Taking on the Pledge of Allegiance explores the landmark lawsuit filed by avowed atheist Michael Newdow against the Elk Grove Unified School District in California, in which he claimed the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance amounted to an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. Newdow's original suit was ignored by the public and the news media until June 26, 2002, when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional. This decision touched off a firestorm of negative reaction, both from politicians and from the public. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually overturned the ruling on Flag Day 2004. This book contains interviews with many of the parties involved, including Newdow and journalists who covered the case. Ronald Bishop examines how the news media marginalized Newdow after the Ninth Circuit's ruling—acting as a "guard dog" for the government and for the ideas supposedly at the ideological heart of America—by framing the decision as an aberration, a radical act by a hopelessly liberal federal circuit court. Bishop concludes that journalists relegated Newdow to a rhetorical "protest zone"—he was heard, but from a safe distance.
Even as kindness toward individuals with intellectual disabilities has increased, encountering an individual and his or her family whose lives revolve around the daily challenges that come with them is atypical, or is experienced and narrated as such, particularly by the media. Even when there is progress, making such a leap provides rhetorical cover, or at least a distraction, while intolerance regroups. And for some, it becomes less about showing love and compassion than about being able to pat oneself on the back when an interaction with a person like our son Neil is over. But it’s why they don’t know, or are curious but reluctant to engage, or just flat out lack empathy, that compelled us to write this book. Contributing to their misimpressions and misanthropy are portrayals of individuals with intellectual disabilities in the mass media, scant though they are. We should always be skeptical of those in my line of work who argue that the onslaught of information we take in from a widened array of sources can magically change our behavior – the so-called “hypodermic needle” theory of media effects. But these messages do help us craft our realities and develop and share our own narratives about folks with intellectual disabilities. Holding Up the Sky Together is admittedly a hybrid: part memoir, part academic analysis—a professor with more than 30 published articles and four books, all of which revolve around media analysis, looks inward. But our fervent hope is to inject a bit more realism into the national dialogue about intellectual disabilities. We are grateful for increased awareness and tolerance, for Special Olympics, and for shows like Born This Way. But there is so much more to be done.
This book explores the evolution of how sports journalists have covered the struggle of professional athletes who have experienced mental illness. Combining historical research and narrative analysis, Ronald Bishop interrogates whether sports journalists have finally begun to cover the experience of mental illness with sufficient depth.
Never before in living memory has the Catholic Church struggled and suffered as much as it has in the last three decades. The sexual and physical abuse of the young by churchmen precipitated a public relations disaster with the consequent loss of some three billion dollars in legal expenses and the defrocking of thousands of clergymen. The primary victims of this crisis were the abused youth and their families. But also victimized were the Church's missionary and vocation efforts. The lack of clergy prompted the closure of healthy parishes and curtailment of youth ministries. It is now time for the Church to rise up and deal with all these tough problems. But it needs new and bold ideas to solve these manifold crises. This book offers the Church leaders such new and bold ideas.
Though much has been said about Japanese-American incarceration camps, little attention is paid to the community newspapers closest to the camps and how they constructed the identities and lives of the occupants inside. Dependent on government and military officials for information, these journalists rarely wrote about the violation of the evacuees’ civil rights. Instead, they concentrated on the economic impact the camps—and the evacuees, who would replace workers off to enlist in the military and work for defense contractors—would have on the areas they covered. Newspapers like the Cody Enterprise and Powell Tribune in Wyoming, the Lamar Daily News, and the Casa Grande Dispatch regularly published overly optimistic updates on the progress of construction, the size of the contractor payrolls, and the amount of materials used to build the camps. Ronald Bishop and his coauthors reveal how journalists positioned the incarceration camps as a potential economic boon and how evacuees were framed as another community group, there to contribute to the region’s economic well-being. Community Newspapers and the Japanese-American Incarceration Camps examines the rhetoric and journalistic approach of the local papers and how they informed the communities just outside their walls. This book will appeal to scholars of history and journalism.
When Play Was Play offers a fascinating look at the disappearing world of childhood pick-up games. Drawing on his own experiences as well as a wealth of interviews and surveys, Ronald Bishop tells why these loosely structured games mattered—camaraderie, opportunities to develop social skills, and independence from the world of adults. Bishop contrasts his and others' childhoods with the experiences of today's overscheduled and overcommitted youth who find much of their time taken up by organized sports and other highly supervised activities. When Play Was Play celebrates memories of a past era, when kids were free to explore their neighborhoods, had time to throw together an afternoon game of stickball, and spent much of their lives playing outside just for the sake of playing.
Tips for the Residency Match is a unique guide for medical students applying for residency positions. Packed with hints, tips, and recommendations from both program directors and current residents, Tips for the Residency Match chronologically covers the key information required to excel during the residency application process - from résumé advice and preparing for the interview and beyond. Both insightful and practical, Tips for the Residency Match features a wide spectrum of medical specialties and an extra section for foreign graduates. Tips for the Residency Match is: Uniquely tailored to the needs of those applying for US residency positions Written by leading Residency Directors and current residents in the major specialties Offers unprecedented access to how departmental decisions about the Match are made Boasting expert advice and a wide scope, Tips for the Residency Match is the ideal companion for those applying for residency positions throughout the United States.
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, much of what is now the southwestern United States was known as Alta California, a remote part of New Spain. The presidios, missions, and pueblos of the region have yielded a rich trove of ceramics materials, though they have been sparsely analyzed in the literature. Ceramic Production in Early Hispanic California fills that lacuna and reinterprets the position of Alta California in the Spanish Colonial Empire. Using both petrography and neutron activation analysis to examine over 1,600 ceramic samples, the contributors to this volume explore the region’s ceramic production, imports, trade, and consumption. From artistic innovation to technological diffusion, a different aspect of the intricacies of everyday life and culture in the region is revealed in each essay. This book illuminates much about Spanish imperial expansion in a far corner of the colonial world. Through this research, California history has been rewritten.
Where Is the Church? Martrydom, Persecution, and Baptism in North Africa is an overview of North African Christianity from the second to the fifth century. Beginning with the African martyrs, Ronald D. Burris investigates the idea of how "church" was defined in North African Christianity through the understanding of water baptism, martyrdom (baptism in blood), and key theological concepts such as origo or conscientia. In addition to baptism and ecclesiology, this work investigates the social, political, and economic issues that were germane to the shaping, hardening, and eventual condemnation of those beliefs as expressed by the North African Christians, called the Donatists. Morevoer, this work seeks to explain why so many North African Christians were drawn to that group. They were drawn to the Donatists because the latter more closely represented the tradition of the early African martyrs, Tertullian, and their beloved hero and martyr, Saint Cyprian.
A study of the book of Revelation. Bishop Ronald Wilson brings his years of study, ministry and church leadership into a thorough study of the final book of the Bible. Historic fact and personal application of the Scripture bring the writings of the Apostle John to clarity.
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