Self-Censorship for Democrats

On the face of it, self-censorship is profoundly subversive of democracy, particularly in its talk-centric forms, and undermines the culture of openness and publicity on which it relies. This paper has two purposes. The first is to develop a conception of self-censorship that allows us to capture what is distinctive about the concept from a political perspective and which allows us to understand the democratic anxiety about self-censorship: if it is not obvious that biting our tongues is always wrong, we need a fuller account of the moral sensibility that finds it so troubling and this is elaborated here. The second is to develop an argument to the effect that this sensibility should not have the last, or only, word, but instead that self-censorship should be viewed as an ‘ordinary vice’ of democratic societies. The grounds for tolerating it rest on the democratic values that critics believe it threatens

Enron, a Perceived Crisis in Public Confidence, and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002

In the spring of 2002 Congress passed and President Bush signed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), the first major piece of campaign reform legislation since the early 1970s. While momentum for reform had been growing since the mid-1990s, without the Enron scandal and its potential threat to public officials, additional support to overcome the procedural barriers and opposition from the Republican leadership in both the House and Senate would have been difficult to overcome. In addition, Bush Administration ties to Enron had the effect of demobilizing the president on the issue, making it virtually impossible for him to veto a bill he fundamentally opposed. The Enron scandal provided the "window of opportunity" needed by reform-oriented elites to pass a controversial and far-ranging law that was not a high priority on the public's agenda. The end result is a law, pending a Supreme Court ruling on its constitutionality, that has the potential to alter fundamentally how electoral campaigns are funded and conducted. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004..

Umanesimo e rinascimento tra feltre e belluno: filologia, erudizione e biblioteche: atti del convegno di Belluno, 4 aprile 2003

Umanesimo tra Belluno e Feltre. Saggi su Pierio Valeriano, Pontico Virunio, Tommaso Didimo Zanetelli, Giambattista Scita, Giovanni Persicini, Andrea Alpago, Zaniacopo Sammartini, biblioteca Pilon

Lyman series emission after valence and core excitation of water vapor

We report Lyman-series emission cross sections of neutral hydrogen dissociation fragments after valence (15–34 eV) and inner-shell (533–542 eV) excitation of water vapor with monochromatic synchrotron radiation as functions of the exciting-photon energy. In the valence excitation energy region, the thermodynamical limits of the production of the differently excited hydrogen fragments are directly observed and absolute emission cross sections are determined. For resonant inner-shell excitations, the fluorescing excited hydrogen state is found to be strongly dependent on the molecular or Rydberg-like character of the excitation