The termination of Medibank

During the economic recession of the 1970s, ‘big government’ came under serious attack in many Western industrial nations. The task of cutting back the size and the role of the public sector, however, is thought to be very difficult if not impossible. This is particularly so if the cutbacks involve the elimination of particular programs, rather than decremental, across‐the‐board funding reductions. Yet, in Australia, the Fraser government succeeded in terminating Medibank, a major social program which it had previously promised to maintain. The relative ease with which this dismantling was achieved suggests the need for a re‐examination of the policy termination literature.     

"A fine new child": the Lafargue Mental Hygiene Clinic and Harlem's African American communities, 1946-1958

In 1946, the Lafargue Mental Hygiene Clinic, a small outpatient facility run by volunteers, opened in Central Harlem. Lafargue lasted for almost thirteen years, providing the underserved black Harlemites with what might be later termed community mental health care. This article explores what the clinic meant to the African Americans who created, supported, and made use of its community-based services. While white humanitarianism often played a large role in creating such institutions, this clinic would not have existed without the help and support of both Harlem's black left and the increasingly activist African American church of the "long civil rights era." Not only did St. Philip's Church provide a physical home for the clinic, it also helped to integrate it into black Harlem, creating a patient community. The article concludes with a lengthy examination of these patients' clinical experiences. Relying upon patient case files, the article provides a unique snapshot of the psychologization of postwar American culture. Not only does the author detail the ways in which the largely working class patient community used this facility clinic, he also explores how the patients engaged with modern psychodynamic concepts in forming their own complex understandings of selfhood and mental health.     

Through the Sea Snow: The Central Role of Videography in the Deep Gulf Wrecks Mission

The media team on the 2004 Deep Gulf Wrecks mission fulfilled three video-related functions: documentation, preservation, and outreach. Instead of looking at the media team as witnesses to the scientific events or as video tourists, the mission leadership integrated the video, backup, and Internet work into the scientific process carried out in the Gulf of Mexico. While not the first time this kind of cooperation has occurred in deep sea exploration work, the extent of media-scientific collaboration was exceptional in an age of soundbites and formulaic scientific filmmaking. The key strategic and technical lessons learned from the mission are summarized.