Scandal: Olivia Pope,Pope Francis,and Catholic Social Thought

Millions of viewers tune in to watch ABC's Scandal where political corruption, sexual infidelity, secret lives, and hidden crimes abound. What is it that makes something scandalous? In popular culture, scandal involves something morally or legally wrong coupled with public outrage. In contrast, as a theological category scandal is that which impedes the community's relationship with God. Pope Francis identifies poverty as just such a scandal damaging our relationship with God and each other. Examining scandal in popular culture and the media along with Catholic social thought, this article identifies three types of scandal: hypocrisy, impurity, and dehumanization. Ultimately, the theology of scandal can direct us away from the salacious towards addressing scandals of dehumanization.     

From Activity Areas to Occupational Histories: New Methods to Document the Formation of Spatial Structure in Hunter-Gatherer Sites

Over the past five decades, archaeologists have proposed a wide range of methods for the study of spatial organization within hunter-gatherer sites. Many of these methods sought to identify the spatial location of activities based on patterns of behavior observed in ethnographic contexts. While this resulted in productive observations at certain sites, many of these methods were tailored to specific situations and thus could not be applied to a wide range of sites. For example, open-air sites rarely contain preserved bone or features, such as hearths, which were central components to identifying characteristics of site structure. In addition, many of these methods often did not take into consideration the temporal dynamics of the occupation, i.e., that many sites were formed through subsequent occupations of differing duration. This paper proposes the use of two related methods that assume many assemblages are the result of more than one occupation. The methods target the distribution of lithic artifacts, the most ubiquitously preserved of archaeological materials, and accounts for the potential that the final resting place of artifacts was the result of both intentional and unintentional movement by humans and a host of biological and geological processes. The main goal of this paper is to use an understanding of how these processes influenced the formation of site structure to estimate the relative number and duration of occupations for each site in the sample. These new methods will be presented and explained through the study of seven open-air Middle Paleolithic sites in France but are applicable to a wide range of hunter-gatherer sites.     

Global finance and the German model: German corporations, market incentives, and the management of employer-sponsored pension institutions

Where there was a settled political geography of state power and responsibilities, the remarkable growth of global finance has put enormous pressure on national economic, political and social institutions. Furthermore, the looming crisis facing many continental European social security systems has raised many doubts about the long-term viability of the German model compared to its Anglo-American rivals. In this context, large German corporations have sought ways of sustaining their global competitiveness by, in part, restructuring their national and regional commitments. To illustrate, in this paper we concentrate on the nature and organization of German employer-sponsored pension institutions in relation to Anglo-American management practice. Two issues drive the analysis. One has to do with an emerging coalition between corporate management and shareholders with respect to the market value of the firm. The second issue has to do with the allocation of risk and uncertainty between the social partners when negotiating the financing and final value of promised retirement income. The institutional framework of collective decision-making common to many of Germany's largest firms is under pressure; three models of investment decision making relevant to pension assets and liabilities are used to illustrate this point. In doing so, we suggest that the German model is more fragile than commonly realized. We also suggest that Anglo-American management practices have penetrated and affected German corporate (national and regional) institutions and regulations. The social market lauded by advocates of stakeholder capitalism is changing rapidly, at least in the sphere of large firms and global finance.     

The significance of the fossil hominid skull from Petralona,Greece

Evidence is accumulating that the hominid cranium found in the Petralona cave in 1960 is associated with cave deposits of middle Pleistocene age. If this is so, the fossil is the most complete middle Pleistocene cranium yet discovered and provides important morphological, metrical and radiographic information on the possible evolutionary transition from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens. The classification of the specimen is discussed and it is suggested that a grade system within Homo spaiens should be erected. The Petralona fossil would be allocated to Homo sapiens grade 1 rather than to Homo erectus or to a subspecies of Homo sapiens.