Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE)
Persistent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11299/148010
The online journal, Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), sponsored by the University of Minnesota Retirees Association (UMRA), was established in 2013 by Professor emeritus, Martin Dworkin (Microbiology and Immunology). The journal is a collection of original articles intended for a general audience. The JOIE is not designed as an alternative to existing professional journals, but rather as a venue for articles that do not fit easily into conventional journals. These could include any of a variety of essays, such as experiences at the University or other life experiences, biographical sketches or tributes, matters of University interest or academic interest, comments on important issues, pedagogical matters, poems, hobbies, short stories or plays, book reviews, historical reviews, and for scientists, speculative hypotheses or essays on important scientific ideas. As an electronic journal, the JOIE features graphics and illustrations in ways that traditional journals often cannot accommodate, making it ideal for artistic or photographic essays. Please enjoy browsing our collection by using the search box below or click “view more” near the bottom of this page. JOIE publications are also accessible on browser searches such as Google and Bing. Article submissions are accepted from any member of the University of Minnesota community, active or retired.
Editor-in-Chief: Kristine M. Bettin, Neuroscience
Editorial Committee: Lynda Ellis, Laboratory Medicine and Pathology; Ed Griffin, Literature; Jan Hogan-Schiltgen, Family Social Science
Submission Instructions for Authors
To submit an item for publication in the JOIE, please send the document, prepared in Word or other similar format that allows conversion to a pdf, to Kris Bettin, betti002@umn.edu. Kris will be your contact at the JOIE and she will share your contribution with the editorial committee members, who will determine the suitability of the submission and review it for quality. Kris will return your submission, with any needed editing/formatting, in a timely manner and she will upload your finalized copy to the online journal. More detailed instructions for authors may be found here.
You may also visit us on Facebook at facebook.com/JournalofOpinionsIdeasandEssays/.
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Item Robert Koch – From Obscurity to Glory to Fiasco(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2011-10) Dworkin, MartinRobert Koch went from an obscure country physician to be the discoverer of the etiology of anthrax, the inventor of the technique of pure culture bacteriology and with that to the isolation of the tubercle bacillus and its identification as the etiological agent of tuberculosis. These successes propelled him to world-wide glory. In his search for a cure for tuberculosis, he proposed that tuberculin was such a cure. Unfortunately this turned out to be false, and his continued advocacy was a fiasco. Nevertheless his formulation of the germ theory of disease transformed medicine and led to a remarkable series of successes that clarified the etiology of a large number of infectious diseases.Item Who Built Our Capitol?(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2013) Croce, Randy; University of Minnesota. Carlson School of Management. Labor Education Service"Who Built Our Capitol?" reveals the formerly untold story of the workers and contractors who constructed the Minnesota statehouse from 1896 to 1907. The program portrays not only tradespeople, but railroad, quarry, and other workers who provided materials for the building. The documentary relates the broader history of the structure, intertwined with the personal stories of the builders, including the six men who died during the construction. Living descendants of the workers, as well as historians, artisans, and architects, illuminate this history. The program was shot during the renovation of the Capitol, allowing views of architectural details and the construction process not ordinarily available. This footage, combined with archival photographs and music of the period, provide the documentary a compelling visual and auditory character.Item A Castle in Dalmatia: Zemunik in the Veneto-Ottoman peace Negotiations of 1573-1574(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2013-08) Tracy, JamesFor a Europe that feared continuing Ottoman expansion, the Battle of Lepanto (1571) was a great relief. But the Ottoman Empire continued to be dominant in the eastern Mediterranean, and in southeastern Europe. The Republic of Venice, a partner in the great Christian victory of 1571, was soon forced to make peace with the sultan, acknowledging the loss of important overseas territories. This essay deals with the vain effort by Venetian diplomats to recover through negotiation a small but strategically important territory lost in the fighting of 1571- 1573. Although the Venetian government refused to recognize it at the time, the permanent loss of Zemunik castle meant that the Ventian province of Dalmatia now had to form an economic partnership with the Ottoman province of Bosnia in order to survive.Item Jim's Secrets: What Mark Twain Knew But Huck Finn Didn't(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2013-08) Griffin, EdwardMark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, persistently attacked since 1885 as vulgar and inelegant, has more recently been condemned as elitist, sexist, and racist. The charge of racism turns not only on the pervasive use of the “n” word, but also on a misunderstanding of Jim, the runaway slave, as a minstrel-show stereotype of the powerless simpleton. Urging a reconsideration of Jim’s role in light of the literary and psychological features of the captivity narrative, this essay argues that Mark Twain builds the novel around two related forms of captivity: Jim’s slavery in the first part of the novel and, in the second part, the joint captivity of Jim and Huck by the Duke and the King. The first half turns on two competing plans: Huck’s and Jim’s. Huck’s is a juvenile plan, open-ended and in search of thrilling adventures. Jim’s is an adult plan with specific ends in view: escaping from from slavery at the risk of his life and eventually freeing his wife and children. Huck Finn would like to diminish Jim’s manhood, but Mark Twain will not allow it. And when Mark Twain realizes that if he defeats Jim’s plan he will be writing a tragedy, he searches for a comic ending--with the ostensibly insuperable difficulties resolved--by turning to parody and by using all the trappings of the traditional captivity narrative for social satire until, when all seems lost, by supplying Tom Sawyer to provide a deeply ambiguous tragi-comic rescue. The final section of the essay provides a brief meditation on that ambiguous resolution.Item The Gravediggers of France at the Château d’Itter, 1943-1945(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2013-08) Munholland, KimDiscussion of responsibility for the defeat of France in 1940 has been a matter of controversy and debate among historians of France. Given the importance of this event in French history, which brought the downfall of the Third Republic, the establishment of the collaborationist Vichy Regime and Occupation by the Germans, these debates have led to accusations of incompetence and even treason. One author has called these individuals the “gravediggers” of France. A number of these individuals were arrested by the Germans in 1943 and assigned to a prison, the Château d’Itter (or Schloss Itter) in annexed Austria from 1943-45. This imprisonment compelled those whom some see as the guilty parties to confront one another and assess their own roles in the conduct of French politics leading up to the defeat and armistice. The paper revisits the way these individuals assessed their roles in the immediate aftermath of defeat, going back to the atmosphere at the time and a reexamination of responsibilities through the eyes of the participants. The article concludes that the severe condemnation of these individuals as “gravediggers” is excessive, reflecting the anger and frustration felt in the immediate aftermath of defeat.Item Behind the Scenes at the University of Minnesota(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2013-08) Bloomfield, VictorThose of us in academia who are faculty, students, and "white collar" staff and administrators are familiar with offices, classrooms, and labs. But there are many other places in the university, where things are done that make our work possible, that we may never see. About a year and a half ago I began a project to photograph "behind the scenes", to see---and to show others---the people and operations that make our academic work possible.Item New Topics for the Pre-med Physics Course(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2013-08) Hobbie, RussellThis article describes some topics that the author suggests be included in the pre-med physics course, based on his experience auditing the first two years of medical school in the early 1970s. They are: exponential growth and decay, fitting exponentials and power laws to data, diffusion and solute transport, Intracellular potentials, the cable model for nerve conduction, and the electrocardiogram. The paper is aimed at physics instructors. It explains why the topics are important and suggests how they might be made accessible to the students.Item Turtle Mania(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2013-08) Siegel, GeraldThis is serious. Turtles live in every nook and cranny of my house–on shelves, in bookcases, on the mantle over the fireplace, in a special cabinet with glass doors that’s filled to overcrawling, in the cubbies of my rolltop desk. It all started when I became director of the Cognitive Sciences Center at the University of Minnesota in the late 1970s, and my family discovered that the turtle is the logo of the Center. The first carved turtle, a gift from my wife, came into my life innocently enough, but they have multiplied beyond imagination and the situation has gotten out of control.Item Fate and collecting embroidery in India(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2013-11) Johnson, Donald ClayAn overview of the challenges and experiences the author had in 2005 while collecting embroidered textiles in India. This includes identification of some of the distinctive techniques used in India to enhance artistic expression on surface design fabrics.Item The Future of the History of Computing(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2013-12) Nelsen, R. ArvidThe history of information technology is not the history of how wires got into boxes. Technological developments are intertwined in the social fabric, and their story includes the direct experience of individuals and the impacts felt by communities. Computers were once thought to be relevant only to specialists, but people today are more aware of the reach of computers into their lives. Similarly, the history of computing has traditionally been the focus of specialists in technology, but a greater variety of scholarly researchers is now studying archival collections about computing. The Social Issues in Computing Collection at the University of Minnesota’s Charles Babbage Institute seeks to collect a wider array of perspectives on the industry and even to change the way people think about computing and archives.Item Public Engagement and Graduate Education: Ten Principles and Five Recommendations(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2014-01) Bloomfield, VictorAbstract: Connection with the public is crucial to the future of higher education, including graduate education. I put forward ten principles (statements that seem to be clearly true) that individually and collectively lead to five recommendations, all directed at the point that public engagement should be an essential part of graduate educationItem Intersections of Art and Politics: Clemenceau, Monet and Republican Patriotism from Commune to Nymphéas(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2015-10-01) Munholland, John KimIn the aftermath of France’s defeat in the war of 1870-71 and the Commune uprising of 1871, the French sought a new political identity and sense of unity, which brought a new political regime, the Third Republic. At the same time, a younger generation of French artists began experimenting with new forms and techniques that came to be known as Impressionism. The Third Republic was born at the same time that a new generation of artists were emerging. While there was always a distance between the artistic and political worlds, two representative figures, the politician Georges Clemenceau and a leading Impressionist, Claude Monet, found themselves joined in a common cause, despite Monet’s dislike of political conflicts, in defending the newly formed republic from its opponents during three crises in France at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This paper examines this curious alliance of two friends and patriots during times of crisis during the formative years of the French Third Republic.Item Four Poems About the Natural World(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2015-10-01) Gorham, EvilleThese poems were written in the 1970’s, inspired especially by the English poet Kathleen Raine, a Cambridge M.A. in botany and zoology with a strong focus on the natural world. Soon I was asked by my friend Professor Dennis Hurrell to speak to a class on Women’s Literature entitled “Form and Function in Literature” and to provide a contrast by focusing on “Form and Function in the Biosphere.” In doing so, I read and described the significance of a set of poems that had an ecological context, and slipped in a couple of my own.Item Our Brick Home on Lake View Road(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2015-10-01) Craig, William J.In 1998 Will & Ginny Craig bought an old farmhouse on Washington Island at the far tip of Door County, Wisconsin. Through library research and personal conversations, he has been able to develop the history of the farm and people who lived there. The story starts in 1869 when a local man filed a homestead on 160 acres of Island land. Real settlement of the farm began in 1878 when a Danish man, George Lycke, bought the farm and moved his family there. The Lyckes had two more children in that new farmhouse, Laura and Waldemar. Those two would each receive half the farm in 1905. Laura and her new husband got eastern half, including the farmhouse, and farmed it until 1941 according to her grandson who provided both photos and information. The Jensen family bought the farm and owned the farm until 1983; their children provided wonderful memories. Small farms were no longer viable, the farm was sold and split into multiple parts. The farmhouse deteriorated and occupancy was spotty until the Craigs bought and restored with the help of Island craftsmen.Item On The Poems of the Accidental Environmental Activist(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2015-10-01) Griffin, EdwardThis essay offers a commentary on the four poems of Dr. Eville Gorham that accompany his memoir, “Reflecting on Life in a Deteriorating World: How Chance Made Me an Environmental Activist,” published elsewhere in this journal. Gorham’s poems are read here not only as complementing his development as a scientist but also for their literary merit as intriguing applications of a scientific perspective to nature poetry, one of the great traditions of the American and English lyric. His poems are associated here with the spare, imagistic mode of 20th-century modernism, particularly as defined by Ezra Pound and his followers, but also with the skeptical philosophical mode associated with such modernists as Wallace Stevens.Item Reflections on the Life in a Deteriorating World: How Chance Made Me an Environmental Activist(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2015-10-01) Gorham, EvilleThis memoir describes how I, a young scientist who believed that "applied science" was second-rate science, found myself -- by chance and serendipity -- studying the ecological consequences of acid rain and radioactive fallout, purely as fascinating phenomena and without thought of mitigation. As I continued with their study and taught students about them, I became more and more aware of their significance for society, so that after twenty years -- and again by chance and serendipity – I became an environmental activist. Since then I have testified about environmental deterioration, attended scientific committees and workshops, and advocated for pollution control in both academic and societal settings.Item The Medical School “Massacre” of 1913: President Vincent Revamps the University(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2015-10-03) Clawson, C. CaryleGeorge Edgar Vincent was President of the University of Minnesota from 1911 to 1917. In these few years he did much to revamp the University, which many thought had become a complacent institution lacking in vitality. Of the numerous schools and departments that he overhauled or inaugurated, probably the most contentious struggle he encountered was in dealing with the Medical School. This paper looks at Vincent the man and his background in an attempt to clarify his goals and motivations in his dealings with this institution. It then goes on to examine some of his accomplishments in light of this background and in particular the result of his restructuring of the Medical School.Item Eating Healthfully(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2016-07-19) Zimmerman, Ben GIdeas and/or diets for either normal weight maintenance or to lose weight are presented. Works by Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman, and Dr. Robert Atkins are mainly considered. Pollan describes and critiques the method of meat production by corn feeding of cattle in feedlots which has replaced meat produced from grass grazing animals. He lists criteria to use for choosing healthy food and why he became a vegetarian. His do’s and don’ts sum up some of his thinking. A dietary scheme of vegan before 6 PM and more typical food afterwards is how Bittman views a plan for both healthy eating and weight reduction. Samples of his recipes for both the vegan and afterward phases are outlined. Dr. Atkins’s sugar-restricted diet reported back in the late 1940s and early 1950s was extremely popular. He built a nutritional institute which early on made him a millionaire, but eventually went bankrupt. Bad publicity concerning his death and the realization that abolishing dietary sugar was unhealthful probably were responsible for his downfall. His diet is effective in causing significant weight loss, but in long term is considered unsound. My own reason for seeking a reduction in abdominal fat led to my limiting sugar for about one year. Indeed weight loss was achieved, but not noticeably in the abdominal area. Lastly, a husband and wife, the Bergs of LITTLE BEND HERITAGE FARM located in Minnesota, are producing heritage foods and listed the recipe for a very good one. Their Bean and Ham soup appealed to me. As it was easy to make with excellent results, I included the recipe here.Item Seven Girls, One Boy: A Family Endures Nazi Race Laws(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2016-12-20) Angell, FerolynThis is a collection of writings about a family torn apart by Nazi race laws and their experience of the Holocaust. It details the lives of a Christian family with Jewish lineage in a small town in the Brandenburg region of Germany in the first half of the 20th century. Most of this collection was written in German in 1939 by Dorothea Oppenheimer upon her arrival as a German "refugee" and prior to her immigration to the United States. It also includes excerpts from Ernst Oppenheimer's memoirs regarding his conversion from Judaism to Christianity. Some details regarding arrests and deportations to the Warsaw ghetto and Theresienstadt are also included. NOTE: The author of this article has also produced a 34 minute film, "In The Shadow," that explores through the medium of dance the shadow cast by the Holocaust. You are encouraged to watch this film; it can be accessed online at vimeo.com/202478709Item Stolpersteine: Germans Remember Holocaust Victims(Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE), 2017-02-15) Pierach, ClausA German artist, Gunter Demnig, has since 1996 inserted more than 60,000 stolpersteine (tripping stones) on public pavements, squares and sidewalks, commemorating the location where persons had lived prior to their deportation to concentration camps, and thus, to their death. These stolpersteine are brass squares (10x10 cm), mounted flush on cobble stones and stating "Here lived", followed by the victim's name, year of birth, date of deportation, place and year of death. The deported were mostly Jews, but also Roma, Sintis, homosexuals, disabled, dissidents and other persecuted persons during the Nazi era (1933-1945). By now, stolpersteine have been placed in more than 1600 towns in twenty European countries. The expenses of $130 per stolperstein are borne by donations from family, friends and anonymous donors. This decentralized project is not without controversy and has not been permitted in a few cities, for example in Munich with the city's governing board arguing that it is inappropriate to walk across these plaques; possible political reasons are not transparent. Where forbidden, stolpersteine are occasionally placed on private grounds as close as possible to public sidewalks. While memorials to fallen soldiers and victims of persecution are often anonymous, stolpersteine give those who were murdered for political reasons a place to remember them, following a motto of this movement "The secret of remembrance is the proximity".