Poli-Sci-Request@RUTGERS (Charles McGrew, The Moderator) (02/07/86)
Poli-Sci Digest Thursday, 6 Feb 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 3
Today's Topics:
A Recent Article &
Drinking and Driving &
City Sizes (2 msgs)
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Date: 6 Feb 86 20:18:39 EST
From: Charles <MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Subject: A recent article
Hello,
Recently a reader/contributor to Poli-Sci, Jeff Myers, has
become concerned that an article in Poli-Sci claiming to be the
'eighth in a series of eight', and a parody of a real 'eight in a
series of eight' that he has written would be taken seriously and
damage his credibility to comment on Poli-Sci. To set things to
rights, I'd like to describe the actual events that occurred.
First, and perhaps most root cause of the mixup:
JoSH decided to stop being moderator of Poli-Sci and I volunteered
to take it over. JoSH forwarded to me the old mail (most of it
several months old). I had not been a constant reader if Poli-Sci and
did not realize, frankly, that the letter sent by Bob Carter and the
one that had arrived from Mr. Myers were connected. It just plain
didn't occur to me.
The reason for my NOT publishing Mr. Myers's eighth part was that
it violated longstanding Poli-Sci rules against anything that might be
construed as political advertising. I sent a message back towards Mr.
Myers, by sending it to the person who forwarded Mr. Myer's message to
me. He promised to forward the message on (to the person, it turned
out, who forwarded it to him). There the matter lay. I published the
parody as a routine submission.
I am going to print Mr. Myer's 8th part, with addresses and
monetary information on organizations converted to elipses.
I had no intention of defaming Mr. Myers in any way, and I hope
that any misunderstandings caused by the above happenings have been
cleared up.
Charles
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 85 01:08:39 EST
From: "Steven A. Swernofsky" <SASW@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: [genrad!panda!lkk: forwarded]
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 85 12:55:55 est
From: genrad!panda!lkk at teddy.ETHER
To: panda!genrad!mit-eddie!prog-d at mit-oz.ARPA
From: myers@uwmacc.UUCP (Latitudinarian Lobster)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Article #8: Helping Nicaragua...
Date: 4 Nov 85 18:21:31 GMT
Date-Received: 5 Nov 85 04:53:57 GMT
Organization: Ken Kopp's Fresh Seafood Tank
Helping Nicaragua - What You Can Do
Eighth of an eight part series.
The best single way that you can begin to help Nicaragua is to
better inform yourself. The best way to do this is to travel there
for yourself as I did - unfortunately, this will probably entail shel-
ling out about [...] for a two-week trip. It's best for several rea-
sons to try to go through the auspices of a solidarity group or an
organized tour - your passage through customs will be speeded, you'll
have fellow explorers with which to share and compare experiences, and
you'll have knowledgeable people around who will know what events are
happening when, etc.
If you are not able to visit the country, for whatever reason,
there is a lot you can do in the US to learn about the country - talk
to friends who have gone, attend lectures and meetings on Nicaragua,
and read. A good place to start reading is the May/June 1985 issue of
the NACLA Report on the Americas, titled ``Sandinista Foreign Policy''
(but which also covers history and the economy). It is available for
[...] from the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA),[...].
Two full-expense tours that you can take are advertised in The
Nation and The Guardian. The first has tours from [...]. The second
has a [...] tour in January - for information, contact [...]
There are also two schools where you can go to study Spanish and
the revolution, one in Esteli' and another in Managua. Both offer
family living, community work, meetings with politicos, and four hours
of classes daily. Call or write NICA, [...], or Casa Nicaraguense de
Espan~ol, [...].
Following is a list and descriptions of solidarity organizations
which you can join and aid. I apologize for not being able to list
everybody's favorite organization - there are many out there doing
good work of which I am ignorant, or was not able to include.
WCCN (Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua) is the major
organization dealing with the Sister-State relationship between
Wisconsin and Nicaragua. The chairman of the Advisory Board is Gover-
nor Anthony Earl. WCCN publishes an excellent monthly newsletter -
suggested membership donations are [...].
Medical Aid to Central America is the local group which is coor-
dinating supply of medical equipment and supplies to Nicaragua and
other countries. They recently were the sponsoring organization for a
national conference of medical aid groups which took place here in
[...] Medical Aid to Central America, [...]
The National Network in Solidarity with the Nicaraguan People
(NNSNP) is one of the strongest national organizations working on
Nicaragua. They also publish the excellent ``Nicaragua Handbook -
Tips for Travellers''. [...]
CALA (Community Action on Latin America) is another local peace
group which focuses on educational efforts within the US to inform
people about the continuing US interventions in Central America,
including Nicaragua, and working to forge opposition to intervention-
ist policies. [...]
Witness for Peace is a national organization of people interested
in promoting peace in war-torn Central America, and in saving lives of
non-combatants. They sponsor trips to Nicaragua where the primary
emphasis is on self-education; some protection of Nicaraguan civilians
through the presence of US citizens is a side benefit of Witness for
Peace visits to war zones. [...]
The Pledge of Resistance is a nationwide effort to organize oppo-
sition to the Reagan administration's destructive policies toward Cen-
tral America, particularly Nicaragua. The Pledge is a network for
communication and action oriented toward peace in Central America,
using a phone hotline for information exchange. [...]
The Nicaragua Computer Brigade is a local organization working to
provide The Voice of Nicaragua radio station with a computer and a
connection to an international, news-oriented computer network. The
target delivery date is Christmas, 1985, and the total estimated cost
will be [...].
Last but not least is the organization which sponsored my trip to
Nicaragua, tecNICA, the Technical Support Project to Nicaragua. Since
December of 1983, 145 volunteers like me have gone to Nicaragua,
volunteers with a wide variety of technical skills. While much of
tecNICA's work focuses on computer technology, there is actually alot
of other technical aid that is more important. For instance, tecNICA
has sponsored seismologists, civil engineers, and maintenance people.
While some volunteers are placed directly in teaching situations at a
university, the more typical situation involves a combination of work
and teaching in an active government ministry, institute, or corpora-
tion. While I don't at all want to denigrate the fine tours and
organizations mentioned above, I think that working with tecNICA is
one of the best ways to learn about Nicaragua, as you are actually
working, and working in Managua, very much the center of activity in
the nation. For more information, please contact tecNICA, [...]
[ Moderator -- Please don't edit or append to this message. Thanx.
(But remove message headers as appropriate if you wish.) ]
$$
[ Unfortunately, I am unable to comply with your request - CWM]
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Return-path: <SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Mon 27 Jan 86 16:14:46-PST
From: Lynn Gazis <SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: drinking and driving
I don't understand Charles's criticism of my comments on drinking and
driving. I said to begin with that I had mixed feelings about laws
holding hosts responsible for the actions of guests who drink and
drive. On the one hand, I feel that a host who, for instance, served
a guest alcohol knowing that that guest had had too much to drink to
safely drive home and was going to drive anyway, and then, when
someone suggested that that person should not drive home, disagreed
and said it was fine for the guest to drink and drive, bears some
responsibility for that guest's behavior.
On the other hand, hosts are not able to perfectly control the
behavior of their guests. The host could serve a guest alcohol under
the belief that someone else had been designated to drive, and the
guest could then drive and kill someone. Or there could be any number
of other ways that a guest could drink and drive without the host
being culpable.
Someone else objected to holding the host responsible at all, on the
grounds that people who drink and drive are only hurting themselves.
I said that they are committing a crime and hurting other people. Now
Charles says that under my view anyone who sells anything that could
be remotely used as a weapon would be held responsible for crimes
committed with it. I have said nothing of the kind. What I am saying
is that it is reasonable to hold people responsible who encourage a
crime and knowingly provide someone with the means to commit it, but
it is not fair to hold people responsible who unwittingly provided
someone with the means to commit a crime when they had very little
reason to suppose that a crime was to be committed. I actually think
that providing people with information on how to discourage guests
from drinking and driving is probably more useful than punishing hosts
whose guests drink and drive. But I think that people who condone
drinking and driving should be aware of what they are condoning, and
that it is not on a par with not buckling your seatbelt or hang
gliding.
Lynn
[I suppose I just don't beleive that the phrase 'unwittingly provide'
will protect a host who is party, under the law, to a DWI accident.
Certainly I oppose drunk driving, but I don't think this is the way
to stop it. -CWM]
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Return-path: <mcgeer%ji@BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 86 13:05:51 PST
From: mcgeer%ji@berkeley.edu (Rick McGeer)
Subject: Re: city sizes
>> [I know where Phoenix is, it's the *character* of midwest towns I
>> know of I was assiging it. I had no idea it was so large, though.
>> --JoSH]
>
>There's a lot of politics in this (which is why I feel justified in
>sending in a comment on it... :-). The population of a city depends
>on where you draw the boundary line around it. Many Southwestern
>cities have impressive population figures because the line is drawn a
>long way out, whereas Eastern cities often have political constraints
>on this sort of thing. Where would you draw the line around New
> York? If you used the same sort of algorithm that seems to be
> common in the Southwest, you'd include most of several states.
>
>If you want a real example of politics making unrealistic borders,
>look at where the official metropolitan-area boundary between
>Washington DC and Baltimore is. Much aid for cities is keyed to
>population of metropolitan area. Guess who decides where the
>metropolitan-area boundaries of Washington are? Right. I don't think
>the Baltimore city hall is in Washington yet... but just wait a
>while.
>
> Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
> {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
>
Henry, you should know about this. As a former resident of
Southern Ontario, I too know the answer to the trivia question: "which
major Canadian city stretches from Barrie in the north to Kitchener in
the west to Ajax, or Whitby, or wherever the hell it is in the east,
and Lake Ontario in the South?" Hint: it ain't Hamilton.
[For those who don't know Canadian geography: Metro Toronto is
the largest metropolitan fiction north of the Dallas-Ft. Worth
Metroplex. Toronto the Good itself is a postage-stamp sized enclave
in the centre, with a population of 75 or so dour Presbyterian Scots,
with a random collection of tightfisted bankers and railroad robber
barons for flavour. However, because the official statistics include
the area of New Jersey (well, OK. Rhode Island) as part of "Metro",
Toronto gets to claim that it's Canada's largest city. Have a beer at
the Duke for me, Henry.
-- Rick.
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Date: Wed, 29 Jan 86 11:40 MST
From: Paul Benjamin
From: <Benjamin%HIS.PHOENIX.MULTICS.ARPA@CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA>
Subject: Re: city sizes
Cc: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU
This is not really a southwestern phenomenon, but rather something
that tends to happen to cities and metropolitan areas that have done
the bulk of their growing since World War II. In the established
areas of the East and Midwest, cities were surrounded by towns. They
were not suburbs in the sense that we think of them today, but rather
full-fledged towns that were economic centers. Their periphery was
dotted with farms, mines, logging, or whatever was appropriate for the
area. Although the economies of the cities and towns were
interrelated and they were not that far apart, they functioned
separately for the most part. Travel to the city was by horse and
could tie up the better part of the day in round trip. Then came the
automobile and later freeways. Suddenly it became feasible to live in
the adjacent towns and commute to the city to work. Housing was less
expensive out there and the quality of life was deemed better by many.
Thus were born suburbs in the modern sense. The empty land that
existed between the city and the towns was either annexed by the
cities or the towns or became new suburbs. The city could not grow
past these areas because the towns were already there.
In areas which, for whatever reason, growth did not occur until much
later, there was a different phenomenon. The area was not as
developed and the countryside didn't have as many towns. When the
population moved outward, the newly settled area was simply
incorporated into the existing city. As a result of this, there are
some extremely large cities in terms of area. Compare Jacksonville
(759.6 square miles) or San Diego (323.4) with Pittsburgh (55.4) or
St. Louis (61.4).
So it isn't something peculiar to the Southwest, but rather something
that occurs in any area that has experienced rapid growth in
previously undeveloped areas, i.e. primarily the sun belt. But no one
is playing tricks with numbers or political oddities. Phoenix really
is the 9th largest city in the country. It does have, within its city
limits, more people than Boston, Washington or San Francisco have in
theirs. Metropolitan areas, however, are another thing. Whereas San
Diego, Phoenix and San Antonio rank 8, 9 and 10 as cities, their SMSAs
rank 20, 26 and 36, and all for the same reason, they are
geographically large with relatively few suburbs. This is because
they have all 3 experienced the bulk of their growth since commuting
and suburban living became a reality.
It is very interesting to watch how these places grow. The Arizona
cities of Phoenix and Scottsdale are involved in a race wherein they
seem hell-bent on seeing who can reach Flagstaff first. Phoenix Mayor
Terry Goddard recently had to catch a redeye flight from some sort of
mayors' meeting in Washington DC after he learned that the Scottsdale
City Council had expressed their intention, in a late night meeting,
to conspire with equally expansionist Peoria to annex large portions
of land that would have cut Phoenix off at its northern flank. That
move was aborted and the state's annexation laws are currently in the
courts. These people are annexing many, many square miles of
substantially uninhabited desert for perceived future needs. A common
technique is to annex a strip that is one foot wide that encircles an
area that the city eventually wants. This prevents the area from
becoming annexed by another jurisdiction or incorporating on its own.
They don't annex the whole thing because then they would have to
provide sewers, streets and garbage collection.
Jacksonville, by the way, is roughly 3/4 the size of Rhode Island.
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End of Poli-Sci Digest
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