A Stacked Deck: Racial Minorities and the New American Political Economy

The 1960s brought the promise of a new era of social justice for all Americans. Indeed, the overturning of official, state-sanctioned racial structures was a watershed in national life. During the 1970s and 1980s, however, the earlier momentum of the civil rights period dissipated as the end of the postwar economic expansion ushered in a crisis of American culture and polity. Symbolic racism emerged as a powerful political and ideological instrument to buttress resistance to racial and ethnic equality. During the 1980s, a Reagan administration antagonistic to the aspirations of minorities and the working classes in general was able to impose an array of policies (and a discourse) on the nation which polarized ethnic groups and classes even more rigidly. In Reaganism, one sees the congruence and power of symbolic racism and class-targeted economic policy, the capacity of elite forces to carry out economic restructuring at the cost of minority equality. What the post-civil rights period has largely done is to stack the American deck against African Americans and Hispanics

[Review of] Susan A. Glenn. Daughters of the Shtetl: Life and Labor in the Immigrant Generation

In this meticulously researched and highly readable work, Susan A. Glenn examines the experiences of a particular group of Jewish immigrants, European-born daughters who, early in this century, went to work in the American garment industry. The author is attempting here no less than to make sense of the intersecting linkages between eastern European Jewish culture, the immigration experience, working class life, the labor movement, and gender identity

[Review of] Kathleen M. Blee. Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s

We need to know more about why people become racists and what their motivations are for joining racial supremacist groups. Scholarly works dealing with the Ku Klux Klan\u27s meteroic [meteoric] 1920s rise usually emphasize how rapid post-World War urbanization, agricultural depression, and fears of immigrants and cultural changes unsettled traditional-minded citizens in small-town and rural American landscapes and made the Klan attractive. By choosing to concentrate specifically upon women in the Klan, and the complex ways in which race, religion and gender interact, Kathleen Blee, a sociology professor at the University of Kentucky, has opened up new dimensions here

Inhibition of \u3cem\u3eRhizobium etli\u3c/em\u3e Polysaccharide Mutants by \u3cem\u3ePhaseolus vulgaris\u3c/em\u3e Root Compounds

Crude bean root extracts of Phaseolus vulgaris were tested for inhibition of the growth of several polysaccharide mutants of Rhizobium etli biovar phaseoli CE3. Mutants deficient only in exopolysaccharide and some mutants deficient only in the O-antigen of the lipopolysaccharide were no more sensitive than the wild-type strain to the extracts, whereas mutants defective in both lipopolysaccharide and exopolysaccharide were much more sensitive. The inhibitory activity was found at much higher levels in roots and nodules than in stems or leaves. Inoculation with either wild-type or polysaccharide-deficient R. etli did not appear to affect the level of activity. Sequential extractions of the crude root material with petroleum ether, ethyl acetate, methanol, and water partitioned inhibitory activity into each solvent except methanol. The major inhibitors in the petroleum ether and ethyl acetate extracts were purified by C18 high-performance liquid chromatography. These compounds all migrated very similarly in both liquid and thin-layer chromatography but were distinguished by their mass spectra. Absorbance spectra and fluorescence properties suggested that they were coumestans, one of which had the mass spectrum and nuclear magnetic resonances of coumestrol. These results are discussed with regard to the hypothesis that one role of rhizobial polysaccharides is to protect against plant toxins encountered during nodule development

Review of Environmental Morphine Identifications: Worldwide Occurrences and Responses of Authorities

Opium poppies grow wild worldwide, and testing for morphine is now highly sensitive. Currently, many authorities worldwide do not pursue urinary morphine concentrations of less than 100 ng /ml. This is because such low urinary morphine concentrations are likely to be environmental morphine identifications (EMIs) and are also unlikely to be associated with pharmacological responses

Pursuing the Ephemeral, Painting the Enduring: Alzheimer\u27s and the Artwork of William Utermohlen

This book is published in conjunction with the exhibition Pursuing the Ephemeral, Painting the Enduring: Alzheimer’s and the Artwork of William Utermohlen, Exhibition and Scholarly Reflections presented at Illinois Wesleyan University Wakeley Gallery November 6 to December 11, 2015. The exhibition and catalogue are partially funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. William Utermohlen’s work is represented by Chris Boïcos Fine Arts, Paris and Jennifer Norback Fine Arts, Chicago.https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/utermohlen/1000/thumbnail.jp

Bone marrow stromal cells attenuate sepsis via prostaglandin E2— dependent reprogramming of host macrophages to increase their interleukin-10 production

Sepsis causes over 200,000 deaths yearly in the US; better treatments are urgently needed. Administering bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs—also known as mesenchymal stem cells) to mice before or shortly after inducing sepsis by cecal ligation and puncture reduced mortality and improved organ function. The beneficial effect of BMSCs was eliminated by macrophage depletion or pretreatment with antibodies specific for interleukin-10 (IL-10) or IL-10 receptor. Monocytes and/ or macrophages from septic lungs made more IL-10 when prepared from mice treated with BMSCs versus untreated mice. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated macrophages produced more IL-10 when cultured with BMSCs, but this effect was eliminated if the BMSCs lacked the genes encoding Toll-like receptor 4, myeloid differentiation primary response gene-88, tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor-1a or cyclooxygenase-2. Our results suggest that BMSCs (activated by LPS or TNF-α) reprogram macrophages by releasing prostaglandin E2 that acts on the macrophages through the prostaglandin EP2 and EP4 receptors. Because BMSCs have been successfully given to humans and can easily be cultured and might be used without human leukocyte antigen matching, we suggest that cultured, banked human BMSCs may be effective in treating sepsis in high-risk patient groups.Sepsis, a serious medical condition that affects 18 million people per year worldwide, is characterized by a generalized inflammatory state caused by infection. Widespread activation of inflammation and coagulation pathways progresses to multiple organ dysfunction, collapse of the circulatory system (septic shock) and death. Because as many people die of sepsis annually as from acute myocardial infarction1, a new treatment regimen is desperately needed. In the last few years, it has been discovered that BMSCs are potent modulators of immune responses2-5. We wondered whether such cells could bring the immune response back into balance, thus attenuating the underlying pathophysiology that eventually leads to severe sepsis, septic shock and death6,7. As a model of sepsis, we chose cecal ligation and puncture (CLP), a procedure that has been used for more than two decades8. This mouse model closely resembles the human disease: it has a focal origin (cecum), is caused by multiple intestinal organisms, and results in septicemia with release of bacterial toxins into the circulation. With no treatment, the majority of the mice die 24-48 h postoperatively. Originally published Nature Medicine, Vol. 15, No. 1, Jan 200