A quota for the outsourcing of television programmes: an economic analysis of its effectiveness

A European Directive stipulates that at least 10% of programmes broadcast by each European broadcaster must be produced by an independent producer. By stimulating independent productions the European Union and the Dutch government aim to improve the quality of television programmes. In 1997, the Netherlands increased this requirement to 25%. This paper evaluates the policy, using a unique Dutch dataset that includes all independent productions appearing on public television from 1996 until 2000. We show that: (i) the producers are highly specialised; (ii) programming is volatile; (iii) entry of new firms is substantially reducing average rates of turnover; (iv) the producers who lobbied for the higher quota were losing market share and were relatively well‐organised. Therefore, the outsourcing requirement does not lead to the desired levels of stable production by individual producers and it is unlikely to be an effective instrument.     

Lights and Shadows: The Inquisitorial Process Against the Jesuit Congregation of Nuestra Señora de la Luz on the Mariana Islands (1758–1776)

This article focuses on the controversy over the charges of sexual impropriety made against Father Franz Reittemberger within the context of worship of Nuestra Señora de la Luz (Our Lady of Light) in the mid‐eighteenth century Mariana Islands. As is well known, this cult began to spread around the Americas and the Philippines (via New Spain) starting in 1740, and it became a cohesive force in a multiethnic society perched on the outskirts of Spain's overseas empire. The Society of Jesus arrived in the Marianas' archipelago in 1668 to found a mission with the economic support of Queen Mariana de Austria, Philip IV's widow and regent of Spain. In 1758 Father Reittemberger founded the Marian devotion to Our Lady of Light. After the expulsion of the Jesuit order from the Spanish islands of the Pacific (1769), the Augustinian commissaries of the Holy Office accused the congregation's founder of the crime of sollicitatio ad turpia. In examining this Inquisition trial Jesuit and Augustinian rivalries come to the fore, revealing the larger anti‐Jesuit sentiments that drove public censure of the colonial church in the Spanish overseas possessions.     

Governing Future Radicals in Europe

Abstract: This article analyses European initiatives to counter radicalisation and recru‐itment as a practice of governing that works preemptively through civil society and semi‐public spaces. Since the London and Madrid bombings, the EU agenda in this domain is substantial and ambitious. At the same time, proposals are embraced by member states to various degrees and materialise in local settings and concrete programmes in different ways. We propose to regard radicalisation as an assemblage of governing that is mobilised through particular threat representations, knowledge practices, training programmes and strategies for intervention. This lens allows for the simultaneous recognition of national differentiations, the power and reach of “Europe”, and the tensions, fluid relations and alignments that are forged in counter‐radicalisation conceptualisation and practice. In so doing, the motivation behind our research is to make strange the idea of radicalisation itself, which has been fully embraced and mobilised as a problem of governance across Europe.     

“If I were hungry,I would not tell you” (Ps 50, 12): Perspectives on the Care and Feeding of the Gods in the Hebrew Bible

Abstract

In the Hebrew Bible, sacrifices are described as food for Yahweh and thus the sacrificial system corresponds with the general Ancient Near Eastern system of the “care and feeding of the gods” At the same time, human-divine commensality is problematized in narrative texts such as Judges 6 and 13, where the burnt offering is stressed as the only and necessarily different way the deity may consume food. Finally, some passages, such as Psalm 50, quoted above, explicitly reject the notion that sacrifices and offerings should be required as sustenance for Yahweh since he is the creator and owner of the world and everything in it.

This article offers a survey of various views on sacrifice as food for the deity in the Hebrew Bible and discusses these views in their Ancient Near Eastern context. It is suggested that the main understanding of sacrifice as meal in the Hebrew Bible is one that emphasizes difference through commensality and stresses the incompatibility of the human and the divine sphere through the social locus of the meal.     

The Experiments of Ramón M. Termeyer SJ on the Electric Eel in the River Plate Region (c. 1760) and other Early Accounts of Electrophorus electricus

Dr. Haakon Sæthre was a leader of Norwegian neurology and psychiatry. He was resourceful, compassionate and had immense pride in his independent homeland. He described Sæthre-Chotzen syndrome (acrocephalosyndactyly type III). When Nazi Germany occupied Norway during World War II, Sæthre fearlessly and actively resisted, from revoking his medical association membership, to hiding persecuted Jews as patients in his psychiatric ward and aiding in their escape to Sweden, to managing the largest “illegal” food warehouse in Oslo with Danish humanitarian aid. As a prominent and noticeable citizen, he was arrested and executed by the Nazis in reprisal for the resistance's assassination of a hated Norwegian Nazi. His legacy lives on in Norway, where he was honored by a scholarship fund, a portrait and multiple plaques at Ullevål Hospital, and a street and memorial statue in his hometown. He was a hero and should be remembered by all who practice neurology.     

Spirits of being,spirits of becoming: Bororo shamanism as ontological theatre

Crocker, John Christopher. Vital Souls: Bororo Cosmology, Natural Symbolism, and Shamanism. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1985. xiii + 380 pp. including photographs, appendices, bibliography, and index. Foreword by David Maybury‐Lewis. $29.95 cloth.     

Uranium series dating reveals a long sequence of rock art at Altamira Cave (Santillana del Mar,Cantabria)

The rock art in Altamira Cave was the first ensemble of Palaeolithic parietal art to be identified scientifically (Sautuola, 1880). Due to the great thematic, technical and stylistic variety of the art in the cave, which constitutes one of the most complete Palaeolithic art ensembles, Altamira was listed as World Heritage by UNESCO in 1985. Uranium-series dating has recently been applied to figures on the decorated ceiling in the cave. Several motifs are partly covered by thin layers of calcite precipitates, whose formation process is datable by this method. The results provide the date when the calcite formed, which gives a minimum age for the underlying depictions. These results confirm that the parietal art at Altamira was produced during a prolonged period of time, at least 20,000 years (between 35,000 and 15,200 years ago), and that part of the ensemble corresponds to the Aurignacian period.     

The first fossil avian egg from Brazil

Marsola, J.C.A., Grellet-Tinner, G., Montefeltro, F.C., Sayão, J.M., Hsiou, A.S. & Langer, M.C., 2014. The first fossil avian egg from Brazil. Alcheringa 38, 563–567. ISSN 0311-5518.

In contrast to the rich record of eggs from non-avian dinosaurs, complete eggs attributable to Mesozoic birds are relatively scarce. Nevertheless, several well-preserved specimens have been discovered over the last three decades revealing functional and phylogenetic characters that shed light on the breeding strategies of extinct birds. Here we report the first fossil avian egg from Brazil, which was discovered in Upper Cretaceous strata of São Paulo in the southeastern part of the country. The taxonomic identity and structural features of the biomineralized tissues were determined using a combination of Scanning Electron Microscopy, Wave Dispersion Energy analyses and Computed Tomography. These show that the 125.5-μm-thick shell of the 31.4?×?19.5?mm egg incorporates three structural layers of similar thickness with both prismatic and aprismatic boundaries. Close similarity between the Brazilian bird egg and those of enantiornithines from the Upper Cretaceous Bajo de la Carpa Formation (Río Colorado Subgroup) of Argentina advocates affinity with basal Ornithothoraces. Furthermore, coherency of their depositional contexts might imply a compatible preference for breeding and nesting environments.

Júlio Cesar de A. Marsola [juliomarsola@gmail.com], Annie Schmaltz Hsiou [anniehsiou@ffclrp.usp.br] and Max C. Langer [mclanger@ffclrp.usp.br], Laboratório de Paleontologia de Ribeirão Preto, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Avenida Bandeirantes 3900, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo state, 14040-901, Brazil. Gerald Grellet-Tinner [locarnolugano@gmail.com], Centro Regional de Investigaciones La Rioja—Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Entre Ríos y Mendoza s/n, 5301 Anillaco, Argentina; Orcas Island Museum, PO Box 134, 181 North Beach Road, Eastsound, WA 98245. Felipe C. Montefeltro [felipecmontefeltro@gmail.com], Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Avenida 24A 1515, Rio Claro, São Paulo State, 13506-900, Brazil. Juliana M. Sayão [jmsayao@gmail.com], Laboratório de Diversidade do Nordeste, Núcleo de Biologia, Centro Acadêmico de Vitória, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Rua do Alto do Reservatório s/n, Bela Vista, Vitória de Santo Antão, Pernambuco state, 52050-480, Brazil. Received 18.12.2013; revised 30.4.2014; accepted 18.5.2014.