“The Best Laid Plans of Marx and Men” : Mitch Podolak, Revolution, and the Winnipeg Folk Festival

Mitch Podolak said, “Pete Seeger and Leon Trotsky lead to everything in my life, especially the Winnipeg Folk Festival.” This article discusses the creation of the Winnipeg Folk Festival (WFF) in 1974 as Podolak’s first attempt to fuse his ten years of Trotskyist political training with his love for folk music. His intention was to create a Canadian folk festival which would embody the politically resistant nature of the Trotskyist international movement for the purpose of challenging the Canadian liberal capitalist democratic system on a cultural front. Heavily influenced by the American Communist Party’s use of folk music, Podolak believed that the folk song and its performance were socially important. This importance, he believed, stemmed from the social cohesion that could be created within a festival performance space. This space, when thoughtfully organized, could have the ability to create meaning. The relationships between the artistic director, the folk singer, the folk song and the festival audience become intertwined to dialectically create the meaning of the song and the space simultaneously defining folk musicMitch Podolak déclara que « Pete Seeger et Léon Trotsky déterminent tout dans ma vie, et surtout le Winnipeg Folk Festival ». Cet article analyse la création du Winnipeg Folk Festival (WFF) en 1974 comme étant la première tentative de Podolak de marier ses dix années d’endoctrinement politique trotskiste avec sa passion pour la musique traditionnelle. Son intention était de créer un festival folklorique canadien qui incarnerait la résistance politique du mouvement international trotskyste et permettrait de mettre le système démocratique capitaliste canadien au défi sur le plan culturel. Très largement influencé par l’utilisation que le parti communiste étasunien faisait de la chanson traditionnelle, Podolak était convaincu que cette dernière ainsi que sa mise en spectacle étaient socialement importantes. Cette importance croyait-il venait de la cohésion sociale qui pouvait se créer dans l’espace performatif du festival. Une fois soigneusement organisé, cet espace était en mesure de créer du sens. Les rapports entre le directeur artistique, le chanteur traditionnel, la chanson et le public du festival s’entremêlent pour donner de façon dialectique un sens à la chanson et à l’espace qui simultanément définissent la musique traditionnelle

A W:B4C multilayer phase retarder for broadband polarization analysis of soft x-ray radiation \ud

A W:B4C multilayer phase retarder has been designed and characterized which shows a nearly constant phase retardance between 640 and 850 eV photon energies when operated near the Bragg condition. This freestanding transmission multilayer was used successfully to determine, for the first time, the full polarization vector at soft x-ray energies above 600 eV, which was not possible before due to the lack of suitable optical elements. Thus, quantitative polarimetry is now possible at the 2p edges of the magnetic substances Fe, Co, and Ni for the benefit of magnetic circular dichroism spectroscopy employing circularly polarized synchrotron radiatio

Malaria vector control at crossroads: public health entomology and the drive to elimination

Vector control has been at the core of successful malaria control. However, a dearth of field-oriented vector biologists threatens to undermine global reductions in malaria burden. Skilled cadres are needed to manage insecticide resistance, to maintain coverage with current interventions, to develop new paradigms for tackling ‘residual' transmission, and to target interventions as transmission becomes increasingly heterogeneous. Recognising this human resource crisis, in September 2013, WHO Global Malaria Programme issued guidance for capacity building in entomology and vector control, including recommendations for countries and implementing partners. Ministries were urged to develop long-range strategic plans for building human resources for public health entomology and vector control (including skills in epidemiology, geographic information systems, operational research and programme management) and to set in place the requisite professional posts and career opportunities. Capacity building and national ownership in all partner projects and a clear exit strategy to sustain human and technical resources after project completion were emphasised. Implementing partners were urged to support global and regional efforts to enhance public health entomology capacity. While the challenges inherent in such capacity building are great, so too are the opportunities to establish the next generation of public health entomologists that will enable programmes to continue on the path to malaria eliminatio

Fusion products, Kostka polynomials, and fermionic characters of su(r+1)_k

Using a form factor approach, we define and compute the character of the fusion product of rectangular representations of \hat{su}(r+1). This character decomposes into a sum of characters of irreducible representations, but with q-dependent coefficients. We identify these coefficients as (generalized) Kostka polynomials. Using this result, we obtain a formula for the characters of arbitrary integrable highest-weight representations of \hat{su}(r+1) in terms of the fermionic characters of the rectangular highest weight representations.Comment: 21 pages; minor changes, typos correcte

Sounding the Sacred Headwaters: Applied Ecomusicology as a Critical Pedagogy of Music

Ecomusicology and the critical pedagogy of music share a common concern for music and environment. Using social systems theory this paper draws out Freire’s pedagogy for critical consciousness—the practice of bringing immanent epistemologies into awareness—and its importance for critical ecological literacy in the new epoch of Anthropocene. This discussion is grounding in an applied ecomusicology project called Sounding the Sacred Headwaters that suggests a central place for Critical Multiliteracies Pedagogy (CMP) in a critical pedagogy of music.

A powerful intervention: general practitioners' use of sickness certification in depression

<b>Background</b> Depression is frequently cited as the reason for sickness absence, and it is estimated that sickness certificates are issued in one third of consultations for depression. Previous research has considered GP views of sickness certification but not specifically in relation to depression. This study aimed to explore GPs views of sickness certification in relation to depression.<p></p> <b>Methods</b> A purposive sample of GP practices across Scotland was selected to reflect variations in levels of incapacity claimants and antidepressant prescribing. Qualitative interviews were carried out between 2008 and 2009.<p></p> <b>Results</b> A total of 30 GPs were interviewed. A number of common themes emerged including the perceived importance of GP advocacy on behalf of their patients, the tensions between stakeholders involved in the sickness certification system, the need to respond flexibly to patients who present with depression and the therapeutic nature of time away from work as well as the benefits of work. GPs reported that most patients with depression returned to work after a short period of absence and that it was often difficult to predict which patients would struggle to return to work.<p></p> <b>Conclusions</b> GPs reported that dealing with sickness certification and depression presents distinct challenges. Sickness certificates are often viewed as powerful interventions, the effectiveness of time away from work for those with depression should be subject to robust enquiry

Drag in paired electron-hole layers

We investigate transresistance effects in electron-hole double layer systems with an excitonic condensate. Our theory is based on the use of a minimum dissipation premise to fix the current carried by the condensate. We find that the drag resistance jumps discontinuously at the condensation temperature and diverges as the temperature approaches zero.Comment: 12 pages, 1 Figure, .eps file attache

Spontaneous Inter-layer Coherence in Double-Layer Quantum-Hall Systems I: Charged Vortices and Kosterlitz-Thouless Phase Transitions

At strong magnetic fields double-layer two-dimensional-electron-gas systems can form an unusual broken symmetry state with spontaneous inter-layer phase coherence. In this paper we explore the rich variety of quantum and finite-temperature phase transitions associated with this broken symmetry. We describe the system using a pseudospin language in which the layer degree-of-freedom is mapped to a fictional spin 1/2 degree-of-freedom. With this mapping the spontaneous symmetry breaking is equivalent to that of a spin 1/2 easy-plane ferromagnet. In this language spin-textures can carry a charge. In particular, vortices carry e/2 electrical charge and vortex-antivortex pairs can be neutral or carry charge e. We derive an effective low-energy action and use it to discuss the charged and collective neutral excitations of the system. We have obtained the parameters of the Landau-Ginzburg functional from first-principles estimates and from finite-size exact diagonalization studies. We use these results to estimate the dependence of the critical temperature for the Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition on layer separation.Comment: 56 pages, 19 figures available upon request at [email protected]. RevTex 3.0. IUCM94-00

Universal Equilibrium Currents in the Quantum Hall Fluid

The equilibrium current distribution in a quantum Hall fluid that is subjected to a slowly varying confining potential is shown to generally consist of strips or channels of current, which alternate in direction, and which have universal integrated strengths. A measurement of these currents would yield direct independent measurements of the proper quasiparticle and quasihole energies in the fractional quantum Hall states.Comment: 4 pages, Revte