[Review of] Stewart E. Tolnay. The Bottom Rung: African American Family Life on Southern Farms

Stewart E. Tolnay has a message to deliver. In his excellent historical treatise on the family life of African American sharecroppers he counters current belief that rural Southern blacks who migrated North brought with them a dysfunctional family structure, a view espoused today by scholars as politically disparate as the liberal Daniel Patrick Moynihan and the conservative Charles Murray. Through the use of interview data gathered from the New Dears Federal Writers Project and with statistical analysis of U. S. Census data, Tolnay\u27s seven chapters and epilogue span the years 1910-1940 from the post-Slavery period and the era of Jim Crow through the Great Depression to the dawn of WWII. His epilogue is essentially a reflection on preceding chapters but with an updated analysis of African American family life in the contemporary urban North. Tolnay\u27s conclusion is that the lifestyles of crime and illegitimacy in the black inner city are largely a function of social and economic determinants and not cultural pathology or moral failings

Race, Gender, and the Status-Quo:Asian and African American Relations in a Hollywood Film

Hollywood films play a significant role in constructing and reinforcing inter-ethnic tensions through negative representations of Asian Americans and African Americans. While white males are most often depicted as smart and romantically desirable, thereby reinforcing an ideology of white male dominance, Asian Americans and Blacks are typically diminished to demeaning and secondary status. Thi[this] article explores these racist steretotypes [stereotypes] in director Michael Cimino\u27s 19985[1985] film Year of the Dragon (as well as a number of other Hollywood films), arguing that such race and gender-specific imagery is functional; for while it promotes race/gender stereotypes, it also serves to rationalize white dominance as necessary to sustain the status-quo

Expandable pallet for space station interface attachments

Described is a foldable expandable pallet for Space Station interface attachments with a basic square configuration. Each pallet consists of a series of struts joined together by node point fittings to make a rigid structure. The struts have hinge fittings which are spring loaded to permit collapse of the module for stowage transport to a Space Station in the payload bay of the Space Shuttle, and development on orbit. Dimensions of the pallet are selected to provide convenient, closely spaced attachment points between the node points of the relatively widely spaced trusses of a Space Station platform. A pallet is attached to a strut at four points: one close fitting hole, two oversize holes, and a slot to allow for thermal expansion/contraction and for manufacturing tolerances. Applications of the pallet include its use in rotary or angular joints; servicing of splints; with gridded plates; as instrument mounting bases; and as a roadbed for a Mobile Service Center (MSC)