The Dynamics of Stereotyping: Is a New Image of the Terrorist Evolving in American Popular Culture?

This article considers popular ways of representing terror activists, and the metamorphoses that approaches to representation in the American media have undergone. A part of the article deals with terrorism in the media over time, common stereotypes, and how they affect the representation of Arabs and Muslims. The article then discusses Sleeper Cell (2005), a mini-series which focuses on a Jihad terror group. The article addresses questions including: How are Arabs and non-Arab Muslims portrayed in the series? Can a real change be observed over time in the method of portraying them? Twentieth-century historical considerations precede the pointed topical discussion.     

Why did Thailand's middle class turn against a democratically elected government? The information-gap hypothesis

In 2006, Bangkok's middle-class residents overwhelmingly supported the military coup that displaced the elected government of Thaksin Shinawatra. Survey research shows that opponents of Thaksin had a stronger commitment to liberal democracy and possibly to royalist values while rural voters supported Thaksin because he fulfilled their social demands. Opposition to Thaksin was not motivated by economic interests, but rather, there is some evidence that urban middle- and upper-class voters disliked Thaksin because they heard negative reporting about him, which were less available in the countryside. These findings are compatible with a new theory of democratic consolidation, in which the upper classes have the means that would enable and encourage them to pay sufficient attention to politics to discover that what they viewed as ‘good government’ was violated by the ruling party, which could have led to demands for more democracy historically. More recently, however, in Thailand and perhaps other instances in Southeast Asia and Latin America, those with the money and leisure to follow politics closely have heard reports about the ‘bad government’ of populist, democratically elected leaders, and thus have turned against them.     

我国农村医疗保障立法中的政府职能定位

政府介入农村社会保障领域是为克服市场机制下城乡收入分配缺陷以体现公平,降低成本以提高效率及体现农村医疗社会保障的公共性。目前我国中央政府对农村医疗保障政策的投入不足,导致不公平加剧,中央政府各职能部门对政策的执行缺乏有效支持,县乡两级地方政府对推动农村医疗保障制度建立的作用甚微。政府对农村医疗社会保障的职能是为农村医疗保障制度提供完备的法律框架;提供财政支持;合理布局卫生资源,切实减低医疗费用;加强公共卫生保健工作,完善公共卫生保健体系;建立医疗救助制度,加强卫生扶贫工作;强化政府机构的管理职能。     

Dealing With Breast Cancer： The Journals of Audre Lorde

This paper analyzes how Caribbean-American poet and activist Audre Lorde textualizes the experience of breast cancer in her journals. Lorde confronts the narrative of the female body provided by the biomedical approach and challenges the passive role she is expected to play as a sick person. She deplores misinformation to patients and the insistence on reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy. Lorde denounces the discursive aggression toward women that is the result of the hidden patriarchal impositions insidiously operating within medical practices. She believes medical discourse has often been used to implement many of the precepts that underlie a male-centered society, shaping the gendering of women in line with a patriarchal worldview. This paper examines how Lorde faced with such a hostile situation, managed to overcome it, by speaking up and putting her fears and her hopes into words. Her personal diaries, The Cancer Journals （1980） and A Burst of Light （1988）, constitute today a fundamental point of reference and an important contribution to the feminist cause.