The Failure of Defamation Law to Safeguard against SLAPPs in Ontario

The authors examine the failure of the law of defamation in Canada to reflect changed realities with respect to public participation in decision-making processes and the impact that this has had on Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) in the Ontario context. They examine the enhancement of the public's substantive and procedural rights to participate in environmental decision-making processes reflected in legislation at the international, federal and provincial levels. They argue that SLAPPs threaten to reverse these shifts in norms in the development of public policy. The authors review anti-SLAPP legislation as well as the evolution of defamation law in Canada and other jurisdictions and conclude by offering some law reform recommendations for Ontario.     

Studies in Dhāraṇī Literature I: Revisiting the Meaning of the Term <Emphasis Type="Italic">Dhāraṇī</Emphasis>

The Mahāyāna Buddhist term dhāraṇī has been understood to be problematic since the mid-nineteenth century, when it was often translated as “magical phrase” or “magical formula” and was considered to be emblematic of tantric Buddhism. The situation improved in contributions by Bernhard, Lamotte and Braarvig, and the latter two suggested the translation be “memory,” but this remained difficult in many environments. This paper argues that dhāraṇī is a function term denoting “codes/coding,” so that the category dhāraṇī is polysemic and context-sensitive. After reviewing Western scholarship, the article discusses dhāraṇī semantic values and issues of synonymy, the early applications of mantras, the sonic/graphic background of coding in India extended into Buddhist applications, and the soteriological ideology of dhāraṇīs along with some of its many varieties.     

The impact of race on perceptions of criminal injustice

Based on a stratified sample of 239 residents of Cincinnati, Ohio, the present study explored whether African Americans and Whites differ in their perceptions of racial injustice in the criminal justice system. The data revealed a cleavage in the extent to which the races believed that Black citizens would be differentially stopped by the police, given a speeding ticket, jailed, and sentenced to death. The effect of race remained strong even when controls were introduced for sociodemographic characteristics, experience with the criminal justice system, experience with crime, neighborhood disorder, and political and crime related ideology. Perceptions of injustice, moreover, were strongest among the least affluent African Americans. The possibility that the racial divide in perceived criminal injustice both reflects and contributes to a larger racial chasm in how Black and White citizens understand and experience their lives in American society is explored.     

The mystique of first intercourse among college youth: The role of partners,contraceptive practices,and psychological reactions

The purpose of this study was to examine first sexual intercourse as it relates to gender differences regarding involvement in various sexual behaviors, the role of the partner, contraceptive practices, sexual guilt, and sexual satisfaction. An anonymous 155-item questionnaire was distributed to 304 never-married female and male undergraduate students at a Midwestern state university. Of these respondents, only those with sexual intercourse experience were included in this study. The overall mean age at first sexual intercourse was 17.7 years for females and 17.8 years for males. Although both males and females experienced first intercourse with older partners, females were more likely to be in committed relationships. First intercourse was characterized by a lack of contraceptive use, primarily due to lack of planning. Compared to males, females were less physiologically and psychologically satisfied with their first sexual intercourse experience.Support for data collection and coding was from the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire and for data analyses from Academic Computing Services, University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire. In addition, tables were produced by the Media Development Center with support from the School of Graduate Studies and Office of University Research, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.Received Ph.D. in human ecology from Michigan State University. Her major research interests include the female sexual response and sexual satisfaction; family, health, and stress issues of menopausal women; and work and the family.Received Ph.D. in marriage and family from the University of Florida. His major research interests include sexual altitudes and behavior of college women and men, the female sexual response and sexual satisfaction including perceptions of the Grafenberg Spot and female ejaculation, and attitudes toward adoption among unmarried teens.Received Ph.D. in marriage and family therapy from the Florida State University. Her major interests include the influence of early sexual involvement on contraceptive practices and sexual satisfaction, and adult children of alcoholics.     

Issues facing the dissemination of prevention programs: three decades of research on the adolescent diversion project

This paper argues that the issues facing effective prevention programs when they embark on dissemination, implementation, and routinization have been largely ignored by the field. Through the example of the Adolescent Diversion Program, these issues are illustrated and discussed. Four sequential longitudinal experimental studies are summarized as a context for the discussion of dissemination issues. In each case, the alternative preventive program is demonstrated to be more effective than traditional approaches. Challenges to widespread implementation of effective prevention programs are then discussed with a call for the field to add such issues to its scientific agenda.     

Medicaid myths: trends in Medicaid expenditures and the prospects for reform

Medicaid expenditures, which had reached more than +32 billion by 1981, have grown substantially throughout the program's history. As a result, the conventional wisdom is that Medicaid expenditures represent a significant public-policy problem. Using other measures, however, it can be shown that the program is much less of a problem than it appears to be. By 1981, spending for Medicaid represented only 12.7 percent of total state spending and had contributed only 14.2 percent to the overall growth in state expenditures since 1965. Moreover, considering only the funds which states raise from in-state sources, the median share of state budgets accounted for by Medicaid was just 5.6 percent, and only 7 states spent as much as 9 percent of their own money on the program. These figures suggest that the marginal reductions in Medicaid expenditures which would result from typical program changes are likely to be so small that rational state officials might be unwilling to incur the political opposition of powerful provider groups or the resistance of large state bureaucracies by proposing substantial reforms. The major exceptions are the few states with very large programs where even small proportional savings would amount to millions of dollars. We conclude that, given its present federal-state form and the current distribution of expenditures, it is unlikely that major reforms will be enacted because the stakes are too small for most states and the federal interest is too diffused.