The last Nuclear Security Summit

The fourth and final Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC marked the culmination of a seven-year process of improving the security of nuclear and radioactive materials that terrorists might seek to target or acquire. While progress was made in enlisting some governments to take voluntary measures, additional work is needed to engage more parties and secure more materials. It will probably take another bold initiative from the next US administration to set this in motion.     

France's last sociologist

Abstract

The publication of Michael Grenfell's Pierre Bourdieu: Agent Provocateur provides an ideal opportunity for a career retrospective of the academic sociologist who, in recent times, has taken most seriously his role as a public intellectual, indeed, one who gradually warmed to the status of ‘universal intellectual’ with increasing postmodernist disapproval. The French context of Bourdieu's development and reception is highlighted.     

A Latin last hurrah

He has written on the region for the Miami Herald, Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, Strategic Review, Freedom At Issue,and is the author of The Democratic Mask: The Consolidation of the Sandinista Revolutionand A Question for El Salvador: What Does the FMLN Really Want?This article is based on a Freedom House Fact Finding Mission, May 1989.     

抗战精神永世长存--纪念中国人民抗日战争胜利60周年

日月经天,江河运地;潮起潮落,岁月如炬。在伟大的中国人民抗日战争胜利60周年到来之际,回望历史,我们心潮澎湃,激情奔涌。“沧海横流,方显出英雄本色。”在这场中华民族史上空前惨烈、空前悲壮的抗击外来侵略的战争中,从仁人志士到普通百姓,从政党组织到民间团体,举国上下,万众一心,同仇敌忾,共赴国难。我们的父老先贤在经受万恶的敌人所强加的深重灾难和无尽屈辱的同时,表现出了惊天地而泣鬼神的伟大的抗战精神。抗战精神博大精深,内涵丰富,是整个中华民族在抗日战争过程中乃至在处理战时战后诸多问题时所表现出来的坚持正义、反对侵略、追…     

The first and last signs of Main Street: semiosis and modality in California and Hong Kong Disneylands

Main Street is an indelible image in the American consciousness made hyperreal at Disneyland California in 1955. For subsequent parks in Tokyo and Paris, Disney recontextualized Main Street, but Hong Kong Disneyland’s version was formed as a copy of the California original. This copy demonstrates that transference of a structural form to a new cultural context is not a guarantee of the concomitant transmission of the originating culture’s sensory modality. The arising dissonant tension between the form (signifier) and substance (signified) of Hong Kong’s Main Street has led to its ongoing semiosis due to local cultural and corporate pressures. This paper presents a framework to analyze this dissonance and semiosis through comparison of external and internal photographs of the same eight landmarks at both parks. The problem of transferring meaning into a new cultural context for an international sign suggests Hong Kong’s Main Street could be the last that Disney constructs.     

The first word and the last word in the budgetary process: A comparative institutional analysis of proposal and veto authorities

This study examines the role of proposal authority and executive veto in the budgetary process. A five stage sequential model of the budgetary process with three institutional actors — a legislature, an appropriations committee, and an executive — is presented. We examine: (i) the factors that affect the executive's power in shaping the final budget when the executive is granted proposal authority; (ii) how increased veto authority, in combination with executive proposal authority, affects the executive's power in forming the final budget; and (iii) the effects of different types of proposal authority and veto rules on the efficiency of the budgetary process.     

Political shirking and the last term problem: Evidence for a party-administered pension system

Studies of political shirking have disagreed both over whether the voting behavior of Members of Congress changes in their last term, and over the manner in which last term shirking can be controlled: through electoral sorting, or through a pension system. This paper presents evidence that Members of Congress who leave the House to run for statewide office do alter their voting behavior between the two sessions of their last House term, and that this change includes an ideological shift toward their state party delegations. The results suggest that a party-driven pension system influences the voting of House members who aspire to higher office, but that the pension system is not sufficient to control the last term shirking likely to occur if term limitations were imposed on House members.     

Reported reasons retired workers left their last job: findings from the New Beneficiary Survey

About a third of all new retired-worker beneficiaries who had stopped work reported that the main reason they left their last job was a desire to retire. The existence of health problems was the next most frequently given reason, and it was reported by about a fourth of the group. These responses were made to questions in the 1982 New Beneficiary Survey, conducted by the Social Security Administration (SSA) in October-December 1982. Recently retired workers not only said they wished to retire, but more of them began receiving benefits at age 62 than at older ages; by age 65 most were beneficiaries. Forty-five percent of the men and almost 54 percent of the women had already left their last job at the time they received their first benefit. Married women in particular had not only stopped work but frequently had left their last job more than 3 years before they received their first benefit check.