[Review of] Gerald Vizenor. Wordarrows: Indians and Whites in the New Fur Trade

It was George Orwell who saw, more clearly than most, that “newspeak” was often used by government and public institutions in communicating with their public. He warned that such jargon would separate government from the governed

The Missed Appointment: A Resident\u27s Journal through Activity to Introspection

There was one experience during my medical school psychiatry rotation that I could not forget. In a classroom on the cardiology ward, I listened, transfixed like a child at a magic show, as a psychiatrist interviewed a man who was recovering from a heart attack. Initially the man denied any stresses in his life that might have affected his health, but as he went on, a different story unfolded. He spoke of his recent retirement, his wife\u27s dissatisfactions and hostility, his disappointment with his children, his growing sense of failure and futility, and the recurring tightness in his chest that he had tried to ignore. His doctors colluded in his denial, for they were too busy with his EKGs and cardiac enzymes to wonder about his emotional well-being. I could see the despair, but also the hope in his face as he talked with the psychiatrist. At the end of the interview the patient was in tears, and though I hid them from my colleagues, so was I. Powerful and mysterious stuff, this business of feelings, much more complicated than anything I had yet encountered in my medical training, but also much more threatening. It seemed that talking to patients about their feelings would bring into question my own feelings, a Pandora\u27s box I wasn\u27t ready to open. A seed had been planted, but it was not to be tended to for some time to come

Trajectories of Couple Relationship Quality after Childbirth: Does Marriage Matter?

Marital quality typically declines following the birth of a (first) child, as parenthood brings new identities and responsibilities for mothers and fathers. Yet, it is unclear whether nonmarital relationship quality follows a similar trajectory. This paper uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N=2,500) with latent growth curve and difference-in-difference models to examine relationship quality for co-resident couples over five years after a child’s birth. Findings suggest that marriage at the time of the birth is protective for couple relationship quality, net of various individual characteristics associated with marriage. Among cohabiting couples at birth, those who subsequently marry have better relationship quality compared to all who do not marry, though not compared to stably cohabiting couples.

Optical and near infrared photometry of Butcher-Oemler clusters

Rich clusters of galaxies at moderate redshifts (z approx. .3) have a larger proportion of optically blue galaxies than their low redshift counterparts. Spectroscopic examination of the blue galaxies by various authors has shown that the blue galaxies are generally Seyferts, show evidence for recent star formation, or are foreground objects. Unfortunately, spectroscopy is too time consuming to be used on large samples. Thus, we have looked for a way to separate Seyferts, starbursts, ellipticals and nonmembers using photometry alone. Five moderate redshift clusters, Abell numbers 777, 963, 1758, 1961 and 2218, have been observed in the V, R and K bands. We model the spectral energy distributions of various kinds of galaxies found in clusters and derive observed colors. We have modeled the spectral energy distributions (SED) of several kinds of galaxies and compute their colors as a function of redshift. We expect to see ellipticals, spirals, starbursts, post-starburst and Seyfert galaxies. The SED of elliptical and Sbc galaxies was observed by Rieke and Rieke. The SEDs for the starburst galaxies was created by adding a reddened 10(exp 8) year old burst to a spiral galaxy SED. The post-starburst (E+A) galaxy SEDs are composed of a slightly reddened 10(exp 9) year old burst and elliptical galaxy SED. SEDs for the Seyferts were created by adding a v(exp -1.1) power law, and a hot dust thermal spectrum to the Sbc. From the SEDs the colors of galaxies at various redshifts with assorted filters were computed. Lilly & Gunn (1985) have optical and infrared photometry for a sample of galaxies in CL0024+1654 observed spectroscopically by Dressler, Gunn and Schneider (1985). We have used this data to choose the most appropriate SEDs for our starburst and post-starburst models. The most likely explanation for the optically blue colors in most cluster galaxies is star formation. Very few galaxies lie in the Seyfert locus. Abel 1758 has more Seyfert candidates than the other clusters, we observed. It seems possible to roughly sort types of galaxies in clusters by color alone. The cluster population seems to vary considerably between clusters, but our K selected sample has few Seyferts in any cluster