Directing Lives

YANG Yang is he director of China Television PlayCenter.Before the arrival of the series Holding Hands,she filmed television plays reflecting women and marriage.Examples of her work include Niu Yuqin and Her Trees and theMidnight Trolley.The artistry and sympathy towards women inthese programmes make it obvious that they were directed by awoman.Holding Hands especially cements this connection.     

Our Changing Lives

WHEN recalling her llfe of 20 years ago,a 45-year-old middle school teacher said the mostimpressive thing for her was a bicycle.“In 1978,I met my husband for the first time.He wanted to buy me anew bicycle to replace my worn one.However,at that time     

Muted Lives:

Battered older women are a silenced and invisible group. They are silenced by ageist assumptions about them as too resistant and hopeless to change or made invisible by the notion that very frail elders are the only victims of elder abuse. Women over 50, abused by partners or adult children, are not accurately perceived and consequently not adequately helped by current domestic violence or elder abuse intervention systems. A new program serving this group, involving 132 women, shows some important similarities and differences between younger and older battered women. Although barriers can differ across the life cycle, even women of advanced age can be free of abuse or develop coping skills to minimize its damage. This article explores the unique factors affecting older women victimized by domestic abuse. The author concludes with questions and suggestions for helpers interested in better serving older battered women.     

Lives and well-being

This article attempts to use the analytical framework of social choice theory for exploring the ethical foundations of population policies. It is argued that non-existence is not a state and therefore that different numbers problems are conceptionally different from same numbers problems that concern much theoretical welfare economics. By means of examples it is argued that we should not expect to find an overall ethical ordering of social states when the size of future generations is subject to choice.This is a totally revised version of a paper (Dasgupta 1983) prepared for Professor Menahem Yaari's workshop on Social Choice Theory and Welfare Economics at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, in the Spring of 1983. It was also presented at the meeting of the Working Group of the US National Academy of Science Committee on Population Growth and Economic Development held during August 2–4, 1984 at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. One strand of this earlier version, with extensions, was subsequently published in the volume of the Working Group: D. Gale Johnson and R. D. Lee (eds) (1987). I have benefitted greatly from discussions over the past several years with Kenneth Arrow, Robert Aumann, Simon Blackburn, Charles Blackorby, John Broome, David Donaldson, George Garnett, Peter Hammond, John Harsanyi, David Kelsey Marc Nerlove, Derek Parfit, John Rawls, Tim Scanlon, Paul Seabright, Amartya Sen, Robert Sugden, and Menahem Yaari. While preparing this eassay I received an extended letter from Jan Graaff in which he reflected on some of the issues discussed in the earlier paper.This present version bears the impact of his comments.     

Potential Lives,Impossible Deaths

The number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan has increased dramatically in recent years as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has tried to put down the Taliban insurgency. Reports of civilian casualties are, however, frequently dismissed as being examples of Taliban propaganda or blamed on the actions of enemy fighters, while the tragic loss of civilians is rarely marked or even acknowledged within the dominant frames of war. At first glance, the fact that civilians are so easily expendable appears to be at odds with the humanitarian intentions underpinning the war. However, I argue that the rhetoric of humanitarianism operates to preclude Afghans from appearing as recognizable human beings, foreclosing the possibility that they possess a life worthy of protection. Drawing on the work of Judith Butler, I will trace the ways in which Afghans have been reduced to the status of absolute victims, denied the very essence of their humanity and therefore a publically grievable death. By effectively constructing them as the living-dead, existing in a state of abeyance, Afghans have been exposed to a deathly logic in which their lives are expendable in the quest to make them liveable once again.     

The Children of Nine Lives

today is mine (I claimed) (to) a man a voice I sent you grant me this day is mine (I claimed) (to) a man a voice I sent now here (he) is by Shell Necklace A Teton Sioux Song     

Private Lives and Public Programs

Abstract

Major late life events, reported in the Dubbo longitudinal study of older Australians, are used to examine the interaction of private lives with public programs. First, the data indicate strong supportive effects of publicly funded income, health, and aged care programs in reducing family burdens from major life changes. In particular, financial crises were rarely mentioned, directly or indirectly, as major threats. Next, the central role of informal social support in these events is demonstrated, first, as in previous studies, family support was responsive to risky events and to aging itself. Also, in new findings, one-third of surviving elderly respondents coped with the burdens of family crises as a substantial proportion of the “major” life changes that occurred over 13 years of the study. Within the security and support provided by the Australian welfare system, and with strong social networks, families with older persons in the Dubbo study manage multiple, major life changes. With rapid population aging, the development of more, and more easily accessible, services for a growing population of older people is a priority. The critical challenge will be to harmoniously grow public financing, private funding, and informal caregiving to deal with the growing burden arising from an aging society.     

Race, Identities and Lives

This paper uses an individual biography to make an analysis of racialized identity. It explores the connections between subjectivity and the broader social scenes in which it operates, and argues that identity is the outcome of a negotiation between existential conceptions of the self in racial terms, and the administrative mechanisms through which individuals are dealt with as members of social categories. By thinking about identity in terms of specific forms of alterity, mobility and conceptions of home, this paper argues that lives acquire race through their social practices and spatial arrangements.     

The Political Lives of Girls

Girls are increasingly being publically celebrated as community leaders, models for ideal citizenship, and central to economic development. Contemporary girlhood is rich with political implications and significance. In this essay, I outline some of the scholarship on the public discourses that idealize girls as model neoliberal citizens and address important findings and contributions from empirical research on the political lives of girls: girls' political beliefs, political socialization, political identities, and their practices of political and civic engagement. There is a growing body of scholarship that suggests that studying the political lives of girls enables and requires a re‐thinking of some key concepts in political sociology, including the meaning of politics, of engagement, and of citizenship for different populations.     

The Australian Disability Rights Movement Lives

The Australian Disability Rights Movement is surviving despite funding threats to advocacy programmes. The integral relationship of advocacy funding to the Australian Disability Rights Movement is outlined. A brief history of the Australian Disability Rights' Movement is given, and whether this is a new social movement, or not, is discussed. The role of Women With Disabilities Australia is outlined.     

The Future Lives of Sociology Graduates

After earning a bachelor's degree, the fate of sociology undergraduates is mysterious. We know little about how many Canadians have sociology degrees and even less about what they do after graduation. Using a variety of data sources from Statistics Canada, we paint a historical portrait of the discipline by charting how many people, and who, become sociologists. We also examine where they are employed, how much they earn, and how satisfied they are with their degrees. Our findings show that sociology graduates are competitive with other fields of study on both wages and employment, but are less satisfied with their degrees. We stress how the discipline would be wise to pay more attention to our graduates and their opportunities. Nous en savons peu sur l'avenir et le nombre de Canadiens ayant des diplômes de sociologie et encore moins ce qu'ils font après la graduation. Grâce à des données de Statistiques Canada, nous dressons un portrait historique de la discipline en montrant combien de personnes, et quel genre de personnes, deviennent sociologues. Nous examinons aussi où ils travaillent, combien ils gagnent et leur niveau de satisfaction par rapport à leurs diplômes. Nos résultats démontrent que les gradués en sociologie sont compétitifs par rapport aux autres champs d’étude en termes de salaire et de taux d'emploi, mais qu'ils sont moins satisfaits de leurs diplômes. Nous notons que la discipline aurait intérêt à porter plus d'attention sur les gradués et leurs opportunités.     

“暴走妈妈”捐肝救子

武汉55岁的陈玉蓉．患有重度脂肪肝．为了捐肝救子,她风雨无阻．每天暴走10公里。7月下来．陈玉蓉走破了4双鞋．体重减少了8公斤,膳肪肝消失．医生连称“简直是个奇迹”……     

千里驰援 情系玉树

在这一困难时刻,我需要尽快赶回国内,同我国人民在一起,投入抗震救灾工作．——胡锦涛主席获悉青海“4·14”玉树地震发生之后决定提前回国时说