Book Review: \u3cem\u3eThinking the Unthinkable: The Riddle of Classical Social Theories\u3c/em\u3e by Charles Lemert

Lemert, Charles. Thinking the Unthinkable: TheRiddle of Classical Social Theories. Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2007. 195 pp. $60.00 cloth,$22.95 paper

Ideological Currents Of The Rural Crisis: The Fats, Small Town, And Rural Peoples\u27 Conf

The rural crisis of the 1900s plowed a deep furrow across the economic, political, cultural, social, and psychological landscape of the Upper Midwest. Rooted in the financial problems of farmers, the crisis rippled not only through farm families but also into the region\u27s small towns (Buttel, 1909; Farm Crisis, 1986; Cinder et al., 1986; Heffernan and Heffernan. 1986; Rosenblatt, 1990: 3-13). Responses to the crisis were many and varied. Some people, although in actual numbers only slightly greater than the previous fifty years, followed perhaps the most traditional response to rural crisis and fled in search of work to more prosperous towns and cities (Buttel, 1989: 59-60; Cordes, 1986; Farm Numbers, 1906; Rosenblatt, 1990; Satcerlee and Goreham, 1985; Waterfield, 1986; 5-7). others formed organizations of the political left and right, like the National Save the Family Farm Coalition, the North American Farm Alliance, the Iowa Farm Unity Coalition, the Posse Comitatus, the Farmers Liberation Army, and the National Agricultural Press Association, to protest conditions (Browne, 1988; 66-88; King, 1985; Malcolm, 1985a; Scholar, 1985). Still others, more tragically, turned inward, falling into emotional and physical health problems, sometimes even taking their own lives and those of family, friends, and business associates ( Farm Loan Aide, 1986; Heffernan and Heffernan, 1966; Langham, 1988; Levitas. 1985; Malcolm, 1985b; Malcolm. 19B5c; Robbins, 1986). One response to the crisis, a reaction from the educational institution of the rural community, emerged in the form of the Farm, Small Town, and Rural Peoples\u27 Conference (FSTRPC). Faculty members of the University of South Dakota at Vermllllon hosted this day-long conference on January 31, 1966, to address problems stemming from the crisis.* The FSTRPC\u27s theme was Perspectives on the Farm Crisis. William Janidow, the governor of South Dakota, and Tom Daschle, the congressional representative of South Dakota, provided keynote addresses, and sixteen other regional leaders spoke. More than four hundred area farmers and town\u27s people attended ( Farmers Caught, 1986; Murphy, 1986; Heeren, 1986). Regional news media supplied extensive coverage of the conference. The NBC affiliate from Sioux City provided periodic live coverage as did South Sioux City radio station KWSL/KGLI: Other television and radio. The FSTRPC provides an unique opportunity to explore the thoughts of the regional leaders concerning the rural crisis. This paper examines the conference\u27s content, relying on transcripts from the videotapes, to gain a sense of how leaders in the Upper Midwest conceptualized and responded to the crisis. From the transcripts of the FSTRPC, a number of different ideological strands are isolated. These ideological strands emerge from the leaders\u27 differing economic, political, and social vantage points. The leaders, of course, diverge on specific points about the crisis, but they also share a kind of consensus. Where they disagree and agree reveals much. Before turning to examine the thoughts of the leaders, a theoretical discussion is provided. \u27 Barbara Johnson, Associate Professor of Social Work, Department of Social Behavior, The University of South Dakota, and I (then Assistant Professor of Sociology, Department of Social Behavior, The University of South Dakota) acted as coordinators for the first FSTRPC. A second conference entitled Small Town America; What Is Its Future? was held on October 24. 1986, and a third Working in Rural America: Employment, Underemployment , Unemployment! on January 29, 1988, The University of South Dakota and the Chamber of Commerce of Vermillion,South Dakota, sponsored this trilogy of conferences. Stations and newspapers from Sioux City and Sioux Falls sent reporters. The University of South Dakota\u27s Department of Mass Communications videotaped the entire proceedings for preservation as an historical document

The Agricultural Crisis in the Upper Midwest: Responses to Financial Distress on the Family Farm

The farm crisis in the Upper Midwest in the mid-1980s created financial distress that has deeply affected farm families. This paper examines the experiences of these families attempting to survive their financial troubles. It provides a portrait of their personal characteristics and gives a sense of the conditions that they confront in their daily lives. Out of the insights gleaned, this study furnishes ideas for future research. Twenty-two husbands and nineteen wives from twenty-five farm families participated in this study. The data collected from these financially troubled families was gathered between February and November 1986. It was obtained through use of a nonrandom purpose sampling method, and through administration of a survey questionnaire and extensive interview

Book Review: \u3cem\u3ePredictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions\u3c/em\u3e by Dan Ariely

Book Review: Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariel

The Farm Movement in America\u27s Heartland: A Profile of Leaders, Their Power, and Problems

A body of new farm leaders emerged during the mid-1980s in response to the farm crisis in the Upper Midwest. This paper explores the influence of these leaders in shaping the direction of their groups. It does so through examining the farm leaders\u27 socio-demographic characteristics, their use of power, and the way they confront problems. The leaders of two groups, the Farm Crisis Committee (FCC) and Groundswell (GS), are studied. The data for this paper were collected through use of a nonrandom-purposive sampling method. They were gathered through administration of a survey questionnaire in 1986 and intensive interviews during 1986-87. All eight of the FCC\u27s and seven of nine of GS\u27s founding leaders participated. These persons were identified as leaders because they held elected or appointed positions in their groups. The surveys and interviews for the leaders of the FCC were carried out at the group\u27s office in Emerson, Nebraska, while those of GS, because the organization in its early days had no headquarters, were conducted at their individual homes or in restaurants throughout Minnesota. This paper\u27s findings are further supported through use of documentary data from the farm groups and\u27 supplementary secondary data, including scholarly publications, magazines, newspapers, and a television documentary

Genome-Wide Analysis of Syntenic Gene Deletion in the Grasses

The grasses, Poaceae, are one of the largest and most successful angiosperm families. Like many radiations of flowering plants, the divergence of the major grass lineages was preceded by a whole-genome duplication (WGD), although these events are not rare for flowering plants. By combining identification of syntenic gene blocks with measures of gene pair divergence and different frequencies of ancient gene loss, we have separated the two subgenomes present in modern grasses. Reciprocal loss of duplicated genes or genomic regions has been hypothesized to reproductively isolate populations and, thus, speciation. However, in contrast to previous studies in yeast and teleost fishes, we found very little evidence of reciprocal loss of homeologous genes between the grasses, suggesting that post-WGD gene loss may not be the cause of the grass radiation. The sets of homeologous and orthologous genes and predicted locations of deleted genes identified in this study, as well as links to the CoGe comparative genomics web platform for analyzing pan-grass syntenic regions, are provided along with this paper as a resource for the grass genetics community

Following Tetraploidy in Maize, a Short Deletion Mechanism Removed Genes Preferentially from One of the Two Homeologs

Following genome duplication and selfish DNA expansion, maize used a heretofore unknown mechanism to shed redundant genes and functionless DNA with bias toward one of the parental genomes

Dysregulated Nephrin in Diabetic Nephropathy of Type 2 Diabetes: A Cross Sectional Study

Podocyte specific proteins are dysregulated in diabetic nephropathy, though the extent of their expression loss is not identical and may be subject to different regulatory factors. Quantifying the degree of loss may help identify the most useful protein to use as an early biomarker of diabetic nephropathy.Protein expression of synaptopodin, podocin and nephrin were quantified in 15 Type 2 diabetic renal biopsies and 12 control patients. We found statistically significant downregulation of synaptopodin (P<0.0001), podocin (P = 0.0002), and nephrin (P<0.0001) in kidney biopsies of diabetic nephropathy as compared with controls. Urinary nephrin levels (nephrinuria) were then measured in 66 patients with Type 2 diabetes and 10 healthy controls by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Exocell, Philadelphia, PA). When divided into groups according to normo-, micro-, and macroalbuminuria, nephrinuria was found to be present in 100% of diabetic patients with micro- and macroalbuminuria, as well as 54% of patients with normoalbuminuria. Nephrinuria also correlated significantly with albuminuria (rho = 0.89, p<0.001), systolic blood pressure (rho = 0.32, p = 0.007), and correlated negatively with serum albumin (rho = -0.48, p<0.0001) and eGFR (rho = -0.33, p = 0.005).These data suggest that key podocyte-specific protein expressions are significantly and differentially downregulated in diabetic nephropathy. The finding that nephrinuria is observed in a majority of these normoalbuminuric patients demonstrates that it may precede microalbuminuria. If further research confirms nephrinuria to be a biomarker of pre-clinical diabetic nephropathy, it would shed light on podocyte metabolism in disease, and raise the possibility of new and earlier therapeutic targets