Race and Policing: An Agenda for Action

This paper is organized into two parts -- Strategic Voice and Tactical Agency. Strategic Voice argues that problems of race in policing cannot be resolved by the police alone. Other people must help by understanding and ameliorating the social conditions that cause race to be associated with crime and hence become a dilemma for American policing. Rather than accepting these conditions as givens, police leaders with their powerful collective voice should actively call attention to what needs to be changed. Tactical Agency outlines what the police can do on their own initiative to deal with the operational dilemmas of race -- in the communities they serve and in their own organizations

Elämä, kuolema ja vapaamuurarius – William Morganin ruumis

.Syyskuussa 1826 tapahtunut William Morganin salaperäinen katoaminen oli eräs Yhdysvaltain historian kiistellyimmistä ratkaisemattomista kuolemantapauksista. Morgan oli elämässään epäonnistunut muurari ja liikemies, jonka hahmosta tuli kiinnekohta kokonaiselle sukupolvelle amerikkalaisessa politiikassa ja kulttuurissa. Morgan kohtasi kuolemansa jouduttuaan entisten vapaamuurariveljiensä sieppaamaksi ja todennäköisesti myös murhaamaksi New Yorkin osavaltion länsiosissa; tapahtuman taustalla olivat Morganin uhkaukset paljastaa vapaamuurarijärjestön salaisuudet sanomalehdistölle. Paikalliset vapaamuurarit yrittivät myös myötävaikuttaa Morganin sieppauksesta syytettyjen henkilöiden oikeudenkäynteihin. Lopputuloksena oli sarja lieviä tuomioita, valamiehistön pattitilanteita ja vapauttamisia, joiden lietsoman raivokkaan reaktion seurauksena syntyi järjestäytynyt Amerikan vapaamuurariuden vastainen puolue, American Anti-Masonic Party. Seuranneina vuosikymmeninä Morgankohotettiin vapaamuurarien vastustajien keskuudessa marttyyriksi, siinä missä vapaamuurarit esittivät hänet roistona. Vaikka vapaamuurariuden vastaisen puolueen syntyä on käsitelty viime aikoina paljon, on Morganin kuolemaan johtaneita olosuhteita ja hänen kuolemansa ympärille rakennettuja kilpailevia kertomuksia arvioitu tutkimuksessa toistaiseksi vain vähän. Yhteisönsä valtaapitävät haastaneena köyhänä miehenä Morgan mitä todennäköisimmin päätti päivänsä vapaamuurarien murhaamana. Kuolemansa myötä hänestä tuli suurempi hahmo kuin mitä hän oli eläissään ollut, sekä vihamiestensä että ihailijoidensa keskuudessa. Morganin kuoleman myötä vapaamuurarijärjestö joutui Yhdysvalloissa pysyvästi puolustusasemiin. Amerikkalaisten vapaamuurarien kertomuksissa Morgan on jäänyt synkäksi hahmoksi, joka muodostaa täydellisen vastakohdan vapaamuurariuden vastustajien luomalle sankarillisen kristillisen marttyyrin perikuvall

NC's Anti-Predatory Lending Law: Doing What It's Supposed To Do: A Reply

We reply to criticisms of our recent study about North Carolina's Anti-Predatory Lending Law reducing predatory loan terms and preserving access to credit (NC's Anti-Predatory Lending Law: Doing What it's Supposed to Do). To examine whether the decline in overall subprime lending in North Carolina, following passage of the predatory lending law, was due to a decline in loans with legitimate terms or to a reduction in loans with abusive terms, we examined specific market segments and market practices using loan level data from the Loan Performance Asset Backed Securities (ABS) database. Our study revealed that, although the total volume of subprime originations in North Carolina declined, the number of home purchase loans was unaffected by the law. Given the robustness of the LP data, we are baffled by the criticism and disappointed by confusion that has arisen over mistaken data interpretation. For reasons discussed in this paper, we stand by our descriptive study and will continue to use LP data in our future work.Technology and Industry, Regulatory Reform

The Fault Lines of Freedom: The Division and Devlopment of the Soviet Jewry Movement in the United States

On the morning of December 6, 1987, 250,000 people swarmed the U.S. National Mall.1 Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev was to arrive the following day to meet with President Ronald Reagan for a new set of talks that marked a warming in the seemingly interminable Cold War. A future recipient of the Nobel Prize and Time’s person of the decade, Gorbachev had entranced the Western world as a great compromiser who had brought communism with a human face to the Eastern Bloc and the potential of world peace in the face of nuclear apocalypse.2 However, the quarter-million people on the frozen National Mall did not care about Gorbachev’s public image. They wanted him to make a commitment that the millions of Jewish people who had suffered decades of state-sponsored antiSemitism in the U.S.S.R. would be granted increased religious freedom and the right to emigrate. Chants of “Let my people go!” echoed throughout the National Mall over the course of the day, a phrase that had been the clarion call for many of these people for almost thirty years

The Effect Demographics Have On The Demand For Orange Juice

This paper investigates how the demand for orange juice is affected by the demographics of consumers. There are many variables in the orange juice demand equation and demographics are only one. Demographic variables are important in determining the tastes and preferences of different regions. The data that has been collected is weekly data over a two year period of time. The seemingly unrelated regression method will be used to examine the data. This project will be beneficial to orange juice advertising firms and companies that sell orange juice.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Marketing,

Alpha1 -adrenergic stimulation selectively enhances endothelium-mediated vasodilation in rat cremaster arteries.

We have systematically investigated how vascular smooth muscle α1 -adrenoceptor activation impacts endothelium-mediated vasodilation in isolated, myogenically active, rat cremaster muscle 1A arteries. Cannulated cremaster arteries were pressurized intraluminally to 70 mmHg to induce myogenic tone, and exposed to vasoactive agents via bath superfusion at 34°C. Smooth muscle membrane potential was measured via sharp microelectrode recordings in pressurized, myogenic arteries. The α1 -adrenergic agonist phenylephrine (25-100 nmol/L) produced further constriction of myogenic arteries, but did not alter the vasorelaxant responses to acetylcholine (0.3 μmol/L), SKA-31 (an activator of endothelial Ca2+ -dependent K+ channels) (3 μmol/L) or sodium nitroprusside (10 μmol/L). Exposure to 0.25-1 μmol/L phenylephrine or 1 μmol/L norepinephrine generated more robust constrictions, and also enhanced the vasodilations evoked by acetylcholine and SKA-31, but not by sodium nitroprusside. In contrast, the thromboxane receptor agonist U46619 (250 nmol/L) dampened responses to all three vasodilators. Phenylephrine exposure depolarized myogenic arteries, and mimicking this effect with 4-aminopyridine (1 mmol/L) was sufficient to augment the SKA-31-evoked vasodilation. Inhibition of L-type Ca2+ channels by 1 μmol/L nifedipine decreased myogenic tone, phenylephrine-induced constriction and prevented α1 -adrenergic enhancement of endothelium-evoked vasodilation; these latter deficits were overcome by exposure to 3 and 10 μmol/L phenylephrine. Mechanistically, augmentation of ACh-evoked dilation by phenylephrine was dampened by eNOS inhibition and abolished by blockade of endothelial KCa channels. Collectively, these data suggest that increasing α1 -adrenoceptor activation beyond a threshold level augments endothelium-evoked vasodilation, likely by triggering transcellular signaling between smooth muscle and the endothelium. Physiologically, this negative feedback process may serve as a "brake" to limit the extent of vasoconstriction in the skeletal microcirculation evoked by the elevated sympathetic tone