On the Relationship of Technical Images With Their Outside

What is reality, the truth, good, justice, man, etc., is something we have learned from texts for a historically long period of time. Together with writing and linear alphabet, a new ability which could be called conceptual thinking has become part of our life. Therefore, deciphering texts means nothing else than revealing images denoted by these texts. Traditionally, learning meant to be able to read in the book of the world, i.e., to learn to code the world in texts using linear writing first and then to learn to decipher texts applied to reality. Media theorist Vil6m Flusser states in his key texts that technical images become a dominant cognitive metaphor of the contemporary society. New social culture is being formed in connection with their creation, distribution, transfer, and consumption. Such new social structure needs new criteria of analysis and requires a new interpretive beginning. Flusser does not wonder how a medium is possible, but he deals with the consequences of the effect of one type of media abstraction, namely technical images. The following paper briefly analyses the dominant cognitive metaphor of Flusser＇s theory --the concept technical image.     

Decay and Reconstruction In the Study of American Intergovernmental Relations

Current criticism of the performance of American governmentsis often organized around an emergent theory of intergovernmentaldecay, which contains propositions about government size, accountability,control, capacity and achievement among its central assertions.Recent evidence of American governmental performance is usedto appraise the decay theory, leading to the conclusion thatthe evidence offers little support for its major assertions.An alternative approach is then sketched out, based on the structuralconcept of "organizational interest" and the inherent dynamismof a system in which every governmental unit is always partof the relevant political environment of at least one otherunit. These considerations lead to a somewhat different assessmentof the "problems" facing American governments as well as analternative way of conceptualizing their activities.     

Retaining agricultural activities under urban pressures: A review of land use conflicts and policies

From a national perspective it is unclear whether the continued expansion of urban development seriously affects America's potential food production over the long run. Yet there are clearly regional biases toward conversion of farmland to urban uses and locally important changes in the appearance of the landscape at the rural—urban fringe. Urbanization also generates spillover effects causing the idling of farmland and the shifting from one type of agriculture to another.Land use controls aimed at directly addressing the use of the land may be effective in preventing some conversion of farmland to urban uses but the methods are costly and possibly very complex. Incentives to farmers to keep land in agriculture are generally too weak to be effective in retaining agricultural land in the face of strong urban pressures.This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Research Applied to National Needs) to the Regional Science Research Institute.