Eros and Polemos: Eroticized Combat in the Trojan War Myth

The connections between belligerence and sexuality are well known to ethologists and anthropologists and have received some attention in literary analysis. This study examines the Trojan War, in the mythical matter itself and in its treatment by Homer, as a figurative amatory conquest. We note first the element of female eroticism in the background: the war begins with a beauty contest and Helen’s abduction, and Homer’s Iliad begins in a symmetrical pattern with a quarrel over desirable captive women. These events reflect a primal relationship between combat and access to females. But we also notice that the Trojan males are slightly feminized. Men of the royal line – Ganymede, Tithonus, Anchises, and Paris – are notable for beauty, and Ganymede becomes the passive object of Zeus’ desire. Homer appears to emphasize this phenomenon in the battle scenes of the Iliad, which emphasize single combats that take on the character of aggressive courtships. Trojans die in far greater numbers, and are often depicted as passive victims of superior Greek masculinity. The beauty of the Trojan warriors is often described in feminine terms. They plead in the “soft words of maidens,” they are slain and left stripped on the battlefield. The Trojan forces exhibit indiscipline and panic far more commonly than the Greeks. This tendency climaxes in the defeat of Hector, who likes his plight to that of an unclad defenseless woman or a lover (22.128-9), who flees in helpless terror and whose stripped body his Greek enemies admire after his death (22.367). We conclude that this archaic vision of warfare over connubial rights subsumes a strong homoerotic impulse wherein the defeat and domination of foemen has the nature of a sexual conquest, and killing figures as a negative procreation. This mentality seems limited to archaic combat dominated by duels, which can be understood as symbolic couplings, and it diminishes greatly in later periods

The Negative Banquet of Odysseus and the Cyclops

Banquet scenes abound in Homer’s Odyssey and they contribute significantly to a sense of human community by engendering bonds of guest and host (xenia) and the virtues of sharing, equality, and moderation; in the encounters between Odysseus and alien peoples, the type of food and the means of taking it serve as a touchstone for civilized life. Another theme is the conflict of humans with the barbarism of nature, as in the central encounter between Odysseus’ men and the Cyclops Polyphemus, which presents a conflict between civilized humanity and a subhuman culture trapped in a primitive pastoral stage, narrated through the medium of a perverted banquet ritual. The conflict is expressed through a set of dichotomies: wine, the beverage of settled life vs. milk, the drink of nomadic barbarism; community vs. antisocial isolation; self-control vs. drunkenness and gluttony; wits vs. brute strength; xenia vs. cannibalism. The last theme merits special attention as the cannibalism taboo is strong in Greek culture, as mythology attests, and wherever cannibalism emerges it represents a blasphemous inversion of xenia and/or a regression to primal chaos. The Cyclops, a shepherd subsisting on milk and cheese, enacts a parody of the feasting rites in which he dines alone rather than sharing with his visitors, he literally dines on his visitors rather than feeding them, and then makes a mockery of the guest’s and host’s exchange of gifts. But the Cyclops lacks one crucial quality which distinguishes men from children or savages: self-control, sophrosyne. His heedless swillage of the choice wine which Odysseus has given him effectively emasculates him and allows Odysseus and his crew to defeat him by planning and teamwork. In this exemplary clash of mankind with its barbaric negative image, the former has won through community, intelligence, and self-control, all virtues fostered and strengthened by the shared meal, one of the most exemplary scenes in Homer’s Odyssey

The Spirit of Serrano: Past, Present and Future

A decades-long school funding revolution continues in the United States. The litigation sparked by the Supreme Court of California\u27s 1971 decision in Serrano v. Priest continues to reshape the legal, political, and educational landscape in the United States, affecting the lives of children, parents, educators, and taxpayers throughout the nation. Serrano-inspired lawsuits have transformed school funding policies nationwide, resulting in billions of dollars in new funding and a notable redistribution of resources among school districts. Serrano-inspired litigation has changed public schools in many states to a degree second only to the transformation that followed Brown v. Board of Education. To understand school funding litigation in the present and to better anticipate future developments, a review of the past, present, and likely future of school funding litigation is invaluable. This article briefly reviews and discusses the past, present and likely future of Serrano-inspired school funding litigation

Commentary: Grades- Achievement, Attendance, or Attitude

This article addresses the impact that grades can have on the lives of students and discusses what grades actually represent in terms of student achievement. It also addresses disputes involving grading policies that allowed non-academic factors in decisions on grades or academic credit. The article includes a brief summary of the history and legal theories related to grading challenges and then provides a review of the relevant case law including Board of Curators of the University of Missouri v. Horowitz, Barnard v. Inhabitants of Shelburne, Tinker v. Des Moines, Goss v. Lopez, Knight v. Board of education, Gutierrez v. School District, and Fisher v. Burkburnett independent School District. The article concludes with a discussion of judicial treatment of these issues and the lessons these cases teach for establishing and administering a legally sound grading policy. In order to avoid successful challenges to their grading policies the authors recommend that school officials focus primarily on academic evaluations, respect students’ due process rights, and comply with applicable state and federal laws

Financing Public Elementary and Secondary Education in Georgia

In 1986 the Quality Basic Education (QBE) Act was established to provide funding for public elementary and secondary education in Georgia

Blood and Turnips in School Funding Litigation

There are always winners and losers in school funding reforms, which often leads to protracted litigation in these cases. School funding reforms directly affect tax burdens, the distribution of resources, and the allocation of educational opportunities. Competition over limited resources is inevitable. Although win-win scenarios are ideal, they are not likely in school funding disputes. Limited resources generally make school funding reforms a zero-sum game, with significant systemic changes redefining who wins and loses under the new system. After the initial exuberance that occurs with a court victory, reform advocates must still face the challenge of translating their court victory into authentic and lasting improvements in school funding. Ultimately, this implementation means obtaining legislative support for more money for the schools represented by funding reformers. In times of large budget surpluses it may be possible to increase funding for reform advocates\u27 schools without generating any discernible pain for others. Budget surpluses never last forever, however, and sooner or later reform advocates will encounter the state\u27s firm fiscal and political realities. Eventually more money for funding reformers\u27 schools will mean less money for other schools, higher taxes, or both. Of course, these options will be politically unpopular. For example, in response to a judicial order for public school funding reform, a chairman of a New York State Senate Education Committee replied: “We are not the federal government ... we can\u27t go downstairs to the basement of the Capitol and print money .... The court has set the bar so high as to make it virtually impossible in the real political world in which we operate.” On the road from a court victory to authentic and lasting reforms there are two hard truths: 1) No matter how noble the purpose, money cannot be allocated for that purpose if there is no money available; and 2) Authentic and lasting reform cannot be achieved without adequate and sustained political support for the reform. Although it is not the panacea that some school reformers hoped it would be, judicial decisions in school funding disputes can be helpful to reform advocates. Authentic and lasting changes in school funding require adequate fiscal resources, effective school funding legislation, and sufficient long-term political will to enact and sustain positive changes in school funding systems. Judicial involvement may serve as a catalyst for change, but reform advocacy must extend more broadly to encompass the political realm. The only enduring resolution to school funding problems lies in persuading the electorate that making a quality education available to every child is clearly in everyone\u27s long-term self-interests. Advocates must persuade the electorate and lawmakers that educational inequities should be eliminated not only because they are unconstitutional, but because they are unwise public policy. Judicial opinions may contribute to this process by calling public attention to the problems caused by inadequate funding of public education. The hearts and minds of the public and their political representatives, however, are unlikely to be won through an unrealistic and unpopular mandate from an overreaching court. Court orders resulting in higher taxes and unpopular school resource shifts in the state may even inflame public opinion against future school funding reform efforts, and increase public support for alternatives to public schools. In the end, judicial extremism may simply lead to legislative extremism to oppose the court\u27s actions

Protecting Children From the Dark Side of the Internet

This article examines the history of judicial and legislative responses to the issue of consumption of pornography and other harmful materials over the Internet by children. The article begins by giving a brief overview of free speech law in the US. Next, summaries of relevant U.S. legislation and corresponding litigation on Internet free speech are given. Highlighted are: 1) the Communications Decency Act (CDA) and the U.S. Supreme Court’s response in Reno v. ACLU; 2) The Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) and Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition; 3) the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and United States v. American Library Association; and 4) the Child online Protection Act (COPA) and Ashcroft v. ACLU. The article concludes with an analysis of the issues raised by the legislation and litigation, and comes to the conclusion that the best way to currently protect both children and freedom of speech is to use technology to help control the problems of technology and to use government resources to help empower parents and educators to better protect and supervise children when they use the Internet

Speciation and Mobilization of Toxic Heavy Metal Ions by Methanogenic Bacteria

HWRIC Project HWR 92-09