The Third Mountain: A Meditation on Chaos and Order

Thinking is a way of being that isalways in danger of clinging to merelyconceptual distinctions. The oppositionbetween Chaos and Order bounds all modesof Western thought, and this means that italways manages to impose Order at some level orother: for example, the kind of Order thatdivides Chaos from Order, or my project fromyour project, or silence from speech. This wayof thinking is not necessarily regrettable,but it is or can become an impediment. Thispaper interprets the relation between Chaos andOrder in Western thought, using the work ofSartre, Hegel, Nietzsche, Derrida, Heidegger,and Wittgenstein as its principal examples. Italso speculates on the possibility of a way ofbeing that does not reject dualism, but doesnot cling to it either.     

INTERGOVERNMENTAL IMPLEMENTATION OF BUILDING CODES WITH LATERAL FORCE PROVISIONS

Building-code revisions and land-use planning are recognized as potential solutions to the threat posed by hazardous structures in seismically active regions. Their implementation, however, is problematic and several Impediments to action on building codes are analyzed. The authors recommend a system of incentives to overcome these barriers including federally subsidized insurance, low interest loans, and joint state-local policy ventures with technical assistance provided by federal agencies.     

Order authorizing termination of certain life support systems

An elderly, severely brain-damaged patient was being ventilated and given nutrition and antibiotics intravenously in a medical center's critical care unit. Her legal guardian requested authorization to order that the respirator be withdrawn and the administration of nutrition and antibiotics be stopped. A Missouri circuit court ruled that, while public policy, as evidenced in the state's living will statute, permitted withdrawing the respirator, it apparently precluded withholding or withdrawing nutrition, hydration, or antibiotics.