THINGS THAT ARE ALMOST BUT NOT QUITE WELL KNOWN IN PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

The author, a physical geographer, sees no need to despair about the present state of the discipline and the future of geography. He places geography in context among the sciences and finds a need for a synthesizing discipline that pulls together the findings of the particular disciplines. Such a function might be performed by landscape science and regional geography. In general, geographers are found to go too far afield in their research and there is a need to define the focus of the disciplines to eliminate the present centrifugal tendencies. Such a unifying focus might be found in geographical prediction. Geographers should be aware of the limits and capabilities of their discipline; geography is most effective in fostering solutions in conjunction with other disciplines. Fieldwork per se is criticized; some geographers make a fetish of fieldwork, spending their life in the field without ever writing up the results as a contribution to science. The language of geographical exposition must be cleansed of pseudoscientific jargon; too much geographical writing is incomprehensible. The use of mathematics in geography should be placed in historical perspective; it is not the panacea for all that ails geography.     

DARWINIAN WE ARE NOT: COUNTERFACTUALISM AS THE NATURAL COURSE OF HISTORY

This article considers Peter Bowler's recent contribution to the genre of counterfactual history as exemplifying a “restrained” counterfactual framework, one that must downplay the role of contingency in the historical process in order to present what Bowler calls a more “natural course” of historical development. This restrained counterfactual methodology is discussed with reference to analogous debates within evolutionary science about the competing roles of contingency and convergence in the history of life, along with recent work done within the humanities about the more subtle nuances of counterfactual reasoning. Although there is little doubt that Bowler's study will help legitimize the genre of counterfactual history, it is argued that the role of contingency—once thought to be integral to the counterfactual—has been necessarily minimized in order to construct a narrative that is a plausible counterfactual history of science. It is in this way that Bowler's world without Darwin sheds light on our historiographical preconceptions about what makes for a plausible historical narrative.     

苏瓦:南太平洋上的明珠也有三大怪

苏瓦始建于1880年,是斐济的首都,全国最大工业城市和主要港口,面积约20平方公里,人口约7.7万人。苏瓦三面环水,一面靠山,市中心靠海。市内主要是低层的热带建筑,和谐而美丽。街道两旁高大的椰子树、面包果树、芒果树在海风的轻拂下迎风摇曳,扶疏成荫。块块草坪,犹如碧毯,住宅四周鲜花争妍,整个城市犹如富有热带风光的公园。     

THE PUBLIC LIFE OF ECONOMIC INCENTIVES

Many current proposals for policy reform call for the use of economic incentives. The growing application of economic incentives in a number of policy areas necessitates continuing critical examination of the claims for and the criticisms of their use. Early empirical evidence on the implementation of incentive schemes serves to shed light on the validity of some of the supporting and opposing arguments. By continuing the assessment of the viability of economic incentives, this study reveals that incentive alternatives face obstacles to use stemming from implementation problems, but political and philosophical issues pose greater threats. Nevertheless, the use of incentives can best be defended on political and moral grounds. Political resistance can be overcome and incentives can be employed effectively, if incentive schemes are understood as fostering one form of social interaction in a mixed regime.     

THE BUSINESS OF WELFARE

A common narrative in welfare state research is that Sweden exemplifies a specific model of welfare, ‘the Swedish model’, or ‘the Social democratic welfare regime’. From this perspective the emerging welfare state left little room for private initiatives – the stage was set for the development of an encompassing welfare state in the 1950s. In this article I argue that this, virtually hegemonic, perspective has hindered an analysis of how private insurance co-existed and thrived within the emerging Swedish welfare state. As an alternative approach to ‘modelling’ – the concept of welfare-formation is developed to analyse mutually sustaining practices of welfare. I show how the insurance business and its protagonists influenced the settings of public pension schemes in a way that underpinned their own interests. A close cooperation with the state apparatus was fundamental for creating a trustworthy insurance market and legitimizing the business claim of fulfilling a social mission. The business adaptability in the shifting landscape of social policy also influenced perceptions of security and welfare in general. Commercial ideals became an essential dimension of the welfare state. By exploring this marginalized history – the business of welfare – the study deepens our understanding of modern welfare societies.     

THE IMPACT OF INVESTMENT INCENTIVES ON MANUFACTURING CHANGE: THE GEORGIAN BAY REGION OF ONTARIO

Relations between Canadian industrial location policy and manufacturing change in the Georgian Bay region of Ontario are examined. To span the pre- and post-policy periods, a census of manufacturing establishments was constructed from 1961 to 1975. Its analysis reveals that incentives had a substantial immediate direct effect on the volume and structure of regional manufacturing, both in absolute terms and in relation to trends in the provincial economy. As a catalyst for self-sustaining regional development and improved regional economic well-being, however, the programme's results are more equivocal.
Ce travail examine les rapports entre la politique canadienne de la location des industries et les changements dans les manufactures dans la région de la Baie de Georgie. Afin de couvrir les périodes qui précèdent et suivent l' introduction de cette politique, nous avons fait un recensernent des etablissements industriels de 1961 à 1975. L' analyse de cette information démontre que les stimulants eurent de façon immédiate et directe des effets importants sur le niveau et la structure de l' industrie dans cette région; cela en termes absolus ainsi que par rapport aux tendances de l' économie provinciale. Cependant les effets à plus long terme du programme sont plus équivoques en ce qui concerne son efficacité comme catalyseur d' un développement régional qui se perpétue et d' une amélioration du bien-être économique de la région.     

要让照相机物尽其用体现价值

由于照相机拥有者的兴趣和爱好不同,它们的用途和价值的体现亦不尽相同,有的把它当玩具,有的把它工具,还有的把它当成收藏品。如果您也拥有照相机,不管把它当成什么,我建议您一定要让它物尽其用,体现价值!     

RELATIVE VALUE: THE FINANCING OF FAMILIES

Abstract

For most individuals, financial survival depends upon luck, matching income to expenditure, paid work and the mobilization of resources via a series of links acquired through kinship, neighbourliness, friendship, ethnicity, religion or shared interests. This is a guide to some of the secondary sources that discuss external resources; friendly societies, building societies, life insurance, businesses and the co-operative movement and the relationship of each of these to families. The aim is draw attention to disparate studies in these fields and to encourage further small-scale research that challenges the privileged position so frequently accorded to aggregate evidence accumulated by focusing on the national level, rather than the family and community level.     

THE BUSINESS OF MOBILITY: GEOGRAPHY, LIBERALISM, AND THE CHARTER OF RIGHTS

Inspired by some important inter-disciplinary work in both legal studies and human geography, I explore the vision of geography - with special reference to the theorization of mobility - that appears to be expressed within mainstream legal discourse. I argue that the legal account is premised on the privileging of certain components of liberal thought, including the individual, the private sphere, and concepts of frictionless spatial mobility. I try to demonstrate that this vision is partial and selective and ignores an alternative and insistent account of the geography of social life that appears prevalent within civil society. Evidenced by the reactions of many small towns to threats of economic dislocation, the emphasis here appears to be one that elevates concepts of place and the community. Drawing upon recent higher court decisions in British Columbia concerning the meaning of section 6 (mobility rights) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, I argue, firstly, that the legal vision is ultimately indeterminate and contingent but, secondly, that its hegemony has certain implications for social life, social justice, and the city.     

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY AND THE CARTER ADMINISTRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF REORGANIZATION OPTIONS

Responding to his 1976 campaign pledge, President Carter has reorganized the federal government's enforcement of equal employment opportunity(EEO) laws. He has done so by shifting some EEO responsibilities from the Civil Service Commission and the Department of Labor to create a “Super-EEOC”. This article examines why President Carter chose the EEO reorganization that he did from the standpoint of advantages and disadvantages. Also presented are alternative reform options that the President could have selected that would have involved increasing EEO coordination or reorganization entailing new legislation that would have gone far beyond the creation of a “Super-EEOC.”     

MINDING THE BUSINESS OF THE SUPREME COURT: SOME THOUGHTS ON THE EFFECTS OF THE JUDGES' BILL OF 1925*

Twice at least in the Court's first too centuries it has found itself inundated with litigation that has outstripped its abilities to process it. Congress has from time to time had to make adjustments in the Supreme Court's jurisdiction so that the court could cope with its caseload. These “reforms” are potentially quite, important., yet few scholars have studied the effects, intended and unintended, of them. This paper reviews and criticize the scholarship on the effects of one especially interesting reform, the Judges' Bill of 1925, Along the way I offer a number of suggestions ore offered on how social scientists might in the future go about studying the effects of judical-reform.     

THE VALUE OF HISTORICAL FIELD WORK

Born in Oklahoma City in 1939, educated at George Washington University, the University of Central Oklahoma, and the University of Oklahoma, Baird taught for a decade at the University of Arkansas, Fayettmille, and for another ten years at Oklahoma State University before accepting in 1989 the Howard A. White Professorship of History at Pepperdine University. He and his wife, Jane, are the parents of a daughter and a son. In addition to numerous articles, Baird has published eight books on the history of Native American peoples in Oklahoma and two on the history of medicine in Arkansas. He has been president of the Western History Association and chair of the Oklahoma Foundation for the Humanities. From 1989 to 1991 he served as president of Phi Alpha Theta, whose advisory council he now chairs. Bairds presidential address was delivered in December 1991 at the 70th Anniversary Phi Alpha Theta convention held in Chicago.     

ANALYZING THE COST OF DEBT FOR SMALL BUSINESS

The available empirical evidence provides mixed views of small businesses' relative bankruptcy risk. The difference between Churchill and Lewis' findings and SBA's and Kirchhoffs' may well lie in the difference in definition of firm “size” used. Risk is not evenly spread; the smallest businesses seem to be less risky than the intermediate size businesses. Yet, Churchill and Lewis' actual loss evidence suggests that small business risk is only marginally greater than for large businesses, the loss rate is still equivalent to less than one half of one percent. The assumptions that lenders will adjust the amount of debt they allow small business clients rather than the interest rate is not rejected by this evidence. In fact, the much higher profitability of the small business department reported by Churchill and Lewis suggests that the bank's loan interest rates are more than high enough to cover loss risk and fixed costs, and borrowers provide profitable deposits. Thus, the logic of my utility theory hypothesis provides a reasonable explanation for the relatively higher debt levels of small firms compared to large firms. But, then the Kirchhoffs' findings cast some doubt on whether small firms actually have higher debt levels. None of these findings justify the 2.75 percent interest rate spread allowed by SBA.     

SHAPE OF THINGS: UNDERSTANDING A LOOM WEIGHT

Loom weights are common finds in archaeological excavations in Europe and the Near East. They represent the only remains of warp-weighted looms. The function of the warp-weighted loom is well known from ethnographic studies. The function of loom weights, however, has not been investigated and cannot be deduced directly from ethnographical data, since loom weights in antiquity were very different from those used in the twentieth century AD. This paper reviews the functional elements of a loom weight. The weight and thickness of loom weights are established as the defining functional parameters for the operation of the warp-weighted loom. A series of systematic tests demonstrated that the weight of a loom weight defines what yarn to use and the thread density. The thickness of a loom weight, and thus the width of the row of loom weights hanging closely together, defines the width of a fabric and – together with the weight of the loom weight – the thread count and density of the fabric. This new knowledge provides the methodological framework for archaeologists to calculate textile production possibilities from any given loom weight, as long as the weight and thickness are preserved. Furthermore, it allows scholars to assess textile production on sites where no textiles are preserved.