Prophetic Pragmatism and Descending to Matters of Detail

This article names the three most urgent issues today in ethics: first, climate crisis and its impact on the poor and marginalized; second, the tragic banality of contemporary political leadership; and third, racism and antiblackness. Examining this last injustice reveals our failure in moral agency, for the first two crises derive from the incapacity of the American conscience, which has never acknowledged how racist and privileged our conscience has become. While arguing for conversion, the article also offers ways for imagining a more responsible expression of moral agency to rectify each present moral failure.

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Letters from a dying college: How the climate crisis demands a wilder pedagogy and wilder policies

Policy Futures in Education ◽

10.1177/14782103211001635 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 147821032110016

Author(s):

Daniel Ford ◽

Sean Blenkinsop

Keyword(s):

Lived Experience ◽

Environmental Degradation ◽

Formal Education ◽

Tertiary Education ◽

Political Leadership ◽

Bearing Witness ◽

Ecological Responsibility ◽

Open Discussion ◽

Inclusive Governance ◽

Climate Crisis

This paper takes the academically unorthodox form of personal correspondence. This method, of letters between two educators writing to one another across the distance of two continents and different experiences, seeks to create an inclusive, confessional tone, one that invites the reader to get closer to the lived experience of those struggling within the educational and environmental crises. Critically, this correspondence also seeks to open discussion about the difficult demands of state secondary and tertiary education. The authors explore issues regarding their denuded experiences of working in formal education settings while bearing witness to environmental degradation and ecological collapse. In light of their exploration, the authors argue for an ‘agrios’, a wilder, more expansive polis, coupled with more ecologically-inclusive governance, to address the current potentially catastrophic political leadership that has seemingly turned away from ecological responsibility. This paper culminates in direct letters that focus on a series of practical proposals for action and on four premises for developing agriocy – the policy that supports the agrios/agriocity.

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Rethinking a new transition finance paradigm for addressing the climate crisis in Africa

10.21203/rs.3.rs-1028661/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Michael Zisuh

Keyword(s):

Energy Policy ◽

Energy Transition ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Capital Investments ◽

Grid Systems ◽

The Poor ◽

Private Investments ◽

National Energy Policy ◽

Sub Saharan ◽

Climate Crisis

Abstract This policy brief uncovers the investment-ready instruments and policy packages that can unlock the energy transition in Sub-Saharan Africa. These are summarised around three key messages. First, transition finance vehicles in Africa should aim to transform ‘brown’ (polluting) into ‘green’ (renewable) industries. Second, key instruments include green bonds for specific environmental projects, grants/guaranties to support private investments that target access to energy for the poor, and patient capital investments into growth sectors focused on environmental, social, and governance targets. Third, national energy policy should connect innovative market-based solutions (e.g., mini grids) to centralized (e.g., national grid) systems to strengthen governance.

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Corporate Sponsored Education

The Paideia Archive: Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy ◽

10.5840/wcp20-paideia199829468 ◽

1998 ◽

pp. 1-6

Author(s):

G. John M. Abbarno

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Long Range ◽

Critical Points ◽

Moral Agency ◽

Social Roles ◽

Profit Maximization ◽

Social Institutions ◽

Business Sector ◽

Moral Failure ◽

Social Views

The business sector increasingly subsidizes financially challenged institutions. Representative examples would include health care, major sports arenas, and penal facilities. Among the recent beneficiaries of corporate largesse are schools. Such assistance blurs social roles and raises serious moral concerns, especially those of moral agency. Education, more so than other social institutions, determines the kind of citizen and moral character a person can become. Put differently, education operates on virtue development that may override the fiscal logic of profit-maximization practiced by corporations. In this paper I argue that whatever benefit received by struggling schools is short-lived by comparison to the long range influence achieved by a corporation via advertisements that affect the psychological preferences of children. I contend that this makes the exchange unfair insofar as it violates the autonomy of the student. Education should provide a free and open atmosphere in which critical points of view are discussed. If corporations are permitted untrammeled access to schools, social views may become one-dimensional. Economic salvation would effectively trade on the moral failure of schools.

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The Failed Masculinist State in Africa: A Rejection of Phallic Man

KENTE - Cape Coast Journal of Literature and the Arts ◽

10.47963/jla.v1i1.84 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 15-28

Author(s):

Theresa Addai-Munumkum

Keyword(s):

West Africa ◽

Political Leadership ◽

Political Corruption ◽

African Literature ◽

The State ◽

The Political ◽

Creative Writers ◽

The Poor ◽

The People ◽

The Rich

African literature is famous for the depiction of a type of politics that tends to reflect the reality on the ground, spanning a panorama of incompetent leadership to gross political corruption. As a result, writing about politics in Africa tends to be a risky undertaking as many creative writers who criticize political leadership and corrupt practices in their works end up being jailed. Using contemporary African literature to discuss the postcolonial African Political State, this paper explores the nature of the state in West Africa in three novels, Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People, Anthills of the Savannah and Sembene Ousmane’s Xala. Using the metaphor of an impotent masculinity, this paper argues that the political State in Africa is a failed one. From the dawn of independence to the era of democracy, the political state in Africa has had to grapple with failed leadership, corruption, injustice, the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor etc., and it appears that these problems are becoming more.

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High-Resolution, Low-Voltage SEM of Cell Wall Regeneration of Yeast Shizosaccharomyces Pombe Protoplasts

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100103127 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 46 ◽

pp. 208-211

Author(s):

M. Osumi ◽

N. Yamada ◽

T. Nagatani

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscope ◽

Scanning Electron Microscope ◽

Low Voltage ◽

Cell Wall Regeneration ◽

The Past ◽

The Poor ◽

Probe Size ◽

Beam Damage ◽

Biological Field ◽

Scanning Electron

Even though many early workers had suggested the use of lower voltages to increase topographic contrast and to reduce specimen charging and beam damage, we did not usually operate in the conventional scanning electron microscope at low voltage because of the poor resolution, especially of bioligical specimens. However, the development of the “in-lens” field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) has led to marked inprovement in resolution, especially in the range of 1-5 kV, within the past year. The probe size has been cumulated to be 0.7nm in diameter at 30kV and about 3nm at 1kV. We have been trying to develop techniques to use this in-lens FESEM at low voltage (LVSEM) for direct observation of totally uncoated biological specimens and have developed the LVSEM method for the biological field.

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Artefacts in the x-ray microanalysis of frozen-hydrated biological samples

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100127724 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 45 ◽

pp. 658-659

Author(s):

Patrick Echlin

Keyword(s):

Electron Scattering ◽

Biological Samples ◽

Fracture Face ◽

Detailed Structure ◽

X Ray ◽

Morphological Appearance ◽

The Poor ◽

Freeze Dried

A number of papers have appeared recently which purport to have carried out x-ray microanalysis on fully frozen hydrated samples. It is important to establish reliable criteria to be certain that a sample is in a fully hydrated state. The morphological appearance of the sample is an obvious parameter because fully hydrated samples lack the detailed structure seen in their freeze dried counterparts. The electron scattering by ice within a frozen-hydrated section and from the surface of a frozen-hydrated fracture face obscures cellular detail. (Fig. 1G and 1H.) However, the morphological appearance alone can be quite deceptive for as Figures 1E and 1F show, parts of frozen-dried samples may also have the poor morphology normally associated with fully hydrated samples. It is only when one examines the x-ray spectra that an assurance can be given that the sample is fully hydrated.

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Influence of the Acoustic Reflex on Vowel Recognition

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/jshr.2903.420 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 29 (3) ◽

pp. 420-424 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Michael Dorman ◽

Ingrid Cedar ◽

Maureen Hannley ◽

Marjorie Leek ◽

Julie Mapes Lindholm

Keyword(s):

Auditory System ◽

Sound Pressure ◽

Dynamic Range ◽

Recognition Accuracy ◽

Pressure Level ◽

Acoustic Reflex ◽

The Poor ◽

Stapedial Reflex ◽

Vowel Recognition ◽

High Sound

Computer synthesized vowels of 50- and 300-ms duration were presented to normal-hearing listeners at a moderate and high sound pressure level (SPL). Presentation at the high SPL resulted in poor recognition accuracy for vowels of a duration (50 ms) shorter than the latency of the acoustic stapedial reflex. Presentation level had no effect on recognition accuracy for vowels of sufficient duration (300 ms) to elicit the reflex. The poor recognition accuracy for the brief, high intensity vowels was significantly improved when the reflex was preactivated. These results demonstrate the importance of the acoustic reflex in extending the dynamic range of the auditory system for speech recognition.

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