Outbreak in Washington, DC: The 1857 Mystery of the National Hotel Disease

The National was once the grandest hotel in the capital. In 1857, it twice hosted President-elect James Buchanan and his advisors, and on both occasions, most of the party was quickly stricken by an acute illness. Over the course of several months, hundreds fell ill, and over thirty died from what became known as the National Hotel disease. Buchanan barely recovered enough to give his inauguration speech. Rumors ran rampant across the city and the nation. Some claimed that the illness was born of a sewage “effluvia,” while others darkly speculated about an assassination attempt by either abolitionists or southern slaveowners intent on war. Author Kerry Walters investigates the mysteries of the National Hotel disease. [From the publisher]https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1064/thumbnail.jp

Rachel Weeping: A Christian Pacifist Reluctantly Endorses Military Strikes Against ISIS

I\u27m haunted these days by a scene from Matthew\u27s Gospel. Herod, learning that an infant has been born in Bethlehem who will become King of the Jews, orders the slaughter of the town\u27s male children two years old and under. Matthew captures the deed\u27s mind-numbing horror by imagining that Rachel, one of the traditional Hebrew matriarchs, weeps and laments and refuses to be comforted, because her children are no more. How, I ask myself, would Jesus\u27s followers have acted could they\u27ve been in Bethlehem on that frenzied day? Would they have remained silent? Would they have shielded the infants with their own bodies, buying the victims a few more seconds of life? Or would they have picked up any makeshift weapon they could find to protect the innocents from cruel death? [excerpt

Faith Matters: Reflections on the Christian Life

In a day in which Christians too often reduce faith to mere sentimentality and atheists decry it as superstitious nonsense, Fr. Kerry Walters offers a series of reflections intended to show that, indeed, faith matters. Drawn from his popular weekly newspaper column “Faith Matters,” these short meditations explore Christian faith from the perspectives of doctrine, spirituality, ethics, politics, art and science, the saints, and the holy seasons that mark the Christian year and set the rhythm of Christian living.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1155/thumbnail.jp

Snark Wars

The latest volley in the war of words waged by cultured despisers of Christianity was fired on Christmas Day. Celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, host of the television series Cosmos, bushwhacked Christians with this tweeted broadside: On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642. Not content with just one shot, Tyson let fly again. Merry Christmas to all, he tweeted. A Pagan holiday (BC) becomes a Religious holiday (AD). Which then becomes a Shopping holiday (USA). Then, the coup de grace. QUESTION: This year, what do all the world\u27s Muslims and Jews call December 25th? ANSWER: Thursday. [excerpt

Orange Is the New Golgotha

The Roman soldiers jeered at Jesus, called him towelhead and sand monkey, ripped off his garments and clad him in an orange jumpsuit. Then they pulled a black sack over his head and led him to an interrogation cell, where CIA operatives awaited him. They shackled Jesus\u27s wrists and strung him up so that he dangled from the ceiling. One of them questioned him, and when his responses weren\u27t to their liking, the other beat him. [excerpt

The AF structure of non commutative toroidal Z/4Z orbifolds

For any irrational theta and rational number p/q such that q|qtheta-p|<1, a projection e of trace q|qtheta-p| is constructed in the the irrational rotation algebra A_theta that is invariant under the Fourier transform. (The latter is the order four automorphism U mapped to V, V mapped to U^{-1}, where U, V are the canonical unitaries generating A_theta.) Further, the projection e is approximately central, the cut down algebra eA_theta e contains a Fourier invariant q x q matrix algebra whose unit is e, and the cut downs eUe, eVe are approximately inside the matrix algebra. (In particular, there are Fourier invariant projections of trace k|qtheta-p| for k=1,...,q.) It is also shown that for all theta the crossed product A_theta rtimes Z_4 satisfies the Universal Coefficient Theorem. (Z_4 := Z/4Z.) As a consequence, using the Classification Theorem of G. Elliott and G. Gong for AH-algebras, a theorem of M. Rieffel, and by recent results of H. Lin, we show that A_theta rtimes Z_4 is an AF-algebra for all irrational theta in a dense G_delta.Comment: 35 page

The Passion of the Infant Christ: Critical Edition

Although forgotten until quite recently, Caryll Houselander, who died in 1954, was a sensitive and profound English Roman Catholic writer on Christian spirituality. In this critical edition of her 1949 book The Passion of the Infant Christ, Houselander argues that the physical world is an inscaped revelation of the mind of the Creator. Every concrete object and every temporal event mirrors the eternal, just as the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus mirror the circumstances surrounding his death and resurrection. Editor Kerry Walters discusses both Houselander\u27s life and the primary themes of The Passion of the Infant Christ in his introduction to this critical edition of one of Houselander\u27s most insightful books.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1117/thumbnail.jp

Treatment dilemmas in a young man presenting with narcolepsy and psychotic symptoms.

Psychotic features can be present in both narcolepsy and psychosis, which can result in challenges in diagnosis and management. The prevalence of both conditions is low and the reports in young people are scarce. Our report illustrates the relevance of a thorough differential diagnosis as well as the need to explore treatment avenues based on the evidence available for both narcolepsy and psychosis symptoms to try and maximise the therapeutic impact