March 2012

Quiz on country music,
Level 2: Ring of fire

Let’s test your knowledge from honky tonk to hillbilly blues. Here’s the second of a three-part quiz on the twang of guitars and accents, compiled by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Michael McCall, John Rumble, and Paul Kingsbury — authors of The Encyclopedia of Country Music. You can still go back and take “Quiz on country media, Level 1: Walk the line.” All this is running up to the 47th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards is this Sunday, April 1st. Can you pass all three levels of our a country music knowledge challenge?

The lessons of hunger – past and present

By Peter Gill
A fresh famine is threatening Africa, this time in the semi-desert Sahel region of Francophone West Africa. The greatest concern is Niger where a third of the population cannot be sure they will be able to feed themselves or even be fed over the next few months. In the region as a whole there are some ten million people at risk.

Quiz on country music,
Level 1: Walk the line

The 47th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards is this Sunday, April 1st, so we thought it was time to pull together a country music knowledge challenge. Compiled by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Michael McCall, John Rumble and Paul Kingsbury — authors of The Encyclopedia of Country Music — we begin the first of a three-part quiz on the twang of guitars and accents today. How much do you know about the music of “three chords and the truth”?

Ferdinand and Isabella order expulsion of Jews from Spain

This Day in World History
On January 2, 1492, Ferdinand II, King of Aragon, and Isabella, Queen of Castile, completed La Reconquista (the Reconquest) — the Christian victory over Muslims in Spain — by forcing the surrender of Granada, the last Muslim stronghold. Less than two months later, they signed a decree that signaled the end of the toleration of another religious group within their lands. On March 30, they ordered that all of Spain’s Jews had to either convert to Christianity or leave the country. And those Jews had just four months to make their choices.

Being philosophical about scholarly editions

By Desmond Clarke
When searchable editions of classic philosophical texts became available in the 1980s, one proud publisher advertised the benefits of this new technology at an APA meeting by inviting participants to do a sample search of Locke’s Essay concerning Human Understanding.

What is Shariʿah?

By Tamara Sonn
For many people, the term shariʿah sets off alarm bells. Visions of court-ordered amputations and stoning arise in the popular imagination. Commentators point out that the European Court of Human Rights has pronounced some components of shariʿah, particularly those dealing with pluralism and public freedoms, incompatible with fundamental principles of democracy. And fears of “creeping shariʿah” have inspired hundreds of Web sites warning that Muslim fanatics intend to reestablish the caliphate and bring the entire world under Islam’s harsh legal system.

Questions about the connection between law and mind sciences

The law is based on reasoned analysis, devoid of ideological biases or unconscious influences. Judges frame their decisions as straightforward applications of an established set of legal doctrines, principles, and mandates to a given set of facts. Or so we think. We sat down with Director of the Project on Law and Mind Sciences at Harvard Law School (PLMS) and editor of Ideology, Psychology, and Law, Professor Jon Hanson, to discuss the interaction of psychology and the law, and how they interact to form ideologies by which we all must live.

What do rockstars, publishers, and media start-ups have in common?

By Duncan Calow
It is only March, but 2012 has already seen a series of contract disputes over digital media and technology hit the headlines, with cases filed by Peter Frampton, HarperCollins, and new media company Phonedog.com

Monthly Etymology Gleanings for March

By Anatoly Liberman
I have received many questions, some of which are familiar (they recur with great regularity) and others that are new and will answer a few today and the rest in a month’s time.

Nostratic Hypothesis. Our correspondent Mr. Steve Miller asked me whether I ever treat the topic of language evolution and, if I do, what I think of the Nostratic hypothesis.

DSM-5 Proposals for Generalized Anxiety Disorder

By Allan V. Horwitz
The latest revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the DSM-5, now scheduled to be published in May 2013, has generated a tremendous amount of controversy. The DSM is published by the American Psychiatric Association to provide common language and criteria for the diagnosis of mental disorders, so any proposed changes to its terminology could mean millions more, or millions less, diagnosed with an illness. Nevertheless, the proposed changes in the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) have been relatively neglected.

Epidemiology and epigenetics – a marriage made in heaven?

By Caroline Relton
Epidemiology, a well established cornerstone of medical research, is a group level discipline that aims to decipher the distribution and causes of diseases in populations. Epigenetics, perceived by many as the most fashionable research arena in which to be involved, is a mechanism of gene regulation. What brings these perhaps unlikely partners together?

Rick Santorum wins in Louisiana

Rick Santorum had a great night, but he would need to win 70 percent of the delegates moving forward to unseat frontrunner Mitt Romney. That’s not going to happen, but it’ll be a painful road toward the increasingly inevitable. As late in this game, powerful conservatives like Thomas Sowell, Rush Limbaugh, and Tony Perkins are still advocating for Rick Santorum and other non-moderate candidates. Every day they continue to do this, they make less likely confident predictions from outside the beltway that Republicans will come together in the Fall against Obama.

Child Soldiers: Justice, Myths, and Prevention

By Mark A. Drumbl
Because of the Kony 2012 campaign, everyone is talking about the Lord’s Resistance Army, its deranged leadership, and its many victims in northern Uganda, notably child soldiers. Talk is intense. Amid the constant chatter, however, two crucial issues remain neglected. First, what does justice mean for child soldiers? Second, what contribution does Kony 2012 make to the prevention of child soldiering world-wide?

Apollo’s Lyre

We’re celebrating World Theatre Day with an excerpt from Gaston Leroux’s masterpiece The Phantom of the Opera. A mysterious Phantom haunts the depths of the Paris Opera House where he has fallen passionately in love with the beautiful singer Christine Daaé. Under his guidance her singing rises to new heights and she is triumphantly acclaimed. […]

Do baby-boomers care?

By Nancy Guberman
Do baby-boomers see care as a normal natural extension of family obligations? A recent study in Quebec, Canada reveals that if baby-boomers in that province do consider care a family responsibility, they have a much more limited understanding of what this care entails than their predecessors and the state.

Paris Commune formed

This Day in World History
In the wake of France’s defeat by Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War, workers and students of Paris joined together to form a revolutionary government called the Paris Commune. Elected on March 26, the Commune was in direct opposition to the conservative national government. Some historians call the period of the Commune’s rule the first working-class revolt. Though historic, the rebellion failed.