Journal articles: 'Bexar County (Tex.)' – Grafiati (2024)

Abstract:

Who is that man with the handshake? Don't you know …He is an onlooker, a heartless type,Whose hobby is giving everyone else the lie.Laudatur et alget. The Fifties had faith: ‘This satire is nowadays the most popular of all and still read in many classical sixth forms where one otherwise shuns the Sermones.’ The Sixties knew: ‘This poem … will always be a general favourite’; yes, I bear witness, who lent an ear to the L. A. Moritz track for J.A.C.T.'s showcase of Latinitas back in the golden age of vinyl (I still do: ego uero oppono ∣ auriculam, 76f.). (…) The Nineties wonder. ‘Perhaps the most straightforward and immediately appealing of the ten poems, and perhaps the most delicious example of Horace's brand of ironic humour.’

Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to determine income, tax services, knowledge of taxation, and tax law enforcement affect taxpayer compliance. The population in this study were all land and building taxpayers in Suralaga District (Tebaban Village, Paok Lombok Village, and Dasan Borok Village) in 2019 totaling 3,391 people and using the slovin formula in sampling. The sampling technique used cluster proportional random sampling technique and the sample in this study was 357 respondents. Data analysis method using multiple linear regression analysis model. The results of this study can be concluded that income does not have a partial and significant effect on taxpayer compliance because the t-count value is smaller than t-table (-0.792<1.65251) and the significance value is greater than 0.05 (0.425>0.05), service Taxes have an effect on taxpayer compliance because the t-count value is greater than t-table (2.364> 1.65251) and the significance value is less than 0.05 (0.019<0.05), knowledge of taxation has a partial and significant effect on taxpayer compliance because the value t count is greater than t table (1.839<1.65251) and the significance level is greater than 0.05 (0.067>0.05), tax law enforcement has no partial and significant effect on taxpayer compliance because the t-count value is smaller than t table (0.577<1.65251) and the significance level is greater than 0.05 (0.564>0.05), the results of the statistical analysis of determination obtained R^2 square of 0.039, which means that the effect of the independent variable den to the dividend variable is 39%. Keywords: Income, Tax Services, Tax Knowledge, Tax Law Enforcement, Taxpayer Compliance. ABSTRAK Tujuan penelitian ini untuk mengetahui pendapatan, pelayanan pajak, pengetahuan perpajakan, dan penegakan hukum pajak berpengaruh terhadap kepatuhan wajib pajak. Populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah semua wajib pajak bumi dan bangunan di Kecamatan Suralaga (Desa Tebaban, Desa Paok Lombok, dan Desa Dasan Borok) pada tahun 2019 berjumlah 3.391 orang dan menggunakan rumus slovin dalam penerikan sampel. Teknik pengambilan sampel menggunakan teknik cluster proporsional random sampling dan sampel dalam penelitian ini adalah 357 responden. Metode analisis data dengan menggunakan model analisis regresi linier berganda. Hasil dari penelitian ini dapat disimpulkan pendapatan tidak berpengaruh secara parsial dan signifikan terhadap kepatuhan wajib pajak karna nilai t hitung lebih kecil dari t tabel (-0,792<1.65251) dan nilai signifikansi lebih besar dari 0,05 (0,425>0,05), pelayanan pajak berpengaruh terhadap kepatuhan wajib pajak karna nilai t hitung lebih besar dari t tabel (2.364>1.65251) dan nilai signifikansi lebih kecil dari 0,05 (0,019<0,05), pengetahuan perpajakan berpengaruh secara parsial dan signifikan terhadap kepatuhan wajib pajak karna nilai t hitung lebih besar dari t tabel (1.839<1.65251) dan tingkat signifikansi lebih besar dari 0,05 (0,067>0,05) , penegakan hukum pajak tidak berpengaruh secara parsial dan signifikan terhadap kepatuhan wajib pajak karna nilai t hitung lebih kecil dari t tabel (0,577<1.65251) dan tingkat signifikansi lebih besar dari 0,05 (0,564>0,05), hasil analisis statistik determinasi diperoleh square sebesar 0,039 mengandung arti bahwa pengaruh pariabel independen terhadap variabel devenden adalah 39 %. Kata Kunci: Pendapatan, Pelayanan Pajak, Pengetahuan Perpajakan, Penegakan Hukum Pajak, Kepatuhan Wajib Pajak.

Abstract:

<p><em>The revenue sources of Country in the early days of Islam, such as zakat and taxes they are ji*zyah, kharaj, max (customs), and 'usyr (export-import customs) and also ghanimah and fai' (spoils of war and confiscated items). For Muslims in Indonesia,in addition they have to pay taxes to the state that include property tax,commercial goods tax, goods consumption tax, fiscal when traveling abroad, income tax, etc., they also have to pay zakat that include zakat fitrah and zakat property. Thus, Indonesian Muslims have to bear double taxs, they are taxation and zakat. This academic anxiety felt by one of the Indonesian Muslim intellectual, Masdar Farid Mas'udi. Departing from that academic anxiety Masdar then pour his fresh ideas and even controversial, especially on the issue of double taxs.</em><em></em></p>

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Abstract Consumers nominally pay the consumption tax, but theoretical and empirical evidence is mixed on whether corporations partly shoulder this burden, thereby affecting corporate investment. Using a quasi-natural experiment, we show that consumption taxes decrease investment. Firms facing more elastic demand decrease investment more strongly, because they bear more of the consumption tax. We corroborate the validity of our findings using 86 consumption tax changes in a cross-country panel. We document two mechanisms underlying the investment response: reduced firms’ profitability and lower aggregate consumption. Importantly, the magnitude of the investment response to consumption taxes is similar to that of corporate taxes. Received September 25, 2017; editorial decision August 26, 2018 by Editor Wei Jiang. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

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The article attempts to assess the fiscal effects of the introduction of a bank tax in Poland. From January 2016, a new public tax in Poland has been imposed on some financial institutions, including banks. Similar solutions are also found in some European Union countries. The aim of the article was to implement literature research and legal acts as well as empirical simulation. To accomplish the purpose of the article, literature research and legal acts, as well as empirical simulation were used. The simulation showed that the introduction of a bank tax gives beneficial fiscal effects for the state in the form of additional budget revenues. The construction of the bank tax provided for in Polish law was much more beneficial for the state than the adoption of a solution operating in another EU country. On the other hand, the introduction of a new tax is a rather unfavorable situation for the banking sector, because banks hitherto covered by income taxes and VAT have to bear an additional tax burden from 2016. For the banks themselves, the adoption of a solution found in one of the EU countries would be more favorable than the Polish solution.

Abstract:

Ribautia lewisi sp. nov. (Chilopoda: Geophilomorpha, Geophilidae) is herein described and illustrated after the holotype (male), paratypes (males and females), and additional non type specimens from Northeastern Argentina (Mesopotamian region). The new species is characterized by having a cluster of coxal organs in each coxopleuron of the ultimate leg-bear-ing segment and a claw-like pretarsus in the ultimate legs, bearing a very unusual feature, in that the internal limbs of ten-torium have a conspicuous tooth-shaped sclerotized process directed inward. R. lewisi sp. nov. is only the second confirmed record of the genus Ribautia from Argentina, the other being R. jakulicai Pereira, 2007 from Northwestern re-gion of the country (Yungas biogeographical province).

Abstract:

Abstrak: Pajak merupakan salah satu sumber penerimaan Negara yang paling besar dalam pembiayaan negara. Semakin besar penerimaan pajak maka semakin baik bagi keberlangsungan suatu negara. Sebaliknya bagi perusahaan sebagai wajib pajak, pajak merupakan biaya yang mengurangi laba perusahaan sehingga semaksimal mungkin perusahaan akan melakukan cara agar membayar pajak dengan nilai yang minimal. Salah satu cara yang dapat digunakan oleh perusahaan adalah dengan melakukan penghindaran pajak (tax avoidance). Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui apakah ada pengaruh dari ukuran perusahaan, return on asset, debt to asset ratio dan komite audit terhadap penghindaran pajak. Data yang diteliti diperoleh dari laporan keuangan tahunan perusahaan manufaktur yang terdaftar di Bursa Efek Indonesia periode 2014-2018. Metode pemilihan sampel yang digunakan adalah metode purposive sampling dengan teknik analisis adalah regresi linier berganda. Populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah 144 perusahaan manufaktur dengan total sampel sebanyak 45 perusahaan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa ukuran perusahaan dan return on asset berpengaruh negatif terhadap penghindaran pajak, sedangkan debt to asset ratio dan komite audit tidak berpengaruh terhadap persistensi laba. Kata kunci: penghindaran pajak, ukuran perusahaan, return on asset, debt to asset ratio, komite audit Abstract: Taxes are one of the largest sources of state revenue in state financing. The greater the tax revenue, the better for the sustainability of a country. Conversely for companies as taxpayers, tax is a cost that reduces company profits so that as much as possible the company will do the way to pay taxes with a minimum value. One way that can be used by companies is to avoid tax (tax avoidance). The purpose of this study is to determine whether there is an influence of company size, return on assets, debt to asset ratio and audit committee on tax avoidance. The data studied were obtained from the annual financial statements of manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in the 2014-2018 period. The sample selection method used is the purposive sampling method with the analysis technique is multiple linear regression. The population in this study were 144 manufacturing companies with a total sample of 45 companies. The results showed that company size and return on assets negatively affect tax avoidance, while debt to asset ratio and audit committee have no effect on earnings persistence. Keywords: tax avoidance, size, return on asset, debt to asset ratio and audit committee

Abstract:

Abstrak: Pajak merupakan salah satu sumber penerimaan Negara yang paling besar dalam pembiayaan negara. Semakin besar penerimaan pajak maka semakin baik bagi keberlangsungan suatu negara. Sebaliknya bagi perusahaan sebagai wajib pajak, pajak merupakan biaya yang mengurangi laba perusahaan sehingga semaksimal mungkin perusahaan akan melakukan cara agar membayar pajak dengan nilai yang minimal. Salah satu cara yang dapat digunakan oleh perusahaan adalah dengan melakukan penghindaran pajak (tax avoidance). Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui apakah ada pengaruh dari ukuran perusahaan, return on asset, debt to asset ratio dan komite audit terhadap penghindaran pajak. Data yang diteliti diperoleh dari laporan keuangan tahunan perusahaan manufaktur yang terdaftar di Bursa Efek Indonesia periode 2014-2018. Metode pemilihan sampel yang digunakan adalah metode purposive sampling dengan teknik analisis adalah regresi linier berganda. Populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah 144 perusahaan manufaktur dengan total sampel sebanyak 45 perusahaan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa ukuran perusahaan dan return on asset berpengaruh negatif terhadap penghindaran pajak, sedangkan debt to asset ratio dan komite audit tidak berpengaruh terhadap persistensi laba. Kata kunci: penghindaran pajak, ukuran perusahaan, return on asset, debt to asset ratio, komite audit Abstract: Taxes are one of the largest sources of state revenue in state financing. The greater the tax revenue, the better for the sustainability of a country. Conversely for companies as taxpayers, tax is a cost that reduces company profits so that as much as possible the company will do the way to pay taxes with a minimum value. One way that can be used by companies is to avoid tax (tax avoidance). The purpose of this study is to determine whether there is an influence of company size, return on assets, debt to asset ratio and audit committee on tax avoidance. The data studied were obtained from the annual financial statements of manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in the 2014-2018 period. The sample selection method used is the purposive sampling method with the analysis technique is multiple linear regression. The population in this study were 144 manufacturing companies with a total sample of 45 companies. The results showed that company size and return on assets negatively affect tax avoidance, while debt to asset ratio and audit committee have no effect on earnings persistence. Keywords: tax avoidance, size, return on asset, debt to asset ratio and audit committee

Abstract:

The tax is the most important sector for the country in the framework of national development. Government Regulation Number 46 the Year 2013 of income taxes from businesses that received or obtained taxpayers who have certain gross circulation create worry and fear the small businessmen who are pioneering efforts. The purpose of this research was to know and analyze the arrangements regarding the imposition of Final income tax on perpetrators of small medium enterprises according to the Government Regulation number. 46 the year 2013. This type of research is the study of the law normative approach to legislation. The results showed that according to article 2 paragraph (1) the Government Regulation Number 46 the Year 2013 mentioned businessmen who generate income that does not exceed Rp 4.8 Billion in future tax levied a tax of 1% of the total circulation gross (revenue) per month. But in fact, the imposition of a tax of 1% for small medium enterprises whose income Rp Rp-300jt 4, 8 m is not carried out effectively. Pajak merupakan sektor terpenting bagi negara dalam rangka pembangunan nasional. Peraturan Pemerintah Nomor 46 Tahun 2013 tentang Pajak Penghasilan dari Usaha yang diterima atau diperoleh wajib pajak yang memiliki peredaran bruto tertentu membuat khawatir dan ketakutan pelaku usaha kecil yang sedang merintis usahanya. Tujuan dari penelitian ini untuk mengetahui dan menganalisis pengaturan mengenai pengenaan PPh Final pada Pelaku UMKM menurut Peraturan Pemerintah Nomor. 46 Tahun 2013. Jenis penelitian ini merupakan penelitian hukum normatif dengan pendekatan perundang-undangan. Penerapan tarif 1% dari pendapatan bagi Pelaku UMKM tidak bisa dipahami kecil, mengingat Pendapatan ini dihitung bukan dari hasil keuntungan, karena tidak bisa dijamin jika berpendapatan besar maka pasti keuntungannya besar. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa Menurut Pasal 2 ayat (1) Peraturan Pemerintah Nomor 46 Tahun 2013 disebutkan pelaku usaha yang menghasilkan pendapatan yang tidak melebihi Rp. 4,8 Miliar dalam satu masa pajak dikenakan pajak sebesar 1% dari jumlah peredaran bruto (pendapatan) setiap bulan. Namun pada kenyataannya, pembebanan pajak 1% bagi UMKM yang berpendapatan Rp. 300jt-Rp. 4,8M tidak terlaksana secara efektif. Apalagi pengenaan 1% dari pendapatan ini dianggap tidak adil karena dibebankan tanpa melihat apakah pelaku UMKM ini berada dalam keadaan untung ataupun rugi, dan juga diberlakukan bagi seluruh pelaku UMKM.

Abstract:

<p>November 8^th, 2016 was a path breaking day in Indian economy when Govt. of India has demonetized the high value currency notes and replaced with new notes of Rs.500 and Rs.2000. This move Govt. was taken to clean the black money from the market, to inspire digital economy and to reduce the ‘Cash’ payment culture of some people for tax evasion. The overnight decision changed the life of many people in India. Thousands of people they waited in long queues in front of Banks, ATMs for money. Entire social life of people throughout the country got distracted. Many poor daily wage workers were left with no job and income as owners were unable to pay their daily wage because of less cash, around 15 lakh jobs have been obsolete during this one year.</p><p> Despite Govt. of India has taken a bold step to make India corruption free and inspire the people in cashless transaction but after one year can we say India is really corruption free? Can we observe any significant improvement in cashless transactions? Can we see the digital payments have significantly improved for common general man?</p><p>Many reports stated that Country’s automobile and real estate sectors are highly affected and World Bank has downgraded the Indian economy’s growth forecast as sharp falls. The empirical findings suggest that the impact of demonetization on GDP growth during Q3 and Q4 of 2016-17 was mostly felt in construction and real estate, but the good thing was that because of stronger growth in manufacturing, agriculture, mining and electricity the overall impact on gross domestic product growth was modest.</p><p>Many reports stated that small traders have immensely affected after demonetization because of the cash crunch and lack of infrastructure like digital payment system etc. Small traders in retail sector (grocery shops etc), service sector (restaurants, nursing homes etc.), gems and jewellery, small traders in agricultural products, SMEs, small dealers, professionals like doctors, lawyers etc, have highly affected because of demonetization during last one year. So my objective to find out whether the small traders have really affected or not. If they are affected then how they have affected?</p><p>The main objective of this paper is to study the impact of demonetization on the small scale traders at Cooch Behar District of West Bengal and how it affected their business. As we all know that Cooch Behar is the princely state of West Bengal which is located very near to Assam, Bhutan and Siliguri region. As a district town Cooch Behar has a high significance in businesses with Northeast, Siliguri and Bhutan. I prepared a questionnaire and surveyed to 50 small scale businessmen at Cooch Behar district and tried to find their perception on demonetization and its impacts on their businesses during last one year. The study at Cooch Behar district may reflect the status of small traders for entire country. Another objectives I have kept here to study whether demonetization really eradicated corruption from India and whether demonetization has changed the behavior of the citizens of the country in cashless transactions?</p>

Abstract:

English Tax is one of the important instruments in the efforts of economic development in a country. Islam is a religion that has arranged all the joints of life from the smallest thing to the biggest thing, where the rules are called Islamic sharia. Indonesia is a country with the largest Muslim population in the world. So it is very important to review the feasibility of tax management in Indonesia. This study uses qualitative research methods and uses an interpretive approach. Data collection techniques used are literature studies or library studies by conducting library research containing theories from published or unpublished scientific works in books or e-books, online journals, papers, magazines, letters , films, diaries, manuscripts, articles and more. The results of this study indicate that tax management in Indonesia cannot be said to meet the existing sharia criteria, because basically the allocation of taxes in Indonesia has not evenly distributed benefits for all Indonesian society and society today cannot be said to experience prosperity as the tax objective itself according to sharia and law. Keywords: Tax, Sharia, Allocation, Prosperous. Indonesia Pajak merupakan salah satu instrumen penting dalam upaya pembangunan ekonomi dalam suatu Negara. Islam merupakan agama yang telah mengatur segala sendi kehidupan dari hal paling terkecil hingga hal yang paling besar, dimana aturan-aturan tersebut disebut dengan syariah islam. Indonesia merupakan Negara dengan penduduk beragama islam terbesar di dunia. Maka dirasa penting sekali untuk meninjau kesyariahan pengelolaan pajak di Indonesia. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode penelitian kualitatif dan menggunakan pendekatan interpretatif. Teknik pengumpulan data yang digunakan adalah studi literatur atau studi kepustakaan dengan melakukan penelurusan kepustakaan yang berisi teori-teori dari karya-karya ilmiah yang sudah diterbitkan ataupun belum diterbitkan yang ada pada buku atau e-books, jurnal online, makalah, majalah, surat-surat, film, catatan harian, naskah, artikel, dan lainnya. Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa pengelolaan pajak di Indonesia belum dapat dikatakan memenuhi kriteria syariah yang ada, karena pada dasarnya pengalokasian pajak di Indonesia belum merata manfaatnya bagi semua kalangan masyarakat dan masyarakat Indonesia saat ini belum dapat dikatakan mengalami kesejahteraan sebagaimana tujuan pajak itu sendiri baik menurut syariah maupun undang-undang Kata Kunci: Tipe Industri, ROE, ROA, Kinerja Lingkungan, Pengungkapan Islamic Social Reporting

Abstract:

The current increase in government spending, caused by COVID epidemics and the increasing visibility of leftist political groups in public media, emphasizes the short-term need for sustainable income taxation. In the long run, rising inequality worldwide makes taxation of high-incomes indispensable for sustainable economic development. This paper empirically studies public attitudes on taxation related to income, preferences for solidarity vs. individual performance, and reliance on the state in the Czech Republic. In this Eastern European country, the dichotomies above bear even more importance due to the communist past. We apply the hierarchical regression analysis with smoothing spline transformations to a representative sample of public opinion data (N = 1104, aged 15–95 years, M ± SD: 47.74 ± 17.39; 51.2% women, 18.50% with higher education). The results suggest that income was associated with the perception that taxes for the rich are inadequately high but was unrelated to perceptions of tax adequacy for average and poor groups of respondents. Higher solidarity and reliance on the state were associated with the desire to increase taxation of high-incomes and decrease taxation of poor income groups. Surprisingly, the reliance on the state was associated with a desire to decrease taxation of average-incomes and total taxation while increasing tax progressivity. Preferences for solidarity were associated with higher preferred overall taxation and more tax progressivity. The explanatory powers of preferences for solidarity and reliance on the state in explaining the variation in tax preferences are at least equivalent and, in some cases, twice as large as the explanatory power of the age, gender, education, and income altogether. The results above present new mechanisms that can contribute to sustainable endogenous economic development.

Abstract:

Sebagai Negara kepulauan dengan luas area perairan sebesar 5.8 juta km2, sektor kelautan dan perikanan Indonesia menyimpan potensi sumber daya alam yang sangat besar. Total produksi perikanan Indonesia mencapai 25 juta ton setiap tahun dan telah memberikan kontribusi terhadap Produk Domestik Bruto sebesar 6.79% pada Triwulan III Tahun 2017. Oleh karenanya sektor kelautan dan perikanan kini telah menjadi salah satu sektor yang menjadi prioritas nasional. Salah satu upaya dalam mendorong pembangunan sektor kelautan dan perikanan yang dilakukan pemerintah adalah dengan menerbitkan kebijakan fasilitas pengurangan pajak penghasilan untuk penanaman modal (tax allowance) dalam rangka menarik investor dalam negeri dan luar negeri. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis implementasi dari kebijakan tax allowance pada bidang-bidang usaha tertentu dan daerah-daerah tertentu di sektor perikanan. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dengan teknik pengumpulan data melalui wawancara mendalam dan data sekunder. Hasil awal menunjukkan bahwa fasilitas tax allowance ini belum dimanfaatkan secara optimal pada sektor perikanan. Implementasi dapat dipengaruhi oleh konten dari kebijakan dan konteks dari implementasi itu sendiri. Kementerian Kelautan dan Perikanan harus meriviu bidang usaha yang tepat untuk diberikan fasilitas tax allowance dan melaksanakan sosialisasi secara intensif. As an archipelagic country with 5.8 million km2 of water area, marine and fisheries’ sector hold enormous potential of natural resources. Indonesia’s total production of fisheries reach 25 million tons per years and has contributed to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with 6.79% in Q3 2017. Thus, marine and Fisheries’ sector has become one of the national priority. In order to boost the development of these sectors, the government has launched a policy in reducing income tax facility for investment (Tax Allowance) which is targeting domestic and foreign investment. This study aims to analyze the implementation of tax allowance facility in the certain business fields and certain areas of fishery sectors. This study uses a qualitative approach with data collection methods in the form of in depth interview and secondary data. The preliminary result shows that the tax facility is not well-utilized by the investors in fishery sectors. The policy contents and context of implementation can affect the policy implementation. The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries must review the appropriate business fields to be given the tax allowance facility and concuct the socialization intensively.

Abstract:

Of the eleven states in West Malaysia, it may be said that Penang presents a somewhat different situation from the other ten in terms of demography, economics, geography and politics, to mention a few basic features. Situated in the northern part of the country, the state of Penang (which comprises the island and a narrow strip, Province Wellesley, on the mainland) does not exhibit the features of a typical Malay state—a Malay-majority population, a predominantly Malay agricultural economy and a Malay Mentri Besar (Chief Minister) leading a Malay-dominated State Assembly which governs the state for the sultan, the symbol of Malay political power. Instead it has a Chinese-majority population, an economic infrastructure based primarily on commerce and trade rather than agriculture and a Chinese Chief Minister leading a Chinese-dominated State Assembly.In contrast to the other Malay states, the central political role in Penang is played by the Chinese community. Whichever political party is aspiring to come to power in the state must have significant Chinese electoral support.Against the background of a Malay-dominated Federal Governmentstriving to ensure uniformity of political, cultural, linguistic and socio-economic goals, Penang poses a challenging situation.

Abstract:

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine possible types of network formation among immigrants in the diaspora and between those immigrants and the locals in different countries. The authors present the model by considering different possible interactions between immigrants and the new society in their host country. Spread of migrants from the same origin in the diaspora may well increase international trade between the different countries, depending on the types of networks formed. The authors present possible applications of network structure on the country of origin, such as on international trade. The authors find that when the size of the diaspora is sufficiently large, the natives in the different countries will be willing to bear the linking cost with the immigrants because the possible benefits increase with increasing size of the diaspora. Design/methodology/approach Developing a theoretical approach for the formation of networks in the diaspora. Findings Those that immigrated first determine the outcome. Policy maker can affect the type of network formed by allocating resources to the first immigrants. They can approve subsidies and tax reductions for international trade. The type of network formed (assimilation, integration, separation or marginalization) affects the level of, and benefits from international trade worldwide, as well as the composition of the imported products. The authors show how leadership is established and how leadership increases over time. More immigrants from the same origin become established all over the world, and new linkages are created with the first immigrant, increasing the possibilities for global trade. Originality/value The research in this paper is original.

Abstract:

The occurrences of capital flight continue to be of great concern for many developing countries and Namibia is not an exception to this. This study aimed at examining the effect of fiscal policy on capital flight in Namibia for the period, 2009-2018. To assess this, the Auto-Regressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) bound test to cointegration technique was employed. The finding revealed that there is a long-run relationship between the selected macroeconomic factors and capital flight. In particular in the long-run government expenditure and its interaction with debt stock are found to positively affect capital flight. In the short-run however, past capital flight, previous period tax rates, previous external debt, current debt stock, previous inflation rate, as well as previous financial deepening were found to bear a positive effect on capital flight. Estimate of capital flight using the residual approach shows that Namibia lost about N$ 42 billion in 9 years through capital flight. This means on average Namibia lost close to N$ 5 billion in capital flight. These empirical findings, call for serious policy interventions in order to minimize and contain the issue of capital flight in the country.

Abstract:

In the first half of 2020, with a marked reduction in tax revenues, there was an increase in the total amount of revenues of the consolidated budgets of the subjects of the RF, which in most cases did not compensate for the rate of inflation. The growth of the total amount of revenue was provided by the outstripping growth of all types of Federal transfers to the regional budgets. The situation in different regions of the country varied significantly, and the most serious losses were incurred by the most economically developed regions. Moscow bear the burden of a significant part of the total revenue loss. The growth of expenditures of the consolidated budgets of the Russian regions was significantly faster than the growth of their revenues. Health and social policy funding has increased most significantly, supported in part by Federal transfers. With the total deficit of the consolidated budgets of the Russian regions, about half of the regions had a positive budget balance (partly of a technical nature) at the end of the half-year. At the same time, the growth rate of public debt is not yet critical.

Abstract:

AbstrakKosakata merupakan komponen terpenting dalam bahasa. model pembelajaran kooperatif tipe tea party dilakukan dengan cara siswa membentuk dua barisan dimana siswa saling berhadapan satu sama lain. Guru mengajukan sebuah pertanyaan, siswa mendiskusikan jawaban dengan siswa yang ada dihadapannya, setelah satu menit baris terluar bergerak searah jarum jam sehingga akan berhadapan dengan pasangan yang baru. Guru mengajukan peranyaan ke dua dan seterusnya. kemudian siswa mempresenasikan hasil diskusi depan kelas. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui perbedaan yang signifikan antara kemapuan mengingat kosakata bahasa Jepang siswa sebelum dan setelah menggunakan model pembelajaran kooperatif tipe Tea Party. metode yang di gunakan adalah true experimental design dengan menggunakan design Randomized control group Pre-test Post-test..Sampel dalam penelitian ini adalah siswa kelas X SMA BPI 1 Bandung tahun ajaran 2014/2015 kelas X-5 sebanyak 20 orang sebagai kelas eksperimen dan kelas X-4 sebanyak 20 orang sebagai kelas kontrol. Instrumen yang digunakan adalah adalah test dan angket. Hasil analisis data, diperoleh nilai t-hitung sebesar 2,85 dan taraf signifikan 5% adalah 3,73. Karena t-hitung lebih besar dari t-tabel maka Hk diterima. Hal ini berarti bahwa pembelajaran dengan menggunakan model pembelajaran kooperatif tipe tea party efektif digunakan dalam pembelajaran bahasa Jepang.Serta data yang diperoleh dari angket, dapat dikatakan bahwa model pembelajaran kooperatif tipe Tea Party mempunyai langkah-langkah yang efektif dan mampu membuat siswa lebih fokus dan belajar bertanggung jawab dengan tugas-tugas yang diberikan. Kata kunci : menghafal, model pembelajaran, model Tea Party.Abstractvocabulary is the most important component in language. Cooperative learning type tea party is done by students forming two rows witch every students is facing each other. Teacher asking a question. Student s discuss the answer with student in front of him,after one minute, the outer row is moving in the same direction as clockwise so that will facing with new student. Teacher asking a new question etc. after that student have to presented the result of discussion in front of class. The purpose of this research is to determinate the significant different between student ability to remember Japanese vocabulary before and after using cooperative learning type Tea Party method that used is true experimental design method with using randomized control group Pre-test Post-test design. Sample in this research is 10th grade student SMA BPI 1 Bandung school year 2014/2015 class X.4 that consist 20 students for control class and class X.5 that consist 20 students for experiment class. Instrument that used is test and questionnaire. Result of data analysis obtained t-count value is 2.02 with significant level 5% 3.73. because t-count is greater than t-table so Hk is accepted. That can be concluded that the ability in the end of Japanese vocabulary education is significantly better than the initial of Japanese vocabulary education. As well as date that obtained from questionnaire, can be says that cooperative learning type Tea Party is have an effective ways and can make students more focus in studies, and more responsible in every task that they have. Key world : memorized, learning model, Tea Party model.

Abstract:

is a fermented product made of cempedak () dami. The research aimed to isolate and characterize lactic acid bacteria isolated from and to evaluate their probiotic potency. samples were collected from several home industries in East Kalimantan area lactic acid bacteria (LAB) isolates were obtained from on day 4, 8, and 12 fermentation and assessed for their probiotic properties. All isolates showed good tolerances towards low pH (pH 2.0) with the decrease of viable counts of less than 2 log cfu/ml. The LAB isolates could grow in the present of 0.5% bile salt although the viable counts decreased as compared to those in medium without bile salt. Reduction of viable counts less than 1 log cfu/ml was observed in 21 isolates. Nineteen isolates could tolerate pH 2.0 and 0.5% bile salt better than others with the totaldecrease in viable counts less than 1 log cfu/ml. Most of isolates (11 out of 19 isolates) which tolerate low pH were obtained from 8 days fermentation. Isolate MC812 and MC809 had good antimicrobial properties against ATCC 13932, ATCC 19433, ATCC 10876, ATCC 25922 and ATCC 14028. Ten isolates had good antimicrobial properties againstis a fermented product made of cempedak () dami. The research aimed to isolate and characterize lactic acid bacteria isolated from and to evaluate their probiotic potency. samples were collected from several home industries in East Kalimantan area lactic acid bacteria (LAB) isolates were obtained from on day 4, 8, and 12 fermentation and assessed for their probiotic properties. All isolates showed good tolerances towards low pH (pH 2.0) with the decrease of viable counts of less than 2 log cfu/ml. The LAB isolates could grow in the present of 0.5% bile salt although the viable counts decreased as compared to those in medium without bile salt. Reduction of viable counts less than 1 log cfu/ml was observed in 21 isolates. Nineteen isolates could tolerate pH 2.0 and 0.5% bile salt better than others with the totaldecrease in viable counts less than 1 log cfu/ml. Most of isolates (11 out of 19 isolates) which tolerate low pH were obtained from 8 days fermentation. Isolate MC812 and MC809 had good antimicrobial properties against ATCC 13932, ATCC 19433, ATCC 10876, ATCC 25922 and ATCC 14028. Ten isolates had good antimicrobial properties against LAB isolates obtained from show promising probiotic properties.Keywords: Probiotic, lactic acid bacteria, antimicrobial ABSTRAKMandai merupakan pangan fermentasi yang terbuat dari dami atau bagian dalam kulit cempedak. Penelitian tentang , khususnya bakteri yang terlibat dalam fermentasi , masih belum banyak dilakukan. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk melakukan isolasi dan karakterisasi bakteri asam laktat yang diisolasi dari serta mengevaluasi potensinya sebagai probiotik. Sampel diperoleh dari beberapa industri rumah tangga di Kalimantan Timur, yang dibuat dengan kadar garam 5, 10 dan 15%. Delapan puluh lima isolat bakteri asam laktat diperoleh dari pada hari ke-4, 8 dan 12 fermentasi dan dikaji sifat-sifat probiotiknya. Semua isolat menunjukkan toleransi yang baik terhadap pH rendah (pH 2,0) dengan penurunan jumlah sel hidup kurang dari 2 log cfu/ml. Isolat bakteri asam laktat dapat tumbuh dengan adanya 0,5% garam empedu walaupun jumlah sel hidupnya menurun dibandingkan dengan jumlah sel hidup pada medium tanpa garam empedu. Penurunan jumlah isolat viabel kurang dari 1 log cfu/ml teramati pada 21 isolat. Sembilan belas isolat dapat mentoleransi pH 2,0 dan garam empedu 0,5% lebih baik daripada yang lain dengan total penurunan jumlah sel hidup kurang dari 1 log cfu/ml. Sebagian besar isolat (11 dari 19) yang mentoleransi pH rendah diperoleh dari fermentasi hari ke-8. Isolat MC812 dan MC809 mempunyai sifat antimikroba yang baik terhadap semua patogen uji(ATCC 13932, ATCC 19433, ATCC 10876, ATCC 25922 dan ATCC 14028). Sembilan isolat lain mempunyai sifat antimikroba yang baik terhadap 3 atau lebih patogen uji. Resistensi terhadap antibiotik bervariasi dengan -PCR. Keseluruhan hasil mengindikasikan bahwa kesepuluh bakteri asam laktat yang diisolasi dari mandai berpotensi sebagai probiotik.Kata kunci: Probiotik, bakteri asam laktat, sifat antimikroba

Abstract:

Abstract. The product of tax regulatory reform is the modernization of tax administration. Modernization of tax administration, among others, includes changes in the original organizational structure based on the type of tax into a function, applying integrated tax administration system that can monitor the process of service, so that services can be done quickly, transparently, and accountability, so Taxpayers will be faster and create satisfaction to Taxpayer in order to fulfill its obligations in this case reporting and payment of tax. Identification of problems discussed in this paper is how the modernization of tax administration, how taxpayer satisfaction and how much influence the modernization of tax administration on taxpayer satisfaction at the Tax Office Primary Bandung Bojonagara. The research method used is descriptive and associative with data collection technique is done is questioner. While the analysis used is regression analysis, correlation coefficient, coefficient of determination and t test hypothesis. The research results can be seen that the implementation of tax administration modernization on taxpayer satisfaction yields r = 0.976, which indicates that there is a very strong and positive influence. Determination analysis yields Kd = 95.3%. This means that the modernization of tax administration gives an influence on taxpayer satisfaction of 95.3% while the rest of 4.7% taxpayer satisfaction is influenced by other factors. Hypothesis test result t count = 44,530> t table = 1,980, hence Ho refused and Ha accepted, meaning there is influence between tax administration modernization to Satisfaction of Taxpayer at KPP Pratama Bandung Bojonagara.Keywords. modernization; administration; taxation; taxpayer satisfaction Abstrak. Produk dari pembaharuan peraturan perpajakan adalah adanya modernisasi administrasi perpajakan. Modernisasi administrasi perpajakan antara lain meliputi perubahan struktur organisasi yang semula berdasarkan jenis pajak menjadi fungsi, menerapkan sistem administrasi perpajakan terpadu yang dapat memonitor proses pelayanan, sehingga pelayanan dapat dilakukan dengan cepat, transparan, dan akuntabilitas, sehingga Wajib Pajak akan lebih cepat dan menciptakan kepuasan kepada Wajib Pajak dalam rangka memenuhi kewajibannya dalam hal ini pelaporan dan pembayaran pajak. Identifikasi masalah yang dibahas dalam penulisan ini adalah bagaimana modernisasi administrasi perpajakan, bagaimana kepuasan Wajib Pajak dan seberapa besar pengaruh modernisasi administrasi perpajakan terhadap kepuasan Wajib Pajak pada Kantor Pelayanan Pajak Pratama Bandung Bojonagara. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah deskriptif dan asosiatif dengan teknik pengumpulan data yang dilakukan adalah kuesioner. Sedangkan analisis yang digunakan adalah analisis regresi, koefisien korelasi, koefisien determinasi dan hipotesis uji t. Hasil penelitian dapat diketahui bahwa pelaksanaan modernisasi administrasi perpajakan terhadap kepuasan Wajib Pajak menghasilkan nilai r= 0,976, yang menunjukkan bahwa terdapat pengaruh yang kuat sekali dan positif. Analisis determinasi menghasilkan Kd=95,3%. Artinya modernisasi administrasi perpajakan memberikan pengaruh terhadap kepuasan Wajib Pajak sebesar 95,3% sem*ntara sisanya sebesar 4,7% kepuasan Wajib Pajak dipengaruhi oleh faktor lain. Uji hipotesis menghasilkan t hitung = 44,530 > t tabel = 1,980, maka Ho ditolak dan Ha diterima, artinya terdapat pengaruh antara modernisasi administrasi perpajakan terhadap kepuasan Wajib Pajak di KPP Pratama Bandung Bojonagara.Kata Kunci. Modernisasi; administrasi; perpajakan; kepuasan wajib pajak

Abstract:

Muscovite civilization utilized Byzantine-Greek alphanumerals for its mathematical symbols. Occasionally derided by historians for being retrograde in comparison to the Hindu-Arabic numerals sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe adopted, Muscovy’s alphanumerals were versatile and suitably contoured to perform a variety of computational tasks. Muscovite alphanumerals were an integral part of early Moderen Russia’s administrative culture, and played a prominent role in fostering the experiential knowledge underlying the educational achievements of the Imperial Period. Though they lacked the zero and the decimal, Muscovites still had a reasonable grasp of the base-ten system, and comprehended well basic arithmetical skills and relationship properties, less so equational ones. The Russians developed complex abaci well suited for commercial transactions, large-scale construction, military inventories and payrolls, and the land registry, to name a few. These instruments manipulated an extensive variety of weights, measures, linear distances, area dimensions, volume measurements, and currency. Muscovite arithmetic was a prominent factor assisting in the advancement of critical thinking skills in 1600’s Russia. Nonetheless, as the seventeenth century wore on, sociological, educational or pedagogical, military scientific, administrative, and cultural arguments or interactive phenomena came to bear and increasingly found the Muscovite algorithmic symbols wanting. In 1699 the government decreed that Hindu-Arabic numerals henceforth were to be used in official documents throughout the country. Directly and indirectly, the complex thought processes bound up when operating with Muscovite alphanumerals were one impetus for the further unfolding of Russian civilization after 1700.

Abstract:

Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease caused by Leptospira bacteria. The disease was spreadout arround the world, especially in the tropical and subtropical regions included Indonesia. The International Leptospirosis Society has established Indonesia is the country with high incidence of leptospirosis. Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta is one of the regions in Indonesia with endemic of leptospirosis. Leptospirosis infection in humans can occur through direct or indirect contact with the urine of infected animals. Cattle is one of the source of transmission leptospirosis to human and other animals. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence rate of leptospirosis and identify serovar caused of leptospirosis in cattle at Giwangan’s abattoir Yogyakarta. Blood collection taken from ten heads of cattle via jugular vein and the serum was separated for leptospirosis examination by Microscopic Aglutination Test (MAT) which taken placed at Balai Besar Penelitian dan Pengembangan Vektor dan Reservoir Penyakit (B2P2VRP), Salatiga. Microscopic Aglutination Test carried out on various Leptospira serovar, namely: Bangkinang, Canicola, Pyrogenes, Robinsoni, Hardjo, Djasiman, Grippotyphosa, Hebdomadis, Icterohaemorragie, Pomona, Bataviae, Rama, Mini, Sarmin and Manhao. The prevalence rate detemine by compared between the number of MAT positive and samples examined. Positive agglutination indicated the serovar types that caused leptospirosis in cattle. The results showed that two samples were positive against antigen serovar Grippotyphosa (1/2), Hebdomadis (2/2) dan Mini (1/2). It can be concluded that the prevalence rate of leptospirosis in cattle at Giwangan’s abattoir Yogyakarta were 20%. The cause of leptospirosis in cattle at Giwangan’s abattoir Yogyakarta namely Leptospira interrogans serovar Grippotyphosa, Hebdomadis and Leptospira borgpetersenii serovar Mini.

Abstract:

Purpose This study aims to examine the competitiveness of firms operating in the emerging economy of Brazil. This study examines the current perception of Brazilian business leaders regarding the level of competitiveness in various sectors of industrial activity and the country’s business environment. Design/methodology/approach Survey data were collected in a joint study developed by Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration (EBAPE) and the Brazilian Institute of Economics (IBRE). The population surveyed was composed of businessmen, managers and directors of Brazilian manufacturing firms. This survey was created based on a similar survey conducted by the Harvard Business School, which was also aimed at identifying the reasons behind national loss of competitiveness. Findings The results of the survey point out that the worsening competitive nature of companies operating in Brazil can be primarily attributed to the deterioration of its country-specific advantages and in particular those linked to government policies, services and bureaucratic procedures, all of which bear a negative impact on the country’s business environment. Research limitations/implications Future research should explore in more depth the specific types of initiatives that these firms have and are continuing to eagerly adopt with the aim of improving their domestic competitiveness and, namely, firm-specific advantages, whether it be by contributing to the improvement of the business environment as a whole, or by improving their own operations and management systems. Practical implications The main obstacles related to competitiveness are associated with the “Brazil Cost”, namely, the tax system, infrastructure, political system, labor laws and bureaucracy that do not appear to offer much room for maneuvering in terms of reducing these barriers in the short term. Managers not addressing these important input factors of competitiveness not only divert attention away from innovation and creativity but also could lead to more serious political, social welfare and economic implications in the global marketplace. Social implications This study helps to gain a better understanding of the initiatives that could and are being used to contribute to a fruitful discussion about leading public policies and government actions geared toward upgrading Brazil’s business environment and country competitiveness as a whole. Originality/value This research contributes to the understanding of the initiatives that could and are being used to improve firm competitiveness in Brazil. These initiatives contribute to a fruitful discussion about leading public policies and government actions geared toward upgrading Brazil’s business environment and country competitiveness as a whole.

Abstract:

Mergers and acquisitions are an alternative that can be taken by companies that are experiencing bankruptcy or for companies that want to expand their companies. There are many examples of successful mergers and companies that are even bigger than before. This has made mergers and acquisitions a concern in recent years, both in Indonesia and abroad. This research was conducted to test whether mergers conducted by several companies in 2015 can change company performance for the better or not, bearing in mind that not all mergers end beautifully and as expected. From the ten companies sampled, normality tests and paired sample t-tests were conducted using SPSS 24 software. The results obtained are differences in company performance before and after conducting mergers and acquisitions. This shows from the significance value < 0.05 also the results of the comparison of the value of t-count and t-table where the value of t-count > t-table. These findings are also supported by the results of the pair correlation test which shows that there is a relationship between each of the company's performance variables before and after mergers and acquisitions. Abstrak Merger dan akuisisi dapat menjadi alternative bagi perusahaan untuk mencegah kebangkrutan atau untuk mengembangkan perusahaannya. Ada banyak contoh perusahaan yang melakukan merger dan berhasil menjadikan perusahaannya lebih besar dari sebelumnya. Hal ini mendorong merger dan akuisisi menjadi perhatian bagi perusahaan dalam beberapa tahun terakhir, baik di Indonesia maupun di luar negeri. Penelitian bertujuan untuk menguji apakah merger yang dilakukan oleh sepuluh (10) perusahaan pada tahun 2015 merupakan keputusan yang tepat dan terbukti mampu meningkatkan nilai perusahaan. Bagaimanapun, ada beberapa perusahaan yang gagal dalam melakukan merger. Pengujian tes normalitas dan uji beda yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini diproses melalui perangkat lunak, SPSS 24. Hasil yang didapat adalah nilai signifikan < 0.05 dan nilai t-hitung > nilai t-tabel. Uji korelasi juga dilakukan untuk memperkuat hasil temuan yang menyimpulkan bahwa setelah melakukan merger dan akuisisi, performa perusahaan meningkat dan ada hubungan antar nilai perusahaan sebelum dan setelah melakukan merger. Maka, dapat disimpulkan bahwa melakukan merger dan akusisi merupakan langkah yang tepat untuk dilakukan. Kata kunci: Merger, Akuisisi, Current Ratio, Return on Equity, Debt to Asset Ratio

Abstract:

The incidence rate of tuberculosis in a particular country is an indicator of social well-being in society. Tuberculosis continues to be the leading cause of death among infectious diseases and is among the top ten common causes of death. Every year, about 1.3 million patients die from this pathology in the world, while every fourth has an HIV-associated form of the disease. New cases of the disease are recorded every year in about 10 million people, 58% of them are men, 32% are women, and about 10% are children and adolescents. The World Health Organization has compiled a list of 30 countries "living with the burden of tuberculosis", accounting for 87% of all infections. In the European Region and the WHO Region of the Americas, the total proportion of those infected with tuberculosis does not exceed 6%. At the same time, it should be noted that eight countries - India, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and South Africa - account for two-thirds of all TB cases in the world. In May 2014, at the session of the World Health Assembly, the WHO Strategy to Eliminate Tuberculosis in the World was approved, and all countries, members of the WHO, took obligations to implement it. In September 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted, according to which WHO Member States should strive to achieve a 90% reduction in tuberculosis incidence and 95% mortality by 2035 (with intermediate targets in 2020, 2025 and 2030). In addition, no family should have to bear the catastrophic costs of treating tuberculosis when one or more of its members become ill.

Abstract:

<p align="center"><strong>Abstrak</strong></p><p class="IsiAbstrak">Indonesia merupakan negara yang memiliki keanekaragaman hayati yang besar, salah satunya jenisnya ialah keanekaragaman ikan air tawar. Ikan air tawar yang layak konsumsi saat ini pun banyak jenisnya, sehingga bagi masyarakat yang kurang pengetahuan untuk mengenali jenis ikan sangatlah sulit. Teknologi identifikasi pengenalan citra dengan berbasis konten citra (Content Based Image Retrieval) dengan fitur bentuk berdasarkan titik tepi yang dihasilkan dapat membantu mengenali jenis ikan yang ada. Citra ikan yang digunakan diubah dari RGB menjadi grayscale yang diproses dengan metode deteksi tepi menjadi matriks nilai biner sehingga membentuk titik tepi dari ikan. Data citra ikan air tawar dalam penelitian berjumlah sepuluh jenis ikan, yang akan diproses untuk mendapatkan ekstraksi fitur deteksi tepinya. Deteksi tepi yang digunakan ialah penggabungan metode prewitt dan canny. Penelitian ini tidak memiliki hasil yang akurat dengan nilai 25%. Dimana penggabungan fitur lain akan sangat membantu dalam identifikasi.</p><p align="center"><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p><em>Indonesia is a country that has a great biodiversity, one of which is the diversity of freshwater fish. Freshwater fish that are suitable for consumption today are of many kinds, so that people who lack knowledge to recognize fish species are very difficult. Image recognition identification technology with Content Based Image Retrieval with shape features based on the resulting edge points can help identify the types of fish that exist. The fish image used is converted from RGB to grayscale which is processed by edge detection method into a binary value matrix so that it forms the edge points of the fish. Image data of freshwater fish in the study amounted to ten types of fish, which will be processed to obtain extraction of the edge detection features. The edge detection used is the merging of the prewitt and canny methods. This study did not have accurate results with a value of 25%. Where combining other features will be very helpful in identification.</em></p>

Abstract:

Abstrak: Survey yang telah dilakukan dosen di Desa Tanak Beak, ternyata untuk anak-anak usia sekolah baik tingkat sekolah dasar dan menengah di Desa Tanak Beak juga memiliki kemampuan aritmatika tergolong rendah. Meskipun sebagian besar dari mereka sudah mampu melakukan operasi-operasi matematika secara sederhana seperti penjumlahan, pembagian dan pengurangan bilangan akan tetapi proses yang dilakukan masih lambat. Mereka belum mengatahui cara-cara cepat dan jitu dalam berhitung, sedangkan di zaman sekarang ini apalagi untuk anak usia sekolah dalam menghadapi ujian atau semester di tuntut untuk melakukan pemecahan soal dengan cepat dan tepat termasuk dalam kemampuan berhitung atau aritmatika. Pelatihan yang dilakukan adalah menggunakan metode tutorial yang dilakukan oleh guru kepada siswa baik secara perorangan atau kelompok kecil siswa. Kegiatan pelatihan aritmatika di Desa Tanak Beak diikuti oleh siswa MTs. NW Tanak Beak yang memiliki kemampuan aritmatika rendah. Setelah melalui kegiatan pelatihan ini peserta telah mampu melakukan perhitungan-perhitungan bilangan baik puluhan, ratusan dan ribuan bahkan lebih dari itu. Peserta juga sudah mampu menggunakan sepuluh jari dan mampu menggunakan teknik-teknik berhitung sehingga mampu berhitung lebih cepat dari sebelumnya. Hanya saja pengetahuan peserta masih bersifat dasar dan perlu diadakan pelatihan yang lebih intensif lagi agar mereka dapat lebih terampil dalam berhitung.Kata Kunci: Aritmatika, Operasi Matematika.Abstract: Survey that has been done by lecturers in Tanak Beak Village, it turns out for school-age children both elementary and middle school level in Tanak Beak Village also has low arithmetic ability. Although most of them are able to perform simple mathematical operations such as addition, division and reduction of numbers but the process is still slow. They do not know how to fast and accurate in counting, while in this day and age especially for school-aged children in facing exam or semester in demand to do problem solving quickly and precisely included in arithmetic or arithmetic ability. The training is done using tutorial method done by teacher to student either individually or small group of students. Aritmatic training activities in Tanak Beak Village were followed by MTs students. NW Tanak Beak with low arithmetic capability. After going through this training, the participants have been able to do good count calculations tens, hundreds and thousands even more than that. Participants are also able to use ten fingers and able to use counting techniques so as to calculate faster than before. It's just that the participants' knowledge is still basic and needs to be held more intensive training again so that they can be more skilled in counting.Keywords: Arithmetic, Mathematical Operation

Abstract:

Abstrak Tulisan ini mendeskripsikan dan menganalisis perjalanan memperoleh demokrasi di dua negara yang pernah sama-sama mengalami rezim anti demokrasi yaitu Indonesia di bawah Suharto dan Filipina di bawah Marcos. Dua negara ini sama-sama mengalami rezim militeristik, namun setelah demokrasi berhasil diraih dan ditegakkan tetap saja terjadi kecenderungan-kecenderungan tindakan aktor politik hendak mengembalikan ke keadaan anti demokrasi seperti praktik pemerintahan yang tidak mencerminkan nilai-nilai demokrasi yaitu korupsi, politik oligarki, lemahnya penegakan hukum di berbagai bidang, hingga separatisme. Ada 3 hal penting yang disampaikan dalam tulisan ini, yaitu pertama, keadaan rezim militeristik yang menguasai kedua negara; kedua, latar belakang kejatuhan rezim militeristik dan diperolehnya sistem demokrasi dalam pengelolaan negara; dan ketiga, tantangan penegakan dan pelaksanaan demokrasi bagi kedua negara dalam politik masa kini. Tulisan ini merupakan hasil studi pustaka dengan metode deskriptif explanatory dan teknik analisis data kualitatif interpretatif. Temuan studi ini ialah Pertama, praktik demokrasi menunjukkan banyak hal baik seperti implementasi good governance dan pembangunan ekonomi melalui infrastruktur dan pajak, namun disertai munculnya masalah baru seperti menguatnya oligarki di pusat dan daerah di bidang politik dan ekonomi hingga membesarnya praktik korupsi pejabat negara. Kedua, ada perbedaan sikap politik kedua negara dalam rekonsiliasi dengan rezim masa lalu, Filipina dapat melupakan trauma politik masa lalu yakni aktor politik masa kini yang merupakan warisan rezim politik masa lalu bisa bekerjasama dan berkonsentrasi membangun bangsa dan negara ke depan tanpa saling fitnah dan kecurigaan. Sedangkan di Indonesia, terjadi sikap politik berbeda, di mana saling curiga dan fitnah yang sering dikaitkan dengan warisan politik masa lalu; Ketiga, kedua negara terus bekerja keras mencari model demokrasi yang coco*k; dan Keempat, kedua negara mempunyai tugas besar dalam menegakkan demokrasi dengan bekerja keras menciptakan kesejahteraan bagi warga negara, penegakan hukum termasuk pemberantasan korupsi, pemberantasan narkoba, kerjasama luar negeri dan membina hubungan politik pusat dan daerah. Kata kunci: Demokrasi, Militeristik, Negara, Perbandingan Politik, Politik Kontemporer Abstract This article describes and analyzes the journey of enforcement of democracy between Indonesia and Philipines which is occur after the end of regimes that tore both countries, i.e. by regime of Suharto in Indonesia and Marcos in Phillipines. But, the facts these countries still struggling to resolve tendencies that weaken democratization such as corruptions, oligarkhi of politics, weakness of law enforcement, separatism etc. For those reasons, author underlines three important things in this article to analyze problems, i.e., firstly, situation of regimes that control both countries; secondly, background of situation that overthrown the regimes and thirdly, the challenges of enforcement and implementation of democration for both countries in political situation today. This article is a library research that using descriptive explanatory method with qualitative interpretative data analitys. Finally, author find four results of the research, i.e. firstly, in practical of democracy, both countries display a good progress as a implementation of good governance and economic development e.g. in infrastructure and tax policy. But this situation raising new problems such as oligarchy strengthened in politics and economics sector both in national level and local regions level that result increase numbers of corruption of the rulers of government. Secondly, on political will between Indonesia and Philipines concerning of the reconciliation with the regime: Philipines decided to still involving actors of last regime to develop the country; but Indonesia still in trauma with the regime, suspicious, hatred are dominated as a result of political tension. Thirdly, both contries are still on going process to find the appropriate of democracy model. And fourthly, Indonesia and Philipines are strive to create prosperity and welfare for their people on law enforcement including eradication of corruption, fighting drugs abuse, build cooperation with foreign country and harmonizing of political relation between national and regional level. Keywords: Comparative Politics, Contemporary Politic, Democracy, Militeristic, State

Abstract:

The purpose of the study in this article is to identify and analyze the potential economic effect from the implementation of comprehensive programs for the development of small historical settlements in Russia. At the present stage of the economic development of our country, in the economic system of these settlements a whole range of problems arises, which are in many ways common to all small towns. The key ones are the massive closure of uncompetitive enterprises, unemployment, mass migration of people to large cities, infrastructural decline and a general decline in population standards of life. In the case of small historical settlements, this situation is also fraught with the loss of the valuable objects of historical and cultural heritage of the peoples of Russia.The article outlines shortly the main measures, currently used by the executive authorities of the Russian Federation to revitalize the economy of small historical settlements. In particular, the preparation by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation for the implementation of the Concept on the development of historical settlements, supporting and promoting cultural and tourist opportunities, and developing the economy cultural heritage is mentioned. Within the framework of this Concept, it is planned to implement comprehensive programs for the development of small cities and historical settlements; those programs should take into account all aspects of the functioning of such settlements as socio-economic systems. Issues of economic efficiency of such projects are among the most important for making decisions on implementation. This article analyzes the potential economic effects of the implementation of the project for the creation of the tourist and recreation cluster “Kasimovskiy” (town of Kasimov, Ryazan Region). This project is considered by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation as a pilot in the program for the implementation of the above-mentioned Concept. The economic effect analysis (results of which are shown in this article), was carried out in the context of various income and cost items of the city budget, using the methods of budget planning and financial analysis, and is based on a system of coefficients developed by the expert method.The analysis shows a significant economic effect of the program implementation in a number of areas – in particular, in the elements of the national economy, tax structure, social security system and housing and communal services, as well as in the sphere of employment of the population and subsidized structure. At the same time, it is important to bear in mind that since the implementation of the program implies a widespread use of the mechanism of municipal-private partnerships, the relationship between the costs of budgets at various levels and the economic effect identified should be the focus of a separate case study.

Abstract:

The adjudication of minor crimes has long proven onerous fordefendants. Recently, however, many American jurisdictions havesupplemented the “process” burdens associated with minor crimes.They have done so by requiring misdemeanor defendants to pay muchof the signifi cant economic costs associated with the adjudicationprocess, in addition to signifi cant fi nes. These include, for example, thecosts associated with electronic tethers, “reimbursem*nt” fees to policeand prosecutors, and participation in court-ordered programs, amongothers. Assessed in so many different forms, such costs are not fullyappreciated by misdemeanor defendants until they face the burden oftrying to pay them. Unfortunately, courts have not made any attemptto accommodate defendants’ ability to pay, instead often requiring adefendant immediately to pay a sum that is simply impossible giventhe defendant’s income. These burdens are being borne by a segmentof the population least likely to be able to bear them, as a majority ofthe misdemeanants are indigent.There are signifi cant social costs associated with this new trendin minor crime adjudication. First, there are social-welfare lossesresulting from lost wages and income tax revenues, the increased costsof new prosecutions and jail sentences imposed when costs, fees, andother economic sanctions are not paid, and indirectly the increasedcosts of public assistance for low-income defendants who lose their jobsas a result of contempt orders for their failure to pay on time. Thesecosts have to be measured against any increase in county revenuesfrom economic sanctions. But there is a larger problem as well:Courts’ recent willingness to impose greater process-oriented economicsanctions for minor crimes cannot be easily justifi ed by any of thetraditional theories of criminal punishment. That diffi culty, coupledwith the questionable social balance sheet resulting from the increasedsanctions, casts serious doubt on this emergent trend.Le jugement de crimes mineurs s’avère onéreux pour les défendeursdepuis longtemps. Récemment, cependant, dans plusieurs territoiresaméricains, on a ajouté aux fardeaux «liés au processus» associés auxcrimes mineurs. On a fait cela en exigeant que les défendeurs accusésde méfaits mineurs paient une bonne part des coûts économiquesimportants associés aux processus de jugement, en plus d’amendesconsidérables, y compris, par exemple, les coûts associés aux laissesélectroniques, des frais de «remboursem*nt» à la police et aux procureurs et la participation à des programmes mandatés par la cour,entre autres. Puisqu’ils sont établis de tant de façons différentes, lesdéfendeurs en question ne se rendent pas compte tout à fait de ces coûtsjusqu’à ce qu’ils se trouvent devant le fardeau d’essayer de les payer.Malheureusem*nt, les cours n’ont fait aucun effort pour tenir comptede la capacité des défendeurs de payer; plutôt, ils exigent souvent quele défendeur paie immédiatement une somme qu’il lui est impossiblede payer compte tenu de son revenu. Ces fardeaux tombent sur lesépaules d’une partie de la population qui est la moins apte à pouvoir lessupporter, puisqu’une majorité des malfaiteurs sont indigents.Il y a des coûts sociaux importants associés à cette nouvelle tendancepour le jugement de crimes mineurs. D’abord, il y a les pertes en bienêtresocial causées par la perte de salaires et de revenus d’impôts, lescoûts additionnels de nouvelles poursuites et de peines d’emprisonnementimposées lorsque les coûts, les frais et les autres sanctions économiques nesont pas payés, et, indirectement, l’augmentation des coûts d’assistancepublique pour les défendeurs à faible revenu qui perdent leur emploi suiteà une ordonnance d’outrage au tribunal parce qu’ils n’ont pas payé àtemps. Il faut mesurer ces coûts en comparaison avec les augmentationsde revenus gouvernementaux provenant de sanctions économiques. Maisil y a aussi un plus grand problème : L’empressem*nt récent des cours àimposer des sanctions économiques plus considérables liés au processuspour des crimes mineurs ne peut pas être facilement justifi é par n’importequelle des théories traditionnelles de punition criminelle. Cette diffi culté,associée au bilan social contestable dû aux sanctions augmentées, faitplaner un doute sérieux sur cette nouvelle tendance.

Abstract:

Background: Hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) is an integral part of the treatment of multiple myeloma (MM). While autologous stem cell transplantation (auto-HCT) is most commonly used, the duration of response is typically finite. Allogeneic HCT (allo-HCT) can provide prolonged survival in some patients, given the added benefit of the graft-versus-myeloma effect. However, long-term data is needed to show this improvement. Method: We retrospectively reviewed a cohort of 37 consecutive patients with newly diagnosed MM who received allo-HCT as part of consolidation therapy between 1994 to 2016. Results: The median age was 54 years (range, 32 to 68), and 54% were male. The Revised International Staging System (R-ISS) stages were I, II, III, and unknown in 27%, 38%, 11%, and 24% of patients, respectively. High-risk cytogenetics (IMWG definition) was identified in 22% of patients. The median time from diagnosis to allo-HCT was 8.8 months (range; 3.3 to 34.3). For induction treatment, fourteen patients (38%) received a combination of immunomodulatory drug (IMiD) plus proteasome inhibitor (PI), sixteen patients (43%) received either IMiD or PI in combination with other agents, and seven patients (19%) did not receive either an IMiD or PI. Twenty-seven (73%) patients received auto-HCT before allo-HCT. Thirty-four (92%) patients received allo-HCT as part of various clinical trials. Median time from auto-HCT to allo-HCT was 4 months (2.5 to 27.3). Prior to allo-HCT, 1 (3%) patient was in complete remission (CR), 18 (48.5%) were in very good partial remission (VGPR), and 18 (48.5%) were in partial remission (PR). Twenty-three (62%) patients received non-myeloablative (NMA) conditioning, 10 (27%) reduced-intensity (RIC), and 4 (11%) myeloablative conditioning (MAC). The graft source was matched unrelated (MUD) in 16% and matched sibling donor (MRD) in 84% of patients. Ten (27%) patients received maintenance therapy after allo-HCT, including bortezomib (n=2), thalidomide (n=2), ixazomib (n=2), and lenalidomide (n=4). The median days to neutrophil and platelet engraftment was 12 (ANC ≥500/µL_ range; 10 to 59) and 13 (platelet count ≥20K/µL _range; 9 to 70), respectively. The cumulative incidence (CI) of non-relapse mortality (NRM) was 16% at 1-year and 19% at 3-years after allo-HCT. There was no difference in NRM between MAC or NMA/RIC conditioning. The overall response rate (PR or better) was 97%, with a 54% stringent CR+CR rate. The incidence of grade I-IV acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) was 35%, while chronic GVHD was seen in 62%. Causes of death were deemed to be disease-related in 8 patients, treatment-related in 11 patients, and 1 unknown. The median follow-up in surviving patients was 12.6 years (range; 2.8 to 15.8 years). The 3, 5, and 10-year actuarial overall survival (OS) rates were 70%, 56%, and 47%, respectively (Figure 1A). The 3, 5, and 10-year actuarial progression-free survival (PFS) rates were 66%, 50%, and 36%, respectively (Figure 1B). At the last follow up, 46% (n=17) of patients were alive in the entire cohort, 65% (n=11) of which survived for longer than 10-years from transplant. Sixteen percent (n=6) remained alive and in continued remission for more than 10 years from transplant, one-third of whom received maintenance treatment post allo-HCT. The longest ongoing remission was 15.8 years in this cohort. Conclusion: Allo-HCT may result in durable (&gt;10 years) remission in a number of MM patients when performed early in the disease course. Larger studies would help identify the patients who would benefit the most, given the risk of graft-versus-host disease after allo-HCT. Disclosures Popat: Bayer: Research Funding; Novartis: Research Funding. Kebriaei:Pfizer: Other: Served on advisory board; Kite: Other: Served on advisory board; Amgen: Other: Research Support; Jazz: Consultancy; Novartis: Other: Served on advisory board; Ziopharm: Other: Research Support. Oran:Celgene: Consultancy; ASTEX: Research Funding; Arog Pharmaceuticals: Research Funding. Hosing:NKARTA Inc.: Consultancy. Manasanch:Adaptive Biotechnologies: Honoraria; GSK: Honoraria; Sanofi: Honoraria; BMS: Honoraria; Takeda: Honoraria; Quest Diagnostics: Research Funding; Merck: Research Funding; JW Pharma: Research Funding; Novartis: Research Funding; Sanofi: Research Funding. Lee:Amgen: Consultancy, Research Funding; Genentech: Consultancy; Regeneron: Research Funding; Daiichi Sankyo: Research Funding; Sanofi: Consultancy; GlaxoSmithKline: Consultancy, Research Funding; Genentech: Consultancy; Takeda: Consultancy, Research Funding; Janssen: Consultancy, Research Funding; Celgene: Consultancy, Research Funding. Kaufman:Karyopharm: Honoraria; Bristol Myers Squibb: Research Funding; Janssen: Research Funding. Patel:Precision Biosciences: Research Funding; Takeda: Consultancy, Research Funding; Cellectis: Research Funding; Janssen: Consultancy, Research Funding; Poseida: Research Funding; Oncopeptides: Consultancy; Nektar: Consultancy, Research Funding; Celgene: Consultancy, Research Funding; Bristol Myers Squibb: Consultancy, Research Funding. Orlowski:Founder of Asylia Therapeutics, Inc., with associated patents and an equity interest, though this technology does not bear on the current submission.: Current equity holder in private company, Patents & Royalties; STATinMED Research: Consultancy; Sanofi-Aventis, Servier, Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, Inc.: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Laboratory research funding from BioTheryX, and clinical research funding from CARsgen Therapeutics, Celgene, Exelixis, Janssen Biotech, Sanofi-Aventis, Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, Inc.: Research Funding; Amgen, Inc., AstraZeneca, BMS, Celgene, EcoR1 Capital LLC, Forma Therapeutics, Genzyme, GSK Biologicals, Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Janssen Biotech, Juno Therapeutics, Kite Pharma, Legend Biotech USA, Molecular Partners, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Thomas:Ascentage: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; BMS: Research Funding; X4 Pharma: Research Funding; Pharmacyclics: Other: Advisory Boards; Xencor: Research Funding; Genentech: Research Funding. Shpall:Takeda: Other: Licensing Agreement; Magenta: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Novartis: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Celgene: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Adaptimmune: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Zelluna: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Champlin:Takeda: Patents & Royalties; Actinium: Consultancy; Johnson and Johnson: Consultancy; Omeros: Consultancy; Cytonus: Consultancy; DKMS America: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Genzyme: Speakers Bureau. Qazilbash:Bioclinica: Consultancy; Amgen: Research Funding; Angiocrine: Research Funding; Bioline: Research Funding; Janssen: Research Funding. Bashir:Celgene: Research Funding; Amgen: Other: Advisory Board; Purdue: Other: Advisory Board; Takeda: Other: Advisory Board, Research Funding; Acrotech: Research Funding; StemLine: Research Funding; KITE: Other: Advisory Board.

Abstract:

Myeloma precursors (monoclonal gammopathy of unknown significance (MGUS) and smoldering myeloma (SMM)) precede the development of active multiple myeloma. Understanding the genomic and immune mechanisms that underlie transformation to MM may be key to identifying a successful therapy. To this end, we designed a prospective observational study of MGUS/SMM patients to identify genomic, immunological, and clinical parameters that may predict disease progression, and to recognize potential therapeutic targets for MGUS and SMM patients at high-risk of progression. From December 2015 until April 2019, 132 patients were consented, 100 patients were eligible for the study (41 MGUS, 59 SMM) and included in this analysis. Patients met the current definition of MGUS/SMM per IMWG criteria and were followed at a minimum of every 6 months with standard blood work and urine studies. All patients had advanced imaging/bone marrow biopsy at baseline and after 3 years of follow up. Median follow up time is 24 months (12-48 months). As of 07/01/2020, ten patients (17%, 10/59 SMM and 0%, 0/41 MGUS) progressed to MM and two patients progressed to systemic AL amyloidosis (3%, 2/59 SMM and 0%, 0/41 MGUS). Eight pairs of CD138+ bone marrow samples at baseline and at progression were available and analyzed by flow cytometry using a pre-designed antibody panel. Whole exome sequencing has been performed on 76 samples (matched germline and tumor) from 38 patients (15 MGUS, 17 SMM without progression and 6 SMM that progressed). A total of 24/39 (62%) tumor samples were covered at &gt;100x and 20/37 (54%) germline samples were covered at &gt;50x. After quality control analysis, bulk RNASeq of 144 samples from tumor and microenvironment (TME) cells from 90 patients (38 MGUS and 52 SMM) were included in the analysis. Flow analysis showed upregulation of inhibitory ligands (PD-L1/PD-L2) and B7-H3, CD200, HLA-E, HLA-G and CD59 at progression compared to baseline in 8 paired tumor samples from SMM patients that progressed. (Figure 1A). WES data analysis showed mutations in KMT2C/E (6/38, 4 SMM, 2 MGUS), NRAS/KRAS (5/38, 2 SMM progressors, 1 SMM, 2 MGUS), and FOXO3 (5/38, 1 SMM progressor, 2 SMM, 2 MGUS). Notably, 5/6 mutations in KMT2C/2E were deleterious mutations, all FOXO3 mutations were truncating, and mutations in KMT2C/2E, FOXO3, and NRAS were mutually exclusive. Unsupervised clustering of CD138+ tumor cells RNAseq at baseline identified 3 distinct clusters (C1-C3). All SMM that progressed (n=6) belonged to C2. CD138- TME RNAseq baseline samples were separated into 4 clusters (C1-C4) and 9/11 progressed patients belonged to C2 with distinct expression profiles (Figure 1 panel B/C). Immune deconvolution of TME samples showed lower baseline counts of CD8+ and CD4+ memory resting T cells and higher CD4+ memory activated, gamma delta T cells and dendritic cells in patients with PD (n=11) vs no PD (n=73)(p&lt;0.05). In progressors (n=11), monocytes and NK cells were increased whereas CD4+ naïve, gamma delta T cells, endothelial cells and fibroblasts were decreased at progression compared to baseline (p&lt;0.05). In tumor cells at baseline (n=6 PD; n=27 non-PD), the expression of immune checkpoint genes CD80, CD40, CD70, IL-2, OX40, IFIT1/2/3 was lower and of CCL5 was higher in patients with PD vs stable disease (SD). At baseline in TME cells, PD patients (n=11) had lower expression of immune checkpoint genes CD44, IL7R, CL5 and higher expression of CD276, CD70, CXCL9 compared to non-progressors (n=73) (p&lt;0.05). In progressors (n=11), increased expression of ICOS, CD80, TGFB1, GZMA, GZMB, CD86, HLA-E, HLA-F, CCL5 was observed at progression vs baseline (figure 1 panel D). Overall, we found extensive changes in the TME composition, in the expression of genes in immune pathways, and in the expression of immune checkpoints, both in tumor and TME samples at baseline and during disease progression. The results of clustering analysis suggest that the features of both tumor and TME at baseline could be possibly used to predict risk of disease progression. Larger studies and validation are needed. Treatment that targets changes in the cell composition and expression of immune checkpoints in myeloma precursor disease may be entertained as a possible therapeutic option. Disclosures Manasanch: Novartis: Research Funding; Sanofi: Research Funding; Takeda: Honoraria; JW Pharma: Research Funding; Merck: Research Funding; Adaptive Biotechnologies: Honoraria; GSK: Honoraria; Sanofi: Honoraria; BMS: Honoraria; Quest Diagnostics: Research Funding. Lee:Genentech: Consultancy; Regeneron: Research Funding; Daiichi Sankyo: Research Funding; Sanofi: Consultancy; GlaxoSmithKline: Consultancy, Research Funding; Genentech: Consultancy; Takeda: Consultancy, Research Funding; Janssen: Consultancy, Research Funding; Celgene: Consultancy, Research Funding; Amgen: Consultancy, Research Funding. Patel:Cellectis: Research Funding; Janssen: Consultancy, Research Funding; Nektar: Consultancy, Research Funding; Bristol Myers Squibb: Consultancy, Research Funding; Takeda: Consultancy, Research Funding; Oncopeptides: Consultancy; Precision Biosciences: Research Funding; Poseida: Research Funding; Celgene: Consultancy, Research Funding. Kaufman:Janssen: Research Funding; Bristol Myers Squibb: Research Funding; Karyopharm: Honoraria. Bashir:Celgene: Research Funding; KITE: Other: Advisory Board; Amgen: Other: Advisory Board; Purdue: Other: Advisory Board; Takeda: Other: Advisory Board, Research Funding; Acrotech: Research Funding; StemLine: Research Funding. Nieto:Novartis: Other: Grant Support; Astra Zeneca: Other: Grant Support; Affimed: Consultancy, Other: Grant Support; Secura Bio: Other: Grant Support. Qazilbash:Angiocrine: Research Funding; Bioline: Research Funding; Bioclinica: Consultancy; Amgen: Research Funding; Janssen: Research Funding. Berry:Berry Consultants LLC.: Other: Co-owner. Thomas:BMS: Research Funding; Ascentage: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; X4 Pharma: Research Funding; Xencor: Research Funding; Pharmacyclics: Other: Advisory Boards; Genentech: Research Funding. Orlowski:STATinMED Research: Consultancy; Founder of Asylia Therapeutics, Inc., with associated patents and an equity interest, though this technology does not bear on the current submission.: Current equity holder in private company, Patents & Royalties; Sanofi-Aventis, Servier, Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, Inc.: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Amgen, Inc., AstraZeneca, BMS, Celgene, EcoR1 Capital LLC, Forma Therapeutics, Genzyme, GSK Biologicals, Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Janssen Biotech, Juno Therapeutics, Kite Pharma, Legend Biotech USA, Molecular Partners, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Laboratory research funding from BioTheryX, and clinical research funding from CARsgen Therapeutics, Celgene, Exelixis, Janssen Biotech, Sanofi-Aventis, Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, Inc.: Research Funding. Neelapu:Cell Medica/Kuur: Other: personal fees; Legend Biotech: Other; Calibr: Other; Incyte: Other: personal fees; Bristol-Myers Squibb: Other: personal fees, Research Funding; Merck: Other: personal fees, Research Funding; Kite, a Gilead Company: Other: personal fees, Research Funding; Takeda Pharmaceuticals: Patents & Royalties; Unum Therapeutics: Other, Research Funding; Karus Therapeutics: Research Funding; Novartis: Other: personal fees; N/A: Other; Precision Biosciences: Other: personal fees, Research Funding; Cellectis: Research Funding; Acerta: Research Funding; Allogene Therapeutics: Other: personal fees, Research Funding; Poseida: Research Funding; Celgene: Other: personal fees, Research Funding; Pfizer: Other: personal fees; Adicet Bio: Other.

Abstract:

The aim of this research was to find out total erythrocytes count and hematocrit value of aceh and bali cattle in Leumbah Seulawah, Aceh Besar. Ten aceh cattle (5 males and 5 females with the age of 2.5-3.0 years) and ten bali cattle (5 males and 5 females aged 2.5-3.0 years) from Leumbah Seulawah, Aceh Besar were used in this research. Blood samples approximately 3 cc were collected by venoject through jugular vein. Erythrocyte counts were performed using a hemocytometer and hematocrit value were performed by microhematocrit method. The average of erythrocyte counts of male and female aceh cattle were 7.75 ±1.86 and 7.34±0.73 (106/mm3) respectively, while male and female bali cattle were 5.49±0.88 and 4.89±0.53 (106/mm3) respectively. Hematocrit value of male and female aceh cattle were 32.8±3.70 dan 32.6±207% respectively, while male and female bali cattle were 27.4±3.00 and 25.8±1.30% respectively. In conclusion, erythrocytes count and hematocrit value of aceh cattle show significant difference (P<0.01) from bali cattle.Key words: erythrocytes, hematocrit, aceh cattle, bali cattle

Abstract:

AbstractThis economic policy forum deals with the design and impact of an ecological tax reform. Gernot Klepper and Christian M. Scholz argue that the various effects of an ecological tax reform cannot be discussed separately. Rather, allocative effects and fiscal policy aspects have to be considered together. While they agree that ecological taxes might improve environmental quality, they reject the assertion that there are also positive welfare effects arising from such a tax reform. Instead, they consider it as likely that eco taxes cause negative employment effects. At most, these negative employment effects can be prevented. However, for doing so, it is necessary to use the additional tax revenues for reducing wage costs. In addition, trade unions would have to forgo wage increases.Rolf Peffekoven agrees with Klepper and Scholz as to the effects of an ecological tax reform: A better environmental quality and economic efficiency cannot be realized simultaneously. He then points out some problems which may arise when eco taxes are introduced. For instance, eco taxes imply a conflict between fiscal and environmental objectives (tax revenues and reduction of pollution). Furthermore, in order to achieve the objective of a better environmental quality it is important to determine the correct tax rate and tax base. Thereby one has to bear in mind that if only one country decides to introduce eco taxes competitive distortions and a shift of production to other countries would be the result.In contrast to the previous contributions Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker argues that a properly dimensioned ecological tax reform may cause ecological and economic benefits. While he acknowledges the arguments against such a tax reform, he claims that there are three strong arguments in favour of an environmental tax reform: the increasing need for climate protection, the creation of an adequate economic incentive structure, and the reduction of other taxes and fees which are more damaging than energy taxes. In addition, he proposes to cut all subsidies to the energy, transport and agricultural sector since they have not only a harmful effect on the environment but are also inefficient in economic terms.

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Shock waves from the current housing crisis that still echo through Wall Street’s largest financial firms, not only have threatened to topple financial markets and drive the country into a depression, but have also undermined the all-time high home ownership rate in the United States. The most attention-grabbing dimensions and headlines of the current crisis seem to be the staggering losses incurred by the likes of Bear Sterns and Citigroup, and the demise of some of the large corporations such as Washington Mutual. However, the real crisis is not on Wall Street or in the banking sector, but in low- and moderate-income and minority homes and neighborhoods throughout the country. At least ten years before the present subprime foreclosure crisis became mainstream news, these marginalized communities were feeling the negative effects of mortgage fraud and predatory lending practices occurring with regularity in the subprime market. This paper discusses an ongoing study of Subprime Lending, Mortgage Fraud and Housing Quality in process since 2002. This four-part study has employed foreclosure data with statistical and mapping analysis, detailed interviews with victims of predatory lending, systematic documentation of the resulting housing environments, and documentation of property improvements in light of victims’ legal settlements. While subprime lending has supported the expansion of homeownership in the United States, this on-going study suggests that this expansion has sometimes been at the expense of safe, code-compliant living environments forlow-income, minority and elderly homeowners. Some of the victims of predatory lending and mortgage fraud have sought legal redress through the courts but many have suffered personal financial, health, emotional, and family crises as well. The current broad-scale discussion of the topic has given attention to the lack of regulation facilitating these unethical practices, but it is unclear that current discussions will lead to meaningful and lasting reform.

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Abstract Background Countries must be able to describe and monitor their populations health and well-being needs in an attempt to understand and address them. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have re-emphasized the need to invest in comprehensive health information systems to monitor progress towards health equity; however, knowledge on the capacity of health information systems to be able do this, particularly in low-income countries, remains very limited. As a case study, we aimed to evaluate the current capacity of the national health information systems in Mozambique, and the available indicators to monitor health inequalities, in line with SDG 3 (Good Health and Well Being for All at All Ages). Methods A data source mapping of the health information system in Mozambique was conducted. We followed the World Health Organization’s methodology of assessing data sources to evaluate the information available for every equity stratifier using a three-point scale: 1 - information is available, 2 - need for more information, and 3 - an information gap. Also, for each indicator we estimated the national average inequality score. Results Eight data sources contain health information to measure and monitor progress towards health equity in line with the 27 SDG3 indicators. Seven indicators bear information with nationally funded data sources, ten with data sources externally funded, and ten indicators either lack information or it does not applicable for the matter of the study. None of the 27 indicators associated with SDG3 can be fully disaggregated by equity stratifiers; they either lack some information (15 indicators) or do not have information at all (nine indicators). The indicators that contain more information are related to maternal and child health. Conclusions There are important information gaps in Mozambique’s current national health information system which prevents it from being able to comprehensively measure and monitor health equity. Comprehensive national health information systems are an essential public health need. Significant policy and political challenges must also be addressed to ensure effective interventions and action towards health equity in the country.

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<p>The existence of students with chinese ethnic background that is still very small in number in public schools is still a big question mark in education in Kecamatan Tebas. As the second most populous population after Malay, Chinese people prefer to send their children to a private school where their students are dominated by Chinese ethnics. However, the presence of ethnic Chinese students in a small number of public schools is an interesting thing to look at. This study aims to reveal the behavior and supporting factors that make Chinese students choose to stay in the country. Using the David McClelland needs theory approach as well as the use of qualitative methods with primary data collection of observations and interviews. In this study, the researcher took the main informants, which amounted to three people, consisting of one tenth grader, one at eleven class student of IPA, and one at eleven class student of IPS. the researcher successfully identified ten student behaviors that showed motivation of affiliation and two factors supporting the high motivation of affiliated Chinese students in SMA Negeri 1 Tebas.<br /><strong>Keywords</strong>: Students of Ethnic Chinese, Motivation of Affiliation, Affiliated Behavior, Affiliated Factors.</p><p> </p><p>Abstrak<br />Keberadaan siswa dengan latar belakang etnis tionghoa yang masih sangat sedikit jumlahnya di sekolah negeri masih menjadi tanda tanya besar dalam pendidikan di kecamatan tebas. Sebagai penduduk dengan jumlah terbanyak kedua setelah etnis melayu, masyarakat tionghoa lebih memilih untuk menyekolahkan anak mereka disekolah swasta yang para siswanya didominasi oleh kalangan etns Tionghoa. Namun, keberadaan siswa etnis tionghoa pada sekolah negeri yang jumlahnya sedikit menjadi hal yang menarik untuk diteliti. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengungkap perilaku dan faktor pendukung yang membuat siswa etnis tionghoa memilih bertahan disekolah negeri. Dengan menggunakan pendekatan teori kebutuhan David McClelland serta penggunaan metode kualitatif dengan pengumpulan data utama berupa observasi dan wawancara. Dalam penelitian ini, peneliti mengambil informan utama yang berjumlah tiga orang, terdiri dari satu orang siswa kelas sepuluh, satu orang siswa kelas sebelas IPA, dan satu orang siswa kelas sebelas IPS. peneliti berhasil mengidentifikasi sepuluh perilaku siswa yang menunjukkan motivasi berafiliasi dan tiga faktor pendukung tingginya motivasi berafiliasi siswa etnis Tionghoa di SMA Negeri 1 Tebas.<br /><strong>Kata Kunci</strong>: Siswa Etnis Tionghoa, Motivasi Berafiliasi, Perilaku Berafiliasi, Faktor Berafiliasi.</p>

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The refugee determination process is one of the most complex judicial functions in our societies. Decision makers involved in this process require a sufficient knowledge of the cultural, social, and political environment of the country of origin, a capacity to bear the psychological weight of difficult hearings and potentially life-threatening decisions, and an ability to deal with complex legal issues and evidence. In Canada, despite a relatively broad recognition rate and wide interpretation of the international refugee definition, dissatisfaction with the decision-making process at the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) has been expressed by numerous actors as well as by the general public. The following report examines the nature and causes of discord between the different actors involved in this process, including irb board members and refugeeclaim officers on the one hand, and professionals such as lawyers, doctors, and expert witnesses on the other. Using a methodological framework that includes both quantitative and qualitative approaches, the authors of this multidisciplinary research project define a set of parameters and variables through which three critical dimensions of the refugee determination process—cultural, psychological, and legal—are explored. Data for the study consist of forty problematic cases referred to the research team by lawyers and other professionals; ten of the cases, which include cassettes and transcripts of hearings, were analyzed in depth by experts in the three respective fields of study. The results indicate numerous problems affecting decisionmaking based on legal factors (difficulties in evaluating evidence, assessing credibility, conducting hearings, and writing decisions), psychological factors (difficulties in coping with vicarious traumatization and emotional reactions), and cultural factors (poor knowledge of the political situation in countries of origin, false representations of daily life in war-torn countries, and cultural misunderstandings or insensitivity). In a majority of cases, these legal, psychological, and cultural dimensions interact, reinforcing uncertainty, cynicism, and aggression, and often negatively affecting the ability of board members to evaluate credibility and the overall conduct of hearings. The report proposes a set of recommendations including revised selection criteria for board members and refugee claim officers, as well as improved training and support for all actors; it highlights as well the difficulties inherent in using a non-adversarial system in refugee hearings. An English version of the report can be found at http://www.juris.uqam.ca/cedim/recherches.htm.

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Purpose This paper aims to analytically show that in an over-lapping-generation (OLG) model, low earning cohorts bear unwanted risk and absorb higher economic cost than high earning cohorts do. Design/methodology/approach This paper aims to consider the individual's risk appetite, using a simple utility function, based on consumptions and discount rates in each period. This paper calibrates the model according to teh Israeli pension system as a representative of a small open developed organization for economic cooperation and development country. Israel is considered as unique case study in the pension landscape, as it implements almost pure defined contribution pension scheme with continuous trend of pension market capitalization (Giorno and Jacques, 2016). Hence, this study finds Israel suitable for examining the theoretical mix of pension scheme. That model enables exploring combined solutions for adequate old age benefits, involving the first and the second pension pillars, under fiscal constraints. Findings It comes out that for risk-averse individuals, the optimal degree of funding is negatively correlated to asset returns' volatility and positively correlated to earning decile level. The neglect of risk and individual's current earning level will thus overstate the contribution level and funded percentage from total contributions. Moreover, even in an economy with minimum government intervention, and highly developed private pension fund with high average of rate of return, the authors find it is optimal that the pension system contains a sizeable unfunded pillar. This paper innovates by revealing a socio-economic anomaly in design of mix pension systems in favor of high earning cohorts on the expense of economic loss of low earning cohorts. Practical implications The model presented in this paper could be implemented in countries with mix pension systems, as an alternative to public social transfers or means tested, alleviating poverty and inequality in old age. Additionally, this model could raise the public awareness of the financial sustainability of the unfunded pay-as-you-go pillar to diversify financial risk in pension systems, especially for low earning cohort in society. Social implications One area of research that is particularly relevant in this context concerns the issue of alleviating poverty and income inequality. It is often stressed that the prevention of old age poverty is among the central targets of well-designed pension system (Holzmann and Hinz, 2005). The conceptualization of minimum pension guarantee used in this composition allows to clearly capturing the notion of such a poverty and social targets as an integral part of the pension system rolls. Originality/value This paper innovates by revealing a socio-economic anomaly in design of mix pension systems in favor of high earning cohorts on the expense of economic loss of low earning cohorts. That comes to realize through the level of total contribution rates and funded share that are generally optimal for high earning cohorts but not for low earning cohorts. This paper identifies that the effect of anomaly is most significant in a market characterized with high income-inequality level. This paper finds that imposing intra-generational risk sharing instrument in the form of minimum pension guarantee can re-balance pension design among different earning cohorts. This solution demonstrates balancing effect on the entire economy.

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IntroductionIn the year 2000, a group of likeminded individuals got together and convened the first annual World Barista Championship in Monte Carlo. With twelve competitors from around the globe, each competitor was judged by seven judges: one head judge who oversaw the process, two technical judges who assessed technical skills, and four sensory judges who evaluated the taste and appearance of the espresso drinks. Competitors had fifteen minutes to serve four espresso coffees, four cappuccino coffees, and four “signature” drinks that they had devised using one shot of espresso and other ingredients of their choice, but no alcohol. The competitors were also assessed on their overall barista skills, their creativity, and their ability to perform under pressure and impress the judges with their knowledge of coffee. This competition has grown to the extent that eleven years later, in 2011, 54 countries held national barista championships with the winner from each country competing for the highly coveted position of World Barista Champion. That year, Alejandro Mendez from El Salvador became the first world champion from a coffee producing nation. Champion baristas are more likely to come from coffee consuming countries than they are from coffee producing countries as countries that produce coffee seldom have a culture of espresso coffee consumption. While Ireland is not a coffee-producing nation, the Irish are the highest per capita consumers of tea in the world (Mac Con Iomaire, “Ireland”). Despite this, in 2008, Stephen Morrissey from Ireland overcame 50 other national champions to become the 2008 World Barista Champion (see, http://vimeo.com/2254130). Another Irish national champion, Colin Harmon, came fourth in this competition in both 2009 and 2010. This paper discusses the history and development of coffee and coffee houses in Dublin from the 17th century, charting how coffee culture in Dublin appeared, evolved, and stagnated before re-emerging at the beginning of the 21st century, with a remarkable win in the World Barista Championships. The historical links between coffeehouses and media—ranging from print media to electronic and social media—are discussed. In this, the coffee house acts as an informal public gathering space, what urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg calls a “third place,” neither work nor home. These “third places” provide anchors for community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction (Oldenburg). This paper will also show how competition from other “third places” such as clubs, hotels, restaurants, and bars have affected the vibrancy of coffee houses. Early Coffee Houses The first coffee house was established in Constantinople in 1554 (Tannahill 252; Huetz de Lemps 387). The first English coffee houses opened in Oxford in 1650 and in London in 1652. Coffee houses multiplied thereafter but, in 1676, when some London coffee houses became hotbeds for political protest, the city prosecutor decided to close them. The ban was soon lifted and between 1680 and 1730 Londoners discovered the pleasure of drinking coffee (Huetz de Lemps 388), although these coffee houses sold a number of hot drinks including tea and chocolate as well as coffee.The first French coffee houses opened in Marseille in 1671 and in Paris the following year. Coffee houses proliferated during the 18th century: by 1720 there were 380 public cafés in Paris and by the end of the century there were 600 (Huetz de Lemps 387). Café Procope opened in Paris in 1674 and, in the 18th century, became a literary salon with regular patrons: Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and Condorcet (Huetz de Lemps 387; Pitte 472). In England, coffee houses developed into exclusive clubs such as Crockford’s and the Reform, whilst elsewhere in Europe they evolved into what we identify as cafés, similar to the tea shops that would open in England in the late 19th century (Tannahill 252-53). Tea quickly displaced coffee in popularity in British coffee houses (Taylor 142). Pettigrew suggests two reasons why Great Britain became a tea-drinking nation while most of the rest of Europe took to coffee (48). The first was the power of the East India Company, chartered by Elizabeth I in 1600, which controlled the world’s biggest tea monopoly and promoted the beverage enthusiastically. The second was the difficulty England had in securing coffee from the Levant while at war with France at the end of the seventeenth century and again during the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13). Tea also became the dominant beverage in Ireland and over a period of time became the staple beverage of the whole country. In 1835, Samuel Bewley and his son Charles dared to break the monopoly of The East India Company by importing over 2,000 chests of tea directly from Canton, China, to Ireland. His family would later become synonymous with the importation of coffee and with opening cafés in Ireland (see, Farmar for full history of the Bewley's and their activities). Ireland remains the highest per-capita consumer of tea in the world. Coffee houses have long been linked with social and political change (Kennedy, Politicks; Pincus). The notion that these new non-alcoholic drinks were responsible for the Enlightenment because people could now gather socially without getting drunk is rejected by Wheaton as frivolous, since there had always been alternatives to strong drink, and European civilisation had achieved much in the previous centuries (91). She comments additionally that cafés, as gathering places for dissenters, took over the role that taverns had long played. Pennell and Vickery support this argument adding that by offering a choice of drinks, and often sweets, at a fixed price and in a more civilized setting than most taverns provided, coffee houses and cafés were part of the rise of the modern restaurant. It is believed that, by 1700, the commercial provision of food and drink constituted the second largest occupational sector in London. Travellers’ accounts are full of descriptions of London taverns, pie shops, coffee, bun and chop houses, breakfast huts, and food hawkers (Pennell; Vickery). Dublin Coffee Houses and Later incarnations The earliest reference to coffee houses in Dublin is to the co*ck Coffee House in Cook Street during the reign of Charles II (1660-85). Public dining or drinking establishments listed in the 1738 Dublin Directory include taverns, eating houses, chop houses, coffee houses, and one chocolate house in Fownes Court run by Peter Bardin (Hardiman and Kennedy 157). During the second half of the 17th century, Dublin’s merchant classes transferred allegiance from taverns to the newly fashionable coffee houses as places to conduct business. By 1698, the fashion had spread to country towns with coffee houses found in Cork, Limerick, Kilkenny, Clonmel, Wexford, and Galway, and slightly later in Belfast and Waterford in the 18th century. Maxwell lists some of Dublin’s leading coffee houses and taverns, noting their clientele: There were Lucas’s Coffee House, on Cork Hill (the scene of many duels), frequented by fashionable young men; the Phoenix, in Werburgh Street, where political dinners were held; Dick’s Coffee House, in Skinner’s Row, much patronized by literary men, for it was over a bookseller’s; the Eagle, in Eustace Street, where meetings of the Volunteers were held; the Old Sot’s Hole, near Essex Bridge, famous for its beefsteaks and ale; the Eagle Tavern, on Cork Hill, which was demolished at the same time as Lucas’s to make room for the Royal Exchange; and many others. (76) Many of the early taverns were situated around the Winetavern Street, Cook Street, and Fishamble Street area. (see Fig. 1) Taverns, and later coffee houses, became meeting places for gentlemen and centres for debate and the exchange of ideas. In 1706, Francis Dickson published the Flying Post newspaper at the Four Courts coffee house in Winetavern Street. The Bear Tavern (1725) and the Black Lyon (1735), where a Masonic Lodge assembled every Wednesday, were also located on this street (Gilbert v.1 160). Dick’s Coffee house was established in the late 17th century by bookseller and newspaper proprietor Richard Pue, and remained open until 1780 when the building was demolished. In 1740, Dick’s customers were described thus: Ye citizens, gentlemen, lawyers and squires,who summer and winter surround our great fires,ye quidnuncs! who frequently come into Pue’s,To live upon politicks, coffee, and news. (Gilbert v.1 174) There has long been an association between coffeehouses and publishing books, pamphlets and particularly newspapers. Other Dublin publishers and newspapermen who owned coffee houses included Richard Norris and Thomas Bacon. Until the 1850s, newspapers were burdened with a number of taxes: on the newsprint, a stamp duty, and on each advertisem*nt. By 1865, these taxes had virtually disappeared, resulting in the appearance of 30 new newspapers in Ireland, 24 of them in Dublin. Most people read from copies which were available free of charge in taverns, clubs, and coffee houses (MacGiolla Phadraig). Coffee houses also kept copies of international newspapers. On 4 May 1706, Francis Dickson notes in the Dublin Intelligence that he held the Paris and London Gazettes, Leyden Gazette and Slip, the Paris and Hague Lettres à la Main, Daily Courant, Post-man, Flying Post, Post-script and Manuscripts in his coffeehouse in Winetavern Street (Kennedy, “Dublin”). Henry Berry’s analysis of shop signs in Dublin identifies 24 different coffee houses in Dublin, with the main clusters in Essex Street near the Custom’s House (Cocoa Tree, Bacon’s, Dempster’s, Dublin, Merchant’s, Norris’s, and Walsh’s) Cork Hill (Lucas’s, St Lawrence’s, and Solyman’s) Skinners’ Row (Bow’s’, Darby’s, and Dick’s) Christ Church Yard (Four Courts, and London) College Green (Jack’s, and Parliament) and Crampton Court (Exchange, and Little Dublin). (see Figure 1, below, for these clusters and the locations of other Dublin coffee houses.) The earliest to be referenced is the co*ck Coffee House in Cook Street during the reign of Charles II (1660-85), with Solyman’s (1691), Bow’s (1692), and Patt’s on High Street (1699), all mentioned in print before the 18th century. The name of one, the Cocoa Tree, suggests that chocolate was also served in this coffee house. More evidence of the variety of beverages sold in coffee houses comes from Gilbert who notes that in 1730, one Dublin poet wrote of George Carterwright’s wife at The Custom House Coffee House on Essex Street: Her coffee’s fresh and fresh her tea,Sweet her cream, ptizan, and whea,her drams, of ev’ry sort, we findboth good and pleasant, in their kind. (v. 2 161) Figure 1: Map of Dublin indicating Coffee House clusters 1 = Sackville St.; 2 = Winetavern St.; 3 = Essex St.; 4 = Cork Hill; 5 = Skinner's Row; 6 = College Green.; 7 = Christ Church Yard; 8 = Crampton Court.; 9 = Cook St.; 10 = High St.; 11 = Eustace St.; 12 = Werburgh St.; 13 = Fishamble St.; 14 = Westmorland St.; 15 = South Great George's St.; 16 = Grafton St.; 17 = Kildare St.; 18 = Dame St.; 19 = Anglesea Row; 20 = Foster Place; 21 = Poolbeg St.; 22 = Fleet St.; 23 = Burgh Quay.A = Cafe de Paris, Lincoln Place; B = Red Bank Restaurant, D'Olier St.; C = Morrison's Hotel, Nassau St.; D = Shelbourne Hotel, St. Stephen's Green; E = Jury's Hotel, Dame St. Some coffee houses transformed into the gentlemen’s clubs that appeared in London, Paris and Dublin in the 17th century. These clubs originally met in coffee houses, then taverns, until later proprietary clubs became fashionable. Dublin anticipated London in club fashions with members of the Kildare Street Club (1782) and the Sackville Street Club (1794) owning the premises of their clubhouse, thus dispensing with the proprietor. The first London club to be owned by the members seems to be Arthur’s, founded in 1811 (McDowell 4) and this practice became widespread throughout the 19th century in both London and Dublin. The origin of one of Dublin’s most famous clubs, Daly’s Club, was a chocolate house opened by Patrick Daly in c.1762–65 in premises at 2–3 Dame Street (Brooke). It prospered sufficiently to commission its own granite-faced building on College Green between Anglesea Street and Foster Place which opened in 1789 (Liddy 51). Daly’s Club, “where half the land of Ireland has changed hands”, was renowned for the gambling that took place there (Montgomery 39). Daly’s sumptuous palace catered very well (and discreetly) for honourable Members of Parliament and rich “bucks” alike (Craig 222). The changing political and social landscape following the Act of Union led to Daly’s slow demise and its eventual closure in 1823 (Liddy 51). Coincidentally, the first Starbucks in Ireland opened in 2005 in the same location. Once gentlemen’s clubs had designated buildings where members could eat, drink, socialise, and stay overnight, taverns and coffee houses faced competition from the best Dublin hotels which also had coffee rooms “in which gentlemen could read papers, write letters, take coffee and wine in the evening—an exiguous substitute for a club” (McDowell 17). There were at least 15 establishments in Dublin city claiming to be hotels by 1789 (Corr 1) and their numbers grew in the 19th century, an expansion which was particularly influenced by the growth of railways. By 1790, Dublin’s public houses (“pubs”) outnumbered its coffee houses with Dublin boasting 1,300 (Rooney 132). Names like the Goose and Gridiron, Harp and Crown, Horseshoe and Magpie, and Hen and Chickens—fashionable during the 17th and 18th centuries in Ireland—hung on decorative signs for those who could not read. Throughout the 20th century, the public house provided the dominant “third place” in Irish society, and the drink of choice for itd predominantly male customers was a frothy pint of Guinness. Newspapers were available in public houses and many newspapermen had their own favourite hostelries such as Mulligan’s of Poolbeg Street; The Pearl, and The Palace on Fleet Street; and The White Horse Inn on Burgh Quay. Any coffee served in these establishments prior to the arrival of the new coffee culture in the 21st century was, however, of the powdered instant variety. Hotels / Restaurants with Coffee Rooms From the mid-19th century, the public dining landscape of Dublin changed in line with London and other large cities in the United Kingdom. Restaurants did appear gradually in the United Kingdom and research suggests that one possible reason for this growth from the 1860s onwards was the Refreshment Houses and Wine Licences Act (1860). The object of this act was to “reunite the business of eating and drinking”, thereby encouraging public sobriety (Mac Con Iomaire, “Emergence” v.2 95). Advertisem*nts for Dublin restaurants appeared in The Irish Times from the 1860s. Thom’s Directory includes listings for Dining Rooms from the 1870s and Refreshment Rooms are listed from the 1880s. This pattern continued until 1909, when Thom’s Directory first includes a listing for “Restaurants and Tea Rooms”. Some of the establishments that advertised separate coffee rooms include Dublin’s first French restaurant, the Café de Paris, The Red Bank Restaurant, Morrison’s Hotel, Shelbourne Hotel, and Jury’s Hotel (see Fig. 1). The pattern of separate ladies’ coffee rooms emerged in Dublin and London during the latter half of the 19th century and mixed sex dining only became popular around the last decade of the 19th century, partly infuenced by Cesar Ritz and Auguste Escoffier (Mac Con Iomaire, “Public Dining”). Irish Cafés: From Bewley’s to Starbucks A number of cafés appeared at the beginning of the 20th century, most notably Robert Roberts and Bewley’s, both of which were owned by Quaker families. Ernest Bewley took over the running of the Bewley’s importation business in the 1890s and opened a number of Oriental Cafés; South Great Georges Street (1894), Westmoreland Street (1896), and what became the landmark Bewley’s Oriental Café in Grafton Street (1927). Drawing influence from the grand cafés of Paris and Vienna, oriental tearooms, and Egyptian architecture (inspired by the discovery in 1922 of Tutankhamen’s Tomb), the Grafton Street business brought a touch of the exotic into the newly formed Irish Free State. Bewley’s cafés became the haunt of many of Ireland’s leading literary figures, including Samuel Becket, Sean O’Casey, and James Joyce who mentioned the café in his book, Dubliners. A full history of Bewley’s is available (Farmar). It is important to note, however, that pots of tea were sold in equal measure to mugs of coffee in Bewley’s. The cafés changed over time from waitress- to self-service and a failure to adapt to changing fashions led to the business being sold, with only the flagship café in Grafton Street remaining open in a revised capacity. It was not until the beginning of the 21st century that a new wave of coffee house culture swept Ireland. This was based around speciality coffee beverages such as espressos, cappuccinos, lattés, macchiatos, and frappuccinnos. This new phenomenon coincided with the unprecedented growth in the Irish economy, during which Ireland became known as the “Celtic Tiger” (Murphy 3). One aspect of this period was a building boom and a subsequent growth in apartment living in the Dublin city centre. The American sitcom Friends and its fictional coffee house, “Central Perk,” may also have helped popularise the use of coffee houses as “third spaces” (Oldenberg) among young apartment dwellers in Dublin. This was also the era of the “dotcom boom” when many young entrepreneurs, software designers, webmasters, and stock market investors were using coffee houses as meeting places for business and also as ad hoc office spaces. This trend is very similar to the situation in the 17th and early 18th centuries where coffeehouses became known as sites for business dealings. Various theories explaining the growth of the new café culture have circulated, with reasons ranging from a growth in Eastern European migrants, anti-smoking legislation, returning sophisticated Irish emigrants, and increased affluence (Fenton). Dublin pubs, facing competition from the new coffee culture, began installing espresso coffee machines made by companies such as Gaggia to attract customers more interested in a good latté than a lager and it is within this context that Irish baristas gained such success in the World Barista competition. In 2001 the Georges Street branch of Bewley’s was taken over by a chain called Café, Bar, Deli specialising in serving good food at reasonable prices. Many ex-Bewley’s staff members subsequently opened their own businesses, roasting coffee and running cafés. Irish-owned coffee chains such as Java Republic, Insomnia, and O’Brien’s Sandwich Bars continued to thrive despite the competition from coffee chains Starbucks and Costa Café. Indeed, so successful was the handmade Irish sandwich and coffee business that, before the economic downturn affected its business, Irish franchise O’Brien’s operated in over 18 countries. The Café, Bar, Deli group had also begun to franchise its operations in 2008 when it too became a victim of the global economic downturn. With the growth of the Internet, many newspapers have experienced falling sales of their printed format and rising uptake of their electronic versions. Most Dublin coffee houses today provide wireless Internet connections so their customers can read not only the local newspapers online, but also others from all over the globe, similar to Francis Dickenson’s coffee house in Winetavern Street in the early 18th century. Dublin has become Europe’s Silicon Valley, housing the European headquarters for companies such as Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Paypal, and Facebook. There are currently plans to provide free wireless connectivity throughout Dublin’s city centre in order to promote e-commerce, however, some coffee houses shut off the wireless Internet in their establishments at certain times of the week in order to promote more social interaction to ensure that these “third places” remain “great good places” at the heart of the community (Oldenburg). Conclusion Ireland is not a country that is normally associated with a coffee culture but coffee houses have been part of the fabric of that country since they emerged in Dublin in the 17th century. These Dublin coffee houses prospered in the 18th century, and survived strong competition from clubs and hotels in the 19th century, and from restaurant and public houses into the 20th century. In 2008, when Stephen Morrissey won the coveted title of World Barista Champion, Ireland’s place as a coffee consuming country was re-established. The first decade of the 21st century witnessed a birth of a new espresso coffee culture, which shows no signs of weakening despite Ireland’s economic travails. References Berry, Henry F. “House and Shop Signs in Dublin in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 40.2 (1910): 81–98. Brooke, Raymond Frederick. Daly’s Club and the Kildare Street Club, Dublin. Dublin, 1930. Corr, Frank. Hotels in Ireland. Dublin: Jemma Publications, 1987. Craig, Maurice. Dublin 1660-1860. Dublin: Allen Figgis, 1980. Farmar, Tony. The Legendary, Lofty, Clattering Café. Dublin: A&A Farmar, 1988. Fenton, Ben. “Cafe Culture taking over in Dublin.” The Telegraph 2 Oct. 2006. 29 Apr. 2012 ‹http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1530308/cafe-culture-taking-over-in-Dublin.html›. Gilbert, John T. A History of the City of Dublin (3 vols.). Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1978. Girouard, Mark. Victorian Pubs. New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 1984. Hardiman, Nodlaig P., and Máire Kennedy. A Directory of Dublin for the Year 1738 Compiled from the Most Authentic of Sources. Dublin: Dublin Corporation Public Libraries, 2000. Huetz de Lemps, Alain. “Colonial Beverages and Consumption of Sugar.” Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present. Eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari. New York: Columbia UP, 1999. 383–93. Kennedy, Máire. “Dublin Coffee Houses.” Ask About Ireland, 2011. 4 Apr. 2012 ‹http://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/history-heritage/pages-in-history/dublin-coffee-houses›. ----- “‘Politicks, Coffee and News’: The Dublin Book Trade in the Eighteenth Century.” Dublin Historical Record LVIII.1 (2005): 76–85. Liddy, Pat. Temple Bar—Dublin: An Illustrated History. Dublin: Temple Bar Properties, 1992. Mac Con Iomaire, Máirtín. “The Emergence, Development, and Influence of French Haute Cuisine on Public Dining in Dublin Restaurants 1900-2000: An Oral History.” Ph.D. thesis, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, 2009. 4 Apr. 2012 ‹http://arrow.dit.ie/tourdoc/12›. ----- “Ireland.” Food Cultures of the World Encylopedia. Ed. Ken Albala. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2010. ----- “Public Dining in Dublin: The History and Evolution of Gastronomy and Commercial Dining 1700-1900.” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 24. Special Issue: The History of the Commercial Hospitality Industry from Classical Antiquity to the 19th Century (2012): forthcoming. MacGiolla Phadraig, Brian. “Dublin: One Hundred Years Ago.” Dublin Historical Record 23.2/3 (1969): 56–71. Maxwell, Constantia. Dublin under the Georges 1714–1830. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1979. McDowell, R. B. Land & Learning: Two Irish Clubs. Dublin: The Lilliput P, 1993. Montgomery, K. L. “Old Dublin Clubs and Coffee-Houses.” New Ireland Review VI (1896): 39–44. Murphy, Antoine E. “The ‘Celtic Tiger’—An Analysis of Ireland’s Economic Growth Performance.” EUI Working Papers, 2000 29 Apr. 2012 ‹http://www.eui.eu/RSCAS/WP-Texts/00_16.pdf›. Oldenburg, Ray, ed. Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories About The “Great Good Places” At the Heart of Our Communities. New York: Marlowe & Company 2001. Pennell, Sarah. “‘Great Quantities of Gooseberry Pye and Baked Clod of Beef’: Victualling and Eating out in Early Modern London.” Londinopolis: Essays in the Cultural and Social History of Early Modern London. Eds. Paul Griffiths and Mark S. R. Jenner. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2000. 228–59. Pettigrew, Jane. A Social History of Tea. London: National Trust Enterprises, 2001. Pincus, Steve. “‘Coffee Politicians Does Create’: Coffeehouses and Restoration Political Culture.” The Journal of Modern History 67.4 (1995): 807–34. Pitte, Jean-Robert. “The Rise of the Restaurant.” Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present. Eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari. New York: Columbia UP, 1999. 471–80. Rooney, Brendan, ed. A Time and a Place: Two Centuries of Irish Social Life. Dublin: National Gallery of Ireland, 2006. Tannahill, Reay. Food in History. St Albans, Herts.: Paladin, 1975. Taylor, Laurence. “Coffee: The Bottomless Cup.” The American Dimension: Cultural Myths and Social Realities. Eds. W. Arens and Susan P. Montague. Port Washington, N.Y.: Alfred Publishing, 1976. 14–48. Vickery, Amanda. Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England. New Haven: Yale UP, 2009. Wheaton, Barbara Ketcham. Savouring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300-1789. London: Chatto & Windus, Hogarth P, 1983. Williams, Anne. “Historical Attitudes to Women Eating in Restaurants.” Public Eating: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 1991. Ed. Harlan Walker. Totnes: Prospect Books, 1992. 311–14. World Barista, Championship. “History–World Barista Championship”. 2012. 02 Apr. 2012 ‹http://worldbaristachampionship.com2012›.AcknowledgementA warm thank you to Dr. Kevin Griffin for producing the map of Dublin for this article.

Abstract:

‘If I tell you I love you,’ he said, ‘then I’ll have to do something about it.’ ‘When you were an infant,’ I would like to say to my son, ‘I heard your cry through the open window. I sat in the autumn sun, under the peach tree in the courtyard your father and I laid, brick by brick, during the hot summer before you were born. I heard your cry coming from the yellow nursery, through the white window frames and the floating cotton curtains. When I heard that cry, milk flooded my breasts. They swelled and stung, my nipples rose up hard and sprouted fountains; the front of my pink shirt grew dark and soaked. All this, at the sound of your waking cry.’ I offer my breast to my lover. Astride him, I lean forward and lower a round and rosy globe into his waiting mouth. He accepts only its hard tip, while delicately fingering the breast’s curves that are swollen, not with milk this time, but with desire. ‘Suck,’ I whisper and he does, noisily like the babies used to, kneading and fondling. When he said ‘I’ll have to do something about it,’ he meant leave the others who had claims on his affections and take up with me in a permanent way. That was how he understood love, as responsibility, and long term goals. I was uninterested in these matters, young and with no sense of the future. ‘f*ck me,’ I whispered and he dabbled the tips of his fingers ever so slowly, in the wet flowing out of me down there. He watched me. He watched me arch and open my mouth and cry a little and he flicked his tongue against mine, all the while dabbling with the most delicious rhythm, and flicking and whispering ‘Is that good? Do you like that, does it feel nice?’ until I cried out loud, and cried tears too. All that love flooding and stinging me. Stinging and flooding me. The child suckled, but with less urgency, drowsy against my breasts. Milk trickled from the corner of his mouth. I stroked his full cheeks with the tips of my fingers. Counted his toes again as I did every day through the weeks after his birth. Kissed his fair brow, ran my tongue along his soft, fat arms. Fell asleep in the autumn sun underneath the peach tree in the courtyard we’d made. Fell asleep with the milky, snuffling infant heavy in my arms, and my breasts bared to the afternoon breeze. Fell asleep and dreamed I was in heaven. * It wasn’t always thus. For example. My mother, on a carpet of bluebells in a northern forest at midsummer in soft, dappled light made love, and subsequently found herself with child. Her first sexual encounter, a stroke of bad luck if ever there was one. Family shame ensued. A short-lived marriage. A humiliating return to her father’s house with a tiny infant. My soft, fat arms, and my ten curled toes wrapped up tight in the blanket of disgrace. This was only the beginning of the repercussions of that unplanned act, that reckless moment in the bluebells. My mother’s white dress stained bluebell blue and red with her blood. My father’s reassurances that came to nothing. In fairy tales it is never the mother who hovers, heavy with bad intentions, around the growing girl. In fairy tales, it is always the stepmother, as if the notion of a mother consumed by dark passions towards her daughter is too abhorrent for fairy tales to bear. But someone has to bear it. Children. Love blindly, and suffer, and always look out from their being with hope. * Grown up, I lie in my bedroom, alone. It’s late afternoon, and staring out of my window at the darkening sky I see the wicked witch of the west with her pointed hat and her black hair and her long black garments. I watch her fly across clouds made bleeding and orange by the setting sun. It seems to me that she is snarling at me, sending out rays of malevolence towards me where I lie on my white bed. ‘I did not take your life!’ I tell her. ‘I did not take your life!’ When finally I sleep I dream, not of the bad fairy, but of sex. It’s a long time since I’ve been with a man. My nighttime lover is a stranger. The love we make is sweet with greed. It trembles tender and dangerous between us, with lucidity too brilliant to be contained by fairy tales. I wake at dawn in the midst of org*sm. The encounter has about it a perfection that I’ve never known in waking life. * I didn’t know my mother’s breasts, but I remember to this day how her hair hung smooth, like black silk, like black satin, like midnight velvet, across her shoulders, and down the length of her back. I didn’t know my mother’s breasts, but to this day I imagine them as white, as cream, as milk, as soft, as perfumed, as tender, as giving. I imagine them as rosy globes within which love might dwell, waiting for me to suckle, waiting for me to drink from them the secret lessons they contain, the lessons that will set me right in life. What does it mean when you have stolen your mother’s life, I wonder, as I prepare myself for the day. Is it a crime for which one may never atone? * ‘If I tell you I love you,’ he said, ‘then I’ll have to do something about it.’ ‘Best not, then,’ I advised and turned my back on him, the better to grieve my losses and count my blessings and dream my dreams. In another lifetime, I saw him in a car park. We didn’t speak. Though I wanted to, though I made those movements towards him that signal the beginnings of an encounter, he waved me back and gestured with his silver head towards a shadowed figure in the front seat of the car. I understood. I shrugged my bag more securely across my shoulders and walked on. My head held high. That night I remembered everything from years ago, with little or no regret, and with a warm delight that I had once known these things, and yet escaped with my life. * ‘When you were an infant,’ I would like to say to my son, ‘I took you in our bed, you slept between your father and me and in the mornings when we woke my breasts were full and aching. I offered them to you, and when you had finished, and fallen back into your infant dreams, I gave them to your father. These acts of love I count as some of the most generous I have ever performed. Your gratitude and your contentment, your small sighs, your unforgettable gaze, all these let me know the best of everything, at least for a while.’ * The floor of my room is made of pale polished wood, and two brightly patterned oriental carpets lie across it, adding warmth and comfort. On the low table beside my bed there’s a small pile of books, a pair of reading glasses, a blue vase holding several stems of iris I bought at the Sunday markets, and a reading lamp with an engraved glass shade. I stay alone now, in another kind of love. Sometimes I lie in this calm room, on my white bed, and through the window I watch the wicked witch in her long black garments that are like midnight velvet, like black satin, that flow out behind her, smooth as silk. I watch her as she flies back and forth across the darkening sky. Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Wilson, Jennifer. "If I tell you I love you" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.6 (2002). Dn Month Year < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0211/ifitell.php>. APA Style Wilson, J., (2002, Nov 20). If I tell you I love you. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 5,(6). Retrieved Month Dn, Year, from http://www.media-culture.org.au/0211/ifitell.html

Abstract:

If love is a many-splendoured thing, then many of its splendours can be seen on toy shelves occupied by recent playthings such as Luv Buds, Love and Kisses, First Love, My Puppy Loves Me and Love-A-Lot Bear. As the meaning of childhood has changed, particularly over the last 150 years (Postman), toys have become a major means of demonstrating and defining love between generations, between genders and between humans and commodities. The widespread availability of commodities, all increasingly finetuned in their prescribed meanings under a regime of rampant advertising, has been a key factor in this development, which reached an apex in the final quarter of the last century. Major toy companies grew dramatically (Stern and Schoenhaus), details of toy-play became more intricately spelt out for children (Kline), and advertising leapt into bold new fronts, not the least being 30-minute toy advertisem*nts masquerading as children’s television programs (Kunkel). Hand in hand with these developments came more sensual elaboration of characters and themes (Kline and Pentecost), in line with general moves towards “commodity aesthetics” (Haug). Selling not just toys but warm fuzzy feelings, toy companies took up slogans such as those surrounding Cabbage Patch Kids: “A special kind of love” and “Come open your arms to a Cabbage Patch Kid” (Blyskal; Jacob, Rodenhauser and Markert). Care Bears made similar claims, each in the set distinguished by heightened sensuality and segmenting the tasks previously performed by the simpler teddy bear. Thus, while semanticists and sociologists grapple with the meaning of the word “love” and the shifting nature of the concept, modern-day toy manufacturers have utilised a number of pertinent notions to underpin their marketing efforts. Such is the importance of marketing that even the basic design of toys can be a marketer’s initiative, giving rise to toys structured specifically around love themes. This is significant because mass marketed toys act as powerful media, transmitting messages, offering interpretations and interacting with other toys and commodities, particularly in terms of communicating the appeals and joys of consumerism on which their existence so heavily relies. Modern toys are not only surrounded by massive advertising and other related texts which leave little to the child’s imagination but, due to their “collaboration” with other commodities in cross-marketing ventures, are prominently positioned to advertise themselves and each other. Messages promoting mass marketed toys are interwoven into the presentation of each toy, its advertising package and other promotional media, including books, films, mall appearances and miniaturisation in children’s packaged fast-food meals. Such schemes highlight the sensuality and appeals of the toys and their themes. Of course children – and their parents – may create oppositional meanings from those intended. The messages are not closed and not always accepted wholesale or unquestioningly, but toys, like other media, often privilege particular readings favourable to the marketplace, as Ann du Cille has pointed out in relation to race and I have noted in relation to gender. Love fits snugly into the repertoire of appeals and joys, taking several different forms, determined mostly by each toy’s target audience and marketing profile. Four of the main variations on the love theme in toys are: Representational love Substitutional love Obligatory love Romantic love I will focus on closely linked representational and substitutional love. A toy that draws on straightforward representational love for its appeal to a parent or carer is typically marketed to suggest that toys are material proof of love, important links in a chain of bonding. At its most crass, the suggestion is that one can prove one’s love for a child by showering her or him with toys, though usually claims are more sophisticated, implying issues of quality and toy genre. In 1993 toy company Mattel was marketing its Disney toys as coming with the special offer of a book. An advertisem*nt in the Australian women’s magazine New Idea spoke of the “magic” of Disney toys and how they would “enchant your child” but made even grander claims of the accompanying book: “It’s valued at $9.95…but you can’t put a price on the bond between you and your child when you read one of these Disney classic tales together.” The pressures of modern-day life are such that parents sometimes feel guilty that they cannot spend enough time with their children or do not know how to play with them or have little interest in doing so, in which case substitutional love can be a strong marketing claim to parents by toys. Among the major features of modern toys and their part in the relationship between parents and children, Brian Sutton-Smith pinpointed a contradiction (115, 127). Parents give their children toys to bond with them but also to simultaneously facilitate separation: “I give you this toy for you to play with…but now go away and play with it by yourself.” Toys not only serve the contradiction but also may offer reconciliation, pitching at a niche seeking substitutional love. Mattel was explicit about this with its promotion of the Heart Family, a set of dolls that on one hand stressed the importance of the traditional nuclear family while, on the other, offered carers a chance to opt out of the burdens of such rigid family organization (Langer). In a booklet entitled “Dear Mum and Dad, will you give me five minutes of your time?” distributed in Australia, Mattel claimed that major research had found that parents did not spend enough time with children and that children felt sad and angry about this. But there was a solution at hand: the purchase of the Heart Family, which incidentally came with an enormous range of accessories, each capable of chipping away at parental guilt though perhaps never quite assuaging it, for there always seemed to be one more accessory on the way. Most notable of these was the large, elegant, two-storeyed dollhouse, Loving Home. The dolls, their dollhouse, musical nursery, playground and umpteen other accessories were, it was insinuated by the Mattel booklet, a way of purchasing “values we all believe in. Sharing. Caring. Loving. Togetherness”. It seemed that the range of commodities could stand in for parents. More recently, Fisher-Price, now part of the Mattel group, has brought out a similar toy line, Loving Family, which hints even more strongly at links between family security and material possessions. Among Loving Family’s accessories are a multi-room family house with attached stable, a beach house, country home, townhouse, beauty salon and much more. While we cannot be sure that these suggested links and parental guilt in the absence of multiple toy gifts take root, toy companies, market analysts, toy advertising agencies and psychiatrists have noted trends that suggest they generally do. They have noted the impact on toy sales thought to be associated with “the high number of children with guilt-ridden working mothers, or from broken homes where parents are trying to buy their offspring’s affections” (McKee). Sometimes parents are keen to ensure the love and affection of playmates for their children. Toy companies also offer this type of substitutional love. Knickerbocker says of its wares: “Toys that love you back,” while among Galoob’s dolls is Mandi, My Favorite Friend. But what a gloomy picture of human companionship is painted by Phebe Bears’ slogan: “When there’s no one else to trust.” Space permits only the briefest comments on either obligatory love or romantic love; the key factor here is that both are strongly gendered. Boys need not concern themselves with either variety but girls’ toys abound which play a socialising role in respect to each. Toys contributing to a concept of love as obligation train girls for a motherhood role that ensures they will be emotionally as well as physically equipped. Kenner doll Baby Needs Me is only one of many such toys. The box of Baby Chris gift set claims the doll “needs your love and care” while Hush Little Baby “responds to your loving care” and “loves to be fed”. Matchbox’s Chubbles is claimed to “live on love”. If the weight of these obligations seems daunting to a girl, the Barbie doll genre offers her a carrot, suggesting that girls grow into women who are the recipients of love from men. A closer look reveals narcissism is surely the strongest type of love promoted by Barbie, but that is not explicit. Barbies such as Dream Date Barbie, Enchanted Evening Barbie and the numerous Barbie brides – even though Barbie is claimed to have never married – promote a straightforward and romanticised view of heterosexual relationships. In conclusion, each toy makes its own grab for attention, often promising love or one of its components, but usually working within a framework of short-term gratification, infatuation, obsession, the yearn to possess and elicitation of guilt – mostly unhealthy ingredients for relationships. While it may be hard to decide what love is, most would agree that, if it ideally has some sense of community responsibility and reciprocity about it, then the definitions offered by these toys fall short of the mark. Works Cited Blyskal, Jeff and Marie. “Media Doll – Born in a Cabbage Patch and Reared by a PR Man” The Quill, 73, November 1985: 32. du Cille, Ann. “Dyes and Dolls: Multicultural Barbie and the Merchandising of Difference” Differences 6(1) Spring 1994: 46-68. Haug, Wolfgang Fritz. Commodity Aesthetics: Ideology and Culture. New York: International General, 1987. Jacob, James E., Paul Rodenhauser and Ronald J. Markert. “The Benign Exploitation of Human Emotions: Adult Women and the Marketing of Cabbage Patch Kids” Journal of American Culture 10, Fall 1987: 61-71. Kline, Stephen, and Debra Pentecost, “The Characterization of Play: Marketing Children’s Toys” Play and Culture, 3(3), 1990: 235-255. Kline, Stephen, Out of the Garden: Toys, TV, and Children’s Culture in the Age of Marketing. London: Verso, 1993. Kunkel, Dale. “From a Raised Eyebrow to a Turned Back: The FCC and Children’s Product-Related Programming” Journal of Communication 38(4) Autumn 1988: 90-108. Langer, Beryl. “Commoditoys: Marketing Childhood” Arena no. 87, 1989: 29-37. McKee, Victoria. “All Stressed Out and Ready to Play” The Times (London), 19 December 1990: 17. Postman, Neil. The Disappearance of Childhood. New York: Dell, 1982. Stern, Sydney Ladensohn and Ted Schoenhaus. Toyland: The High-Stakes Game of the Toy Industry. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1990. Sutton-Smith, Brian. Toys As Culture. New York: Garden Press, 1986. Varney, Wendy. “The Briar Around the Strawberry Patch: Toys, Women and Food” Women’s Studies International Forum no. 19, June 1996: 267-276. Varney, Wendy. “Of Men and Machines: Images of Masculinity in the Toybox” Feminist Studies 28(1) Spring 2002: 153-174. Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Varney, Wendy. "Love in Toytown" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.6 (2002). Dn Month Year < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0211/loveintotytown.php>. APA Style Varney, W., (2002, Nov 20). Love in Toytown. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 5,(6). Retrieved Month Dn, Year, from http://www.media-culture.org.au/0211/loveintotytown.html

Abstract:

Home is the place where one knows oneself best; it is where one belongs, a space one longs to be. Indeed, the longing for home seems to be grounded in an anthropological need for anchorage. Although in English the German loanword ‘Heimat’ is often used synonymously with ‘home’, many would have claimed up till now that it has been a word particularly ill equipped for use outside the German speaking community, owing to its specific cultural baggage. However, I would like to argue that – not least due to the political dimension of home (such as in homeland security and homeland affairs) – the yearning for a home has experienced a semantic shift, which aligns it more closely with Heimat, a term imbued with the ambivalence of home and homeland intertwined (Morley 32). I will outline the German specificities below and invite an Australian analogy. A resoundingly positive understanding of the German term ‘Heimat’ likens it to “an intoxicant, a medium of transport; it makes people feel giddy and spirits them to pleasant places. To contemplate Heimat means to imagine an uncontaminated space, a realm of innocence and immediacy.“ (Rentschler 37) While this description of Heimat may raise expectations of an all-encompassing idyll, for most German speakers “…there is hardly a more ambivalent feeling, hardly a more painful mixture of happiness and bitterness than the experience vested in the word ‘Heimat’.” (Reitz 139) The emotional charge of the idiom is of quite recent origin. Traditionally, Heimat stimulates connotations of ‘origin’, ‘birth place, of oneself and one’s ancestors’ and even of ‘original area of settlement and homeland’. This corresponds most neatly with such English terms as ‘native land’, ‘land of my birth’, ‘land of my forefathers’ or ‘native shores’. Added to the German conception of Heimat are its sensitive associations relating, on the one hand, to Romanticism and its idolisation of the fatherland, and on the other, to the Nazi blood-and-soil propaganda, which brought Heimat into disrepute for many and added to the difficulties of translating the German word. A comparison with similar terms in Romance languages makes this clear. Speakers of those tongues have an understanding of home and homeland, which is strongly associated with the father-figure: the Greek “patra”, Latin and Italian “patria” and the French “patrie”, as well as patriarch, patrimony, patriot, and patricide. The French come closest to sharing the concept to which Heimat’s Germanic root of “heima” refers. For the Teutons “heima” denoted the traditional space and place of a clan, society or individual. However, centuries of migration, often following expulsion, have imbued Heimat with ambivalent notions; feelings of belonging and feelings of loss find expression in the term. Despite its semantic opaqueness, Heimat expresses a “longing for a wholeness and unity” (Strzelczyk 109) which for many seems lost, especially following experiences of alienation, exile, diaspora or ‘simply’ migration. Yet, it is in those circ*mstances, when Heimat becomes a thing of the past, that it seems to manifest itself most clearly. In the German context, the need for Heimat arose particularly after World War Two, when experiences of loss and scenes of devastation, as well as displacement and expulsion found compensation of sorts in the popular media. Going to the cinema was the top pastime in Germany in the 1950s, and escapist Heimat films, which showed idyllic country scenery, instead of rubble-strewn cityscapes, were the most well-liked of all. The industry pumped out kitsch films in quick succession to service this demand and created sugar-coated, colour-rich Heimat experiences on celluloid that captured the audience’s imagination. Most recently, the genre experienced something of a renaissance in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent accession of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, also referred to as East Germany) to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG or West Germany) in 1990. Described as one of the most seminal moments in modern history, the events led to large-scale change; in world politics, strategic alliances, but were most closely felt at the personal and societal level, reshaping community and belonging. Feelings of disbelief and euphoria occupied the hearts and minds of people all around the world in the days following the night of the 9 November 1989. However, the fall of the Wall created within weeks what the Soviet Union had been unable to manage in the previous 40 years; the sense of a distinctly Eastern identity (cf. Heneghan 148). Most of the initial positive perceptions slowly gave way to a hangover when the consequences of the drastic societal changes became apparent in their effects on populace. Feelings of disenchantment and disillusionment followed the jubilation and dominated the second phase of socio-cultural unification, when individuals were faced with economic and emotional hardship or were forced to relocate, as companies folded, politically tainted degrees and professions were abolished and entire industry sectors disappeared. This reassessment of almost every aspect of people’s lifestyles led many to feel that their familiar world had dissipated and their Heimat had been lost, resulting in a rhetoric of “us” versus “them”. This conceptual divide persisted and was cemented by the perceived difficulties in integration that had emerged, manifesting a consciousness of difference that expressed itself metaphorically in the references to the ‘Wall in the mind’. Partly as a reaction to these feelings and partly also as a concession to the new citizens from the East, Western backed and produced unification films utilised the soothing cosmos of the Heimat genre – so well rehearsed in the 1950s – as a framework for tales about unification. Peter Timm’s Go, Trabi, Go (1991) and Wolfgang Büld’s sequel Go, Trabi, Go 2. Das war der Wilde Osten [That Was the Wild East, 1992] are two such films which revive “Heimat as a central cultural construct through which aspects of life in the new Germany could be sketched and grasped.” (Naughton 125) The films’ references to Eastern and Western identity served as a powerful guarantor of feelings of belonging, re-assuring audiences on both sides of the mental divide of their idiosyncrasies, while also showing a way to overcome separation. These Heimat films thus united in spirit, emotion and consumer behaviour that which had otherwise not yet “grown together” (cf. Brandt). The renaissance of the Heimat genre in the 1990s gained further momentum in the media with new Heimat film releases as well as TV screenings of 1950s classics. Indeed Heimat films of old and new were generally well received, as they responded to a fragile psychological predisposition at a time of change and general uncertainty. Similar feelings were shared by many in the post-war society of the 1950s and the post-Wall Europe of the 1990s. After the Second World War and following the restructure after Nazism it was necessary to integrate large expellee groups into the young nation of the FRG. In the 1990s the integration of similarly displaced people was required, though this time they were having to cope less with territorial loss than with ideological implosions. Then and now, Heimat films sought to aid integration and “transcend those differences” (Naughton 125) – whilst not disputing their existence – particularly in view of the fact that Germany had 16 million new citizens, who clearly had a different cultural background, many of whom were struggling with perceptions of otherness as popularly expressed in the stereotypical ethnographies of “Easterners” and “Westerners”. The rediscovery of the concept of Heimat in the years following unification therefore not only mirrored the status quo but further to that allowed “for the delineation of a common heritage, shared priorities, and values with which Germans in the old and new states could identify.” (Naughton 125) Closely copying the optimism of the 1950s which promised audiences prosperity and pride, as well as a sense of belonging and homecoming into a larger community, the films produced in the early 1990s anticipated prosperity for a mobile and flexible people. Like their 1950s counterparts, “unification films ‘made in West Germany’ imagined a German Heimat as a place of social cohesion, opportunity, and prosperity” (Naughton 126). Following the unification comedies of the early 1990s, which were set in the period following the fall of the Wall, another wave of German film production shifted the focus onto the past, sacrificing the future dimension of the unification films. Leander Haußmann’s Sonnenallee (1999) is set in the 1970s and subscribes to a re-invention of one’s childhood, while Wolfgang Becker’s Goodbye Lenin (2003) in which the GDR is preserved on 79 square metres in a private parallel world, advocates a revival of aspects of the socialist past. Referred to as “Ostalgia”; a nostalgia for the old East, “a ‘GDR revival’ or the ‘renaissance of a GDR Heimatgefühl’” (Berdahl 197), the films achieved popular success. Ostalgia films utilised the formula of ‘walking down memory lane’ in varying degrees; thematising pleasing aspects of an imagined collective past and tempting audiences to revel in a sense of unity and hom*ogeneous identity (cf. Walsh 6). Ostalgia was soon transformed from emotional and imaginary reflection into an entire industry, manifesting itself in the “recuperation, (re)production, marketing, and merchandising of GDR products as well as the ‘museumification’ of GDR everyday life” (Berdahl 192). This trend found further expression in a culture of exhibitions, books, films and cabaret acts, in fashion and theme parties, as well as in Trabi-rallies which celebrated or sent up the German Democratic Republic in response to the perceived public humiliation at the hands of West German media outlets, historians and economists. The dismissal of anything associated with the communist East in mainstream Germany and the realisation that their consumer products – like their national history – were disappearing in the face of the ‘Helmut Kohl-onisation’ sparked this retro-Heimat cult. Indeed, the reaction to the disappearance of GDR culture and the ensuing nostalgia bear all the hallmarks of Heimat appreciation, a sense of bereavement that only manifests itself once the Heimat has been lost. Ironically, however, the revival of the past led to the emergence of a “new” GDR (Rutschky 851), an “imaginary country put together from the remnants of a country in ruins and from the hopes and anxieties of a new world” (Hell et al. 86), a fictional construct rather than a historical reality. In contrast to the fundamental social and psychological changes affecting former GDR citizens from the end of 1989, their Western counterparts were initially able to look on without a sense of deep personal involvement. Their perspective has been likened to that of an impartial observer following the events of a historical play (cf. Gaschke 22). Many saw German unification as an enlargement of the West; as soon as they had exported their currency, democracy, capitalism and freedom to the East, “blossoming landscapes” were sure to follow (Kohl). At first political events did not seem to cause a major disruption to the lives of most people in the old FRG, except perhaps the need to pay higher tax. This understanding proved a major underestimation of the transformation process that had gripped all of Germany, not just the Eastern part. Nevertheless, few predicted the impact that far-reaching changes would have on the West; immigration and new minorities alter the status quo of any society, and with Germany’s increase in size and population, its citizens in both East and West had to adapt and adjust to a new image and to new expectations placed on them from within and without. As a result a certain unease began to be felt by many an otherwise self-assured individual. Slower and less obvious than the transition phase experienced by most East Germans, the changes in West German society and consciousness were nevertheless similar in their psychological effects; resulting in a subtle feeling of displacement. Indeed, it was soon noted that “the end of German division has given rise to a sense of crisis in the West, particularly within the sphere of West German culture, engendering a Western nostalgica for the old FRG” (Cooke 35), also referred to as Westalgia. Not too dissimilar to the historical rehabilitation of the East played out in Ostalgic fashion, films appeared which revisit moments worthy of celebration in West German history, such as the 1954 Soccer World Championship status which is at the centre of the narrative in Sönke Wortmann’s Das Wunder von Bern [Miracle of Bern, 2003]. Hommages to the 1968 generation (Hans Weingartner’s Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei [The Educators, 2004]) and requiems for West Berlin’s subculture (Leander Haußmann’s Herr Lehmann [Mr Lehmann, 2003]) were similar manifestations of this development. Ostalgic and Westalgic practices coexisted for several years after the turn of the millennium, and are a tribute to the highly complex interrelationship that exists between personal histories and public memories. Both narratives reveal “the politics, ambiguities, and paradoxes of memory, nostalgia, and resistance” (Berdahl 207). In their nostalgic contemplation of the good old days, Ostalgic and Westalgic films alike express a longing to return to familiar and trusted values. Both post-hoc constructions of a heimatesque cosmos demonstrate a very real reinvention of Heimat. Their deliberate reconstruction and reinterpretation of history, as well as the references to and glorification of personal memory and identity fulfil the task of imbuing history – in particular personal history – with dignity. As such these Heimat films work in a similar fashion to myths in the way they explain the world. The heimatesque element of Ostalgic and Westalgic films which allows for the potential to overcome crises reveals a great deal about the workings of myths in general. Irrespective of their content, whether they are cosmogonic (about the beginning of time), eschatological (about the end of time) or etiologic myths (about the origins of peoples and societal order), all serve as a means to cope with change. According to Hans Blumenberg, myth making may be seen as an attempt to counter the absolutism of reality (cf. Blumenberg 9), by providing a response to its seemingly overriding arbitrariness. Myths become a means of endowing life with meaning through art and thus aid positive self-assurance and the constructive usage of past experiences in the present and the future. Judging from the popular success of both Ostalgic and Westalgic films in unified Germany, one hopes that communication is taking place across the perceived ethnic divide of Eastern and Western identities. At the very least, people of quite different backgrounds have access to the constructions and fictions relating to one another pasts. By allowing each other insight into the most intimate recesses of their respective psychological make-up, understanding can be fostered. Through the re-activation of one’s own memory and the acknowledgment of differences these diverging narratives may constitute the foundation of a common Heimat. It is thus possible for Westalgic and Ostalgic films to fulfil individual and societal functions which can act as a core of cohesion and an aid for mutual understanding. At the same time these films revive the past, not as a liveable but rather as a readable alternative to the present. As such, the utilisation of myths should not be rejected as ideological misuse, as suggested by Barthes (7), nor should it allow for the cementing of pseudo-ethnic differences dating back to mythological times; instead myths can form the basis for a common narrative and a self-confident affirmation of history in order to prepare for a future in harmony. Just like myths in general, Heimat tales do not attempt to revise history, or to present the real facts. By foregrounding the evidence of their wilful construction and fictitious invention, it is possible to arrive at a spiritual, psychological and symbolic truth. Nevertheless, it is a truth that is essential for a positive experience of Heimat and an optimistic existence. What can the German situation reveal in an Australian or a wider context? Explorations of Heimat aid the socio-historical investigation of any society, as repositories of memory and history, escape and confrontation inscribed in Heimat can be read as signifiers of continuity and disruption, reorientation and return, and as such, ever-changing notions of Heimat mirror values and social change. Currently, a transition in meaning is underway which alters the concept of ‘home’ as an idyllic sphere of belonging and attachment to that of a threatened space; a space under siege from a range of perils in the areas of safety and security, whether due to natural disasters, terrorism or conventional warfare. The geographical understanding of home is increasingly taking second place to an emotional imaginary that is fed by an “exclusionary and contested distinction between the ‘domestic’ and the ‘foreign’ (Blunt and Dowling 168). As such home becomes ever more closely aligned with the semantics of Heimat, i.e. with an emotional experience, which is progressively less grounded in feelings of security and comfort, yet even more so in those of ambivalence and, in particular, insecurity and hysteria. This paranoia informs as much as it is informed by government policies and interventions and emerges from concerns for national security. In this context, home and homeland have become overused entities in discussions relating to the safeguarding of Australia, such as with the establishment of a homeland security unit in 2003 and annual conferences such as “The Homeland Security Summit” deemed necessary since 9/11, even in the Antipodes. However, these global connotations of home and Heimat overshadow the necessity of a reclaimation of the home/land debate at the national and local levels. In addressing the dispossession of indigenous peoples and the removal and dislocation of Aboriginal children from their homes and families, the political nature of a home-grown Heimat debate cannot be ignored. “Bringing them Home”, an oral history project initiated by the National Library of Australia in Canberra, is one of many attempts at listening to and preserving the memories of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders who, as children, were forcibly taken away from their families and homelands. To ensure healing and rapprochement any reconciliation process necessitates coming to terms with one’s own past as much as respecting the polyphonic nature of historical discourse. By encouraging the inclusion of diverse homeland and dreamtime narratives and juxtaposing these with the perceptions and constructions of home of the subsequent immigrant generations of Australians, a rich text, full of contradictions, may help generate a shared, if ambivalent, sense of a common Heimat in Australia; one that is fed not by homeland insecurity but one resting in a heimatesque knowledge of self. References Barthes, Roland. Mythen des Alltags. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1964 Berdahl, Daphne. “‘(N)ostalgie’ for the Present: Memory, Longing, and East German Things.” Ethnos 64.2 (1999): 192-207. Blumenberg, Hans. Arbeit am Mythos. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1979. Blunt, Alison, and Robyn Dowling. Home. London: Routledge, 2006. Brandt, Willy. “Jetzt kann zusammenwachsen, was zusammengehört [Now that which belongs together, can now grow together].” From his speech on 10 Nov. 1989 in front of the Rathaus Schöneberg, transcript available from http://www.bwbs.de/Brandt/9.html>. Cooke, Paul. “Whatever Happened to Veronika Voss? Rehabilitating the ‘68ers’ and the Problem of Westalgie in Oskar Roehler’s Die Unberührbare (2000).” German Studies Review 27.1 (2004): 33-44. Gaschke, Susanne. “Neues Deutschland. Sind wir eine Wirtschaftsgesellschaft?” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte B1-2 (2000): 22-27. Hell, Julia, and Johannes von Moltke. “Unification Effects: Imaginary Landscapes of the Berlin Republic.” The Germanic Review 80.1 (Winter 2005): 74-95. Heneghan, Tom. Unchained Eagle: Germany after the Wall. London: Reuters, 2000. Kohl, Helmut. “Debatte im Bundestag um den Staatsvertrag.” 21 June 1990. Morley, David. Home Territories: Media, Mobility and Identity. London: Routledge, 2000. Naughton, Leonie. That Was the Wild East. Film Culture, Unification, and the “New” Germany. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2002. Rentschler, Eric. “There’s No Place Like Home: Luis Trenker’s The Prodigal Son (1934).” New German Critique 60 (Special Issue on German Film History, Autumn 1993): 33-56. Reitz, Edgar. “The Camera Is Not a Clock (1979).” In Eric Rentschler, ed. West German Filmmakers on Film: Visions and Voices. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1988. 137-141. Rutschky, Michael. “Wie erst jetzt die DDR entsteht.” Merkur 49.9-10 (Sep./Oct. 1995): 851-64. Strzelczyk, Florentine. “Far Away, So Close: Carl Froelich’s Heimat.” In Robert C. Reimer, ed., Cultural History through the National Socialist Lens. Essays on the Cinema of the Third Reich. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2000. 109-132. Walsh, Michael. “National Cinema, National Imaginary.” Film History 8 (1996): 5-17. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Ludewig, Alexandra. "Home Meets Heimat." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/12-ludewig.php>. APA Style Ludewig, A. (Aug. 2007) "Home Meets Heimat," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/12-ludewig.php>.

Abstract:

Photograph by Gonzalo Echeverria (2010)Doubt has been my closest companion for several years as I struggle to make sense of certain hidden events from within my family’s history. The actual nature of such events, although now lost to us, can nevertheless be explored through the distorting lens of memory and academic research. I base such explorations in part on my intuition and sensitivity to emotional experience, which are inevitably riddled with doubt. I write from the position of a psychoanalytic psychologist who is also a creative writer and my doubts increase further when I use the autobiographical impulse as a driving force. I am not alone with such uncertainties. Ross Gibson, an historian and filmmaker, uses his doubts to explore empty spaces in the Australian landscape. He looks to see “what’s gone missing” as he endeavours with a team of colleagues to build up some “systematic comprehension in response to fragments” (Gibson, “Places” 1). How can anyone be certain as to what has transpired with no “facts” to go on? he asks. What can we do with our doubts? To this end, Gibson has collected a series of crime scene photographs, taken in post war Sydney, and created a display – a photographic slide show with a minimalist musical score, mostly of drumming and percussion, coupled with a few tight, poetic words, in the form of haiku, splattered across the screen. The notes accompanying the photographic negatives were lost. The only details “known” include the place, the date and the image. Of some two thousand photos, Gibson selected only fifty for display, by hunch, by nuance, or by whatever it was that stirred in him when he first glimpsed them. He describes each photo as “the imprint of a scream”, a gut reaction riddled with doubt (Gibson and Richards, Wartime). In this type of research, creative imaginative flair is essential, Gibson argues. “We need to propose ‘what if’ scenarios that help us account for what has happened…so that we can better envisage what might happen. We need to apprehend the past” (Gibson, “Places” 2). To do this we need imagination, which involves “a readiness to incorporate the unknown…when one encounters evidence that’s in smithereens”, the evidence of the past that lies rooted in a seedbed of doubt (Gibson, “Places” 2). The sociologist, Avery Gordon, also argues in favour of the imaginative impulse. “Fiction is getting pretty close to sociology,” she suggests as she begins her research into the business of ghosts and haunting (Gordon 38). As we entertain our doubts we tune in with our uncertain imaginations. “The places where our discourse is unauthorised by virtue of its unruliness…take us away from abstract questions of method, from bloodless professionalised questions, toward the materiality of institutionalised storytelling, with all its uncanny repetitions” (Gordon 39). If we are to dig deeper, to understand more about the emotional truth of our “fictional” pasts we must look to “the living traces, the memories of the lost and disappeared” (Gordon ix). According to Janice Radway, Gordon seeks a new way of knowing…a knowing that is more a listening than a seeing, a practice of being attuned to the echoes and murmurs of that which has been lost but which is still present among us in the form of intimations, hints, suggestions and portents … ghostly matters … . To be haunted is to be tied to historical and social effects. (x) And to be tied to such effects is to live constantly in the shadow of doubt. A photograph of my dead baby sister haunts me still. As a child I took this photo to school one day. I had peeled it from its corners in the family album. There were two almost identical pictures, side by side. I hoped no one would notice the space left behind. “She’s dead,” I said. I held the photo out to a group of girls in the playground. My fingers had smeared the photo’s surface. The children peered at the image. They wanted to stare at the picture of a dead baby. Not one had seen a dead body before, and not one had been able to imagine the stillness, a photographic image without life, without breath that I passed around on the asphalt playground one spring morning in 1962 when I was ten years old. I have the photo still—my dead sister who bears the same name as my older sister, still living. The dead one has wispy fine black hair. In the photo there are dark shadows underneath her closed eyes. She looks to be asleep. I do not emphasise grief at the loss of my mother’s first-born daughter. My mother felt it briefly, she told me later. But things like that happened all the time during the war. Babies were born and died regularly. Now, all these years later, these same unmourned babies hover restlessly in the nurseries of generations of survivors. There is no way we can be absolute in our interpretations, Gibson argues, but in the first instance there is some basic knowledge to be generated from viewing the crime scene photographs, as in viewing my death photo (Gibson, "Address"). For example, we can reflect on the décor and how people in those days organised their spaces. We can reflect on the way people stood and walked, got on and off vehicles, as well as examine something of the lives of the investigative police, including those whose job it was to take these photographs. Gibson interviewed some of the now elderly men from the Sydney police force who had photographed the crime scenes he displays. He asked questions to deal with his doubts. He now has a very different appreciation of the life of a “copper”, he says. His detective work probing into these empty spaces, digging into his doubts, has reduced his preconceptions and prejudices (Gibson, "Address"). Preconception and prejudice cannot tolerate doubt. In order to bear witness, Gibson says we need to be speculative, to be loose, but not glib, “narrativising” but not inventive, with an eye to the real world (Gibson, "Address"). Gibson’s interest in an interpretation of life after wartime in Sydney is to gather a sense of the world that led to these pictures. His interpretations derive from his hunches, but hunches, he argues, also need to be tested for plausibility (Gibson, Address). Like Gibson, I hope that the didactic trend from the past—to shut up and listen—has been replaced by one that involves “discovery based learning”, learning that is guided by someone who knows “just a little more”, in a common sense, forensic, investigative mode (Gibson, “Address”). Doubt is central to this heuristic trend. Likewise, my doubts give me permission to explore my family’s past without the paralysis of intentionality and certainty. “What method have you adopted for your research?” Gordon asks, as she considers Luce Irigaray’s thoughts on the same question. It is “a delicate question. For isn’t it the method, the path to knowledge, that has always also led us away, led us astray, by fraud and artifice” (Gordon 38). So what is my methodology? I use storytelling meshed with theory and the autobiographical. But what do you think you’re doing? my critics ask. You call this research? I must therefore look to literary theorists on biography and autobiography for support. Nancy Miller writes about the denigration of the autobiographical, particularly in academic circles, where the tendency has been to see the genre as “self indulgent” in its apparent failure to maintain standards of objectivity, of scrutiny and theoretical distance (Miller 421). However, the autobiographical, Miller argues, rather than separating and dividing us through self-interests can “narrow the degree of separation” by operating as an aid to remembering (425). We recognise ourselves in another’s memoir, however fleetingly, and the recognition makes our “own experience feel more meaningful: not ‘merely’ personal but part of the bigger picture of cultural memory” (Miller 426). I speak with some hesitation about my family of origin yet it frames my story and hence my methodology. For many years I have had a horror of what writers and academics call “structure”. I considered myself lacking any ability to create a structure within my writing. I write intuitively. I have some idea of what I wish to explore and then I wait for ideas to enter my mind. They rise to the surface much like air bubbles from a fish. I wait till the fish joggles my bait. Often I write as I wait for a fish to bite. This writing, which is closely informed by my reading, occurs in an intuitive way, as if by instinct. I follow the associations that erupt in my mind, even as I explore another’s theory, and if it is at all possible, if I can get hold of these associations, what I, too, call hunches, then I follow them, much as Gibson and Gordon advocate. Like Gordon, I take my “distractions” seriously (Gordon, 31-60). Gordon follows ghosts. She looks for the things behind the things, the things that haunt her. I, too, look for what lies beneath, what is unconscious, unclear. This writing does not come easily and it takes many drafts before a pattern can emerge, before I, who have always imagined I could not develop a structure, begin to see one—an outline in bold where the central ideas accrue and onto which other thoughts can attach. This structure is not static. It begins with the spark of desire, the intercourse of opposing feelings, for me the desire to untangle family secrets from the past, to unpack one form, namely the history as presented within my family and then to re-assemble it through a written re-construction that attempts to make sense of the empty spaces left out of the family narrative, where no record, verbal or written, has been provided. This operates against pressure from certain members of my family to leave the family past unexplored. My methodology is subjective. Any objectivity I glean in exploring the work and theories of others comes through my own perspective. I read the works of academics in the literary field, and academics from psychoanalysis interested in infant development and personality theory. They consider these issues in different ways from the way in which I, as a psychotherapist, a doubt-filled researcher, and writer, read and experience them. To my clinician self, these ideas evolve in practice. I do not see them as mere abstractions. To me they are living ideas, they pulse and flow, and yet there are some who would seek to tie them down or throw them out. Recently I asked my mother about the photo of her dead baby, her first-born daughter who had died during the Hongerwinter (Hunger winter) of 1945 in Heilo, Holland. I was curious to know how the photo had come about. My curiosity had been flamed by Jay Ruby’s Secure the Shadow: Death and Photography in America, a transcript on the nature of post-mortem photography, which includes several photos of dead people. The book I found by chance in a second-hand books store. I could not leave these photographs behind. Ruby is concerned to ask questions about why we have become so afraid of death, at least in the western world, that we no longer take photographs of our loved ones after death as mementos, or if we take such photos, they are kept private, not shared with the public, for fear that the owners might be considered ghoulish (Ruby 161). I follow in Gordon’s footsteps. She describes how one day, on her way to a conference to present a paper, she had found herself distracted from her conference topic by thoughts of a woman whose image she had discovered was “missing” from a photo taken in Berlin in 1901. According to Gordon’s research, the woman, Sabina Spielrein, should have been present in this photo, but was not. Spielrein is a little known psychoanalyst, little known despite the fact that she was the first to hypothesise on the nature of the death instinct, an unconscious drive towards death and oblivion (Gordon 40). Gordon’s “search” for this missing woman overtook her initial research. My mother could not remember who took her dead baby’s photograph, but suspected it was a neighbour of her cousin in whose house she had stayed. She told me again the story she has told me many times before, and always at my instigation. When I was little I wondered that my mother could stay dry-eyed in the telling. She seemed so calm, when I had imagined that were I the mother of a dead baby I would find it hard to go on. “It is harder,” my mother said, to lose an older child. “When a child dies so young, you have fewer memories. It takes less time to get over it.” Ruby concludes that after World War Two, postmortem photographs were less likely to be kept in the family album, as they would have been in earlier times. “Those who possess death-related family pictures regard them as very private pictures to be shown only to selected people” (Ruby 161). When I look at the images in Ruby’s book, particularly those of the young, the children and babies, I am struck again at the unspoken. The idea of the dead person, seemingly alive in the photograph, propped up in a chair, on a mother’s lap, or resting on a bed, lifeless. To my contemporary sensibility it seems wrong. To look upon these dead people, their identities often unknown, and to imagine the grief for others in that loss—for grief there must have been such that the people remaining felt it necessary to preserve the memory—becomes almost unbearable. It is tempting to judge the past by present standards. In 1999, while writing her historical novel Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks came across a letter Henry James had written ninety eight years earlier to a young Sarah Orne Jewett who had previously sent him a manuscript of her historical novel for comment. In his letter, James condemns the notion of the historical novel as an impossibility: “the invention, the representation of the old consciousness, the soul, the sense of horizon, the vision of individuals in whose minds half the things that make ours, that make the modern world,” are all impossible, he insisted (Brooks 3). Despite Brooks’s initial disquiet at James’s words, she realised later that she had heard similar ideas uttered in different contexts before. Brooks had worked as a journalist in the Middle East and Africa: “They don’t think like us,” white Africans would say of their black neighbours, or Israelis of Arabs or upper class Palestinians about their desperately poor refugee-camp brethren … . “They don’t value life as we do. They don’t care if their kids get killed—they have so many of them”. (Brookes 3) But Brooks argues, “a woman keening for a dead child sounds exactly as raw in an earth-floored hovel as it does in a silk-carpeted drawing room” (3). Brooks is concerned to get beyond the certainties of our pre-conceived ideas: “It is human nature to put yourself in another’s shoes. The past may be another country. But the only passport required is empathy”(3). And empathy again requires the capacity to tolerate doubt. Later I asked my mother yet again about what it was like for her when her baby died, and why she had chosen to have her dead baby photographed. She did not ask for the photograph to be taken, she told me. But she was glad to have it now; otherwise nothing would remain of this baby, buried in an unfamiliar cemetery on the other side of the world. Why am I haunted by this image of my dead baby sister and how does it connect with my family’s secrets? The links are still in doubt. Gibson’s creative flair, Gordon’s ideas on ghostly matters and haunting, the things behind the things, my preoccupation with my mother’s dead baby and a sense that this sister might mean less to me did I not have the image of her photograph planted in my memory from childhood, all come together through parataxis if we can bear our doubts. Certainty is the enemy of introspection of imagination and of creativity. Yet too much doubt can paralyse. Here I write about tolerable levels of doubt tempered with an inquisitive mind that can land on hunches and an imagination that allows the researcher to follow such hunches and then seek evidence that corroborates or disproves them. As Gibson writes elsewhere, I tried to use all these scrappy details to help people think about the absences and silences between all the pinpointed examples that made up the scenarios that I presented in prose that was designed to spur rigorous speculation rather than lock down singular conclusions. (“Extractive” 2) Ours is a positive doubt, one that expects to find something, however “unexpected”, rather than a negative doubt that expects nothing. For doubt in large doses can paralyse a person into inaction. Furthermore, a balanced state of doubt fosters connectivity. As John Patrick Shanley’s character, the parish priest, Father Flynn, in the film Doubt, observes, “there are these times in our life when we feel lost. It happens and it’s a bond” (Shanley). References Brooks, Geraldine. "Timeless Tact Helps Sustain a Literary Time Traveller." New York Times, 2001. 14 Jan. 2011 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/02/arts/writers-on-writing-timeless-tact-helps-sustain-a-literary-time-traveler.html?pagewanted=3&src=pm›. Doubt. Shanley, Dir. J. P. Shanley. Miramax Films, 2008. Gibson, Ross, and Kate Richards. “Life after Wartime.” N.d. 25 Feb. 2011. ‹http://www.lifeafterwartime.com/›. Gibson, Ross. “The Art of the Real Conference.” Keynote address. U Newcastle, 2008. Gibson, Ross. “Places past Disappearance.” Transformations 13-1 (2006). 22 Feb. 2007 ‹http://www.transformationsjournal.org/journal/issue_13/article_01.shtml›. ———. “Extractive Realism.” Australian Humanities Review 47 (2009). 25 Feb. 2011 ‹http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-November-2009/gibson.html›. Gordon, Avery F. Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis: U Minnesota P, 2008. Miller, Nancy K. “But Enough about Me, What Do You Think of My Memoir?” The Yale Journal of Criticism 13.2 (2000): 421-536. Ruby, Jay. Secure the Shadow: Death and Photography in America. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 1995.

Abstract:

Women in federal politics are under-represented today and always have been. At no time in the history of the federal parliament have women achieved equal representation with men. There have never been an equal number of women in any federal cabinet. Women have never held an equitable number of executive positions of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) or the Liberal Party. Australia has had only one female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and she was the recipient of sexist treatment in the parliament and the media. A 2019 report by Plan International found that girls and women, were “reluctant to pursue a career in politics, saying they worry about being treated unfairly.” The Report author said the results were unsurprisingwhen you consider how female politicians are still treated in Parliament and the media in this country, is it any wonder the next generation has no desire to expose themselves to this world? Unfortunately, in Australia, girls grow up seeing strong, smart, capable female politicians constantly reduced to what they’re wearing, comments about their sexuality and snipes about their gender.What voters may not always see is how women in politics respond to sexist treatment, or to bullying, or having to vote against their principles because of party rules, or to having no support to lead the party. Rather than being political victims and quitting, there is a ground-swell of women who are fighting back. The rage they feel at being excluded, bullied, harassed, name-called, and denied leadership opportunities is being channelled into rage against the structures that deny them equality. The rage they feel is building resilience and it is building networks of women across the political divide. This article highlights some female MPs who are “maintaining the rage”. It suggests that the rage that is evident in their public responses is empowering them to stand strong in the face of adversity, in solidarity with other female MPs, building their resilience, and strengthening calls for social change and political equality.Her-story of Women’s MovementsThroughout the twentieth century, women stood for equal rights and personal empowerment driven by rage against their disenfranchisem*nt. Significant periods include the early 1900s, with suffragettes gaining the vote for women. The interwar period of 1919 to 1938 saw women campaign for financial independence from their husbands (Andrew). Australian women were active citizens in a range of campaigns for improved social, economic and political outcomes for women and their children.Early contributions made by women to Australian society were challenges to the regulations and of female sexuality and reproduction. Early twentieth century feminist organisations such The Women’s Peace Army, United Association of Women, the Australian Federation of Women’s Societies for Equal Citizenship, the Union of Australian Women, the National Council of Women, and the Australian Federation of Women Voters, proved the early forerunners to the 1970s Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM). It was in many of these early campaigns that the rage expressed in the concept of the “personal is political” (Hanisch) became entrenched in Australian feminist approaches to progressive social change. The idea of the “personal is political” encapsulated that it was necessary to challenge and change power relations, achievable when women fully participated in politics (van Acker 25). Attempts by women during the 1970s to voice concerns about issues of inequality, including sexuality, the right to abortion, availability of childcare, and sharing of household duties, were “deemed a personal problem” and not for public discussion (Hanisch). One core function of the WLM was to “advance women’s positions” via government legislation or, as van Acker (120) puts it, the need for “feminist intervention in the state.” However, in advocating for policy reform, the WLM had no coherent or organised strategy to ensure legislative change. The establishment of the Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL), together with the Femocrat strategy, sought to rectify this. Formed in 1972, WEL was tasked with translating WLM concerns into government policy.The initial WEL campaign took issues of concern to WLM to the incoming Whitlam government (1972-1975). Lyndall Ryan (73) notes: women’s liberationists were the “stormtroopers” and WEL the “pragmatic face of feminism.” In 1973 Whitlam appointed Elizabeth Reid, a member of WLM, as Australia’s first Women’s Advisor. Of her appointment, Reid (3) said, “For the first time in our history we were being offered the opportunity to attempt to implement what for years we had been writing, yelling, marching and working towards. Not to respond would have felt as if our bluff had been called.” They had the opportunity in the Whitlam government to legislatively and fiscally address the rage that drove generations of women to yell and march.Following Reid were the appointments of Sara Dowse and Lyndall Ryan, continuing the Femocrat strategy of ensuring women were appointed to executive bureaucratic roles within the Whitlam government. The positions were not well received by the mainly male-dominated press gallery and parliament. As “inside agitators” (Eisenstein) for social change the central aim of Femocrats was social and economic equity for women, reflecting social justice and progressive social and public policy. Femocrats adopted a view about the value of women’s own lived experiences in policy development, application and outcome. The role of Senator Susan Ryan is of note. In 1981, Ryan wrote and introduced the Sex Discrimination Bill, the first piece of federal legislation of its type in Australia. Ryan was a founding member of WEL and was elected to the Senate in 1975 on the slogan “A woman’s place is in the Senate”. As Ryan herself puts it: “I came to believe that not only was a woman’s place in the House and in the Senate, as my first campaign slogan proclaimed, but a feminist’s place was in politics.” Ryan, the first Labor woman to represent the ACT in the Senate, was also the first Labor woman appointed as a federal Minister.With the election of the economic rationalist Hawke and Keating Governments (1983-1996) and the neoliberal Howard Government (1996-2007), what was a “visible, united, highly mobilised and state-focused women’s movement” declined (Lake 260). This is not to say that women today reject the value of women’s voices and experiences, particularly in politics. Many of the issues of the 1970s remain today: domestic violence, unequal pay, sexual harassment, and a lack of gender parity in political representation. Hence, it remains important that women continue to seek election to the national parliament.Gender Gap: Women in Power When examining federal elections held between 1972 and 2016, women have been under-represented in the lower house. In none of these elections have women achieved more than 30 per cent representation. Following the 1974 election less that one per cent of the lower house were women. No women were elected to the lower house at the 1975 or 1977 election. Between 1980 and 1996, female representation was less than 10 per cent. In 1996 this rose to 15 per cent and reached 29 per cent at the 2016 federal election.Following the 2016 federal election, only 32 per cent of both chambers were women. After the July 2016 election, only eight women were appointed to the Turnbull Ministry: six women in Cabinet and two women in the Outer Cabinet (Parliament of Australia). Despite the higher representation of women in the ALP, this is not reflected in the number of women in the Shadow Cabinet. Just as female parliamentarians have never achieved parity, neither have women in the Executive Branch.In 2017, Australia was ranked 50th in the world in terms of gender representation in parliament, between The Philippines and South Sudan. Globally, there are 38 States in which women account for less than 10 per cent of parliamentarians. As at January 2017, the three highest ranking countries in female representation were Rwanda, Bolivia and Cuba. The United Kingdom was ranked 47th, and the United States 104th (IPU and UNW). Globally only 18 per cent of government ministers are women (UNW). Between 1960 and 2013, 52 women became prime ministers worldwide, of those 43 have taken office since 1990 (Curtin 191).The 1995 United Nations (UN) Fourth World Conference on Women set a 30 per cent target for women in decision-making. This reflects the concept of “critical mass”. Critical mass proposes that for there to be a tipping balance where parity is likely to emerge, this requires a cohort of a minimum of 30 per cent of the minority group.Gender scholars use critical mass theory to explain that parity won’t occur while there are only a few token women in politics. Rather, only as numbers increase will women be able to build a strong enough presence to make female representation normative. Once a 30 per cent critical mass is evident, the argument is that this will encourage other women to join the cohort, making parity possible (Childs & Krook 725). This threshold also impacts on legislative outcomes, because the larger cohort of women are able to “influence their male colleagues to accept and approve legislation promoting women’s concerns” (Childs & Krook 725).Quotas: A Response to Gender InequalityWith women representing less than one in five parliamentarians worldwide, gender quotas have been introduced in 90 countries to redress this imbalance (Krook). Quotas are an equal opportunity measure specifically designed to re-dress inequality in political representation by allocating seats to under-represented groups (McCann 4). However, the effectiveness of the quota system is contested, with continued resistance, particularly in conservative parties. Fine (3) argues that one key objection to mandatory quotas is that they “violate the principle of merit”, suggesting insufficient numbers of women capable or qualified to hold parliamentary positions.In contrast, Gauja (2) suggests that “state-mandated electoral quotas work” because in countries with legislated quotas the number of women being nominated is significantly higher. While gender quotas have been brought to bear to address the gender gap, the ability to challenge the majority status of men has been limited (Hughes).In 1994 the ALP introduced rule-based party quotas to achieve equal representation by 2025 and a gender weighting system for female preselection votes. Conversely, the Liberal Party have a voluntary target of reaching 50 per cent female representation by 2025. But what of the treatment of women who do enter politics?Fig. 1: Portrait of Julia Gillard AC, 27th Prime Minister of Australia, at Parliament House, CanberraInside Politics: Misogyny and Mobs in the ALPIn 2010, Julia Gillard was elected as the leader of the governing ALP, making her Australia’s first female Prime Minister. Following the 2010 federal election, called 22 days after becoming Prime Minister, Gillard was faced with the first hung parliament since 1940. She formed a successful minority government before losing the leadership of the ALP in June 2013. Research demonstrates that “being a female prime minister is often fraught because it challenges many of the gender stereotypes associated with political leadership” (Curtin 192). In Curtin’s assessment Gillard was naïve in her view that interest in her as the country’s first female Prime Minister would quickly dissipate.Gillard, argues Curtin (192-193), “believed that her commitment to policy reform and government enterprise, to hard work and maintaining consensus in caucus, would readily outstrip the gender obsession.” As Curtin continues, “this did not happen.” Voters were continually reminded that Gillard “did not conform to the traditional.” And “worse, some high-profile men, from industry, the Liberal Party and the media, indulged in verbal attacks of a sexist nature throughout her term in office (Curtin 192-193).The treatment of Gillard is noted in terms of how misogyny reinforced negative perceptions about the patriarchal nature of parliamentary politics. The rage this created in public and media spheres was double-edged. On the one hand, some were outraged at the sexist treatment of Gillard. On the other hand, those opposing Gillard created a frenzy of personal and sexist attacks on her. Further attacking Gillard, on 25 February 2011, radio broadcaster Alan Jones called Gillard, not only by her first-name, but called her a “liar” (Kwek). These attacks and the informal way the Prime Minister was addressed, was unprecedented and caused outrage.An anti-carbon tax rally held in front of Parliament House in Canberra in March 2011, featured placards with the slogans “Ditch the Witch” and “Bob Brown’s Bitch”, referring to Gillard and her alliance with the Australian Greens, led by Senator Bob Brown. The Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and other members of the Liberal Party were photographed standing in front of the placards (Sydney Morning Herald, Vertigo). Criticism of women in positions of power is not limited to coming from men alone. Women from the Liberal Party were also seen in the photo of derogatory placards decrying Gillard’s alliances with the Greens.Gillard (Sydney Morning Herald, “Gillard”) said she was “offended when the Leader of the Opposition went outside in the front of Parliament and stood next to a sign that said, ‘Ditch the witch’. I was offended when the Leader of the Opposition stood next to a sign that ascribed me as a man’s bitch.”Vilification of Gillard culminated in October 2012, when Abbott moved a no-confidence motion against the Speaker of the House, Peter Slipper. Abbott declared the Gillard government’s support for Slipper was evidence of the government’s acceptance of Slipper’s sexist attitudes (evident in allegations that Slipper sent a text to a political staffer describing female genitals). Gillard responded with what is known as the “Misogyny speech”, pointing at Abbott, shaking with rage, and proclaiming, “I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man” (ABC). Apart from vilification, how principles can be forsaken for parliamentary, party or electoral needs, may leave some women circ*mspect about entering parliament. Similar attacks on political women may affirm this view.In 2010, Labor Senator Penny Wong, a gay Member of Parliament and advocate of same-sex marriage, voted against a bill supporting same-sex marriage, because it was not ALP policy (Q and A, “Passion”). Australian Marriage Equality spokesperson, Alex Greenwich, strongly condemned Wong’s vote as “deeply hypocritical” (Akersten). The Sydney Morning Herald (Dick), under the headline “Married to the Mob” asked:a question: what does it now take for a cabinet minister to speak out on a point of principle, to venture even a mild criticism of the party position? ... Would you object if your party, after fixing some areas of discrimination against a minority group of which you are a part, refused to move on the last major reform for that group because of ‘tradition’ without any cogent explanation of why that tradition should remain? Not if you’re Penny Wong.In 2017, during the postal vote campaign for marriage equality, Wong clarified her reasons for her 2010 vote against same-sex marriage saying in an interview: “In 2010 I had to argue a position I didn’t agree with. You get a choice as a party member don’t you? You either resign or do something like that and make a point, or you stay and fight and you change it.” Biding her time, Wong used her rage to change policy within the ALP.In continuing personal attacks on Gillard, on 19 March 2012, Gillard was told by Germaine Greer that she had a “big arse” (Q and A, “Politics”) and on 27 August 2012, Greer said Gillard looked like an “organ grinder’s monkey” (Q and A, “Media”). Such an attack by a prominent feminist from the 1970s, on the personal appearance of the Prime Minister, reinforced the perception that it was acceptable to criticise a woman in this position, in ways men have never been. Inside Politics: Leadership and Bullying inside the Liberal PartyWhile Gillard’s leadership was likely cut short by the ongoing attacks on her character, Liberal Deputy leader Julie Bishop was thwarted from rising to the leadership of the Liberal Party, thus making it unlikely she will become the Liberal Party’s first female Prime Minister. Julie Bishop was Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2018 and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party from 2007 to 2018, having entered politics in 1998.With the impending demise of Prime Minister Turnbull in August 2018, Bishop sought support from within the Liberal Party to run for the leadership. In the second round of leadership votes Bishop stood for the leadership in a three-cornered race, coming last in the vote to Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison. Bishop resigned as the Foreign Affairs Minister and took a seat on the backbench.When asked if the Liberal Party would elect a popular female leader, Bishop replied: “When we find one, I’m sure we will.” Political journalist Annabel Crabb offered further insight into what Bishop meant when she addressed the press in her red Rodo shoes, labelling the statement as “one of Julie Bishop’s chilliest-ever slapdowns.” Crabb, somewhat sardonically, suggested this translated as Bishop listing someone with her qualifications and experience as: “Woman Works Hard, Is Good at Her Job, Doesn't Screw Up, Loses Out Anyway.”For political journalist Tony Wright, Bishop was “clearly furious with those who had let their testosterone get the better of them and their party” and proceeded to “stride out in a pair of heels in the most vivid red to announce that, despite having resigned the deputy position she had occupied for 11 years, she was not about to quit the Parliament.” In response to the lack of support for Bishop in the leadership spill, female members of the federal parliament took to wearing red in the parliamentary chambers signalling that female members were “fed up with the machinations of the male majority” (Wright).Red signifies power, strength and anger. Worn in parliament, it was noticeable and striking, making a powerful statement. The following day, Bishop said: “It is evident … that there is an acceptance of a level of behaviour in Canberra that would not be tolerated in any other workplace across Australia" (Wright).Colour is political. The Suffragettes of the early twentieth century donned the colours of purple and white to create a statement of unity and solidarity. In recent months, Dr Kerryn Phelps used purple in her election campaign to win the vacated seat of Wentworth, following Turnbull’s resignation, perhaps as a nod to the Suffragettes. Public anger in Wentworth saw Phelps elected, despite the electorate having been seen as a safe Liberal seat.On 21 February 2019, the last sitting day of Parliament before the budget and federal election, Julie Bishop stood to announce her intention to leave politics at the next election. To some this was a surprise. To others it was expected. On finishing her speech, Bishop immediately exited the Lower House without acknowledging the Prime Minister. A proverbial full-stop to her outrage. She wore Suffragette white.Victorian Liberal backbencher Julia Banks, having declared herself so repelled by bullying during the Turnbull-Dutton leadership delirium, announced she was quitting the Liberal Party and sitting in the House of Representatives as an Independent. Banks said she could no longer tolerate the bullying, led by members of the reactionary right wing, the coup was aided by many MPs trading their vote for a leadership change in exchange for their individual promotion, preselection endorsem*nts or silence. Their actions were undeniably for themselves, for their position in the party, their power, their personal ambition – not for the Australian people.The images of male Liberal Members of Parliament standing with their backs turned to Banks, as she tended her resignation from the Liberal Party, were powerful, indicating their disrespect and contempt. Yet Banks’s decision to stay in politics, as with Wong and Bishop is admirable. To maintain the rage from within the institutions and structures that act to sustain patriarchy is a brave, but necessary choice.Today, as much as any time in the past, a woman’s place is in politics, however, recent events highlight the ongoing poor treatment of women in Australian politics. Yet, in the face of negative treatment – gendered attacks on their character, dismissive treatment of their leadership abilities, and ongoing bullying and sexism, political women are fighting back. They are once again channelling their rage at the way they are being treated and how their abilities are constantly questioned. They are enraged to the point of standing in the face of adversity to bring about social and political change, just as the suffragettes and the women’s movements of the 1970s did before them. The current trend towards women planning to stand as Independents at the 2019 federal election is one indication of this. Women within the major parties, particularly on the conservative side of politics, have become quiet. Some are withdrawing, but most are likely regrouping, gathering the rage within and ready to make a stand after the dust of the 2019 election has settled.ReferencesAndrew, Merrindahl. Social Movements and the Limits of Strategy: How Australian Feminists Formed Positions on Work and Care. Canberra. 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Women in Politics: 2017. 2017. 29 Jan. 2018 <https://www.ipu.org/resources/publications/infographics/2017-03/women-in-politics-2017>.Krook, Mona Lena. “Gender Quotas as a Global Phenomenon: Actors and Strategies in Quota Adoption.” European Political Science 3.3 (2004): 59–65.———. “Candidate Gender Quotas: A Framework for Analysis.” European Journal of Political Research 46 (2007): 367–394.Kwek, Glenda. “Alan Jones Lets Rip at ‘Ju-liar’ Gillard.” Sydney Morning Herald 25 Feb. 2011. 12 Sep. 2016 <http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/alan-jones-lets-rip-at-juliar-gillard-20110224-1b7km.html>.Lake, Marilyn. Getting Equal: The History of Australian Feminism. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1999.McCann, Joy. “Electoral Quotas for Women: An International Overview.” Parliament of Australia Library 14 Nov. 2013. 1 Feb. 2018 <https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1314/ElectoralQuotas>.Parliament of Australia. “Current Ministry List: The 45th Parliament.” 2016. 11 Sep. 2016 <http://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/parliamentary_handbook/current_ministry_list>.Plan International. “Girls Reluctant to Pursue a Life of Politics Cite Sexism as Key Reason.” 2018. 20 Jan. 2019 <https://www.plan.org.au/media/media-releases/girls-have-little-to-no-desire-to-pursue-a-career-in-politics>.Q and A. “Mutilation and the Media Generation.” ABC Television 27 Aug. 2012. 28 Sep. 2016 <http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3570412.htm>.———. “Politics and p*rn in a Post-Feminist World.” ABC Television 19 Mar. 2012. 12 Sep. 2016 <http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3451584.htm>.———. “Where Is the Passion?” ABC Television 26 Jul. 2010. 23 Mar. 2018 <http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2958214.htm?show=transcript>.Reid, Elizabeth. “The Child of Our Movement: A Movement of Women.” Different Lives: Reflections on the Women’s Movement and Visions of Its Future. Ed. Jocelynne Scutt. Ringwood: Penguin 1987. 107-120.Ryan, L. “Feminism and the Federal Bureaucracy 1972-83.” Playing the State: Australian Feminist Interventions. Ed. Sophie Watson. Sydney: Allen and Unwin 1990.Ryan, Susan. “Fishes on Bicycles.” Papers on Parliament 17 (Sep. 1992). 1 Mar. 2018 <https://www.aph.gov.au/~/~/link.aspx?_id=981240E4C1394E1CA3D0957C42F99120>.Sydney Morning Herald. “‘Pinocchio Gillard’: Strong Anti-Gillard Emissions at Canberra Carbon Tax Protest.” 23 Mar. 2011. 12 Sep. 2016 <http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/pinocchio-gillard-strong-antigillard-emissions-at-canberra-carbon-tax-protest-20110323-1c5w7.html>.———. “Gillard v Abbott on the Slipper Affair.” 10 Oct. 2012. 12 Sep. 2016 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-09/gillard-vs-abbott-on-the-slipper-affair/4303618>.United Nations Women. 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Abstract:

The first time I read Hélène Cixous’s The Laugh of the Medusa I swooned. I wanted to write the whole thing out, large, and black, and pin it across an entire wall. I was 32 and vulnerable around polemic texts (I was always copying out quotes and sticking them to my walls, trying to hold onto meaning, unable to let the writing I read slip out and away). You must "write your self, your body must be heard" (Cixous 880), I read, as if for the hundredth time, even though it was the first. Those decades old words had an echoing, a resonance to them, as if each person who had read them had left their own mnemonic mark there, so that by the time they reached me, they struck, immediately, at my core (not the heart or the spine, or even the gut, but somewhere stickier; some pulsing place in amongst my organs, somewhere not touched, a space forgotten). The body that read The Laugh was so big its knees had trouble lifting it from chairs (“more body, hence more writing”, Cixous 886), and was soon to have its gallbladder taken. Its polycystic ovaries dreamed, lumpily and without much hope, of zygotes. The body that read The Laugh was a wobbling thing, sheathed in fat (as if this could protect it), with a yearning for sveltness, for muscle, for strength. Cixous sang through its cells, and called it to itself. The body that read The Laugh wrote itself back. It spoke about dungeons, and walls that had collected teenaged fists, and needles that turned it somnambulant and concave and warm until it was not. It wrote trauma in short and staggering sentences (out, get it out) as if narrative could save it from a fat-laden and static decline. Text leaked from tissue and bone, out through fingers and onto the page, and in increments so small I did not notice them, the body took its place. I was, all-of-a-sudden, more than my head. And then the body that read The Laugh performed the ultimate coup, and conceived.The body wrote then about its own birth, and the birth of its mother, and when its own children were born, of course, of course, about them. “Oral drive, anal drive, vocal drive–all these drives are our strengths, and among them is the gestation drive–all just like the desire to write: a desire to live self from within, a desire for the swollen belly, for language, for blood” (Cixous 891). The fat was gone, and in its place this other tissue, that later would be he. What I know now is that the body gets what the body wants. What I know now is that the body will tell its story, because if you “censor the body [… then] you censor breath and speech at the same time” (Cixous 880).I am trying to find a beginning. Because where is the place where I start? I was never a twinkle in my mother’s eye. It was the seventies. She was 22 and then 23–there was nothing planned about me. Her eyes a flinty green, hair long and straight. When I think of her then I remember this photo: black and white on the thick photo paper that is hard to get now. No shiny oblong spat from a machine, this paper was pulled in and out of three chemical trays and hung, dripping, in a dark red room to show me a woman in a long white t-shirt and nothing else. She stares straight out at me. On the shirt is a women’s symbol with a fist in the middle of it. Do you know the one? It might have been purple (the symbol I mean). When I think of her then I see her David Bowie teeth, the ones she hated, and a packet of Drum tobacco with Tally-Hos tucked inside, and some of the scars on her forearms, but not all of them, not yet. I can imagine her pregnant with me, the slow gait, that fleshy weight dragging at her spine and pelvis. She told me the story of my birth every year on my birthday. She remembers what day of the week the contractions started. The story is told with a kind of glory in the detail, with a relishing of small facts. I do the same with my children now. I was delivered by forceps. The dent in my skull, up above my right ear, was a party trick when I was a teenager, and an annoyance when I wanted to shave my head down to the bone at 18. Just before Jem was born, I discovered a second dent behind my left ear. My skull holds the footprint of those silver clamps. My bones say here, and here, this is where I was pulled from you. I have seen babies being born this way. They don’t slide out all sealish and purple and slippy. They are pulled. The person holding the forcep handles uses their whole body weight to yank that baby out. It makes me squirm, all that pulling, those tiny neck bones concertinaing out, the silver scoops sinking into the skull and leaving prints, like a warm spoon in dough. The urgency of separation, of the need to make two things from one. After Jem was born he lay on my chest for hours. As the placenta was birthed he weed on me. I felt the warm trickle down my side and was glad. There was nothing so right as my naked body making a bed for his. I lay in a pool of wet (blood and lichor and Jem’s little wee) and the midwives pushed towels under me so I wouldn’t get cold. He sucked. White waffle weave blankets over both of us. That bloody nest. I lay in it and rested my free hand on his vernix covered back; the softest thing I had ever touched. We basked in the warm wet. We basked. How do I sew theory into this writing? Julia Kristeva especially, whose Stabat Mater describes those early moments of holding the one who was inside and then out so perfectly that I am left silent. The smell of milk, dew-drenched greenery, sour and clear, a memory of wind, of air, of seaweed (as if a body lived without waste): it glides under my skin, not stopping at the mouth or nose but caressing my veins, and stripping the skin from the bones fills me like a balloon full of ozone and I plant my feet firmly on the ground in order to carry him, safe, stable, unuprootable, while he dances in my neck, floats with my hair, looks right and left for a soft shoulder, “slips on the breast, swingles, silver vivid blossom of my belly” and finally flies up from my navel in his dream, borne by my hands. My son (Kristeva, Stabat Mater 141). Is theory more important than this? The smell of milk (dried, it is soursweet and will draw any baby to you, nuzzling and mewling), which resides alongside the Virgin Mother and the semiotics of milk and tears. The language of fluid. While the rest of this writing, the stories not of mothers and babies, but one mother and one baby, came out smooth and fast, as soon as I see or hear or write that word, theory, I slow. I am concerned with the placement of things. I do not have the sense of being free. But if there’s anything that should come from this vain attempt to answer Cixous, to “write your self. Your body must be heard” (880), it should be that freedom and theory, boundary-lessness, is where I reside. If anything should come from this, it is the knowing that theory is the most creative pursuit, and that creativity will always speak to theory. There are fewer divisions than any of us realise, and the leakiness of bodies, of this body, will get me there. The smell of this page is of lichor; a clean but heady smell, thick with old cells and a foetus’s breath. The smell of this page is of blood and saliva and milk mixed (the colour like rotten strawberries or the soaked pad at the bottom of your tray of supermarket mince). It is a smell that you will secretly savour, breathe deeply, and then long for lemon zest or the sharpness of coffee beans to send away that angelic fug. That milk and tears have a language of their own is undeniable. Kristeva says they are “metaphors of non-language, of a ‘semiotic’ that does not coincide with linguistic communication” (Stabat Mater 143) but what I know is that these fluids were the first language for my children. Were they the first language for me? Because “it must be true: babies drink language along with the breastmilk: Curling up over their tongues while they take siestas–Mots au lait, verbae cum lacta, palabros con leche” (Wasserman quoted in Giles 223). The enduring picture I have of myself as an infant is of a baby who didn’t cry, but my mother will tell you a different story, in the way that all of us do. She will tell you I didn’t smile until I was five months old (Soli and Jem were both beaming at three months). Born six weeks premature, my muscles took longer to find their place, to assemble themselves under my skin. She will tell you I screamed in the night, because all babies do. Is this non-language? Jem was unintelligible much of the time. I felt as if I was holding a puzzle. Three o’clock in the morning, having tried breastfeeds, a bath with Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, bouncing him in a baby sling on the fitball (wedged into a corner so that if I nodded off I would hopefully swoon backwards, and the wall would wake me), walking him around and around while rocking and singing, then breastfeeding again, and still he did not sleep, and still he cried and clawed at my cheeks and shoulders and wrists and writhed; I could not guess at what it was he needed. I had never been less concerned with the self that was me. I was all breasts and milk and a craving for barbecued chicken and watermelon at three in the morning because he was drinking every ounce of energy I had. I was arms and a voice. I was food. And then I learnt other things; about let downs and waking up in pools of the stuff. Wet. Everywhere. “Lactating bodies tend towards anarchy” (Bartlett 163). Any body will tend towards anarchy – there is so much to keep in – but there are only so many openings a person can keep track of, and breastfeeding meant a kind of levelling up, meant I was as far from clean and proper as I possibly could be (Kristeva, Powers of Horror 72).In the nights I was not alone. Caren could not breastfeed him, but could do everything else, and never said I have to work tomorrow, because she knew I was working too. During waking hours I watched him constantly for those mystical tired signs, which often were hungry signs, which quickly became overtired signs. There was no figuring it out. But Soli, with Soli, I knew. The language of babies had been sung into my bones. There is a grammar in crying, a calling out and telling, a way of knowing that is older than I’ll ever be. Those tiny bodies are brimming with semiotics. Knees pulled up is belly ache, arching is tired, a look to the side I-want-that-take-me-there-not-there. There. Curling in, the whole of him, is don’t-look-at-me-now-hands-away. Now he is one he uses his hands to tell me what he wants. Sign language because I sign and so, then, does he, but also an emphatic placing of my hands on his body or toys, utensils, swings, things. In the early hours of a Wednesday morning I tried to stroke his head, to close his wide-open eyes with my fingertips. He grabbed my hand and moved it to his chest before I could alight on the bridge of his nose. And yesterday he raised his arm into the air, then got my hand and placed it into his raised hand, then stood, and led me down to the laundry to play with the dustpan and broom. His body, literally, speaks.This is the language of mothers and babies. It is laid down in the darkest part of the night. Laid down like memory, like dreams, stitched into tiredness and circled with dread adrenalin and fear. It will never stop. That baby will cry and I will stare owl-eyed into the dark and bend my cracking knees (don’t shake the baby it will only make it worse don’t shake don’t). These babies will grow into children and then adults who will never remember those screaming nights, cots like cages, a stuffed toy pushed on them as if it could replace the warmth of skin and breath (please, please, little bear, replace the warmth of skin and breath). I will never remember it, but she will. They will never remember it, but we will. Kristeva says too that mothers are in a “catastrophe of identity which plunges the proper Name into that ‘unnameable’ that somehow involves our imaginary representations of femininity, non-language, or the body” (Stabat Mater 134). A catastrophe of identity. The me and the not-me. In the night, with a wrapped baby and aching biceps, the I-was batting quietly at the I-am. The I-am is all body. Arms to hold and bathe and change him, milk to feed him, a voice to sing and soothe him. The I-was is a different beast, made of words and books, uninterrupted conversation and the kind of self-obsession and autonomy I didn’t know existed until it was gone. Old friends stopped asking me about my day. They asked Caren, who had been at work, but not me. It did not matter that she was a woman; in this, for most people we spoke to, she was the public and I was the private, her work mattered and mine did not. Later she would commiserate and I would fume, but while it was happening, it was near impossible to contest. A catastrophe of identity. In a day I had fed and walked and cried and sung and fed and rocked and pointed and read books with no words and rolled inane balls across the lounge room floor and washed and sung and fed. I had circled in and around while the sun traced its arc. I had waited with impatience for adult company. I had loved harder than I ever had before. I had metamorphosed and nobody noticed. Nobody noticed. A catastrophe of identity it was, but the noise and visibility that the word catastrophe invokes was entirely absent. And where was the language to describe this peeling inside out? I was burnished bright by those sleepless nights, by the requirement of the I-am. And in those nights I learned what my mother already knew. That having children is a form of grief. That we lose. But that we gain. At 23, what’s lost is possibility. She must have seen her writer’s life drilling down to nothing. She knew that Sylvia Plath had placed her head, so carefully on its pillow, in that gas filled place. No pungent metaphor, just a poet, a mother, who could not continue. I had my babies at 34 and 36. I knew some of what I would lose, but had more than I needed. My mother had started out with not enough, and so was left concave and edged with desperation as she made her way through inner-city Sydney’s grime, her children singing from behind her wait for me, wait for me, Mama please wait for me, I’m going just as fast as I can.Nothing could be more ‘normal’ than that a maternal image should establish itself on the site of that tempered anguish known as love. No one is spared. Except perhaps the saint or the mystic, or the writer who, by force of language, can still manage nothing more than to demolish the fiction of the mother-as-love’s-mainstay and to identify with love as it really is: a fire of tongues, an escape from representation (Kristeva, Stabat Mater 145).We transformed, she and I. She hoped to make herself new with children. A writer born of writers, the growing and birthing of our tiny bodies forced her to place pen to paper, to fight to write. She carved a place for herself with words but it kept collapsing in on her. My father’s bi-polar rages, his scrubbing evil spirits from the soles of her shoes in the middle of the night, wore her down, and soon she inhabited that maternal image anyway, in spite of all her attempts to side step it. The mad mother, the single mother, the sad mother. And yes I remember those mothers. But I also remember her holding me so hard sometimes I couldn’t breathe properly, and that some nights when I couldn’t sleep she had warm eyes and made chamomile tea, and that she called me angel. A fire of tongues, but even she, with her words, couldn’t escape from representation. I am a writer born of writers born of writers (triply blessed or cursed with text). In my scramble to not be mad or bad or sad, I still could not escape the maternal image. More days than I can count I lay under my babies wishing I could be somewhere, anywhere else, but they needed to sleep or feed or be. With me. Held captive by the need to be a good mother, to be the best mother, no saint or mystic presenting itself, all I could do was write. Whole poems sprang unbidden and complete from my pen. My love for my children, that fire of tongues, was demolishing me, and the only way through was to inhabit this vessel of text, to imbibe the language of bodies and tears and night, and make from it my boat.Those children wrote my body in the night. They taught me about desire, that unbounded scribbling thing that will not be bound by subjectivity, by me. They taught me that “the body is literally written on, inscribed, by desire and signification” (Grosz 60), and every morning I woke with ashen bones and poetry aching out through my pores, with my body writing me.This Mother ThingI maintain that I do not have to leavethe house at nightall leathery and eyelinered,all booted up and raw.I maintain that I do not miss thosesmoky rooms (wait that’s not allowed any more)where we strut and, without looking,compare tattoos.Because two years ago I had you.You with your blonde hair shining, your eyes like a creek after rain, that veinthat’s so blue on the side of your small nosethat people think you’ve been bruised.Because two years ago you cameout of me and landed here and grew. There is no going out. We (she and me) washand cook and wash and clean and love.This mother thing is the making of me but I missthose pulsing rooms,the feel of all of you pressing in onall of me.This mother thing is the making of me. And in text, in poetry, I find my home. “You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she’s not deadly. She’s beautiful and she’s laughing” (Cixous 885). The mother-body writes herself, and is made new. The mother-body writes her own mother, and knows she was always-already here. The mother-body births, and breastfeeds, and turns to me in the aching night and says this: the Medusa? The Medusa is me.ReferencesBartlett, Alison. Breastwork: Rethinking Breastfeeding. Sydney: UNSW Press, 2005.Cixous, Hélène, Keith Cohen, and Paula Cohen (Trans.). "The Laugh of the Medusa." Signs 1.4 (1976): 875-93. Giles, Fiona. Fresh Milk. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2003. Grosz, Elizabeth. Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1994.Kristeva, Julia, and Leon S. Roudiez (Trans.) Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.Kristeva, Julia, and Arthur Goldhammer (Trans.). "Stabat Mater." Poetics Today 6.1-2 (1985): 133-52.