the last decade have illustrated the shortcomings of economic growth as a proxy for social progress,” he said.

Porter is not the first one to identity this problem. “The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of the national income. If the GDP is up, why is America down?” Simon Kuznets, the economist who helped develop GDP, warned the U.S. Congress back in 1934. Seventy-nine years later, Porter’s SPI presents what might be the solution.

The index includes 52 indicators in three dimensions: Basic human needs (looking at nutrition, air, water and sanitation, shelter, personal safety), foundations of well-being (access to basic knowledge, health and wellness, ecosystem sustainability), and opportunity (personal rights, access to higher education, equity and inclusion). Each of these dimensions is calculated as the sum of its components and is weighted equally in the overall index.

The result of this analysis is an aggregate score for each country measuring its social progress, which is defined by Porter and his team as “the capacity of a society to meet the basic human needs of its citizens, establish the building blocks that allow citizens and communities to enhance and sustain the quality of their lives, and create the conditions for all individuals to reach their full potential.”

Earlier this month, the results of the index were released for the first time, with Sweden in first place among 50 countries ranked by the SPI, followed by the UK, Switzerland, Canada, Germany, USA,  Australia, Japan, France and Spain.

What can we learn from the results except the fact that Sweden is the most socially advanced country worldwide? According to the SPI team, the results show three overarching findings.

1. Economic development is necessary but not sufficient for social progress – It is possible to achieve a high level of social progress at a relatively modest income level. For example, Bulgaria ranks 20th in terms of GDP out of the 50 measured countries but ranks 3rd in air, water, and sanitation.

2. A country’s overall level of development masks social and environmental strengths and challenges – While there is a strong correlation between SPI scores and Human Development Index (HDI) scores, there are significant differences in social progress among countries with similar HDI, especially for high- and medium-income countries, largely due to poor performance on environmental indicators.

3. At a disaggregated level, the SPI shows areas of underperformance and success for countries at all income levels – The SPI model allows disaggregation to the level of dimensions and components, which reveals a far more complex pattern of country performance than is apparent in the overall index. For example, the report shows that Sweden performs relatively poorly on the shelter component, because of weaknesses in affordable housing, yet as well as Switzerland in both access to basic knowledge and access to higher education. Nearly all rich countries perform poorly on ecosystem sustainability.

The main value of the SPI seems to be its ability to provide both policymakers and the private sector better assessment of countries’ success in improving their overall well-being. But that’s not all – Michael Green, head of the Imperative, told The Guardian that the most exciting potential of the SPI, which will take another two years to fully develop, is that it can turn current thinking on its head.

There has always been the idea that economic growth is what gives you well-being, but what the index shows is that it also works the other way around, and that well-being also creates economic progress. If a country is more stable and more at peace, then clearly it’s a better place to do business.

This is, indeed, exciting and if Green is right, don’t be too surprised if in 10-15 years everyone is talking about SPI and has a hard time remembering what GDP is.

[Image credit: The Social Progress Imperative]

Raz Godelnik

6 responses

  1. Hooray that Michael Porter is continuing to nudge our measurements in the right direction. What might be a consideration is that technological, not economic development is the real driver of social progress.

  2. Great working, but a pity that some Eurozone countries are (still) missing. Hopefully, more will be available before the 2014 European Parliament elections, because ECB and Eurostat statistics are not reliable. And politically pinpointed.

  3. Horrible idea.
    We need to get the psychopaths running corporation/govt out of the way because all their greed based decisions have gotten the planet to the point where every planetary system is dying or in a state of accelerated decline with the same end result. Thus our alleged civilization is dying is self inflicted toxic overdose. Unarguable.
    The problem with this proposition is the resulting rules, legislation and other insanity which will result from following political correctness. We already have invasive United Nations Agenda 21 thefts of rights and sanity throughout the country. This can do nothing less than increase that damage.
    The environmental damage referred to is going to reflect for instance, global warming, but will remain mute on the toxic Ag systems which have in large part destroyed over one third of the planetary oxygen supply. Didn’t know we were missing that, did you? Of course not, because ONLY corporations can inflict that massive damage, and then you would demand sanity. Sanity would entail changing corporate behaviors, and that would result in reduced profits for a group of greedy parasites, amassing huge wealth at the expense of you and i.
    In the name of protection or something, the EU is now proposing (implementing) REQUIRED approval to plant only certain seeds. The production of a personal food source is an inherent right humans have exercised as long as they have been able to do so. NOBODY has the right to hinder this process with the exception of GMO plants. These are invasive species organisms which unavoidably contaminate any food which they come in contact with via horizontal gene transfers (GMO industry – won’t happen! but it did) and pollen contamination to turn your safe food into a toxin. But NATURAL foods should be ANYONE’S right to raise with no “authority” denying one the basic essentials of living. Nutritious, non-toxic foods, safe water, clean air.
    This WILL impede that by stating that the “greater good” entails the loss of freedom for individuals, yet only the Will of the Wealthy will make these decisions, and you can safely bet that all the decisions forthcoming will benefit them in terms of their income, power, and not affecting them to any serious degree, while the people whom these decisions adversely affect will pay the price in lifestyle concessions, job security, fees for products of questionable ecological impact (profits will remain the same or increase) etc. etc.

    Great way to institute a new Feudal/slavery system.

  4. Can you speak to the ratings of other countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America? How does the so-called underdeveloped world, Third World, developing nations relate to a Social Progress Index when many of them still suffer post-colonial, neo-colonial and neo-liberal effects of continued exploitation by the First World? For example, the WTO Doha round which is blocked by North America and Europe not wanting to give up their subsidies of agricultural industries, thus denying Third World countries from developing agricultural markets.

Comments are closed.


Music is treated in a number of articles. For the history of music in different regions, see African music; Oceanic music and dance; Western music; Central Asian arts: Music; Chinese music; Japanese music; Korean music; Islamic arts; Native American music; South Asian arts: Music; and Southeast Asian arts: Music. See also folk music. Aspects of music are treated in counterpoint, harmony, instrumentation, mode, musical music criticism, musical music composition, musical music performance, music recording, musical sound, musical music notation, rhythm, scale, and tuning and temperament. See also such articles as blues, chamber music, choral music, concerto, electronic music, fugue, jazz, opera, rhythm and blues, rock, symphony, sonata, theatre music, and vocal music. Musical instruments are treated in electronic instrument, keyboard instrument, percussion instrument, stringed instrument, and wind instrument, as well as in separate articles on individual instruments, such as clarinet, drum, guitar, kayagŭm, piano, tabla, and theremin.

Historical conceptions

Early in the 20th century, it was regarded as a commonplace that a musical tone was characterized by the regularity of its vibrations; this uniformity gave it a fixed pitch and distinguished its sounds from “noise.” Although the that view may be have been supported by traditional music, it was an unacceptable yardstick in by the latter half of the 20th century , when it was recognized as an unacceptable yardstick. Indeed, “noise” itself or silence was sometimes treated as an element and silence became elements in composition, to say nothing of the and random sounds incorporated were used (without prior knowledge of what they will would be) by modern composers, such as the American John Cage, and others in works having aleatory (chance) or impromptu features. Tone, moreover, is only one component in music, others being rhythm, timbre (tone colour), and texture. Electronic machinery enabled some composers to create works in which the traditional role of the interpreter is abolished and to record, directly on tape or into a digital file, sounds that were formerly beyond human ability to produce, if not to imagine.

The non-Western worldEarly Indian and Chinese conceptions

From historical accounts , it is clear that the power to move people has always been attributed to music; its ecstatic possibilities have been recognized in all cultures and have usually been admitted in practice under particular conditions, sometimes stringent ones. In the civilization of India, music was has been put into the service of religion from earliest times; Vedic hymns stand at the beginning of the record. As the art developed over many centuries into a music of profound melodic and rhythmic intricacy, the discipline of a religious text or the guideline of a story determined the structure. Even today In the 21st century the narrator is central in most performances of Indian remains central to the performance of much Indian traditional music, and the virtuosity of a skillful singer rivals that of the instrumentalists. There is very little concept of vocal or instrumental idiom in the Western sense. The vertical dimension of chord structure—that is, the effects created by sounding tones simultaneously—is not a part of South Asian classical music; the divisions of an octave (intervals) are more numerous than in Western music, and the melodic complexity in Asian of the music goes far beyond that of its Western practicecounterpart. Moreover, an element of improvisation is retained that is vital to the success of a performance. The spontaneous imitation carried on between an instrumentalist and narrator, against the insistent rhythmic subtleties of the drums, can be a source of the greatest excitement, which in large measure is because of the faithful adherence to the rigid rules that govern the rendition of ragas—the ancient melodic patterns of Indian music.

Ancient Greek ideas

Plato (428–348/347 bce), like Confucius, looked on music as a department of ethics. And like Confucius he was anxious to regulate the use of particular modes (i.e., arrangements of notes, like scales) because of their supposed effects on menpeople. Plato was a stern musical disciplinarian; he saw a correspondence between the character of a man person and the music that represented him or her. Straightforward simplicity was best. In the Laws, Plato declared that rhythmic and melodic complexities were to be avoided because they led to depression and disorder. Music echoes divine harmony; rhythm and melody imitate the movements of heavenly bodies, thus delineating the music of the spheres and reflecting the moral order of the universe. Earthly music, however, is suspect; Plato distrusted its emotional power. Music must therefore be of the right sort; the sensuous qualities of certain modes are dangerous, and a strong censorship must be imposed. Music and gymnastics in the correct balance would constitute the desirable curriculum in education. Plato admitted and valued music in its ethically approved forms; his concern was primarily with the effects of music, and he therefore regarded it as a psychosociological phenomenon.

Aristoxenus, a pupil of Aristotle, gave considerable credit to the human listenerlisteners, his their importance, and his their powers of perception. He denigrated the dominance of mathematical and acoustical considerations. For Aristoxenus, music was emotional and fulfilled a functional role, for which both the hearing and the intellect of the listener were essential. Individual tones were to be understood in their relations to one another and in the context of larger formal units. The Epicureans and Stoics adopted a more naturalistic view of music and its function, which they accepted as an adjunct to the good life. They gave more emphasis to sensation than did Plato, but they nevertheless placed music in the service of moderation and virtue. A dissenting 3rd-century voice was that of Sextus Empiricus, who said that music was an art of tones and rhythms only that meant nothing outside itself.

Music in Christianity

17th- and 18th-century Western conceptions

Modern theories Theories of musical meaning since the 19th century

The 19th century saw the emergence of composer-critics (Carl Maria von Weber, Robert Schumann, Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt), versatile artists with literary proclivities who were not, to be sure, propounding comprehensive theories or systems of thought. Richard Wagner, an active theorizertheorist, presaged a new species, the composer-author. But he did little to advance musical music theory. He proposed a unity of music and drama (Gesamtkunstwerk)—a reflection of the “programmatic” programmatic preoccupations of 19th-century composers—but its multiplicity of musical and extramusical elements only added to the confusion of musical thought. The distinctly musical character of Wagner’s genius, clearly discernible in The Ring of the Nibelung (Der Ring des Nibelungen), a set of four operas, is in no way explained by his discursive credos. Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, and other composer-authors of the 20th century were to be somewhat more successful in elucidating their techniques and aims.

The concept of dynamism

Schopenhauer looked upon Platonic Ideas ideas as objectifying will, but music is

In contrast to Kant he accords a special efficacy to music:

Efforts of theorists to account for the universal appeal of music and to explain its effects have, since the 19th century, been various, contradictory, and highly controversial. In pointing out identifying the chief points of view that have emerged, it must be emphasized that there are no completely isolated categories, and there is usually considerable overlapping; a single spokesman, the 19th-century English psychologist Edmund Gurney (1847–88), for example, may incorporate formalist, symbolist, expressionist, and psychological elements, in varying proportions, to explain the phenomenon of music. Although some disagreements are more apparent than real because of the inherent problems of terminology and definition, diametrically opposing views are also held and tenaciously defended.

Referentialists and nonreferentialists

Among those who seek and propound theories of musical meaning, the most persistent disagreement is between the referentialists (or “heteronomists”heteronomists), who hold that music can and does refer to meanings outside itself, and the nonreferentialists (who are sometimes called formalists or absolutists), who maintain that the art is autonomous and “means itself.” The Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick, in his The Beautiful in Music (originally in German edition published , 1854), was a strong proponent of music as an art of intrinsic principles and ideas; , yet even Hanslick, ardent formalist though he was, struggled with the problem of emotion in music. Hanslick’s views have been classified as a modified heteronomous theory.

One looks in vain for an extremist of either persuasion, referentialist or nonreferentialist. Igor Stravinsky first achieved fame as a composer of ballet music, and his works throughout his career were rich in extramusical associations. It would be a comfortable simplification to ally referentialism with “program” program music and nonreferentialism with “absolute” absolute music. But the problem cannot be resolved by such a choice, if only, first of all, because extramusical referents can vary in complexity from a mere descriptive title to the convolutions of the Wagnerian leitmotivleitmotif, in which a particular musical phrase is consistently associated with a particular person, place, or thing. The referentialist does Referentialists do not require an explicit program (which may, when present, be altogether too meagre by his canons), and the nonreferentialist does and nonreferentialists do not necessarily denigrate program music, though he makes they make a point of distinguishing between the extramusical program and the musical meaning. The contemporary U.S. American musicologist and theorist Leonard Meyer, in his Emotion and Meaning in Music (1956), speaks spoke of “designative” and “embodied” meanings; he recognizes recognized both kinds in music but appears appeared to give equal weight to the extrinsic and intrinsic.

Intuition and intellect

Most theorists agree that music is an auditory phenomenon and that hearing is the beginning of understanding. Beyond this there is little agreement. There is bad blood contention especially between proponents of intuition, like such as Benedetto Croce (1866–1952), and champions of intellectual cognition, like such as Hospers. Gurney was constrained to postulate a special musical faculty that need not reside exclusively either in the mind or the heart. The main problem for theorists arises from the inveterate tendency to dichotomize thought and feeling. Henri Bergson (1859–1941) broke with this tradition when he spoke for “an intellectual act of intuition.” RecentlyIn the first half of the 20th century, a reawakened philosophic philosophical and artistic concern for the concept of organic unity has revealed strong affinities among such disparate works as Gurney’s The Power of Sound (1880); the U.S. , the American philosopher Susanne K. Langer’s Philosophy in a New Key (1942) and her later works; , John Dewey’s classic Art as Experience (1934); , and the U.S. American composer Roger Sessions’ Sessions’s The Musical Experience (1950).

It is apparent that music is connected in some way with human emotional life, but the “how” continues to be elusive. Sessions (echoing Aristotle) states stated the problem fairly:

It was long fashionable to speak of the “language” of music, or of music as the “language of the emotions,” but, since a precise semantics is wanting in music, the analogy breaks down. Two or more listeners may derive very different “meanings” from the same piece of music, and, since written and spoken language cannot render these musical “meanings,” whatever they may be, in consistent and commonly recognizable terms, verbal explication often seems to raise more questions than it settles. Philosophic Philosophical analysts who hold that all meaning is capable of rendition in language therefore pronounce music—unless it can be saved by the referentialists—without meaning, confronting the thoughtful listenerlisteners, thereby, with a proposition that seems clearly to contradict (and trivialize) his their own experienceexperiences. The difficulty, of course, is a semantic one and explains why some theorists substitute have substituted such terms as import, significance, pattern, or gestalt for meaning. Recognizing an incompatibility between the modalities of nonverbal arts and their treatment by discursive thought, it is hardly surprising that musical music aestheticians have been few.

Symbolist contributions

Significant contributions to musical music theory were made in the mid-20th century by several investigators who may be classified as symbolists, though most of them exhibit exhibited formalist, expressionist, and psychological elements as well. The Some of the most influential (and controversial) work has been was done by Langer. Her most adamant critics (such as John Hospers) have objected to her use of the term symbol that must, which, in their lexica, must stand for something definite; she takes took pains to ascribe this more limited usage to the term signal. The more general use of the term symbol that she endorses has endorsed already had a long history, notably in such 19th-century figures as Goethe, Thomas Carlyle, and the French Symbolist poets. Langer is was accused of having somewhat weakened her argument through a vacillating terminology, and she has described the musical symbol as “unconsummated” because of its ambiguity. But the validity of her theory does did not depend upon the term symbol; her thought, indeed, has had much in common with that of Edmund Gurney, who does did not employ the term and whose ideal motion, if substituted for symbol, would remove most of her critics’ objections. Her use of symbol is was nevertheless defensible; she construes construed art as a “symbolic analogue of emotive life,” rendering the “forms of sentient being” into intelligible configurations. She is was a naturalist; she sees saw art as organic in origin, and she echoes echoed the view, long held among symbolists, that artistic form and content compose an indissoluble unity that each art manifests according to its peculiar conditions. The symbolism of music, she contended, is therefore tonal (or, at its broadest, auditory) in character and can be realized only in time; in psychological experience, time assumes an ideal guise. (Painting and sculpture, in their distinctive modalities, embody ideal space.) Langer embraces embraced all the arts in her purview. The U.S. musical theorist Gordon Epperson’s The Musical Symbol (1967) is an application of American music theorist Gordon Epperson applied her concepts, with modifications, intensively to music in The Musical Symbol (1967).

Contextualist theories

In moving from symbolic to contextualist explanations of music, it is well to note that a source of great confusion, in the former, is the fact that tone painting (with explicit signals that yield, when the code is understood, designative meanings) is widely regarded as musical symbolism. An example of such tone painting is Bach’s introduction of musical notes, corresponding to the letters of his own name, as a theme in the unfinished final fugue of the Art of the Fugue. And surely it may be argued that this qualifies on one level. But the contention that there is an intrinsic symbolism in the musical meaning itself is a claim that referentialists are generally unwilling to honour. Yet many theorists, whose concern is with the sociological or psychological effects of music, are not so much opposed to the idea of inner or profound meaning as indifferent to such meaning per se. Even an absolutist, however, is unable to examine music in isolation from its human environment. Meyer deliberately eschews eschewed logical and philosophical problems of music and makes made “no attempt to decide whether music is a language or whether musical stimuli are signs or symbols.” (He does did not defend the inference that such concerns are irrelevant to meaning.) Musical meaning and communication, he maintainsmaintained, cannot exist in the absence of the cultural context. The statement is hardly open to dispute; a theorist is theorists are classified according to his their proximity to the referential or nonreferential pole. If a referentialist emphasizes referentialists emphasize explicit aims and associations of a particular work (as in varieties of Gebrauchsmusik, or “utility” music, written for specific social or educational purposes), the formalist formalists can maintain that there is also an intrinsic, or embodied, meaning to which he attaches they attach the greater aesthetic value.

Among contextualists, however, a simple referential view is the exception rather than the rule. Any theorist theorists who examines examine musical perception is making a study of a are studying a complex human activity. He is They are dealing with the psychology of music, in which certain elements—e.g., music, listener, mode of apprehension, cultural context—are indispensable and in which characteristic processes recur. Specialists will emphasize one element or another: formalists the music itself, sociologists the listener listeners and his their milieu, psychologists the how of perception. Though psychology could survey the whole field, in practice psychologists, according to their persuasions, investigate the perception of measurable acoustic phenomena, the physical-mental effects of musical sound, or—more rarely—the functional role of music in human experience; , and pragmatists and analysts alike may leave something out of account. But it remains for the comprehensive theorist, probably one who, like Langer, is equipped to discern relationships among many departments of thought, to construct a valid hierarchical structure of musical meaning in all its ramifications.

Deryck Cooke, the British musicologist and the author of The Language of Music (1959), who may be classified as a referential expressionist, has offered a sophisticated argument for the notion of music as language. Concepts, however, may not be rendered by this language, only feelings. Cooke reaffirms reaffirmed the possibility, long disputed by many theorists, that such feelings may be recognized, identified, and even classified. But he confines confined his investigation to the last few hundred years of the Western tradition.

Information theory

The French theorist Abraham Moles’s Information Theory and Esthetic Perception (1966) brings brought the new science of information theory to bear on musical perception, emphasizing that the concept of form is the essential thing; the “sonic message,” whose dimensions vary from one composition to another, is a whole. Information theory thus proves proved to be a novel ally for organicists. The message, which is subjected to “atomistic” atomistic study of its components, is (thanks to recording) concrete; there is a temporal sonic material, a materia musica. Moles gives gave reinforcement to the aesthetic theory of distance:

Information theory, which Leonard Meyer also discussesdiscussed, begins its investigations without the help of traditional theory, which it finds to be untenable for its procedures. Musical messages discerned through information theory are not referential, yet Moles chooses chose to term describe the measurable elements in the sonic repertoire as symbols: “each definable temporal stage represents a ‘symbol’ analogous to a phoneme in language.” According to Moles, music must, as an art, obey rules; the role of aesthetics is to enumerate universally valid rules, not to perpetuate the arbitrary or merely traditional. He foresees foresaw experimentation with a much richer repertoire of sounds, transcending musical instruments and drawing on whatever sources—certainly electronic ones—are available for realizing the “most general orchestra.” A host of composers have set out to fulfill this desideratum. In order to increase the compass of possible sounds, various electronic synthesizers were constructed. In electronically synthesized music, the medium itself is indistinguishable from its message.

Considerations related to performance practice

Listening to music for its own sake, apart from ritual or storytelling, is a relatively recent historical development. There have always been impromptu song and dance; , and performances of music in at home, in church, and in theatrical productions have a long history. But , but there was no public opera house until 1637, when the first one opened in Venice; the . The first public concerts for which admission was charged appeared in London in 1672. During the next 50 years there were beginnings in Germany and France also, but the modern concert was not a significant feature of musical life until the late 18th century.

Since a vocal text is likely to be confused with intrinsic musical meaning, or at least to divert attention from a preoccupation with it, it is not surprising that modern aesthetic theory has followed on the emergence of an autonomous instrumental music requiring greater concentration on the sound itself, its colour and intensity, and the intelligibility (in terms of tonal organization alone) of a composition. Moreover, the very concept of listening as an attentive (and sometimes rigorous), serious, and necessary activity of the music lover gained acceptance only slowly, following the inauguration of public concerts, and is still vigorously resisted. The expectation that the art should provide enjoyment without effort is, indeed, widespread and accounts for much of the opposition to new and demanding idioms. But even for the well-disciplined and eager listener listeners there is the problem of quantity: he they must cope as best he they can with what Langer has called “the madhouse of too much art.” If more effort is required, more discrimination is also needed. In music education, articulate voices ask that teaching be centred more upon qualitative aspects of the art (“aesthetic education”), less upon music making as an activity. This concern for musical value appears to reflect a more intensive search for meaning, which is not likely to be the exclusive property of a particular style or era; , nor is it to be sought in an indiscriminate acceptance or rejection of novelty per se.

A pronounced pedagogical interest developed in such contemporary various genres of popular music, such as rock, soul, and similar idioms with great numbers of followers, especially among the young, whose gigantic festivals generated feelings of religious exaltation. The texts of the songs are highly emotional and often deal with protest themesa broad range of themes, from political protest to calls for a loud and lively dance party; accompaniments are provided by guitars, keyboard keyboards, and percussion instruments , and are electronically amplified. Music educators became were attracted by the intrinsic structural values of this music, especially its distinctive rhythmic and modal characteristics, its texts, and the qualitative levels that may be distinguished. A music so vital and widespread, moreover, was deemed by many to be worth studying in school. The In the mid-20th century the rock music movement became emerged as a musical-sociological phenomenon of large proportions. Within a few decades, programs in popular music had been established in many postsecondary institutions, and by the early 21st century musicologists, music theorists, and educators in various disciplines were actively involved in the study of virtually every major genre of popular music across the globe.

Music and worldview

Tonality and meaning


Macroeconomics - Fiscal Policy Basics

What is fiscal policy?
Fiscal policy is the use of government taxation, spending and borrowing to satisfy macroeconomic goals.

Potential GDP
The GDP that results from an economy operating at full employment with full utilization of capital is called potential GDP.

A reduction in after-tax wages will occur with the enactment of an income tax. The supply curve of labor will therefore shift up and to the left. The new equilibrium quantity of labor hired will be less than what would have occurred with potential GDP. There will be a "wedge" between before-tax and after-tax wage rates. Taxes on expenditure increase the size of the "wedge" and further reduce employment.

Keynesians argue that if output is less than what would occur at full employment, fiscal policy should be used to stimulate aggregate demand.

There are three major ways in which fiscal policy affects aggregate demand:

1.Business Tax Policy - Business taxes can change the profitability of businesses and the amount of business investment. Lowering business taxes will increase aggregate demand and business investment spending.

2.Government Spending - Government can directly increase aggregate demand by increasing its spending.

3.Tax Policy for Individuals - Lowering taxes will increase disposable personal income and increase consumption spending.

From the Keynesian viewpoint, fiscal policy should be used to increase aggregate demand when an economy is operating at below full-employment levels. Ideally, the economy will be guided to output at the level of full employment.

If aggregate demand exceeds aggregate supply and output is at full-employment levels, fiscal policy should be used to reduce aggregate demand. This will push the economy to a point of noninflationary equilibrium.

The Supply Side Model is an economic theory holding that bolstering an economy's ability to supply more goods is the most effective way to stimulate economic growth. Supply-side theorists advocate income tax reduction because it increases private investment in corporations, facilities, and equipment.

The Laffer curve shows the relationship between tax rates and tax revenue.

Figure 4.6: The Laffer Curve

This graph shows that as the tax rate increases from zero, the amount of tax revenue collected will increase. At point T*, however, increases in the tax rate lead to decreases in the tax revenue collected. High tax rates also produce a loss to society in the sense that productive economic activity is being discouraged.

Governments would like to be at point T*, because it is the point at which the government collects maximum amount of tax revenue while people continue to work hard. This would theoretically be the point at which potential GDP is maximized.

Supply-side economists believe that high marginal tax rates, such as those experienced in the U.S. in the 1970s, diminished aggregate production without raising substantial amounts of additional tax revenue. Tax cuts during the 1980s (the Reagan presidency) are believed to have induced strong increases in supply, particularly with regards to high-income earners. Supporters of the 2001 U.S. tax cuts, which reduced the top marginal tax rates, believe that the cuts have increased economic growth through better supply-side incentives.

Tax policy also has consequences at a global level. Ireland has significantly reduced its personal and corporate tax rates; during the 1990s its growth rate was much higher than the rest of Europe. There is an association with high European tax rates and slow rates of economic growth.

Effects of Fiscal Policy
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The Air War in Vietnam

Built for Jet Age nuclear retaliation against superpowers, the U.S. Air Force had a problem when it was called upon to fight
a conventional war against tenacious jungle insurgents.
“We had the wrong airplanes, the wrong weapons and the wrong training for that kind of war,” says retired fighter pilot Dick Anderegg, who flew 170 combat missions in Vietnam and recently retired as director of the U.S. Air Force History and Museums Program. “That was a burden that was difficult to work around.”
The air war faced other challenges. The on-again/off-again bombing strategy of President Lyndon Johnson’s administration did more to enhance North Vietnam’s defenses than it did to dampen the enemy’s resolve. Commanders were reluctant to shift B-52 bombers from nuclear deterrence to attacking North Vietnam. And controversy over the bombing of North Vietnam and Cambodia fueled the protest movement at home.
Vietnam also marked the end of an aviation era. It was the last time the United States sent significant numbers of propeller-driven aircraft into combat, from fighters such as the A-1 Skyraider to forward air control planes like the O-1 Bird Dog and flying boats like the Navy’s SP-5B Marlin.
Ultimately, the Air Force and Navy adapted to the demands of the day. Abandoned production plants were resurrected. Training was revamped. Jet pilots found themselves flying single-engine Cessnas at 100 mph, training planes served as fighter-bombers and transport planes were turned into gunships, as Air Force historian Richard H. Kohn wrote in the forward to “The War in South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive 1965-1968.”
The Air Force and Navy also emerged from the Vietnam era armed with first-generation smart bombs, better aircraft and a renewed appreciation for aerial combat training, says Hill Goodspeed, historian for the National Naval Aviation Museum.
“It was a complete makeover,” Anderegg adds. “A shift from a massive retaliatory nuclear force to a force able to operate across the entire spectrum.” That makeover ultimately led to overwhelming U.S. aerial success in the first Gulf War.

Operation Rolling Thunder. The Air Force and Navy flew missions in Southeast Asia well before the United States committed large numbers of ground troops to the war. C-47 transports ferried U.S. military advisers and supplies around South Vietnam beginning in the mid-1950s. C-123
Provider transport planes were charged with spraying Agent Orange in 1962. And Lt. Charles Klusmann was the first naval aviator shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission over Laos in June 1964.
Operation Rolling Thunder launched one of the first high-profile air campaigns against North Vietnam. Crafted by Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, the bombing effort was stopped several times to induce North Vietnam to abandon its war against the South. Instead, the North Vietnamese used the intermissions to strengthen its anti-aircraft defenses and move additional supplies into South Vietnam.
Meanwhile, the Air Force and Navy were prohibited from striking North Vietnam’s air bases, key ports such as Haiphong Harbor, and many power plants and industrial sites for fear of civilian casualties or inadvertent bombing of Soviet and Chinese boats.
In the end, Rolling Thunder cost the Air Force 531 airplanes, and 547 airmen were killed, captured or went missing, according to Bernard C. Nalty’s “An Uncommon War: The U.S. Air Force in Southeast Asia.”
The campaign also failed to dissuade North Vietnam. “It’s difficult when you are fighting with one hand tied behind your back,” Anderegg says.
In South Vietnam, meanwhile, Air Force and Marine fighters flew close air-support missions. Forward air controllers in small single-engine airplanes provided the link between the troops on the ground and the A-1s, F-4s and other fighter-bombers in the air. “We were turning into an all-jet Air Force but still having trouble finding targets,” Anderegg says.
Anderegg arrived in Vietnam the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969 and left on Memorial Day 1970. Flying F-4s out of Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, he hunted North Vietnamese supply trucks along a portion of the Ho Chi Minh Trail that ran through Laos. Across Vietnam, other Air Force and Navy pilots joined the fight with myriad aircraft, from the B-57 to the F-111. KC-135 tankers were integral to keeping this fleet aloft, particularly over North Vietnam.
The Navy formed special aerial units to support its riverine forces in South Vietnam. The VAL-4 “Black Ponies” flew OV-10 Broncos. The HA(L)-3 “Seawolves” flew UH-1 and HH-1K light attack helicopters and became one of the more highly decorated squadrons in South Vietnam.
Navy flying boats and land-based airplanes patrolled the shipping lanes off South Vietnam. AP-2H Neptune submarine hunters briefly dropped listening devices along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Operation Linebacker. President Richard Nixon unleashed U.S. air power in 1972 with a pair of bombing campaigns called Operation Linebacker I and II. The Navy’s new A-6 dropped laser-guided bombs on power plants and industrial sites, and A-6s and A-7s mined Haiphong Harbor. Waves of B-52s bombarded Hanoi and other parts of North Vietnam previously off-limits. By early 1973, North Vietnam agreed to end the war and return American POWs.
“When the nation decided they were going to employ air power without so many restrictions to bring North Vietnam into submission, we did it in about five months,” Anderegg says. “It was a pretty good demonstration of what air power can do when properly applied.”
And a critical lesson regarding the perils of restricted bombing campaigns. “There was a generation of junior officers who served in Vietnam who then were commanders in Desert Storm,” Goodspeed says. “They had an appreciation for how an air war shouldn’t be run.”
The Air Force and Navy also made significant technological strides during Vietnam. Three new models of the F-4 were introduced during seven years of aerial combat, each better than the previous version, Anderegg says. Three different laser-guided bomb improvements were introduced in a three-year period.
The Navy A-6 made its combat debut during Vietnam. The all-weather attack airplane carried a heavy load, could strike at night and was used with great success during the first Gulf War, Goodspeed says. There are several examples of these aircraft making single-plane raids on targets in North Vietnam, using radar to dodge surface to air missiles.
Both branches also came away from Vietnam with the realization that jet pilots had to be experts in air-to-air combat. That prompted the creation of schools devoted to the discipline, Goodspeed says.
“The results speak for themselves,” Anderegg says. “We had 35 kills and no losses in the Gulf War. No Air Force fighter received a scratch from an Iraqi fighter.”

Ken Olsen is a frequent contributor to The American Legion Magazine.

  1. How could Ken Olsen in his listing of aircraft that served in Vietnam forget the U1A Otter, that old work- horse Affectionately known as “ Old, Low, Slow, and Reliable,” it was in Vietnam well before any build up of troops and aircraft, it carried cargo and Troops along with the H-21 helicopter. Having served in all of the armies fixed wing aircraft I felt obligated to give this aircraft it’s due, and bring it to the attention of Mr. Olsen and the readers of the magazine. More than likely you will also be reminded about the Otter by members of the U.S. Army Caribou and Otter Association, whose motto is “When “Fearless Warriors Rode the Winds.” The men who flew, and crewed these aircraft.

    The U1A Otters arrived in Vietnam in February 1962, and left in April 1971. 18th Aviation Company Fixed

    Wing Light Cargo Aircraft.

    Otters a welcome sight at remote camps

    The Otter became a welcome sight to the troops manning isolated outposts and camps. Supplies of all sorts, from C-rations to livestock and poultry, pigs, generators, gasoline and ammunition were delivered to more than 150 airstrips on the supply net. The delivery of items which greatly affected a fighting man's morale - mail, PX items, even Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys, were included in the myriad articles transported by Otter. Where a camp did not have an airstrip, the supplies were dropped in by parachute. Thousands of passengers were also transported. Americans, Vietnamese, members of many Allied nations, from privates to generals, VIPs, civilians, entertainers, newspaper correspondents and photographers, all depended upon this slow but ubiquitous transport. Casualty evacuation was another role undertaken by the Otter, often under hazardous conditions. Otters were also used to drop flares for battlefield illumination and area surveillance.

    Al Rogers

  2. I enjoyed reading the article by Ken but he did not mention one very important group of flyers that served in VietNam. That group flew a Secret War and you can read about them in a book called "The Most Secret War" 'Army Signals Intelligence in Vietnam' by James L Gilbert which can be purchased through the Military History Office. I was part of the 138th Aviation Company but I personally was not in Vietnam with the unit but joined it in 1974. The aviation units flew various aircraft, such as the U-1A, U-6 UH-1D helicopters, U-21D,and U-8's. I believe that Mr. Olson did a great job on his article but left out a group of unsung hero's that were there from the beginning arriving in country in 1961 and not leaving until it was over.
    David McIntosh, First Sergeant, (RET)
    138th Aviation Company (EW)

  3. Well one more great aircraft is the C-133. I flew it in and out of country 1962-1966. We hauled morter shells, food and medical supplys in and most often caskets with our fallen hero's out. I was not unusal to be escourted down final approach with a chopper on each wing to take ground fire. They did a great job.
    MSgt Don Taylor, C-133 Flight Engineer, 1st ATS, Dover AFB,Deleware

  4. No mention was made of two USAF helicopter types: The venerable HH-43B & F "Huskie" models and the HH-53 "Super Jolly Green Giant."

  5. Without pre and poststrike Photo Recon by RA-5C Vigilantes and RF-8 Crusaders the success of A-4, A-7, and A-6 strike missions would have been far less successful. The RA-5C Vigilante suffered the highest losses (23) of any US Navy Aircraft flown in Vietnam (mostly during post strike assessment missions).

  6. Once again your magazine has overlooked the thousands of Navy people who served their country in the RVAH community. Many givng their lives during Vietnam. The A-5 was one of the most important planes used during that war.

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Albuquerque, N.M. - Fifty years after the dawn of the space age, hundreds of people have flown into space. A dozen of those left their boot marks on the Moon's surface, and several nations now are planning to send astronauts back to the Moon and then beyond. So you would think the expansion of humanity ever deeper into the Cosmos is a sure bet.

But the notion that human explorers are destined to become an interstellar species is far from a sure thing as far as Roger Launius is concerned.

More likely, humans, and the machines they use to explore space, are going to evolve together in ways that are hard to predict at this early stage in the opening of the space frontier, said Launius, an eminent space historian and chair for the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

Multi-Planet Species

Speaking to a crowd of space professionals at the Space Technology and Applications International Forum (STAIF 2007) in Albuquerque Feb. 12, Launius said humans are destined to become a multi-planetary species, but that word may take on a whole new meaning as time evolves.

Given that there will be the first child born on the Moon, as well as Mars, will that person be a Homo sapien, he asked. Could the differences of gravity, radiation exposure mean those children would be unable to return to Earth?

"I think that's problematic," Launius said, and in some respects might this be an evolutionary road not unlike that taken by amphibian creatures that departed their water world to become land creatures.

"There is the possibility of the evolution of human species into something different," Launius said. He and fellow space researcher, Howard McCurdy of The American University in Washington, have authored a book on the subject to be published later this year.

Electronics/digital revolution

One area where all spaceflight visionaries of the past failed to make meaningful predictions was in the rapidly advancing capabilities of robotics and electronics, Launius said.

For example, when noted science fiction/fact writer, Arthur C. Clarke, envisioned geosynchronous telecommunications satellites in 1945, he believed that they would require humans working on board a manned space station because he thought it would be necessary to change the vacuum tubes.

"Some of the most forward-thinking spaceflight advocates ... utterly failed to anticipate the electronics/digital revolution then just beginning," the space historian noted.

"With the rapid advance of electronics in the 1960s, however, some began to question the role of humans in space exploration. It is much less expensive and risky to send robot explorers than to go ourselves. This debate reached saliency early on and became an important part of the space policy debate by the latter twentieth century," Launius pointed out. Presently, there is a significant merger of humans and machines into something different and enhanced, he said.

Self-induced transformations

Launius said one possibility is the evolution of the human species into something different via self-induced transformations: Create an Earth-like environment for astronauts to live in ... or change the astronauts in ways that they will be more capable of surviving in new and different regions of space.

For the latter, that smacks of a CYBernetic ORGanism, or Cyborg, whereby some physiological processes are assisted or controlled by mechanical or electronic devices.

"We may already be Cyborgs," Launius pointed out, looking out into an audience filled with people wearing glasses, hearing aids and sporting hip and knee replacements--not to mention those clinging to their hand-held mobile phones and other communication devices.

Projecting hundreds of years into the future, Launius said he believed that it is likely humans will evolve in ways that cannot be fathomed today, into a form of species perhaps tagged Homo sapiens Astro. "Will our movement to places like the Moon and Mars hasten this evolutionary process? ... I don't know the answer," he said.

In closing, Launius suggested that the old paradigm for human space exploration--ultimately becoming an interstellar species--"is outmoded and ready for replacement."


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3 Reasons To Know When To Quit Your Job – Entrepreneurship Guide

1. You’re bored

A year and a half ago, I took a job as a Linux System Administrator (without knowing how to use a Linux terminal) after leaving a high-paying job at an Investment Bank. The goal was to sharpen my technology skills while expanding my network and this served as the perfect platform to do so. When I applied for the job, I posted a challenge to the Director of Engineering at that time – Prashant, saying that if I don’t pick up the necessary skills and impress you within a month, fire me. He accepted the challenge and thought I’d make a good culture fit. Within a month, I was confirmed for a full-time position and a few months later he left the company leaving the System Administration to me and the Web Development to Calvin. We survived. The learning curve was great. I had a lot to learn and the job was engaging enough. After a year however, boredom started setting in. The company almost doubled in size and I had to handle the low-level technician stuff and the high-level server administration as well because the job description wasn’t specialized and this resulted in a very very low or almost flatlined learning curve as demonstrated in the pic.

The Learning Curve - by Brian Ritchie

The Learning Curve - by Brian Ritchie

My productivity started waning and my mind was never challenged or excited anymore and it showed. It showed in my performance, and it showed in my motivation. At this point, I started realizing that I was doing a disservice to my employers and what is inherently worst, myself. I had commitments and debts to repay but it was minuscule compared to the brain drain I was in. This was the first and major factor that prompted my decision.

2. You prefer things to go your way

Having worked for both a Regional Investment Bank and a Startup-like Company, and an array of part-time jobs before that in college, I realized that I generally have a tendency of challenging the status quo. I generally tend to like thinking multiple steps ahead and I thank the Operational background I had for that. Its easy to anticipate where the conversation is going and whats the adequate solution for it, but it always puzzled me, why most people can’t seem to do the same. I hate meetings where people mindlessly discuss matters that could be solved by just picking up the phone and calling someone, or just sending an email. I hate meetings where people just ask questions for the sake of asking, and people answer for the sake of answering or what’s inherently worst, they don’t answer at all worried that if they do, they might need to take responsibility for the action items that follow.

I like to run processes and operations my way. I have a system and I like it when people follow it. Of course no process is perfect and I constantly refine my style but that’s how agile a company should be. If you are stuck implementing a process that’s broken and have no way to challenge it or change it, then you’re stuck in what I call “process-hell”. When you see a problem, change it, innovate on it, solve it but don’t ever just sit on it.

3. You have done enough with your portfolio

People always find it hard to believe when I mention what I have done before or am doing now. They find it hard to accept that I could have had such a diverse portfolio at such a young age. They find it hard to believe that I was interviewed for a comment on an article in BusinessWeek during my Junior year in college because of my believes in the democratization of knowledge, and that I got my business-oriented student organization (where I was one of the founding members) in Forbes within a year of taking the helm as President. What you have to realize is people will always be people and what matters is yourself and nothing else. When you have such a diverse portfolio that covers almost all aspects of business, its time to actually implement that knowledge and translate those capabilities towards growing your own companies. I realize that I may not be the best in any of them. Heck, I have a series of mentors in every single aspect of them, some younger and some older than me and significantly more successful than most can imagine, but that’s exactly what motivates me to run my own gig and make things happen.

Most people will only attempt to help or guide you, when they see that you have put in adequate effort in helping yourself achieve your goals. This was the most important factor that motivated my decision. So if and when you’re struggling to decide if you should risk everything and jump into the world of entrepreneurship, ask yourself if you fit some of these criteria ?

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-Our Premium Labs are equipped with new computers every summer.

-One specialized project room (approx 2,100 square feet of reconfigurable space for specialized upper-level computer projects).

-Not only do our students currently have access to 90 workstations, but we equip our labs so that students learn multiple back and front end computer languages, Operating Systems, database engines, and web development platforms.

-Several Macintosh computers used for iPhone/iPad/iPod application development.

-Other platforms for application development include Microsoft Kinect boxes, Android devices, and Lego’s Mindstorm robotic devices.

The CSE department currently has four general purpose computing labs available for student use. The computers in these labs are updated on a regular schedule. There are also several more classrooms that are generally used for teaching that have computers available to students.

-Lab 201 is used for class and instructional purposes and is equipped with dual high-resolution projectors. This room is equipped with 36 64-bit core i5 Intel computers with 6 GB of RAM and 24-inch LCD displays.

-Lab 217 contains 16 computers and lots of tabletop space for project work. This room is equipped with 16 64-bit core i7 Intel computers with 8 GB of RAM, solid state drives, and 27-inch LCD displays. This area is also refereed to as “The Project Space” and is often used by students for projects, meetings, and relaxing space as it also contains a couch area as well. Lab 217 also has a 42-inch EPSON T7000 wide-format printer for creating poster-size prints. This lab is used mainly by upperclassmen for working on projects and homework.

-Lab 218 is equipped with 8 64-bit core i7 Intel computers with 8 GB of RAM, solid state drives, and 27-inch LCD displays. It also includes 4 Mac minis with 24-inch LCD displays.

All the CSE lab computers dual boot into either Ubuntu Linux or Microsoft Windows 7. Wireless access is available in all labs for students who want to use their own computers.

While we use some of the labs for class, we also have two classrooms reserved just for computer science classes.

-Classroom 103 features a unique set up unlike the traditional one. The computers have been pushed against the walls and there is a big long white board table that students can roll back too when the class doesn’t require being on the computer.

-Classroom 200 is a traditional setup. However it does have two state of the art projectors. This classroom benefits from natural lighting and is quite a life saver for a computer science student whom may or may not have just spend hours looking at a computer screen.

Faculty Offices

The set up of our faculty offices is very welcoming for students who have questions or just want to pay a friendly visit. Featured above is the faculty office space, and the conference room. The conference room is also used for some upper level class presentations.

But what makes the CSE facilities at Taylor outstanding is not just the machines, but also the people using them. Professors and fellow students alike are always willing to help students out and provide a friendly working environment. We recommend that you come visit in person to get a hands-on view!


Re-writing History: the Episcopal Church struggle

In the global intra-Anglican 'wars' about sexuality, biblical interpretation, authority and church polity, The Episcopal Church (TEC) in the USA has been singled out from other Anglican provinces and subjected to harsh criticism and threats of expulsion. Why is this? What are the underlying issues about the use of Scripture and other questions which explain why TEC is such a bone of contention? Can Christians learn to handle differences in more creative ways which honour the life-giving Gospel message they are supposed to exemplify?

You can read a new report and analysis from Ekklesia associate Savitri Hensman in *.PDF form here

A nine point summary is given below.

You can read the full report in *.PDF format here. If you do not have an Adobe Acrobat (PD) reader, you will be invited to download one when you seek to access this document. (c) Savitri Hensman, 2007.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Savitri Hensman was born in Sri Lanka. She works in the voluntary sector in community care and equalities, is a respected writer on Christianity and social justice, and was founder of the Black Lesbian and Gay Centre in London. She was a long-standing member of the Jubilee Group, a network of radical Anglo-Catholics and others committed to understanding the transformative impact of traditional Christian faith. Savi is an Ekklesia associate.

We are grateful to the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM -, who are also reproducing this document on their site, and to the author for this thought-provoking research article, which we publish as a contribution to an important debate.

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Islam and Democracy - Much Hard Work Needed

Can the Muslim world overcome its anti-democratic Islamist movement?

[Editor's note: the following article was originally published at the National Post.]

With anti-regime demonstrations raging in Egypt, and the possibility of a new government led by or involving the Muslim Brotherhood, many are asking whether Islam is compatible with democracy? The answer is yes, it potentially is, but it will take much hard work to make this happen.

Present realities are far from encouraging, for tyranny disproportionately afflicts Muslim-majority countries. Swarthmore College's Frederic L. Pryor concluded in a 2007 analysis in the Middle East Quarterly that, with some exceptions, "Islam is associated with fewer political rights." Saliba Sarsarlooked at democratization in 17 Arabic-speaking countries and, writing in the same journal, found that "between 1999 and 2005 … not only is progress lacking in most countries, but across the Middle East, reform has backslid."

How easy to jump from this dismal pattern and conclude that the religion of Islam itself must be the cause of the problem. The ancient fallacy of post hoc, ergo propter hoc ("after something, therefore because of it") underlies this simplistic jump. In fact, the current predicament of dictatorship, corruption, cruelty, and torture results from specific historical developments rather than the Koran and other sacred scriptures.

A half millennium ago, democracy reigned nowhere; that it emerged in Western Europe resulted from many factors, including the area's Greco-Roman heritage, rendering-unto-Caesar-and-God tensions specific to Christianity, geography, climate, and key breakthroughs in technology and political philosophy. There was nothing fated about Great Britain and then the United States leading the way to democracy.

Put differently: of course, Islam is undemocratic in spirit, but so was every other premodern religion and society.

For Islam to encourage political participation implies a giant shift in approach, especially toward the Sharia, its law code. Elaborated about a millennium ago in quasi-tribal circumstances and operating within a vastly different ethos from today's, the code contains a range of features deeply unacceptable to a modern sensibility, including the anti-democratic ideas of the will of God prevailing over that of the people, military jihad as a legitimate means to expand rule by Muslims, the superiority of Muslims over non-Muslims, and of males over females.

Islam keeps changing, so it is an error to insist that the religion must be what it has been. As Hassan Hanafi of Cairo University puts it, the Koran "is a supermarket, where one takes what one wants and leaves what one doesn't want."

Atatürk and Taha aside, Muslims have barely begun the long, arduous path to making Islam modern. In addition to the inherent difficulties of overhauling a seventh-century order to fit the ethos of a Western-dominated twenty-first century, the Islamist movement which today dominates Muslim intellectual life pulls in precisely the opposite direction from democracy. Instead, it fights to revive the whole of the Sharia and to apply it with exceptional severity, regardless of what the majority wants.

Some Islamists denounce democracy as heretical and a betrayal of Islamic values but the more clever of them, noting their own widespread popularity, have adopted democracy as a mechanism to seize power. Their success in a country like Turkey does not transform Islamists into democrats (i.e., show a willingness to relinquish power) but demonstrates their willingness to adopt whatever tactics will bring them power.


When we hear the term “infectious disease”, we usually think of something that can infect us and cause a disease process to begin. That “something” can be a bacteria, virus, parasite, or fungus obtained from many different sources (other infected individuals, poor hygiene, transfusion with infected blood, shared needles between drug users, etc.). Disease-causing bacteria and viruses are known as infectious agents, and some of them can be quickly identified by using genetic testing techniques; however, common infectious agents, such as certain bacteria and viruses, are much less expensive to identify using standard laboratory methods that don’t involve genetic testing techniques.

Bacteria are one-celled organisms that contain their own DNA and in some cases can cause serious disease. Even those bacteria that harmlessly live inside our bodies and are involved in beneficial processes can become mutated under unusual conditions and cause us to be very sick. By isolating the DNA from bacteria, and amplifying and analysing specific regions of the DNA, the bacteria can be identified very quickly. Among the many bacteria that can be quickly identified using these genetic testing techniques are: Chlamydia trachomitis, which is an organism that causes a sexually-transmitted disease; Neisseria gonorrhea, which causes gonorrhea, Borrelia burgdorferi which causes Lyme Disease, Legionella pneumophilia which causes Legionnaire’s disease, Mycoplasma pneumoniae which leads to “walking pneumonia”, Mycopbacterium tuberculosis which can cause tuberculosis, and Bordetella pertussis which causes whooping cough. Specimens that might contain these bacteria include urine, blood, sputum, cerebrospinal fluid, and others.

Determining how many copies of a virus’ RNA or DNA are present in an individual’s blood is another use of infectious disease genetic testing techniques. The number of copies present is typically referred to as the “viral load” or “viral burden”. This testing is usually done after a drug therapy is initiated to assess whether it is working or not to remove or decrease the viral RNA load. The most common viral load tests are for HCV or HIV, and the tests require a sample of blood.A parasite is a complex multi-cellular organism. Parasites usually infect an individual through the saliva of a biting insect, such as a mosquito, or through infected material. An example of a parasite that can be identified using genetic tests is Toxoplasma gondii which can cause encephalitis or congenital infections that lead to severe damage of a fetus (fetal toxoplasmosis).


1. Ronald Oussoren
  2. py2app

py2app / py2app / __init__.py

builds Mac OS X application bundles from Python scripts

New keywords for distutils' setup function specify what to build:

        list of scripts to convert into gui app bundles

py2app options, to be specified in the options keyword to the setup function:

    optimize - string or int (0, 1, or 2)

    includes - list of module names to include
    packages - list of packages to include with subpackages
    ignores - list of modules to ignore if they are not found
    excludes - list of module names to exclude
    dylib_excludes - list of dylibs and/or frameworks to exclude
    resources - list of additional files and folders to include
    plist - Info.plist template file, dict, or plistlib.Plist
    dist_dir - directory where to build the final files

Items in the macosx list can also be
dictionaries to further customize the build process.  The following
keys in the dictionary are recognized, most are optional:

    script (MACOSX) - list of python scripts (required)
    dest_base - directory and basename for the executable
                if a directory is contained, must be the same for all targets

__version__ = "0.3.6"

# This makes the py2app command work in the distutils.core.setup() case
import setuptools


The Owen Locke Memorial Fund was established by the late Gwendolyn Locke to honor her husband, Owen C. Locke's interests in providing opportunity and education to underserved populations in California.

The purpose of the Fund is to provide educational scholarships to fund tuition, school fees and books for applicants in California. Preference will be given to persons who have limited financial resources available for school, but who are not eligible to be awarded funds from public or government sources.

The deadline for the 2016-17
academic year is May 31, 2016.

The deadline for the 2015-16 academic year was May 30, 2015.