The Emergence Of The American Agriculture Movement, 1977-1979

Beginning in late 1977, the media, television in particular, portrayed as a unique cultural phenomenon an emerging American Agriculture Movement (AAM), a pending farm strike, and a depressed farm economy that had caused this mobilization. Much was indeed unique, especially to the individual farmers and the specific manner in which they were attempting to apply political pressures, but the American Agriculture Movement itself was similar to other organizational attempts that have taken place in rural America. In the following paper we chronicle the emergence of the American Agriculture Movement as a distinct entity, identify the common features in the emergence of new farm organizations, and examine the conditions of modern society and technology that affect group formation. AN ORGANIZATION DEVELOPS Despite impressions left from journal and media accounts that portrayed a grass roots insurgency, the emergence of AAM must be seen in terms of an active leadership directing organizing efforts to a relatively inactive constituency.1 These leaders encouraged activism through a concerted strategy of mobilization with an emphasis on the national issue of a farm strike, the reintroduction of a traditional farm movement ideology, and the skillful use of public relations.2 AAM began in mid-summer· 1977 in Campo, Colorado, as an outgrowth of those enduring cafe conversations typical in all farm communities. However, Bud Bitner, George Bitner, Alvin Jenkins, Darrel Schroeder, Gene Schroeder, Van Stafford, and a few regular listeners talked mostly about a new political spokesman for farm interests during this particular summer.3 They saw a gloomy farm economy beset by both low prices and high costs, by an unresponsive government, and by an array of farm interest groups who were out of touch with real farm needs. Their immediate reaction to the 1977 Farm Bill, a piece of legislation that confirmed incentives for large-scale production without high supports, intensified their frustrations about each of these conditions and precipitated a decision to protest. Encouraged by the reception their ideas found in their own community, these locally respected larger-scale farmers and farmrelated businessmen proceeded to develop an organization based on rallies and protests against the political system.4 They would prompt and assist farmers throughout the country to organize as local groups, much along the lines of Farm Bureau county chapters, but without Bureau-related emphasis on nonpolitical services. AAM locals would be pockets of farmer interaction and discussion that would inspire political activism instead of emphasizing individual income.5 The local organizations would Jom in statewide and, finally, national demonstrations of movement support. Farmers, the initial organizers believed, were widely concerned about their weakened economic status but politically lethargic because they lacked inspired leadership

Review of Prairie Politics and Society: Regionalism in Decline By Roger Gibbins and The Making of the Modern West: Western Canada Since 1945 Edited by A. W. Rasporich

Both of these books address regionalism in Western Canada. Prairie Politics and Society, written by a political scientist from the University of Calgary, emphasizes the socio-economic development of the prairie provinces, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, providing an integrated examination of prairie politics throughout the twentieth century. The Making of the Modern West, with its mid-century focus, provides a collection of varied descriptive and analytic essays about all aspects of economic, social, and political life in the prairie provinces. Both books are well worth reading. Canadian readers will benefit from the scholarly attention that details the realities of those vital provinces. Statesiders will be even more rewarded as readers, although their interests may not be as keen as those of their Canadian counterparts, because reading about another political system, especially that of a nation so close to the United States in culture and location, brings one\u27s own into relief. These books implicitly bring forth similarities and differences between Canadian and United States prairie/plains. For example, agriculture is troubled in both countries but the abundance of oil in the prairies changes the economic meaning and the political responses to this trouble in Canada. After reading these books, an American can better understand the much discussed and current Canadian selfdescription of their branch plant economic status relative to the U.S., at least for Western Canada. Finally, for all those North Americans grappling with the methodological difficulties of defining or operating regional entities, these two books become required reading

TOWARD THE PUBLIC INTEREST: REDEFINING RURAL POLICY NEEDS

From the perspective of a political theorist, the author advances a basic concept of the public interest derived from the work of Brian Barry. Policies for rural areas are too often monopolized by agricultural income support programs which go to an assignable interest. They, however, do little to benefit or advantage the bulk of the rural populations whose interests are quite heterogenous. Copyright 1982 by The Policy Studies Organization.

Different Product Distributions and Mechanistic Aspects of the Hydrodeoxygenation of m‑Cresol over Platinum and Ruthenium Catalysts

Experimental measurements of the conversion of m-cresol over Pt and Ru/SiO₂ catalysts show very different product distributions, even when the reaction is conducted at similarly low conversions and the same operating conditions (300 °C, 1 atm). That is, although ring hydrogenation to 3-methylcyclohexanone is dominant over Pt, deoxygenation to toluene and C–C cleavage to C₁–C₅ hydrocarbons prevail over Ru. For understanding the differences in reaction mechanisms responsible for this contrasting behavior, the conversion of m-cresol over the Pt(111) and Ru(0001) surfaces has been analyzed using density functional theory (DFT) methods. The DFT results show that the direct dehydroxylation of m-cresol is unfavorable over the Pt(111) surface with an energy barrier of 242 kJ/mol. In turn, the calculations suggest that the reaction could proceed through a keto tautomer intermediate, which undergoes hydrogenation of the carbonyl group followed by dehydration to form toluene and water. At the same time, a low energy barrier for the ring hydrogenation path toward 3-methylcyclohexanone compared to the energy barrier for the deoxygenation path toward toluene over the Pt(111) surface is in agreement with the experimental observations, which show that 3-methylcyclohexanone is the dominant product over Pt/SiO₂ at low conversions. By contrast, the direct dehydroxylation of m-cresol becomes more favorable than the tautomerization route over the more oxophilic Ru(0001) surface. In this case, the deoxygenation path exhibits an energy barrier lower than that for the ring hydrogenation, which is also in agreement with experimental results that show higher selectivity to the deoxygenation product toluene. Finally, it is proposed that a partially unsaturated hydrocarbon surface species C₇H₇* is formed during the direct dehydroxylation of m-cresol over Ru(0001), becoming the crucial intermediate for the C–C bond breaking products C₁–C₅ hydrocarbons, which are observed experimentally over the Ru/SiO₂ catalyst

Anatomical and physiological changes with age

This chapter is aimed to help to inform designers new to the active ageing market. The chapter looks at changes in the body that occur with age, with an emphasis on “natural changes” rather than clinical conditions. The difficulty with this is that one of the aspects of ageing is that the older we get, the more likely we are to see the effects of time, through wear and tear, e.g., osteoarthritis, development of cataracts, development of late-onset diabetes, etc. A lot of the literature is rightly concerned with diseases and their symptoms and how they affect the body. However, to avoid looking at old age as a medical condition, it is necessary to look at the changes that are natural and that affect all of us with time. Many of these changes are not changes of old age but age in general, and may occur earlier or later in different people depending on genetic and environmental factors. It is important that ageing is viewed as continuum in that we start to age as soon as we are conceived. Changes occur naturally as puberty leads to adulthood, and as we age so we realize, in the words of a song about old age by John Gorka, “Things aren't the way they used to be.