Ley del libro, Uncategorized, cedro, editores | No Comments »

Politics, Uncategorized | No Comments »

The latest issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter, Volume 19.3, is available now. Its articles provide both context and concepts for understanding the federal sentencing realities that may have prompted the Supreme Court to take up Claiborne and Rita and that may impact the Court’s decisions.

The articles in this FSR issue, some of which directly address federal sentencing realities after Booker and some of which address broader issues concerning the operation of guideline systems, provide varied perspectives on how Claiborne and Rita could impact the current state and future direction of the federal sentencing system.

Highlights from this issue are available in free sample articles, including Professor Douglas A. Berman’s "Editor’s Observations", and U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner with "Thoughts on Reasonableness", at http://caliber.ucpress.net/toc/fsr/19/3.

In addition, you can find information on Booker, Blakely, death penalty issues and other sentencing issues updated every day at Prof. Berman’s blog, Sentencing Law and Policy at http://sentencing.typepad.com/.

Politics, Sociology, Uncategorized | No Comments »

This past summer, I completed the final manuscript of How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace. Since then, I have been following ongoing stories included in the book. One such story concerns the “recent” emergence of severe lung disease (called bronchiolitis obliterans) among workers exposed to the chemical diacetyl. It seems the outbreak has spread. The disease was first thought to be limited to a narrow industrial sector located in a few Midwestern states: artificial butter-flavored, microwave popcorn production. Now several cases have been confirmed in California in other types of factories using diacetyl and California OSHA (a counterpart to Federal OSHA) is investigating 30 facilities where enough of the chemical is used to give concern over additional disease. It has also become clear that the new disease did not first emerge in 2000, as had been thought. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) was called in to investigate a similar outbreak in 1985 in a bakery in Indiana using diacetyl, but the report was inconclusive and was never followed up. Neither Federal nor Cal OSHA has enacted to date any emergency rules for diacetyl control. In a September 2006 public meeting on diacetyl held in Oakland California, a labor representative asked, “…if exposure to diacetyl is hazardous why is it still being allowed to be used?” The California Health Department member chairing a meeting responded, “…the relationship of diaceytl to bronchiolitis obliterans or other lung disease is not entirely clear.” Later in the meeting, he also noted, “…market forces are probably already operating to reduce the use of diacetyl…”

Watching this story unfold only further underscores the inescapable lesson of the long and sad history of occupational and environmental disease – the same old pattern of slow response and inadequate protection seems to repeat itself again and again.

Current Affairs, Feature Articles, Health, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Occasionally, UC Press has the opportunity to bring you brief articles written by our authors. The following is by prolific author, Lawrence Kramer, whose newest book is Why Classical Music Still Matters:

"Whenever classical music makes news these days the news is likely to be bad. So it was with a recent Washington Post article by Gene Weingarten. Weingarten persuaded Joshua Bell, a world-class violinist, to take his world-class Stradivarius into a Washington Metro station and play Bach for spare change. The outcome? Of over a thousand people who walked through the station, only seven paid any attention. The world seemed literally to be passing this great music by. Not even a great performer could get it a hearing.

The story interested me because the concluding chapter of my new book, Why Classical Music Still Matters, centers on a similar incident I witnessed in the New York subway. The violinist, a young woman, probably a music student, was playing an Adagio from a Bach solo sonata. But unlike Bell, she captured the attention of the passersby, who not only ringed her to listen but also applauded when she was finished. This was hardly typical behavior under Times Square. It got me thinking about how and why it happened and what it said about the music. The results are in the book. But given Joshua Bell's experience, one has to wonder: Why was Bach a hit in New York and a bust in Washington? Why did a good violinist succeed where a great one failed? One explanation is that Bell was badly placed. He was playing-and at rush hour--near both a kiosk with a brisk Lotto trade and an escalator, both sites of purposeful action that stopping to listen to music, any music, would disrupt. The New York violinist was on the train platform, where the only real action is waiting. Hearing Bach there is unusual but it is no disruption. The platform gives the music a chance to be heard, despite the rumble of passing trains. And when one person turns to listen, others follow until an audience assembles-which was exactly what happened. If that first listener had never materialized, the New York violinist might have shared Bell's disappointment. Both incidents involve an element of happenstance. But the contrast of outcomes argues against overreacting to the Washington flop. In New York Bach's music got heard and it moved its hearers. This music still mattered-and proved it."

Music, Uncategorized, books | No Comments »

In Proud to Be an Okie, author Peter La Chapelle explores the political and cultural history of the Los Angeles country music scene, illuminating the evolution of politics and musical expression from the early songs of the liberal Woody Guthrie to the later conservative views of Merle Haggard and his "Okie from Muskogee" anthem. Merle Haggard is now making headlines for penning his recent song "Hillary," which seems to endorse Hillary Clinton for President. Could Haggard be serious? La Chapelle examines the debate:

Just as my book Proud to Be an Okie was beginning to hit the store shelves, country music legend Merle Haggard, one of the central figures I write about, was making headlines with a new song titled "Hillary."

Often cast as a working-class conservative for such patriotic anti-counterculture numbers as "Okie from Muskogee" and "Fightin' Side," Haggard appears to endorse Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential bid in the new song, which argues it is time to "put a woman in charge."

The brouhaha that followed resembled in an inverse way the original uproar that broke out over "Okie from Muskogee," his seemingly pro-war, hippie-bashing anthem, in 1969.

With "Hillary," fans on the Right voiced confusion, disappointment, and a sense of betrayal. Fans and bloggers on the Left either applauded it or criticized Haggard, who has been unabashedly opposed to the Iraq War, for endorsing one of the few Democratic presidential candidates who has not officially renounced an earlier pro-war stance.

In 1969, left-wing country-rock fans and critics of the Vietnam War expressed a similar disappointment at "Okie," while right-wing audiences turned out in droves at places such as the Anaheim Convention Center Arena to cheer and sing along.

The one through-line between "Hillary" and "Okie from Muskogee" may be a question of interpretation: Is Haggard singing these songs at face value or are they to be understood as statements of irony?

Haggard's intent has always been a difficult item to nail down. In 1969, even academic folklorists were unsure if "Okie" was meant to be sarcastic, while many longtime fans will swear to this day that Haggard was really lampooning his own small-town boot-wearing narrator.

Although the New York Times blog that brought "Hillary" to light claimed Haggard was serious, longtime fans writing on his website swear it is a lark.

If Haggard is indeed serious, then this, along with the Dixie Chicks' multiple honors at the Grammy Awards, suggest that the earlier liberal populist trend I describe in the book has not completely trailed off in country music--even if today's mainstream country remains dominated by a more-or-less conservative outlook.

American Studies, Feature Articles, Music, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Current Affairs, Politics, Sociology, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Ecology, Events, Publicity Announcements, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Juste une petite news pour marquer le retour d'une absence contrainte par mon activité du moment ... "réducteur de thèse"

La PME française Nemoptic, à la tête du projet Sylen et développeur d'un modèle de papier électronique, vient de recevoir l'aval du Ministère de l'Industrie pour un financement de plus de 5 millions d'euros dans le cadre du pôle de compétitivité Cap Digital.

Cette société n'en sera pas la seule bénéficiaire puisque d'autres sociétés compétentes dans le domaine de l'édition numérique, dont Bookeen (des collègues ex-cytaliens), y seront associées. C'est une très bonne chose d'avoir l'appui des pouvoirs publics, cela renforce la légitimité de ce type de projets....

Plus d'info plus tard (du moins je l'espère), mais pour le moment, vous pouvez aller voir directement à la source ...

 

Livres électroniques, Page principale, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Ecology, Science, Uncategorized | No Comments »