In the Shadow of Service: Veteran Masculinity and Civil–Military Disjuncture in the United States

In the period since the abolition of the draft the number of soldiers and veterans in the United States, in both absolute and relative terms, has declined. At the same time the United States has become increasingly militarized at home and dependent on the global projection of force. In this article I explore the impact of these apparently contradictory developments, focusing on the post-service lives of what I call mobilized veterans—those veterans actively involved with veterans’ organizations. In the context of such veterans’ organizations the consequences of militarization in a context of increased alienation of civilian life from the military as institution become visible in the gendered performances and identities of veterans struggling to inhabit subjectivities that at once demonstrate normality and yet draw upon the potential authority of military masculinity

White Nationalism Revisited: Demographic Dystopia and White Identity Politics

Two stimuli, both dating to 2002, drove me to write this paper. The first (and by far the more visceral) was my attendance at the biannual conference of American Renaissance (AR)- the flagship publication of the sector of the American far right considered herein. The conference was held in Washington, D.C. suburb of Herndon, Virginia, and it reflected this demographic. It was attended by some 250 mostly well-dressed, mostly middle-aged white men-along with a smattering of women-a number of whom held advanced degrees of one flavor or another. There is nothing too surprising in this: the ignorant redneck stereotype of the racist right has always been more hopeful polemic than reality

The Warrior Ethos: Discourse And Gender In The United States Army Since 9/11

At the heart of current doctrinal debates in the United States Army between counter-insurgents and warfighters is a fight over the gender identity of the institution itself. With women making up an increasing portion of the Army the default \u27maleness\u27 of the institution has become problematic. This has been exacerbated by post-9/1l battlefields in which soldiers not traditionally trained for combat operations, including women, come into contact with the enemy. The Army\u27s response has been twofold. First it has created a new institutional gender identity - the warrior - that is meant to provide women and soldiers traditionally not directly involved in combat with a covering masculinity. Second it has resisted and rejected non-combat operations as insufficiently warrior like. This has created conflict with counterinsurgents seeking to apply modes of power less oriented to destruction - so-called kinetics and more towards domination and transformation

Measuring Fundamental Galactic Parameters with Stellar Tidal Streams and SIM PlanetQuest

Extended halo tidal streams from disrupting Milky Way satellites offer new opportunities for gauging fundamental Galactic parameters without challenging observations of the Galactic center. In the roughly spherical Galactic potential tidal debris from a satellite system is largely confined to a single plane containing the Galactic center, so accurate distances to stars in the tidal stream can be used to gauge the Galactic center distance, R_0, given reasonable projection of the stream orbital pole on the X_GC axis. Alternatively, a tidal stream with orbital pole near the Y_GC axis, like the Sagittarius stream, can be used to derive the speed of the Local Standard of Rest (\Theta_LSR). Modest improvements in current astrometric catalogues might allow this measurement to be made, but NASA's Space Interferometry Mission (SIM PlanetQuest) can definitively obtain both R_0 and \Theta_LSR using tidal streams.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letters (minor text revisions). Version with high resolution figures available at http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~drlaw/Papers/GalaxyParameters.pd

Targeted DNA demethylation of the Arabidopsis genome using the human TET1 catalytic domain.

DNA methylation is an important epigenetic modification involved in gene regulation and transposable element silencing. Changes in DNA methylation can be heritable and, thus, can lead to the formation of stable epialleles. A well-characterized example of a stable epiallele in plants is fwa, which consists of the loss of DNA cytosine methylation (5mC) in the promoter of the FLOWERING WAGENINGEN (FWA) gene, causing up-regulation of FWA and a heritable late-flowering phenotype. Here we demonstrate that a fusion between the catalytic domain of the human demethylase TEN-ELEVEN TRANSLOCATION1 (TET1cd) and an artificial zinc finger (ZF) designed to target the FWA promoter can cause highly efficient targeted demethylation, FWA up-regulation, and a heritable late-flowering phenotype. Additional ZF-TET1cd fusions designed to target methylated regions of the CACTA1 transposon also caused targeted demethylation and changes in expression. Finally, we have developed a CRISPR/dCas9-based targeted demethylation system using the TET1cd and a modified SunTag system. Similar to the ZF-TET1cd fusions, the SunTag-TET1cd system is able to target demethylation and activate gene expression when directed to the FWA or CACTA1 loci. Our study provides tools for targeted removal of 5mC at specific loci in the genome with high specificity and minimal off-target effects. These tools provide the opportunity to develop new epialleles for traits of interest, and to reactivate expression of previously silenced genes, transgenes, or transposons

Co-targeting RNA Polymerases IV and V Promotes Efficient De Novo DNA Methylation in Arabidopsis.

The RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM) pathway in plants controls gene expression via cytosine DNA methylation. The ability to manipulate RdDM would shed light on the mechanisms and applications of DNA methylation to control gene expression. Here, we identified diverse RdDM proteins that are capable of targeting methylation and silencing in Arabidopsis when tethered to an artificial zinc finger (ZF-RdDM). We studied their order of action within the RdDM pathway by testing their ability to target methylation in different mutants. We also evaluated ectopic siRNA biogenesis, RNA polymerase V (Pol V) recruitment, targeted DNA methylation, and gene-expression changes at thousands of ZF-RdDM targets. We found that co-targeting both arms of the RdDM pathway, siRNA biogenesis and Pol V recruitment, dramatically enhanced targeted methylation. This work defines how RdDM components establish DNA methylation and enables new strategies for epigenetic gene regulation via targeted DNA methylation

Davidsonian semantic theory and cognitive science of religion

This article investigates the extent to which the cognitive science of religion (CSR) and Donald Davidson’s semantic holism (DSH) harmonize. We first characterize CSR, philosophical semantics (and more specifically DSH). We then note a prima facie tension between CSR and DSH’s view of First-Person Authority (that we know what is meant when we speak in a way that we do not when others speak). If CSR is correct that the causes of religious belief are located in cognitive processes in the mind/brain, then religious insiders might have no idea what they are talking about: only the scholar of CSR would have a chance of knowing what they ‘really’ mean. The article argues that the resolution to this problem is to take seriously DSH’s rejection of semantic bifurcation, specifically rejecting the idea that religious and non-religious language can be sharply distinguished. We conclude by supporting the following claims: (i) common cognitive neural/psychological processes are explanatorily relevant in proposed meaning-theories for any discourse, and (ii) those processes need semantic supplementation with reference to external and naturalistic factors (biological, cultural, environmental etc.)

Low-input, high quality legume hays for north Queensland

Perennial herbaceous legumes grown for hay can improve beef and dairy production in north Queensland through providing affordable high-quality (digestible protein) dry season feed. Eleven Arachis ecotypes (A. pintoi (5), A. glabrata (3), A. paraguariensis (2) and A. kretschmeri (1)), two Stylosanthes guianensis varieties and two commercially recommended Medicago sativa varieties were grown for hay under irrigation using standardised populations in replicated small-plots over two wet seasons (summer) and compared for dry matter production and fodder quality using 8 week cutting cycles. All initially grew well but M. sativa plants were damaged by leaf and stem diseases during wet summer periods reducing leaf and stem growth and resulting in open, weedy stands; the Arachis and Stylosanthes were relatively unaffected and exhibited strong summer-dominant growth throughout the study. There were significant species and varietal differences in biomass production and some A. pintoi, M. sativa and S. guianensis produced over 30 T DM (stem plus leaf above 5 cm cut height) over 19 months. Arachis glabrata also yielded well (16-18 T DM) following a prolonged establishment phase. Feed quality was high for all legumes compared, and overall best in the Arachis spp., with crude protein percentages mostly above 16% and high levels of protein and carbohydrate rumen degradability

Psychological and educational interventions for atopic eczema in children.

Psychological and educational interventions have been used as an adjunct to conventional therapy for children with atopic eczema to enhance the effectiveness of topical therapy. This is an update of the original Cochrane review