The United States has experienced a significant decline in the death penalty during the first part of the twenty-first century, as death sentences, executions, public support, and states with capital punishment all have declined. Many recent reforms banning or placing a moratorium on executions have occurred in blue states, in line with the notion that ending the death penalty is a progressive cause. Challenging this narrative, however, is the emergence of Republican lawmakers as champions of death penalty repeal legislation in red states. This Article puts these efforts by Republican lawmakers into historical context and explains the conservative case against the death penalty: its incompatibility with limited government, fiscal responsibility, and promoting a culture of life. Understanding Republican opposition to capital punishment takes on particular importance now following setbacks to efforts against the death penalty in the 2016 election. In this environment, building support among Republicans and conservatives likely will prove critical for taking further steps toward limiting and eventually ending the death penalty in the United States.
Background The tradition of consuming alcohol has long been a part of Italian culture and is responsible for a large health burden. This burden may be reduced with effective interventions, one of the more important of which is treatment for Alcohol Dependence (AD). The aim of this article is to estimate the burden of disease in Italy attributable to alcohol consumption, heavy alcohol consumption, and AD. An additional aim of this paper is to examine the effects of increasing the coverage of treatment for AD on the alcohol-attributable burden of disease. Methods Alcohol-attributable deaths and the effects of treatments for AD were estimated using alcohol-attributable fractions and simulations. Deaths, potential years of life lost, years lived with disability, and disability adjusted life years lost were obtained for 2004 for Italy and for the European Union from the Global Burden of Disease study. Alcohol consumption data were obtained from the Global Information System on Alcohol and Health. The prevalences of current drinkers, former drinkers, and lifetime abstainers were obtained from the GENder Alcohol and Culture International Study. The prevalence of AD was obtained from the World Mental Health Survey. Alcohol relative risks were obtained from various meta-analyses. Results 5,320 deaths (1,530 female deaths; 3,790 male deaths) or 5.9% of all deaths (4.9% of all female deaths; 6.3% of all male deaths) of people 15 to 64 years of age were estimated to be alcohol-attributable. Of these deaths, 74.5% (61.3% for females; 79.8% for males) were attributable to heavy drinking, and 26.9% (25.6% for females; 27.5% for males) were attributable to AD. Increasing pharmacological AD treatment coverage to 40% would result in an estimated reduction of 3.3% (50 deaths/year) of all female and 7.6% (287 deaths/year) of all male alcohol-attributable deaths. Conclusions Alcohol was responsible for a large proportion of the burden of disease in Italy in 2004. Increasing treatment coverage for AD in Italy could reduce that country's alcohol-attributable burden of disease. ; Shield, K. D., Rehm, J., Gmel, G., Rehm, M. X., & Allamani, A. (2013). Alcohol consumption, alcohol dependence, and related mortality in italy in 2004: Effects of treatment-based interventions on alcohol dependence. Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy, 8(1), 21-21. doi:10.1186/1747-597X-8-21
Se plantea la discusión acerca de la "muerte del arte" y sus consecuencias no sólo para el arte contemporáneo, sino también para la cultura. Los motivos de dicha muerte y las nuevas figuras que fue adoptando el arte se rastrearon a partir de Hegel, pasando por Benjamin, Nietzsche, hasta Heidegger y Vattimo. El arte atraviesa la experiencia trágica del nihilismo, con su epicentro en la "muerte de Dios", para fundarse en nuevas formas de la libertad que estetizan y democratizan la cultura. ; This article proposes the discussion about the "death of art" and its consequences not only for contemporary art, but also for culture. The causes of this death and the new figures which art adopted, were traced from Hegel, across Benjamin, Nietzsche, up to Heidegger and Vattimo. Art goes across the tragic experience of nihilism, with its epicentre in "God's death", to ground itself in new forms of freedom, which aesthetize and democratize culture.
Практически любая инициация начинается с «социальной смерти» посвящаемого, означающей его превращение, по крайней мере на время, в маргинала. Такого рода инициируемые маргиналы могут объединяться в сообщества, построенные на контркультуре. Они, с одной стороны, воспринимаются как криминальные элементы, с другой выполняют некоторые военные функции. Как правило, социальные юноши, обладающие подобным крайне низким социальным статусом, имеют статусных патронов, которые проводят их обучение.Virtually any initiation begins with the "social death" of an initiate, signifying his transformation, at least for a short time, into an outcast. Such outcasts initiated may unite into communities built on counterculture. On the one hand, they are perceived as criminals, on the other fulfill some military functions. As a rule, social young men with such a low social status have status patrons, who carry out their training.
"Diseases of despair" is a conceptually broad category used to describe the phenomenon of premature mortality caused by suicide, drug poisoning, and alcoholic liver disease. Central to this conceptualization of mortality is that death occurs too early in an entire population of individuals infected with social despair. Implicit in the diseases of despair construct is a powerful normative claim about the manner and time of death—that death is bad if it is contextualized in unwanted conditions and happens before reaching midlife. As such, diseases of despair ought to be reduced, if not eliminated. Interestingly, military medical research on combat casualties abides by a comparable normative understanding of mortality—that combat provides a less than optimal context in which to die and that those who die on the battlefield do so too young. In response to this implicit normative ideal, military medical research and practice have made major strides in developing effective life-saving interventions in the past twenty years. Service members' lives are saved after catastrophic injury due to advances in the combat damage control medical paradigm. The achievements of this paradigm are enshrined in an overall ninety-two percent survival rate for service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan and have initiated interest in achieving zero preventable deaths after catastrophic injury in both military and civilian medicine. While medical achievements in Iraq and Afghanistan are laudable, primarily focusing on achieving zero preventable combat deaths constructs a military-medical culture wherein the despair of death is implicitly woven into military health policy, training, and organizational culture. This article will explore the complex challenge of addressing death despair in combat casualty management. I develop a modest argument suggesting that to effectively shift expectations relative to death and dying in casualty management, the Defense Health Agency needs to support interdisciplinary research that focuses on strategic second-order organizational change before developing health policy and medical training in preparation for future large-scale combat operations. In specific, I suggest that this interdisciplinary team needs to be led by academic experts in anthropology, history, and political science in collaboration with military medical and strategic experts.
We analyze the relationship between different dimensions of the quality of the political system and the outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data are retrieved from open-access databases for 98 countries. We apply a multivariable regression model to identify the relationship between various factors likely to affect the number of COVID-19 deaths, in addition to different dimensions of the quality of the political system. We find that the high quality of the electoral process in a country is associated with more COVID-19 deaths, while good political culture is associated with fewer deaths. As expected, we also find that trust in government and experiences with pandemics in the past is negatively related to COVID-19 deaths. Finally, a high GDP per capita is significantly associated with more COVID-19 deaths. Our findings illustrate that rapid, effective, and comprehensive government measures can protect society from the spread of a virus, but citizen compliance is also essential to policy success.
[Background]: Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are transmembrane pattern-recognition receptors of the innate immune system recognizing diverse pathogen-derived and tissue damage-related ligands. It has been suggested that TLR signaling contributes to the pathogenesis of age-related, neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease (AD). AD is associated to oligomers of the amyloid β peptide (Aβo) that cause intracellular Ca dishomeostasis and neuron cell death in rat hippocampal neurons. Here we assessed the interplay between inflammation and Aβo in long-term cultures of rat hippocampal neurons, an in vitro model of neuron aging and/or senescence. [Methods]: Ca imaging and immunofluorescence against annexin V and TLR4 were applied in short- and long-term cultures of rat hippocampal neurons to test the effects of TLR4-agonist LPS and Aβo on cytosolic [Ca] and on apoptosis as well as on expression of TLR4. [Results]: LPS increases cytosolic [Ca] and promotes apoptosis in rat hippocampal neurons in long-term culture considered aged and/or senescent neurons, but not in short-term cultured neurons considered young neurons. TLR4 antagonist CAY10614 prevents both effects. TLR4 expression in rat hippocampal neurons is significantly larger in aged hippocampal cultures. Treatment of aged hippocampal cultures with Aβo increases TLR4 expression and enhances LPS-induced Ca responses and neuron cell death. [Conclusions]: Aging and amyloid β oligomers, the neurotoxin involved in Alzheimer's disease, enhance TLR4 expression as well as LPS-induced Ca responses and neuron cell death in rat hippocampal neurons aged in vitro. ; This work was supported by grants (VA145U13, BIO/VA33/13, BIO103/VA45/11, BIO/VA36/15) from Regional Government of Castilla y León, Spain and (BFU2012-37146, BFU2015-70131R and SAF2013-44521-R) from Ministry of Economy and Competitivity of Spain, cofunded by the European Social Fund. MCR was supported by a pre-doctoral fellowship from Regional Government of Castilla y León and the European Social Fund. ; Peer Reviewed
Il volume presenta l'edizione definitiva della necropoli dell'Età del Bronzo di Kamilari, situata a pochi chilometri di distanza dal più noto centro palaziale di Festòs, nella Creta meridionale. Lo scavo fu eseguito alla fine degli anni '50 dalla Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene sotto la direzione dell'allora direttore Doro Levi e produsse una dettagliata pubblicazione preliminare che lasciò tuttavia aperte numerose questioni. La ripresa dello studio e la conseguente pubblicazione sono state possibili grazie al supporto della Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene. La necropoli è composta da tre tombe a tholos, la prima delle quali (la Tholos A), la più grande, fu occupata senza soluzione di continuità dagli inizi del II millennio a.C. (Medio Minoico IB) alla fine del XIV secolo a.C. (Tardo Minoico IIIA2), per ricevere poi una parziale rioccupazione tra l'VIII e il VII secolo a.C. Per la ricchezza dei suoi contesti e la straordinaria continuità d'uso, la necropoli getta una luce importante sulle pratiche e i rituali funerari della Creta dell'età del Bronzo e rappresenta la cartina di tornasole per l'interpretazione delle trasformazioni sociali e politiche intervenute nell'area. La necropoli si distingue per l'uso del seppellimento collettivo ancora nel Medio Minoico, ossia in corrispondenza della fondazione e sviluppo del Primo Palazzo di Festòs, quando nell'area meridionale di Creta e in generale nell'intera isola, questa tipologia di seppellimento è già in declino. Ugualmente importanti sono le testimonianze della necropoli nel corso del Tardo Minoico quando, soprattutto nella prima fase, la documentazione funeraria appare intermittente sull'isola; anche nelle fasi di progressiva 'miceneizzazione', momento in cui Creta subisce profonde trasformazioni nelle pratiche funerarie, la Tholos A testimonia la persistenza di pratiche antichissime. Il volume si distingue per la partecipazione di studiosi internazionali che hanno contribuito significativamente in varie parti dell'opera. I dieci capitoli del volume affrontano in maniera esauriente lo studio delle tre tombe, con particolare riguardo alla Tholos A, la tomba più grande, che ha restituito i corredi più ricchi e importanti. Alla trattazione in dettaglio delle architetture e della stratigrafia, segue l'analisi del materiale ceramico, dei modellini fittili, dei vasi in pietra, dei sigilli, degli oggetti in bronzo e dei gioielli (Capitoli I-II.1-14). Il capitolo III è dedicato alla Tholos B; il IV e il V rispettivamente allo studio dei resti ossei umani e animali delle Tholoi A e B; il VI e il VII prendono in esame le conchiglie e il materiale botanico, con particolare riferimento ai resti lignei carbonizzati. Il Capitolo VIII analizza la Tholos C, la cui rioccupazione in epoca ellenistico-romana viene interpretata come possibile sacello connesso con culti di fertilità agraria. Gli ultimi capitoli, IX e X, analizzano rispettivamente le pratiche e i rituali funerari e lo sviluppo generale della necropoli nel contesto della piana della Messarà. Il volume è arricchito da tre appendici e da un esauriente apparato illustrativo di novanta tavole.
ダークツーリズム~これはもはや新しい概念ではない。死、大災害、苦痛、破壊等の生じた場所を訪ねること~は、それらの場所へのアクセスが容易になるにつれ、20 世紀の半ば以降、人気が上昇している。その理由はまだ十分に明らかとはなっていないがこれはそこを訪れる人たちの動機についても言えることである。ターローはダークツーリズムを以下のように定義している:「歴史上の悲劇といえるもの以上の出来事で、単に感情面に影響を与えるだけでなく、政治・社会政策にも衝撃を与えるもの。」この論文の目的はダークツーリズムの現場を訪れる目的を考察すること、そしてこれまでの研究により倫理的・道徳的・感情的に得られた成果を調査・発表することであり、さらにはそこを訪れる人々の経験を通じてダークツーリズムの現場とのつながりを理解することにある。 ; Although it is hardly a new concept, Dark Tourism - the practice of people visiting places associated with death, disaster, misery, suffering and destruction has grown in popularity particularly since the mid twentieth century as more and more places have become accessible. The reasons for this popularity have yet to be categorically defined, as has the motivation of the visitors. Tarlow (2005) defines dark tourism as such: "those events which are more than just tragedies in history, but rather touch our lives not merely from the emotional perspective, but also impact our politics and social policies." This paper aims to examine the motives for visiting dark tourism sites and investigate and present the benefits gained ethically, morally and emotionally through studying and ultimately, gaining an understanding of visitors' personal connections through their experiences.
• 295 total deaths in Cincinnati during week ending yesterday, 262 of which due to influenza/complications. Normal death toll for one week is 150.• "E. Walter Evans, Registrar of Vital Statistics, said this was the largest number of deaths reported in one week during the 18 years he has been in that position."• 39 deaths reported yesterday, 467 total deaths in past three weeks.• 113 new cases, 3,596 total cases• During week ending yesterday, 95 physicians reported 393 (hard to read) cases• 30 new cases at GH, 475 total cases there, 143 have pneumonia• 64 influenza patients at County Infirmary yesterday.• 3 deaths at GH, 30 patients discharged.• "Far from being checked, the epidemic of influenza continues unabated in Cincinnati."• Health Officer Peters – estimated total of 20,000-25,000 cases in Cincinnati, "with the number increasing daily."• Quarantine orders will remain in place "without modifications indefinitely."• Political meetings, Halloween festivities, election-related events planned a week from next Tuesday night are all banned.• Requests for opening of side doors of churches for worship were rejected. They will go before the Board of Health next Wednesday for an official ruling, according to Peters.• Health authorities of New York City developed cultures of anti-influenza, anti-pneumonia vaccine and sent them to Dr. Peters, who received them yesterday.• The cultures were given to Dr. William B. Wherry, who is head of the lab at GH – to prepare vaccine to use in Cincinnati.• Peters was told that vaccine had good results among 20,000 soldiers at Camp Upton, NY.• Superintendent R. J. Condon told principals yesterday to burn books and papers in the homes of schoolchildren where influenza had struck.• "The disease, however, has been stamped out among the military student body at the university and the Ohio Mechanics' Institute. The quarantine will be lifted at both institutions next Monday." ; Newspaper article ; 16
The elements of the funeral culture of Ukrainian Cossack officers, the displays of preparation for the 'good' death by making wills, and the dependence of these processes on church institutions are studied in the paper. The culture of 'good dying' came to Ukraine from Europe due to belonging to the cultural space of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Orthodox Church, like the Catholic Church, did not leave a person alone with death, relieving acceptance and transition, interpreting the fokal points of the latter. An important component of the transition was the making of a will. Unlike the Polish tradition in Ukrainian legal field, there was no requirement to write down testaments to the registers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth courts ('Aktykacya') for legal force. The document took effect immediately after its verification. Nevertheless, the Polish cultural tradition had long been traced in the everyday lives of gentry and Cossack officers' families, which tried to authorize the testaments and keep them in family archives. The funeral culture of Ukrainians depended on churches and monasteries. The everyday life of the early modern period man was associated with the church by numerous rituals, especially before and after the death. The testament was an important part of the funeral culture, the evidence of the Cossack elite attitude to death. A priest, even a few, was invited to make a testament. They were the main witnesses of the testament. Secular figures, Cossack sergeants, and the military community were also important witnesses. The military duty of the Cossacks, their participation in constant wars, made them take care not only of life in the campaign but also of death. The officers mostly made testaments before the campaign. Sometimes it was necessary to concern with making a testament on the march or just before death due to injury or illness during the campaign. Taking part in the campaign did not change too much the attitude of the Cossack officers to religious rituals. They attended divine services, sang in a separate choir during the festive liturgies, and paid their last tribute to the comrades, combining military tradition with religious rites. Thus, they cared about the 'good dying'. The dead officers were not taken home from the campaigns to the lower reaches since it was too far and troublesome. But from other campaigns, they tried to bring the bodies of colonels and senior officers home and bury according to the customs. Attitude to death, attempts to cope with it in different ways, to overcome fear, the difference of strategies of Ukrainians in this field and in various groups of society at that time and in different periods of our history are the issues that will arouse the interest of scholars for a long time. ; У статті вивчаються елементи поховальної культури української козацької старшини, прояви підготовки до «доброї» смерті шляхом укладення тестаментів, залежність цих процесів від церковних інституцій. Буденне життя людини ранньомодерної доби пов'язувалося з церквою багатьма ритуалами, особливо перед і посмертних. Ставлення до смерті, намагання у різний спосіб її освоїти, подолати страх, відмінність стратегій у цій царині українців у періоди нашої історії чи інших груп суспільства в один час – те, що є і довго буде предметом дослідження.
In contemporary societies' perception of children, death plays an incredibly insignificant role. This role goes from being ornamental, a weak reminder that our civilisation has overcome the times of children's high mortality rates, to being some other society's concern. Despite both medical improvements and cultural constructions of the child as an immanent and social transcendence, children can and do die. Although an increasing number of recent studies disclose and legitimise children's preoccupation with death and dying in the context of a popular culture fascinated with death, studies interested in the representations of death and dying in children are rather scant. In this article, we investigate the social and political stakes in discussing children's cancer in today's Romanian media, aiming to make visible how the illustrations of the connections between children, death and illness are never ethically neutral. We begin with the observation that, during recent years, there has been a growing media focus on childhood cancer in Romania. Adopting a qualitative approach and resorting to comparative analysis, we analyse what lies beneath the intentions of criticising troublesome socio-political or medical realities of childhood cancer, revealing the mechanisms through which childhood cancer is transformed into a social illness and the cultural implications for the acceptance of death as an inherent part of life both for children and the population as a whole.
Определена закономерность генезиса квазисуверенных территорий как постколониальных «травматических инклюзий», неспособных конструктивно вписаться в глобальный цивилизационный текст; выявлена социокультурная тенденция формирования «культуры смерти» и обозначены связанные с ней стратегические риски ; The pattern was defined of the genesis of quasi-sovereign post-colonial territories as "traumatic inclusions", structurally unable to fit into the global civilization text; the socio-cultural trend was identified towards the "culture of death" and the associated strategic risks were listed.
Promulgation of Gaudium et Spes coincided with the beginnings of bioethics as well as the cultural and technological revolution of the late 1960s. In this way, the teaching of the Church has become a prophetic voice on many contemporary crimes against humanity. In the first part, the article presents the conciliar anthropology which is based on the Bible along with classical philosophy and constitutes the foundation for dignity. According to it, every human person, as a corporeal and spiritual being created in God's image and likeness, is endowed with dignity. In this philosophical idiom, the aforesaid dignity can be defined as ontological. It belongs to every human person and is inalienable and inviolable. The second part of the text shows the historical and geographical development of new challenges that threaten the human dignity. In many countries, national legislation supports abortion and euthanasia. It creates a new mentality: "the culture of death." In its last part, the article examines the paradigm of modern "progressive" moral decadence: the Dutch legislation on euthanasia of new-borns. The so-called Groningen Protocol is an example of the erroneous belief that "death is more humane than continued life in suffering." The only means to healing the mentality affected by "the culture of death" is respect for human dignity: the sanctity of human life.
Across the country, executions have become increasingly problematic as states have found it more and more difficult to procure the drugs they need for lethal injection.At first blush, the drug shortage appears to be the result of pharmaceutical industry norms; companies that make drugs for healing (mostly in Europe) have refused to be merchants of death. But closer inspection reveals that European governments are the true change agents here. For decades, those governments have tried-and failed-to promote abolition of the death penalty through traditional instruments of international law. Turns out that the best way to export their abolitionist norms was to stop exporting their drugs. At least three lessons follow. First, while the Supreme Court heatedly debates the use of international norms in Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, that debate has become a largely academic sideshow; in the death penalty context, the market has replaced the positive law as the primary means by which international norms constrain domestic death penalty practice. Second, international norms may have entered the United States through the moral marketplace, but from there they have seeped into the zeitgeist, impacting the domestic death penalty discourse in significant and lasting ways. Finally, international norms have had such a pervasive effect on the death penalty in practice that they are now poised to influence even seemingly domestic Eighth Amendment doctrine. In the death penalty context, international norms are having an impact-through the market, through culture, and ultimately through doctrine-whether we formally recognize their influence or not.
