Innocent victims and evil-doers

As a newspaper reader, headlines attract my attention to particular stories and suggest a way of reading the contents of these. To do this headlines must allow readers to use a variety of sense assembly methods so that they can be decoded to discover their message and instructions. In the paper I discuss how this happens by analyzing the heading GIRL GUIDE AGED 14 RAPED AT HELL'S ANGELS CONVENTION.     

THE NORTHERN TERRITORY GOVERNMENTS CANBERRA REPRESENTATIVE

On 14 July 1980 an experiment began in Australian Federal-State relations which has been accorded little recognition. On that day the Northern Territory government opened an office in Canberra for its new "Canberra Representative". It was a step no State government had ever taken, although several had discussed such a move over the previous decade during general reconsiderations of the machinery of Federal-State relations. In particular, Sir Henry Bland's Board of Inquiry into the Victorian Public Service saw some benefits in the location in Canberra of one or more members of a proposed Commonwealth/State Relations Unit (now the Federal Affairs Division of the Premier's Department) in the State public service, although it chose finally not to recommend it     

Ann Diamond on an Unlimited Constitutional Convention

Ann Diamond has argued that, unless it is called by all thestates, a convention held under Article V of the Constitutionof the United States would be limited to proposing piecemealchanges. Diamond's arguments are flawed. The power of the statesto call a convention to propose amendments is coequal with thepower of Congress to propose amendments and is subject to onlyone explicit limitation. The Convention of 1787 was not attendedby all the states, and it did not delimit two types of futureconventions. Diamond's analysis reflects extreme notions ofindividual state sovereignty that lack historical support andwould, in any event, unduly hobble the states as a whole.     

Law in Politics: Struggles over Property and Public Space on New York City's Lower East Side

This article examines politics on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, for evidence of law at the constitutive level. We see legal relations shaping grassroots struggles over public space and housing as forums, claims, and political positions. This view challenges instrumental conceptions of law still prominent in some social-scientific approaches.