Bringing Home the Green Recovery: A User's Guide to the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

The $787 billion recovery package marks a big, bold, and historic investment in creating green jobs and building more equitable communities. The package invests nearly$100 billion in funding for transportation and infrastructure, $48 billion in investments in job training and education,$41 billion for energy-related programs, and $20 billion in tax incentives for renewable energy. But without substantial advocacy from local and state groups, these historic federal investments may not end up in the communities that need them most. The in-depth guide offers tangible, up-to-date information and ideas for using and securing recovery dollars to help expand opportunity in low-income communities and communities of color. The guide is a first step in what will be a vital nationwide effort to ensure the recovery package helps all communities rise stronger than ever from this economic crisis, and that community-based organizations are at the forefront in crafting a green, equitable recovery.American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, ARRA, stimulus

The Hidden Point of Intersection: Bio-politics in Foucault and Agamben

The relationship between sovereignty and bio-politics has been frequently discussed and debated in the literature sounding the work of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben. A number of commentators firmly align themselves with Foucault, charging Agamben with some combination of ahistoricism and reductionism in his account of sovereignty. They see Foucault as not guilty of these sins, and therefore preferable. Many of these critiques, however, arise from conflating two separate levels of analysis: history and power. By holding apart these two domains, I will attempt to offer a qualified defense of Agamben and subsequently show that he and Foucault are not as irreconcilable as often presented

American Hamlet: Shakespearean Epistemology in David Foster Wallace\u27s Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest has been viewed by champions of its cause as a solution to the defeatist irony of postmodernism and by critics as a postmodern gag in which the reader falls victim to intellectual jest. Exploring the text\u27s initial affiliations with Hamlet is a fundamental move toward stabilizing Infinite Jest\u27s status as a sincere and authentic representation of American life at the turn of the twenty-first century. The shattered nature of reality and the stinking thinking inherent in addiction are depicted through the narrative structure, in which the time is literally out of joint, and the antic disposition of various characters who are evocative of both the melancholic and heroic sides of the play\u27s lead. Hamlet operates as a primary textual constraint in which the matrix of plot, device, methodology, and motif intersect and envision one of the Western world\u27s most recognizable stories transposed on 1990s America. Infinite Jest is a closed system in which geometry and literature converge by way of a customized Oulipo method that uses constraint as an improvisatory means to inhabit the space where things fragment into beauty (Infinite Jest 81): the glory of infinit

American Hamlet: Shakespearean Epistemology in David Foster Wallace\u27s Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest has been viewed by champions of its cause as a solution to the defeatist irony of postmodernism and by critics as a postmodern gag in which the reader falls victim to intellectual jest. Exploring the text\u27s initial affiliations with Hamlet is a fundamental move toward stabilizing Infinite Jest\u27s status as a sincere and authentic representation of American life at the turn of the twenty-first century. The shattered nature of reality and the stinking thinking inherent in addiction are depicted through the narrative structure, in which the time is literally out of joint, and the antic disposition of various characters who are evocative of both the melancholic and heroic sides of the play\u27s lead. Hamlet operates as a primary textual constraint in which the matrix of plot, device, methodology, and motif intersect and envision one of the Western world\u27s most recognizable stories transposed on 1990s America. Infinite Jest is a closed system in which geometry and literature converge by way of a customized Oulipo method that uses constraint as an improvisatory means to inhabit the space where things fragment into beauty (Infinite Jest 81): the glory of infinit

Review of Mariana Mazzucato’s 'The value of everything: making and taking in the global economy'

Book review. Reviewed work: The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy / Mariana Mazzucato. - New York : Public Affairs, 2018, 384 pages, ISBN 978-161039675-2.Non peer reviewe

A Hedonic Study of New England Dam Removals

There are over fourteen thousand dams in the New England region. Recent efforts to remove dams to return rivers back to their natural orientations in the United States have increased, though a host of potential externalities exist to nearby communities. We compile 75 removed dams in the New England region to estimate the aggregate treatment effect of dam removal on nearby properties. We employ a repeat sales sample with property fixed effects and a difference-in-differences strategy to estimate the proximity effects of dam removal. We cannot reject the null hypothesis that dam removals have no effect on proximity properties

Growth in Public Interest and Scientific Research on Kinesiology Taping

Kinesiology taping has grown in popularity, though there are a number of unsubstantiated claims made by some kinesiology taping advocates. An investigation was conducted into trends in general and scientific interest in kinesiology taping. Data in the public domain (Google Trends and Google Scholar data) indicated significant growth of interest both in terms of public search queries and scientific publications relevant to kinesiology taping. Cyclical trends in interest relevant to kinesiology taping were identified. Segmented regression indicated some of the growth in interest in kinesiology taping may be attributed to exposure of spectators of the Olympic Games to kinesiology taping in athletes. Despite substantial growth in research on kinesiology taping there remain unsubstantiated claims

A Competency Model for Club Leaders

To ensure the success of a service organization, leaders must have skills and abilities to shape service systems and guide employees to deliver the service experience. So far, however, we have yet to see a set of leadership competencies required for service businesses—let alone those needed for the club business. As a result, we cannot provide new managers with the competencies they need to develop in their careers. To address this issue, we conducted a survey of 596 club managers to examine the leadership competencies required for general managers of private clubs. The club industry has the classic characteristics of other types of service businesses, meaning that managers are guiding staff members in relatively low-skilled jobs to fulfill guests’ wants and needs. However, clubs are distinguished from other service organizations by the presence of their members, who are long-term clients that have a strong connection with their clubs. Given that club general managers must report to the members’ board of directors, the interactions between club members and managers create a distinctive dynamic, which likely makes skills related to guest needs’ and interactions even more salient

Bringing Home the Green Recovery: A User's Guide to the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

The $787 billion recovery package marks a big, bold, and historic investment in creating green jobs and building more equitable communities. The package invests nearly$100 billion in funding for transportation and infrastructure, $48 billion in investments in job training and education,$41 billion for energy-related programs, and $20 billion in tax incentives for renewable energy.But without substantial advocacy from local and state groups, these historic federal investments may not end up in the communities that need them most. The in-depth guide offers tangible, up-to-date information and ideas for using and securing recovery dollars to help expand opportunity in low-income communities and communities of color.The guide is a first step in what will be a vital nationwide effort to ensure the recovery package helps all communities rise stronger than ever from this economic crisis, and that community-based organizations are at the forefront in crafting a green, equitable recovery

The Final (Oral Ebola) Vaccine Trial on Captive Chimpanzees?

Could new oral vaccine technologies protect endangered wildlife against a rising tide of infectious disease? We used captive chimpanzees to test oral delivery of a rabies virus (RABV) vectored vaccine against Ebola virus (EBOV), a major threat to wild chimpanzees and gorillas. EBOV GP and RABV GP-specific antibody titers increased exponentially during the trial, with rates of increase for six orally vaccinated chimpanzees very similar to four intramuscularly vaccinated controls. Chimpanzee sera also showed robust neutralizing activity against RABV and pseudo-typed EBOV. Vaccination did not induce serious health complications. Blood chemistry, hematologic, and body mass correlates of psychological stress suggested that, although sedation induced acute stress, experimental housing conditions did not induce traumatic levels of chronic stress. Acute behavioral and physiological responses to sedation were strongly correlated with immune responses to vaccination. These results suggest that oral vaccination holds great promise as a tool for the conservation of apes and other endangered tropical wildlife. They also imply that vaccine and drug trials on other captive species need to better account for the effects of stress on immune response