Training Ground for Murderers

Continued U.S. support for the School of the Americas, an institution that has trained dictators and political assassins, is completely unjustifiable. David R. H. Smith: The peace process in Latin America has been under a substantial amount of scrutiny in the past ten years. Defunct congressmen and government officials have waved a complacent flag over the entire situation- most deeming the occasional flare-ups of violence as an expected byproduct of a seemingly undemocratic military regime. However, when one takes a deeper look at the heart of the conflict, and into the pasts of many of the leaders fueling the flames of atrocity, the signature of the American government rests on their bottom of many of their military diplomas. A large number of these now proclaimed anti-American leaders, these “butchers of men,” began their careers in a military training school called “The School of the Americas.” The school, located in a small town in Georgia, trains heads of the Latin American military to oust regimes who were unswervingly anti-American in both their trade practices and governmental practices. Sadly many of the same men highly trained to defeat legist governments came to power and commited the same acts they were sworn to protect citizens against. In the wake of such truths, truths which have been exposed and riddled across numerous newspapers, magazines, and published books, the American government has continued sustained support for the school. In the age of “the reign of terror” can the American government and military wash its hands clean of the atrocities committed by men it has trained. Hopefully after reading this essay you as the reader will have a better knowledge of just how deep the treachery of the American government runs in Latin America. We as Americans say that we are against terrorism but yet we house and train terrorists in our own nation? As a people we need to take action against the school of the Americas and see that its gates are never again opened to the training of murders. Some Biographical Information: I am a sophomore from Yorktown, Virgina and am a double SCOM/PUAD major. I am an RA in Dingledine Hall this year and am very involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. This essay was written in Ernie Stromberg’s writing class under the pretense of a normal writing assignment. In actuality I learned more researching this essay than I have since I’ve stepped away from the class. This was, by far, my favorite essay I have ever written here at JMU. If every class could have such spirited writing assignments we would all be better people because of it

What and how: doing good research with young people, digital intimacies, and relationships and sex education

© 2020, © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. As part of a project funded by the Wellcome Trust, we held a one-day symposium, bringing together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, to discuss priorities for research on relationships and sex education (RSE) in a world where young people increasingly live, experience, and augment their relationships (whether sexual or not) within digital spaces. The introduction of statutory RSE in schools in England highlights the need to focus on improving understandings of young people and digital intimacies for its own sake, and to inform the development of learning resources. We call for more research that puts young people at its centre; foregrounds inclusivity; and allows a nuanced discussion of pleasures, harms, risks, and rewards, which can be used by those working with young people and those developing policy. Generating such research is likely to be facilitated by participation, collaboration, and communication with beneficiaries, between disciplines and across sectors. Taking such an approach, academic researchers, practitioners, and policymakers agree that we need a better understanding of RSE’s place in lifelong learning, which seeks to understand the needs of particular groups, is concerned with non-sexual relationships, and does not see digital intimacies as disconnected from offline everyday ‘reality’

Closure of two dimensional turbulence: the role of pressure gradients

Inverse energy cascade regime of two dimensional turbulence is investigated by means of high resolution numerical simulations. Numerical computations of conditional averages of transverse pressure gradient increments are found to be compatible with a recently proposed self-consistent Gaussian model. An analogous low order closure model for the longitudinal pressure gradient is proposed and its validity is numerically examined. In this case numerical evidence for the presence of higher order terms in the closure is found. The fundamental role of conditional statistics between longitudinal and transverse components is highlighted.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, in press on PR

Primordial Nucleosynthesis in the New Cosmology

Big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies independently predict the universal baryon density. Comparing their predictions will provide a fundamental test on cosmology. Using BBN and the CMB together, we will be able to constrain particle physics, and predict the primordial, light element abundances. These future analyses hinge on new experimental and observational data. New experimental data on nuclear cross sections will help reduce theoretical uncertainties in BBN's predictions. New observations of light element abundances will further sharpen BBN's probe of the baryon density. Observations from the MAP and PLANCK satellites will measure the fluctuations in the CMB to unprecedented accuracy, allowing the precise determination of the baryon density. When combined, this data will present us with the opportunity to perform precision cosmology.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure, for Nuclei in the Cosmos VII proceedings to appear in Nuclear Physics