‘Do what the Afro-Americans are doing’: Black Power and the start of the Northern Ireland Troubles

This article challenges the local focus of much of the work on the Northern Ireland Troubles, by examining the importance of the impact that Black Power movements had on activists in the 1960s and 1970s. It is not, however, the story of the transnational diffusion of the ideas of a US movement to a nation-state on the periphery. Conceiving of the West in the ‘cycle of protest years’ as a networked space, this article argues that Northern Ireland during its Black Power moment was the unique and fleeting coming together of many different trajectories. The left-wing activists used Black Power to build transnational networks of revolt and to inspire local political struggles; the British authorities used the information that they collected from around the world on Black Power as a lens through which to view subversives and as a resource for making strategy. The start of the Troubles was interpreted by actors on both sides of the barricades as a forerunner of the class and race conflicts to come in the West, not as the latest small, local war in Britain's retreat from empire

Against ethnicity: democracy, equality, and the Northern Irish conflict

The study of the Northern Irish Troubles is dominated by ethnic readings of conflict and violence. Drawing on new scholarship from a range of different disciplines and on fresh archival sources, this article questions these explanations. General theories that tie together ethnicity with conflict and violence are shown to be based on definitions that fail to distinguish ethnic identities from other ones. Their claims cannot be taken as being uniquely or even disproportionately associated with ethnicity. Explanatory models specifically developed for the case of modern Ireland do address that weakness. Yet, this article contends, they rest upon the fallacy that the Catholic and Protestant peoples are transhistorical entities. Political ideas, organizations, and actions cannot be reduced to fixed group identities. This article argues instead that the Troubles centered on a political conflict—one over rival visions of modern democracy. The pursuit of equality, the core value of democracy, led not only to conflicts but also to some of those conflicts becoming violent. Focusing on Belfast in the summer and autumn of 1969, this article sets out how the main political actors asserted competing claims to popular sovereignty and traces how multiple dynamic and intersecting conflicts became arrayed around the central one

The National Virtual Observatory

As a scientific discipline, Astronomy is rather unique. We only have one laboratory, the Universe, and we cannot, of course, change the initial conditions and study the resulting effects. On top of this, acquiring Astronomical data has historically been a very labor-intensive effort. As a result, data has traditionally been preserved for posterity. With recent technological advances, however, the rate at which we acquire new data has grown exponentially, which has generated a Data Tsunami, whose wave train threatens to overwhelm the field. In this conference proceedings, we present and define the concept of virtual observatories, which we feel is the only logical answer to this dilemma.Comment: 5 pages, uses newpasp.sty (included), to appear in "Extragalactic Gas at Low Redshfit", ASP Conf. Series, J. S. Mulchaey and J. T. Stocke (eds.

Extended hierarchical search (EHS) algorithm for detection of gravitational waves from inspiraling compact binaries

Pattern matching techniques like matched filtering will be used for online extraction of gravitational wave signals buried inside detector noise. This involves cross correlating the detector output with hundreds of thousands of templates spanning a multi-dimensional parameter space, which is very expensive computationally. A faster implementation algorithm was devised by Mohanty and Dhurandhar [1996] using a hierarchy of templates over the mass parameters, which speeded up the procedure by about 25 to 30 times. We show that a further reduction in computational cost is possible if we extend the hierarchy paradigm to an extra parameter, namely, the time of arrival of the signal. In the first stage, the chirp waveform is cut-off at a relatively low frequency allowing the data to be coarsely sampled leading to cost saving in performing the FFTs. This is possible because most of the signal power is at low frequencies, and therefore the advantage due to hierarchy over masses is not compromised. Results are obtained for spin-less templates up to the second post-Newtonian (2PN) order for a single detector with LIGO I noise power spectral density. We estimate that the gain in computational cost over a flat search is about 100.Comment: 6 pages, 6 EPS figures, uses CQG style iopart.cl

Expected characteristics of the subclass of Supernova Gamma-ray Bursts (S-GRBs)

The spatial and temporal coincidence between the gamma-ray burst (GRB) 980425 and supernova (SN) 1998bw has prompted speculation that there exists a class of GRBs produced by SNe (``S-GRBs''). Robust arguments for the existence of a relativistic shock have been presented on the basis of radio observations. A physical model based on the radio observations lead us to propose the following characteristics of supernovae GRBs (S-GRBs): 1) prompt radio emission and implied brightness temperature near or below the inverse Compton limit, 2) high expansion velocity of the optical photosphere as derived from lines widths and energy release larger than usual, 3) no long-lived X-ray afterglow, and 4) a single pulse (SP) GRB profile. Radio studies of previous SNe show that only type Ib and Ic potentially satisfy the first condition. Accordingly we have investigated proposed associations of GRBs and SNe finding no convincing evidence (mainly to paucity of data) to confirm any single connection of a SN with a GRB. If there is a more constraining physical basis for the burst time-history of S-GRBs beyond that of the SP requirement, we suggest the 1% of light curves in the BATSE catalogue similar to that of GRB 980425 may constitute the subclass. Future optical follow-up of bursts with similar profiles should confirm if such GRBs originate from some fraction of SN type Ib/Ic.Comment: 11 pages of LaTeX with 1 figure. Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letter

Emma Lazarus event flyer 2

Flyer offering programming related to the traveling exhibit, Emma Lazarus: Voice of Liberty, Voice of Conscience. Dr. Pilapa Esara\u27s lecture on the challenges of the modern day immigrant

Emma Lazarus event flyer 3

Flyer offering programming related to the traveling exhibit, Emma Lazarus: Voice of Liberty, Voice of Conscience. The event, The New Woman and Popular Song, was presented by Michael Lasser

Veterans Day 2012 509th Composite Group C-14 Crew Photo

2012 Veterans\u27 Day display featured the 509th Composite Group. The 509th was the first USAAF bombardment group to be organized, equipped, and trained for atomic warfare. The materials were acquired by 509th crew member, Lt. Cecil N. King, and loaned to the library by his son-in-law Richard Black, director of the Office of Design and Production. 509th Composite Group Crew C-14 Group photo & listing of crew names and position (p85

Veterans Day 2012 1995 Reunion 509th Composite Group photos #2

2012 Veterans\u27 Day display featured the 509th Composite Group. The 509th was the first USAAF bombardment group to be organized, equipped, and trained for atomic warfare. The materials were acquired by 509th crew member, Lt. Cecil N. King, and loaned to the library by his son-in-law Richard Black, director of the Office of Design and Production. 1995 509th Composite Group reunion booklet, assorted photos of the men of the 509th performing various ground duties