This article contends that environmental organisations vary in type, scale and purpose in ways that help stewards self-sort into the opportunities that align with their individual motivations and environmental concerns. To explore these potential links between personal motivations and environmental organisational attributes, we rely on descriptive and inferential statistics from surveys of two partner environmental organisations: one local scale community based-organisation and one a broader scale environmental non-profit organisation, both located in Central Texas, USA. These partners were selected based on (...) their compatible pro-environmental missions but disparate spatial scales of operation. The survey results (n=377) revealed meaningful between-organisation differences in volunteer environmental stewards, which raise the possibility of a ‘First Law of Environmental Stewardship’ whereby all stewards are related (by their values), but stewards in the same organisation are more related than stewards in different organisations. These findings expose some of the nuances of environmental volunteerism by highlighting connections between personal motivations, geographic scale, and organisation type. (shrink)

In what has become a classic work, Richard M. Weaver unsparingly diagnoses the ills of our age and offers a realistic remedy. He asserts that the world is intelligible, and that man is free. The catastrophes of our age are the product not of necessity but of unintelligent choice. A cure, he submits, is possible. It lies in the right use of man's reason, in the renewed acceptance of an absolute reality, and in the recognition that ideas—like actions—have consequences.

Metaphors of medicine are common, such as war, which is evident in much of our language about health‐care where patients and healthcare professionals fight disease, or the game, which is one way to frame the nurse–doctor professional relationship. This study analyses six pilot episodes of American (Grey's Anatomy, Hawthorne, Mercy, Nurse Jackie) and Australian (All Saints, RAN) medical television programmes premiering between 1998 and 2009 to assess one way that our contemporary culture understands and constructs professional relationships between nurses and (...) doctors. Analysis shows that these popular television programmes frequently depict conflict, with games, civil war and mutiny between nurses and doctors over patient safety rather than professionals working collaboratively in teams to deliver health‐care. Although the benefit of this televised conflict is the implication that nurses are knowledgeable, skilled professionals, the negative connotations include a dysfunctional and dangerous healthcare system, and also ongoing power struggles. Given that popular culture can sometimes influence the public's understanding of real‐life nursing practice, it is important to explore what these metaphors of conflict are communicating about the nurse–doctor relationship. (shrink)

Richard M Weaver, a thinker and writer celebrated for his unsparing diagnoses and realistic remedies for the ills of our age, is known largely through a few of his works that remain in print. This new collection of Weaver's shorter writings, assembled by Ted J Smith III, Weaver's leading biographer, presents many long-out-of-print and never-before-published works that give new range and depth to Weaver's sweeping thought. Included are eleven previously unpublished essays and speeches that were left in near-final form at (...) the time of Weaver's death in 1963. In all, there are some one hundred and twenty-six essays, speeches, book reviews, and editorials. (shrink)

Originally published in 1948, at the height of post–World War II optimism and confidence in collective security, _Ideas Have Consequences_ uses “words hard as cannonballs” to present an unsparing diagnosis of the ills of the modern age. Widely read and debated at the time of its first publication,the book is now seen asone of the foundational texts of the modern conservative movement. In its pages, Richard M. Weaver argues that the decline of Western civilization resulted from the rising acceptance of (...) relativism over absolute reality. In spite of increased knowledge, this retreat from the realist intellectual tradition has weakened the Western capacity to reason, with catastrophic consequences for social order and individual rights. But Weaver also offers a realistic remedy. These difficulties are the product not of necessity, but of intelligent choice. And, today, as decades ago, the remedy lies in the renewed acceptance of absolute reality and the recognition that ideas—like actions—have consequences. This expanded edition of the classic work contains a foreword by _New Criterion _editor Roger Kimball that offers insight into the rich intellectual and historical contexts of Weaver and his work and an afterword by Ted J. Smith III that relates the remarkable story of the book’s writing and publication. (shrink)

Model validation in computational cognitive psychology often relies on methods drawn from the testing of theories in experimental physics. However, applications of these methods to computational models in typical cognitive experiments can hide multiple, plausible sources of variation arising from human participants and from stochastic cognitive theories, encouraging a “model fixed, data variable” paradigm that makes it difficult to interpret model predictions and to account for individual differences. This article proposes a likelihood‐based, “data fixed, model variable” paradigm in which models (...) are treated as stochastic processes in experiments with participant‐to‐participant variation that can be applied to a broad range of mechanistic cognitive architectures. This article discusses the implementation and implications of this view in model validation, with a concrete focus on a simple class of ACT‐R models of cognition. This article is not intended as a recipe for broad application of these preliminary, proof‐of‐concept methods, but as a framework for communication between statisticians searching for interesting problems in the cognitive modeling sphere, and cognitive modelers interested in generalizing from deterministic to stochastic model validation, in the face of random variation in human experimental data. (shrink)

To interpret scripture, we must first recognize the “thing” of which it speaks: the incarnation understood through the commandments of love for God and neighbor. Scripture consists of “signs” that disclose that message. Interpreting the signs and communicating their meaning are dynamic processes that engage the “unquiet” of the human condition.

Preface -- The text's view as gateway to Billy Budd -- The critical heritage -- Acceptance, resistance, and the struggle -- To define Billy Budd -- Brodtkorb: language, mystery and the acceptance of annihilation -- Scorza: Burke, Rousseau and the two narratives of Billy Budd -- Parker: the genetic text and the incompleteness of Billy Budd -- Garner: finding the kernel in the shell -- Wenke: Billy Budd and the pursuit of ambiguity -- The analyses. Billy; Claggart; Vere; The meta-dichotomies; (...) Three dichotomies; "Dreaminess" and the master dichotomy; Winch and the private conscience -- Conclusion -- The moral world of Billy Budd. (shrink)

The early church did not provide us with any normative statement on wealth and poverty, but it did give us clear witness to the hazards of wealth and to the abiding necessity of alms for the poor.