Political economy, political class, and political system in recivilianized Nigeria

African Studies Center Working Paper No. 4

Saint John Fisher College: What\u27s the Connection? (First Friday Lecture, October 3, 2008)

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay\u27s first paragraph. In the year of our Lord 1535, at 5:00 on Tuesday morning, June 22nd, the Lieutenant of the Tower of London awoke the sleeping John Fisher to deliver a message from King Henry VIII: the Bishop of Rochester was to be put to death that day before noon. Because the recently created Cardinal did not recognize Henry’s claim to be supreme head of the Church in England nor the validity of his marriage to Anne Boleyn, John Fisher was judged a traitor. In late May 1535, when the King was informed that Pope Paul III had created John Fisher a Cardinal, he wise-cracked that he would send Fisher’s head to Rome to receive the red hat. The imprisoned Bishop had been suffering a long physical illness, not at all helped by long hours of interrogation and a lengthy mock trial, when the news of his execution arrived. He turned over to catch some additional sleep asking the messenger to, “Awake me in an hour or two because I did not sleep well last night not for fear of death, but because I have been sick and am weak.” When the lieutenant arrived back at 9:00, the ailing Bishop was putting on his clothes. He asked the lieutenant to hand him his fur neck scarf to keep him warm for his ride to the place of execution. He did not want to become any sicker

50 and 10: Years to Remember

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay\u27s first paragraph. My last years in the seminary (1959-1960) were to be academically uneventful until the faculty and students read the startling announcement: Pope John XXIII Summons an Ecumenical Council. Ninety years had passed since the last Council and Vatican Council I was the first in over 300 years. Although we had to go to our textbooks to find out about the workings of a Council, the students, at least, were excited about the possibilities. In this brief reflection I want to share some of my memories of Vatican Council II now celebrating its 50th anniversary and why the 10th anniversary of the first edition of Verbum, a publication of the Religious Studies Department, would probably not be possible without it

Variability of Sediment Removal in a Semi-Arid Watershed

Field and documentary data from Walnut Gulch Watershed, an instrumented semiarid drainage basin of approximately 150 km2 (57 mi2) in southeastern Arizona, show that 83% of the alluvium removed from the basin during a 15‐year erosion episode beginning about 1930 was excavated from the highest‐order stream. The amount of alluvium removed in the erosion episode would have been equal to a covering of about 4 cm (1.6 in) over the entire basin. The rate of sediment removal during the erosion episode was 18 times greater than the rate of present channel sediment transport. Production of sediment from slopes and channel throughput at present rates are approximately equal, and refilling will not occur under present conditions. The channel forms left by the massive evacuation of sediment impose controls on the spatial distribution of tractive force and total stream power that make renewed storage of sediment likely in only a few restricted locations. Modern instrumented records of a decade or more provide an inadequate perspective on long‐term sediment movement. Field and documentary data from Walnut Gulch Watershed, an instrumented semiarid drainage basin of approximately 150 km2 (57 mi2) in southeastern Arizona, show that 83% of the alluvium removed from the basin during a 15‐year erosion episode beginning about 1930 was excavated from the highest‐order stream. The amount of alluvium removed in the erosion episode would have been equal to a covering of about 4 cm (1.6 in) over the entire basin. The rate of sediment removal during the erosion episode was 18 times greater than the rate of present channel sediment transport. Production of sediment from slopes and channel throughput at present rates are approximately equal, and refilling will not occur under present conditions. The channel forms left by the massive evacuation of sediment impose controls on the spatial distribution of tractive force and total stream power that make renewed storage of sediment likely in only a few restricted locations. Modern instrumented records of a decade or more provide an inadequate perspective on long‐term sediment movement

Channel Instability in a Braided Sand Bed River

The Gila River of central Arizona is representative of braided, sand bed rivers in alluvial valleys that have inherent unstable behavior and destructive channel migration. The 112-year record of channel conditions along a portion of the Gila River provides data for the construction of locational probability maps for main flow channels. Zones of stability and hazardous instability alternate with each other at 3.2 km (2 mi) intervals. During the past century the overall sinuosity of the main flow channel has remained close to 1.18, despite numerous changes in actual location. Spatial and temporal variation of sinuosity have occurred in subreaches as a result of sedimentation behind a dam and fluctuations in the density of phreatophyte growth, which both affect the hydraulics of flood flows. Unstable zones of the channel correspond to the surface of the sediment wedge behind the dam and areas dense phreatophyte growth. Stable zones correspond to areas controlled by bedrock or man-made structures, as well as locations determined by these external factors plus the requirement to maintain a consistent sinuosity. Channels such as that of the Gila River do not meet most assumptions of equilibrium and are best understood through probabilistic approaches with an assumption of catastrophic adjustment

A Probabilistic Approach to the Spatial Assessment of River Channel Instability

The deterministic approach to the analysis of river channel instability has not proved to be a completely useful basis for geographic predictions of channel behavior. Economic estimates for benefits of structural channel control projects commonly account for flood inundation, but in arid and semiarid regions these estimates are incomplete because they fail to take into account destructive channel migration and erosion. As a solution, a method whereby historical records of channel locations are reduced to spatially defined probabilistic functions allows calculation of the probability that given parcels of near-channel terrain will be destroyed by erosion. The probability of erosion for any given parcel over a given period of time is directly proportional to the sizes of the annual floods during the period and inversely proportional to two distance measures: distance upstream and distance laterally to the channel. In a test of the probabilistic geographic method using data on the locations of Rillito Creek, Arizona, from 1871 to 1978, erosion probability maps accurately characterized the locations of observed changes. In a 50-year simulated period, erosion ultimately produced economic losses that were 5 times greater than potential inundation losses