Letter Written by Katherine Trickey to Her Folks Dated January 20, 1944

WAC Det , IRTC Camp Wheeler,Georgia Thurs. 20 January 1944 Dear Folks, I have a different job this week. I am typing up lists of the men in the different companies who have to take physical examinations and typing names on the individual physical examination check lists. Just plain typing and not at all interesting-- I\u27m still hoping I\u27ll be put on something more difficult eventually. I do keep busier here than on the other job however which is better. Monday night I washed.clothes and wrote letters and read the first book I\u27ve read since I came in the Army ! We were all restricted to the barracks because the inspection had been so bad and I\u27m afraid it was no punishment at all. Everyone even the girls who had to give up dates seemed to have the best time hanging around getting all those odd jobs done that seem to pile up on one. I had K.P. Tuesday so did not go to the office. It was plenty hard and I was tired when I got through at 8.30 that evening. We did have a two hour break in the afternoon and I fell on the bed and slept the whole two hours. Yesterday we got out of work at 3.30 and went back to the barracks for a physical examination (We get one once a month) It didn\u27t take very long and we had an hour before supper to rest. I had intended to stay in and write you last night but found that Ali Baba and the Forty Theives was showing et the Movies and I couldn\u27t resist going to it. It was very good and colorful I enjoyed it. We are getting more and more girls in until now we have almost two hundred instead of the forty or fifty when we came. However we don\u27t see much of them except at mess because our barracks was full and they all are in other barracks.They are mostly Station Complement Girls so do not work in our office or go back and forth in our bus. I had planned to go to town tonight and have my hair washed and waved but I am fire girl tonight so will have to stay home and tend them. I shall go tomorrow night because I need to badly. There is no place at the Camp yet although plans are being made for us to have a beauty parlor in a room in the same building as our day room. By the way before l forget it, Dad, you\u27d better send me a registration blank for the car fairly soon so that I\u27ll have time to sign it and get it back to you before you need it. Are you taking care of the inspections as they come all? We\u27re getting settled now so that it doesn\u27t seem so new and starnge.[strange] There is plenty to do so that there isn\u27t much time to be homesick and lonesome. We are starting bowling and basketball teams and we\u27ll have softball also as it gets warmer.The weather is better this week.It hasn\u27t rained at all and has been warm enough to go without a top coat in the day­time. Seems good. I must stop now as I think I can find some work to do and I\u27d better do it I suppose although the boys say we haven\u27t anywhere near enough to keep us busy through Saturday. This work is laid out by the week and the week\u27s work is practically done now. I got the paper you sent yesterday.Please send them often as I usually see things that you wouldn\u27t notice or know that I would be interested in them.Thanks. Loads of love to All . Ka

Creation Acts

Her breath leaves her mouth in a cloud and clings to the mirror, fogging it, hiding her face. Her dark eyes are slowly revealed as the glass clears, then her nose, strong and pronounced, and finally her mouth, the full lips pulling into a frown. She might as well be outside, it\u27s so cold. Glancing toward the window, at the huge flakes of snow making their way to the ground below, she sighs. She pulls her jacket tighter around her and reaches for the phone, pausing briefly before picking it up. With gloved fingers she punches the buttons, then drops onto the bed. The springs screech in protest and she frowns again. She slips the receiver beneath her heavy black hair and listens to the hollow ringing. Once. Twice. Three times, then the fumbling clatter as her mother picks up. It\u27s never a smooth motion. Graceless. Clumsy. Then the coarse voice. Hello? The cigarettes are almost tangible through the line. Mom, I made it. Lilly! You got the key all right

John Dewey on the Art of Communication

John Dewey once wrote: "Of all affairs, communication is the most wonderful." For him communication is the highest of the "arts of life," for it is in communication that society is born and nurtured. It is by communication that we discover the possibilities of nature. And it is through communication that we make our shared experience meaningful. It is no wonder, then, that Dewey would conclude The Public and Its Problems with this provocative statement: Democracy "will have its consummation when free social inquiry is indissolubly wedded to the art of full and moving communication."Dewey, however, does not adequately explain what he understands by "the art of full and moving communication" and never tells us how "communication" functions in the varied contexts of practical life. Despite, then, his obvious affection for communication, he leaves many questions about it unanswered. For instance, what makes communication possible? In what kind of situations is communication called for and why? How does an inchoate feeling or idea find concrete embodiment in language? What are the connections among language, communication, thought, feeling, and action? Most importantly, what is the process by which one employs the art of communication to influence the beliefs and behaviors of others? This dissertation addresses these questions by approaching Dewey's thinking on communication from a distinctly rhetorical perspective. Even though Dewey almost never mentions "rhetoric" in his entire corpus, I argue that it is precisely the absence of the term from his writings that makes a rhetorical reading of his work all the more imperative. Such a reading permits us to understand the practical importance of the "art of communication" in the larger context of his social thought. If, then, the problem with Dewey's writing on communication is that it often drifts into abstractions, one remedy is take those abstractions and place them into concrete situations, where communication is required to transform some part of the environment through transaction with human thought and action. Because this kind of activity has been the specific domain of rhetoric since the time of the sophists, it is only appropriate to read Dewey's work through that tradition.In effect, the goal of this dissertation is to explicate Dewey's theory of communication in the terms of a rhetorical theory. But insofar as his thought went through three distinct "periods" in his lifetime, beginning with his Idealistic period in 1880, moving into his Experimental period in 1903, and culminating in his Naturalistic period in 1925, Dewey can be said to have had three implicit rhetorical theories. To articulate and explain each of these theories, I trace Dewey's theoretical development through time and construct, through published works, private correspondence, and biographical material. I show that the first theory envisioned rhetoric as a form of eros that helps us grow towards Absolute self consciousness. The second theory views rhetoric as a form of critical inquiry whose goal is the development of phronçsis, or practical wisdom. The third theory treats rhetoric as a productive technç, or a naturalistic form of art that has the power to transform experience, nature, and society through its transactional character.By tracing Dewey's theoretical development and explicating three implicit theories of rhetoric in his writings, this dissertation not only provides a unique perspective on Dewey's changing views on language, ontology, and social practice, but also demonstrates how each theory can still be effectively used to interpret and guide the art of rhetoric. This kind of work enables us to grasp different facets of this diverse and vibrant art. At the same time, it shows how Dewey's work remains an important resource for those who wish to promote and sustain a democratic way of life by educating citizens in the art of full and moving communication

Horseless Horses: Car Dealing and the Survival of Retail Bargaining

News reports suggest that in the near future, electronic chips on every item in a store will allow consumers to be charged for purchases automatically by simply walking out through the door.1 No checkout clerks will ask the shoppers if they found everything they were looking for; no checkout robots will ask if the customers would prefer to hear their oddly inflected voices speak in English or Spanish; nothing tangible will mark the exchange of value. This invisible transaction will be the latest evolutionary step away from the complex face-to-face negotiation between buyer and seller that once marked almost every retail transaction, one that uniquely survives in the purchase of an automobile. Would-be buyers who walk into automobile dealerships in the 21st century enter a time warp. They are transported back to the early 19th century , to an era before goods were sold to all shoppers at the same posted price and before dissatisfied customers could return their purchases. They are confronted by sales personnel who are masters of the ancient arts of flattery, high pressure, misdirection, misrepresentation, and patience. They are willing to sit for hours haggling over the cost of everything from the basic car itself, to the moonroof, the floor mats, the interest rate on the car loan, and the trade-in value of the owner’s current vehicle—to name just a few of the price points open to negotiation. It makes no difference if the customer is interested in a new or a used car; the process is roughly the same. In the worst (and fairly common) case, the shopper is met at the curb by a “greeter” who tries to determine if he or she is a “looker” or a serious buyer. Buyers are then turned over to a more experienced salesman who finds a car the buyer wants and opens a period of painful and protracted price negotiation, retreating often to an office in the back to check offers and counteroffers with his manager. Eventually the sales manager himself will appear to continue the dickering over price, and, if the customer is unyielding, the sales manager is sometimes replaced by his manager. In the meantime, the buyer has had to work with the dealer’s used-car appraiser to determine the trade-in value of his or her current car. Once the price of the new and used cars are agreed to, the customer is turned over one more time to the business manager who not only negotiates finance and insurance charges, but also tries to sell dealer-installed add-ons such as fabric protection and rust proofing.2 As bad as this system may seem, historically things were even worse. Prior to 1958, the buyer often had no idea what the dealer\u27s standard asking price was, because there was no established way to represent the price of cars on the lot. The requirement that all new cars carry a sticker listing the manufacturer\u27s suggested retail price (MSRP) created a common starting point for price negotiations, but no more than that. The advent of the Internet has armed some buyers with more accurate information about dealer costs, but that has only made the negotiations fiercer, forcing dealers to give better prices to informed buyers and then trying to make up the loss of profit by keeping up the costs to others. With the isolated exception of General Motors Saturn division, dealers adjust the prices of their vehicles to the local market, charging additional markup on highly sought after cars and cutting the price of slow-selling ones. And even on a Saturn lot, where sticker prices are stuck to, negotiation can take place on ancillary products and services, and will always occur on the trade-in allowance for the customer\u27s current car

The Rise and Fall of Sysopdom

"Sysop" has gone from a term of art known only to the bleeding-edge few to a dusty anachronism known only to the bleeding-gums few, without the usual years-long general linguistic acceptance and respect in between. In case the reader is not among the bleeders: sysops (from "system operators") run electronic areas accessible by typing furiously on one’s networked computer, through which one can meet, talk to (well, at least type at), and develop nuanced social relationships with other people similarly typing and reading. Few know what a sysop is because these electronic areas — aspirationally, and sometimes accurately, known as "online communities" — have never quite flourished and today are in decline. Indeed, "online community" joins "sysop" in the oversize dustbin of trite or hopelessly esoteric, hence generally meaningless, cyberspace vernacular. Not that "online community" is obscure, like "sysop"; rather, the term’s emptiness results from its abuse. "Online community" is used by Internet companies the way a motivational speaker uses "excellence," an academic uses "new paradigm," or a lawyer uses "justice": it represents something once craved and still invoked (if only as a linguistic placeholder) even as it is believed by all but the most naïve to be laughably beyond reach. Since it’s applied to almost anything, it now means vague warm fuzzies and nothing more. The craft of sysoping and the phenomenon of online community (non-hollowly defined) have gone down together even as the Internet has burgeoned, and I want to explain what has happened to sysops as a way of explaining what has happened to the truly great and transformative promise of online communities. Law has played a major role in two distinct ways. First, sysops and the members of the communities they lead have struggled through lawlike reflection to arrive at just solutions to the disputes that inevitably arise in the course of their interactions. This struggle is a large part of what has made the communities so interesting. Second, fear of the formalistic application of the machinery of the real-world legal system is threatening to drive the amateur sysop to extinction and thereby to destroy what’s left of online community

No. 61: Unfriendly Neighbours: Contemporary Migration from Zimbabwe to Botswana

Although Zimbabweans have often crossed into Botswana for various reasons, the numbers involved escalated dramatically after 2000 as Zimbabwe entered a prolonged economic and political crisis from which it has still not recovered. While considerable research and policy attention has been given to the migration of Zimbabweans to South Africa, their movement to Botswana has a much lower profile, except when the two countries engage in charges and counter-charges over issues such as the building of electrified fences between the two countries or the corporal punishment of Zimbabwean migrants in Botswana. At such moments, relations between these two close neighbours are anything but friendly. This paper sets out to examine the nature and consequences of contemporary migration from Zimbabwe to Botswana. The analysis is based on a survey in 2010 of migrants who had entered Botswana for the first time within the previous five years. The survey was conducted in Gaborone and Francistown and supplemented by in-depth interviews with 50 migrants. The paper also uses official statistics from the Government of Botswana to track volumes and flows of migrants who cross the border through official border posts. Official statistics show that the number of people legally entering Botswana from Zimbabwe more than doubled from 477,000 in 2000 to over 1 million in 2008. More than three-quarters of the traffic between the two countries comes through the road border at Ramokgwebana with another 5-10% entering at Ramokgwebana by rail. The only other significant entry point is at Kazungula in the far north of Botswana where the numbers tripled from 19,000 in 2006 to 63,000 in 2008. The vast majority of Zimbabwean migrants give “visitor” or “holiday” as their purpose of entry, which gives them up to 90 days legal stay in Botswana. In practice many stay for much shorter periods, especially those who cross the border to shop or to trade. The numbers entering for “business” purposes rose from around 12,500 in 2005 to over 40,000 in 2008. The number who said they were entering for employment increased from 4,110 to 13,586 between 2005 and 2008 but remained relatively unimportant as a proportion of total entries. By contrast, 43% of the migrants in the survey gave “seeking work” as their primary reason followed by 14% who came “to take up a job”. These figures are similar to those of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa except that a greater proportion of responses of those who went to South Africa related to the search for work (33% versus 23%). Botswana is also a stepping-stone for migrants who then move on to South Africa, their ultimate destination. Eighteen percent of the migrants interviewed for this study said they intended to proceed to South Africa to live and work there, with the most likely destinations being Johannesburg, Cape Town and Pretoria. A companion study conducted in Cape Town and Johannesburg found that 19% of migrants had been in Botswana prior to coming to South Africa. In the three years from 2006 to 2008, however, more Zimbabweans entered Botswana from South Africa than the other way round (75,322 Zimbabweans arrived in Botswana from South Africa and only 59,721 left Botswana for South Africa.) This suggests either that returning home via Botswana may be easier for some or that Botswana is seen as a better option, having experienced South Africa and its xenophobic population. Botswana also records and publishes data on departures from the country. Over time, the number of temporary arrivals and departures should even out. However, some Zimbabweans enter Botswana legally, say as a visitor or on holiday, and then find a job and stay for more than the 90 days allowed by their temporary residence permit. In the three years from 2006 to 2008, a total of 2,376,807 Zimbabweans entered Botswana through legal border posts and 2,354,842 left, a difference of only 21,965. In 2006 the number of departures even exceeded the number of entries by 95,000. In other words Botswana’s own migration data suggests that the vast majority of Zimbabweans who enter legally also leave. Although Zimbabweans in Botswana come from all strata of society, Botswana was able to take particular advantage of the brain drain from Zimbabwe after 2000. The number of skilled and professional Zimbabweans given work permits increased from 1,177 in 2003 to 8,779 in 2009. Over this same period, the proportion of work permit holders from Zimbabwe rose from 20% to 46% of the total. At the same time, many migrants complain that they are discriminated against in the Botswana labour market and that it is virtually impossible to get a job in the public sector, with the exception of health and education. The survey revealed the following profile of recent migrants to Botswana: Fifty-five percent of the sample was male and 45% female. The majority of the migrants (over 60%) were under the age of 40. However, there was distinct gender difference within the sample with female migrants generally being younger than male. Only 4% of the men were under the age of 25, compared with 12% of the women. Thirty percent of the men were under the age of 30 compared with 42% of the women. The majority of men (57%) and many of the women (46%) were married. Almost half (49%) of all males were heads of household in Zimbabwe and 40% of all females were spouses of household heads. Most (59%) had work permits while about a quarter possessed other official documents. Only 3% were permanent residents in Botswana. About 14% were irregular migrants (with slightly more males than females). There was a significant difference between male and female holders of official travel documents: 68% of males and 48% of females had work permits. Almost three-quarters of those with work permits had been professionals in Zimbabwe. The majority of the migrants (78%) were employed, with 81% of those in full time employment. Men dominated the ranks of fulltime employees while most part-timers were women. Amongst the self-employed, there were more males than females. About 30% of the migrants had established businesses in the formal and informal sectors in Botswana since they arrived. Almost 45% of the migrants earned extra money from a second occupation. Just over half (51%0 of the migrants had monthly incomes between P2,500 and P14,999 while 30% earned less than P2,500. There was a significant association between income and education as well as immigration status. Most are circular migrants, returning home relatively frequently. Around 13% return to Zimbabwe at least once a month and another 24% every few months. Over 80% return at least once a year. Only 9% had never been back to Zimbabwe. Zimbabwean migrants in Botswana are regular remitters: just over 80% had remitted money home during the previous year. Nearly a third (32%) remitted at least once a month and another 35% a few times a year. There is a clear relationship between the frequency of remitting and length of time in Botswana. For example, 35% of those who had been in Botswana for less than a year had never remitted, compared to 16% of those who had been there for 1-2 years and only 1% who had been there 3-5 years. SAMP\u27s recent study of Zimbabweans in South Africa found that 66% of migrants used informal transfer channels for remittances. In contrast, only 35% of Zimbabweans in Botswana use informal mechanisms (including 22% using personal transfer). In contrast to South Africa, 64% of migrants in Botswana use formal remittance channels: 51% remit through formal money transfer agencies (e.g. Western Union and Money Gram) and 13% use banks. The cast majority of migrants (90%) said they intended to return, eventually, though most wanted a change in Zimbabwe’s political system to occur before making plans to return. At the same time, half said it was likely or very likely that they would return home for good within two years. There was a clear relationship between educational level and intention to return with the more educated and skilled less likely to foresee an early return to Zimbabwe. The lack of enthusiasm for an early return to Zimbabwe was reflected in the comparisons that migrants made between the two countries. On virtually every economic/livelihood measure, Botswana was judged to be superior to Zimbabwe

Positron annihilation in the nuclear outflows of the Milky Way

Observations of soft gamma rays emanating from the Milky Way from SPI/INTEGRAL reveal the annihilation of ~2 × 1043 positrons every second in the Galactic bulge. The origin of these positrons, which annihilate to produce a prominent emission line centred at 511 keV, has remained mysterious since their discovery almost 50 yr ago.Aplausible origin for the positrons is in association with the intense star formation ongoing in the Galactic centre. Moreover, there is strong evidence for a nuclear outflow in the MilkyWay.We find that advective transport and subsequent annihilation of positrons in such an outflow cannot simultaneously replicate the observedmorphology of positron annihilation in the Galactic bulge and satisfy the requirement that 90 per cent of positrons annihilate once the outflow has cooled to 104 K.Parts of this research were conducted by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO), through project number CE110001020. IRS is supported by the Australian Research Council grant FT16010002

Lexicographical Explorations of Neologisms in the Digital Age. Tracking New Words Online and Comparing Wiktionary Entries with ‘Traditional’ Dictionary Representations

This thesis explores neologisms in two distinct but related contexts: dictionaries and newspapers. Both present neologisms to the world, the former through information and elucidation of meaning, the latter through exemplification of real-world use and behaviour. The thesis first explores the representation of new words in a range of different dictionary types and formats, comparing entries from collaborative dictionary Wiktionary with those in expert-produced dictionaries, both those categorised here as ‘corpus-based’ and those termed ‘corpus-informed’. The former represent the most current of the expert-produced dictionary models, drawing on corpora for almost all of the data they include in an entry, while the latter draw on a mixture of old-style citations and Reading Programmes for much of their data, although this is supplemented with corpus information in some areas. The purpose of this part of the study was to compare degrees of comprehensiveness between the expert and collaborative dictionaries as demonstrated by the level and quality of detail included in new-word entries and in the dictionaries’ responsiveness to new words. This is done by comparing the number and quality of components that appear in a dictionary entry, both the standardised elements found in all of the dictionary types, such as the ‘headword’ at the top of the entry, to the non-standardised elements such as Discussion Forums found almost exclusively in Wiktionary. Wiktionary is found to provide more detailed entries on new words than the expert dictionaries, and to be generally more flexible, responding more quickly and effectively to neologisms. This is due in no small part to the way in which every time an entry or discussion is saved, the entire site updates, something which occurs for expert-produced online dictionaries once a quarter at best. The thesis further explores the way in which the same neologisms are used in four UK national newspapers across the course of their neologic life-cycle. In order to do this, a new methodology is devised for the collection of web-based data for context-rich, genre-specific corpus studies. This produced highly detailed, contextualised data that not only showed how certain newspapers are more likely to use less-well established neologisms (the Independent), while others have an overall stronger record of neologism usage across the 14 years of the study (The Guardian). As well as generating findings on the use and behaviour of neologisms in these newspapers, the manual methodology devised here is compared with a similar automated system, to assess which approach is more appropriate for use in this kind of context-rich database/corpus. The ability to accurately date each article in the study, using information which only the manual methods could accurately access, coupled with the more targeted approach it can offer by excluding unwanted texts from the outset made it the more appropriate approach

Plotinus and the development of Neoplatonism

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston UniversityThe problem of the thesis is to investigate the philosophy of Plotinus with particular reference to its historical roots and its structure as a system. The task here is two-fold: an historical survey of post-Aristotelian thought and the investigation of Plotinus' thought in relation to Plato and Platonism is one aspect of the method of the thesis; an investigation of Plotinus' philosophy is the other. Philosophy after Aristotle tended toward wide eclecticism and broad interpenetration of ideas. The Academy became Skeptical, the Skeptics, Epicureans and Peripatetics re-evaluated the insights of illustrious forebears, and the Stoics worked out a history of practical thought. Almost alone in the immediate post-Aristotelian era, Poseidonius rose above epigonic speculation and approached the genius of the great thinkers. Neopythagoreanism rose from an obscure religion to a flourishing school in the period just before the advent of Christianity. Platonism returned to the spiritual vision of Plato at this time. Several Platonists of this period anticipated many of Plotinus' interpretations of Plato. Philo Judaeus platonized the Jewish tradition in allegorical expansion. In the First and Second Centuries, A.D., the demise of classical culture was accompanied by the rise of Christianity. Early Christian philosophy was almost wholly platonized as it created. The Third Century, A.D., was an era of almost total cultural decline in the Roman Empire. Moral and intellectual poverty was accompanied by a new thirst for religious certainty. Oriental religions had a vital appeal for such an age. Christianity grew rapidly in this climate. Astrology and magic became popular handmaidens of religion. In such a setting, Plotinus appeared. Plotinus' life was not outwardly extraordinary. He founded a school in Rome in 245 A.D., and died there in 270 A.D. He was widely known and revered, as a man and as a thinker. Plotinus' thought is an attempt at a monistic interpretation of Plato. All of the apparent reality is but for the formal expression of the Realm of Ideas. This realm is also the mind of the One (God). The All-Soul creates the apparent realm. Matter is uniformed potentiality, and evil results therefrom. Although man participates in material extension, his home is in the Divine, and all thinking should be directed toward his flight from his present state. Plotinus' philosophy is throughout a statement of the ultimate status of man and the universe and the means whereby man can and must rise from his present condition. The Oe is the nameless source of all Being for Plotinus. Through emanative creation, the One authors everything without itself suffering loss. Pursuit of the Good, the True and the Beautiful is a unified quest for immersion in The One. This is ecstasy. It is also the hope of life and the promise of death. Plotinus maintained his doctrinal loyalty to Plato without exception. Important differences in doctrines can be perceived, however. Nonetheless, Plotinus was a Platonist. Aristotle's criticisms of Plato are taken into account by Plotinus. Several other direct historical antecedents are observable in Plotinus' thought. Plotinus provides Greek thought with a rare and enduring width and depth of philosophical penetration. At once, he furnishes the dying pagan culture with a final great philosophical system, and he establishes a way of life and thought which early Christian culture was to use in its highest philosophical expression