[Review of] Shelia Chamovitz. Skokie: Rights or Wrong

Skokie is an Illinois suburb in which about 7,000 Jewish survivors of the European Holocaust live. In 1978, The National Socialist Party of American [America] (NSPA) (known until 1970 as the American Nazi Party) wanted to demonstrate in Skokie, to publically speak about the NSPA\u27s ultimate purpose, which is to create an all-white [non-Jewish] America in our lifetime, via legal methods hopefully. The NSPA\u27s immediate goal in marching in Skokie was to dramatize the fact that there is no free speech for National Socialists ... a pressure move in order to force the system, the courts ... to give [the NSPA] back [their] right to free speech. Frank Colin, the NSP A leader and spokesperson, parallels NSP A public assembly with demonstrations by blacks in the heart of dixie during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Blacks were Dramatiz[ing] their cause in an area where those concepts were most opposed, Colin says, just as his group was attempting to do. In other words, the intent of both groups was to demonstrate their constitutional right to free speech. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) picked up Colin\u27s NSPA case when Skokie went to great lengths to keep the NSPA from their community. As news of the planned march spread, community leaders began to receive telephone threats; the Nazis\u27 ultimate plan seemed already to be working

[Review of] Luci Tapahonso. Saanii Dahataal, The Women Are Singing: Poems and Stories

Wrapped around the cover of this volume is a painting by Emmi Whitehorse entitled, White Shell Woman Story 111. This is an implication of Tapahonso’s Navajo origins -- mythical, historical, and persona -- which are evident throughout the book. In this work, Tapahonso seems to be aiming at a mainly non-Navajo audience to teach them about Navajo experience -- historical and present-day, collective and personal

A New Interdisciplinary Mathematics and Science Course

As Norfolk State University has been considering how to adequately prepare students to teach the challenging new mathematics and science called for the Virginia Standards of Learning [1], we have reached the conclusion that the student programs need to provide interdisciplinary experiences linking mathematics and science. We reached the conclusion for two reasons. First, even with the larger number of courses called for in the new licensure regulations, there are not enough course hours available to teach all of the different mathematics and science topics that future teachers need to have studied. Second, elementary and middle school students do not study science and mathematics organized in the same way as these topics are organized in universities. Rather, students are interested in, and study, broader topics such as the working of the human body or the structure of a broad ecological system. In order for teachers to teach these subjects in this way, making use of the appropriate mathematics behind these structures, they must have themselves studied these topics in this manner. The new course, Interdisciplinary Mathematics and Science, that has been developed at Norfolk State University, provides students with an interdisciplinary background, then requires each student to study a broad interdisciplinary topic as a member of a team, and then to prepare oral and written presentations on this topic. The course, and the experience of students with this course, will be described in this paper

Role of the Pension Protection Fund in financial risk management of UK defined benefit pension sector: a multi-period economic capital study

With the advent of formal regulatory requirements for rigorous risk-based, or economic, capital quantification for the financial risk management of banking and insurance sectors, regulators and policy-makers are turning their attention to the pension sector, the other integral player in the financial markets. In this paper, we analyse the impact of applying economic capital techniques to defined benefit pension schemes in the United Kingdom. We propose two alternative economic capital quantification approaches, first, for individual defined benefit pension schemes on a stand-alone basis and then for the pension sector as a whole by quantifying economic capital of the UK’s Pension Protection Fund, which takes over eligible schemes with deficit, in the event of sponsor insolvency. We find that economic capital requirements for individual schemes are significantly high. However, we show that sharing risks through the Pension Protection Fund reduces the aggregate economic capital requirement of the entire sector

Buffalo Habitat for Humanity: The Challenges and Prospects of Green Building

Habitat for Humanity Buffalo has operated since 1985, and in that time has rehabilitated or built more than 150 homes in the cities of Buffalo and Lackawanna. An affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI), Habitat builds affordable housing for qualified low-income people. Once approved, homeowners must put 500 hours of “sweat equity” into Habitat projects, including their homeowner education. In return, they receive a zero-interest mortgage, the proceeds of which pay their property taxes and homeowner’s insurance, as well as support the rehabilitation or construction of more Habitat homes in the Buffalo area

[Review of] Sherman Alexie. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

A member of the Spokane tribe, Alexie writes the heart of a community that is joined through hardship, hope, land, and story. On and off the reservation, from the storytelling of Thomas Builds-the-Fire to Norma\u27s fancydancing, a drumbeat of home follows everyone

Simulation of input electron noise in the free-electron laser

We present a calculation of the shot noise to be used as initial condition for the electron-beam phase-variables in numerical simulations of the free-electron laser