Tag Archives: world war

Hidden Dangers in the Air We Breathe

By Guest PostMay 10, 2013Environment, Healthacrolein, air quality, air we breathe, average american, berkeley lab, brett singer, california, cardiovascular systems, chronic exposure, daly, factories, fine particles, gas, health hazards, hidden dangers, indoor air pollutants, indoor air quality, max sherman, micrometers in diameter, phillip price, respiratory, title 24, united states, urban environment, us population, vehicles, world health organization, world war

Berkeley Lab researchers work on new building standards after discovering previously unknown indoor air pollutants.

For decades, no one worried much about the air quality inside people’s homes unless there was secondhand smoke or radon present. Then scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) made the discovery that the aggregate health consequences of poor indoor air quality are as significant as those from all traffic accidents or infectious diseases in the United States. One major source of indoor pollutants in the home is cooking.

The Berkeley Lab scientists are now working on turning those research findings into science-based solutions, including better standards for residential buildings and easier ways to test for the hazardous pollutants. These efforts are the result of a paper published in Environmental Health Perspectives in 2012 that described a new method for estimating the chronic health impact of indoor air pollutants. That research uncovered two pollutants that previously had not been recognized as a cause for concern—fine particles and a gas called acrolein. (more…)

New book explores Harry Truman’s record on civil liberties

By Guest PostMay 8, 2013Politicsalger hiss, american freedoms, american government, american people, american political system, american politics, american principles, americans, anti communists, civil liberties, cold war, constitution, democrat controlled senate, fbi, george w. bush, global peace, harry truman, house, internal security subcommittee, issue, j edgar hoover, japanese americans, john s service, joseph mccarthy, justice department, key west, liberty and security, loyalty program, marshall plan, national security system, nato, new book, Obama, policy, president eisenhower, red scare, richard kirkendall, richard nixon, senator joe mccarthy, smith act case, unamerican activities committee, university of washington, uw today, violation, war in korea, world war

Richard Kirkendall is a University of Washington professor emeritus of history and editor of the new book “Civil Liberties and the Legacy of Harry S. Truman.” He answered a few questions about the book for UW Today.

Q: What’s the scope of the book?

A: The book surveys the civil liberties issue during the Truman presidency of 1945-1953, an especially important time in the history of this essential feature of the American political system.

The book begins with two chapters on Truman as a civil libertarian, one on his identification of himself, the other on his relations with Japanese-Americans, the victims during World War II of a major violation of American principles. (more…)

150 Years of Mexican, Mexican American History Now Online

By Guest PostApril 3, 2013Culture, Media150 years, alberto elías, arturo arte moreno, bracero program, chicano, chris kollen, civil rights movement, de occidente, digital collection, el paso, el tucsonense, gadsden purchase, guadalupe castillo, la estrella, los angeles, los angeles angels, mary feeney, mexican, mexican american history, mexican american journalism, mexican american press, mexican cultural, mexican repatriation, old pueblo printers, online, red brown journalism, roberto cintli rodriguez, san francisco, sonora, spanish language, the great depression, the mexican revolution, tucson, ua librarian, united states, university of arizona, veronica reyes escudero, world war

The UA Libraries has just made 150 years of regionally published newspapers documenting the voice of Mexican and Mexican American communities digitally available for the first time.

A new digital collection at the University of Arizona Libraries makes accessible more than 150 years of news coverage documenting the voice of the Mexican and Mexican American community.

Curated, researched and digitized by librarians and archivists, in consultation with UA professors, the collection features 20 significant Mexican and Mexican American publications, many in Spanish. (more…)

Madeleine Albright Chats with Henry Paulson about Career, Foreign Policy

By Guest PostFebruary 17, 2013Politicsafghanistan, albright capital management, albright stonebridge group, american involvement, arab leaders, best decision making, Britain, central, China, chinese embassy, co ed, conflict in bosnia, decision-making, do ability doctrine, eastern europe, economic, environmental challenges, foreign policy issues, france, global strategy firm, investment advisory firm, jon huntsman, madeleine albright, medal of freedom, multilateralism, munich agreement, native czechoslovakia, nazi germany, no fly zone, paulson institute, president barack obama, president bill clinton, presidential, robert b zoellick, secretary of state, soviet union, state department, syria, united states, university of chicago, US, us government history, us treasury secretary, world affairs, world bank, world war, years of communism

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told an audience at the University of Chicago that her worldview was shaped early in life, when she witnessed the impact the United States had during and immediately following World War II.

Albright explained how terrible things happened to her native Czechoslovakia, when Britain and France signed the Munich Agreement in 1938, allowing Nazi Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia without its consent. Only when the United States entered World War II did Czechoslovakia’s plight improve. However, after the war, when the United States and its allies allowed the Soviet Union to liberate Central and Eastern Europe, it led to 50 years of communism. (more…)

A Family’s Lost Story Found, and the Sephardic Studies Initiative

By Guest PostJanuary 20, 2013Culture, Generalamerican life, arabic, arabic letters, auschwitz, autumn, benny, brother salomon, devin naar, during the war, esther, family story, grandfather, great uncle, Greece, hebrew, hebrew letters, historical archive, immigrant generation, islam, jewish community, jewish studies, jews expel, jews throughout europe, judeo spanish, judezmo, ladino language, ladino phrases, mediterranean basin, muslims, nazi occupation, nazis, northern greece, ottoman empire, port city, rabbi friend, rabbi solomon maimon, rosetta stone, salonica, script, seattle, sephardic jewish culture, sephardic jews, sephardic studies initiative, shelly, spain, spanish, third reich, thomson hall office, turkey, united states, washington university, world war

For Devin Naar, the Sephardic Studies Initiative is not just a valuable historical archive; it has also been a personal journey revealing an untold family story from the years of the Third Reich.

Naar’s part of the story began about 10 years ago, when as an undergraduate at Washington University he grew interested in the history of Turkey and Greece, which for centuries until World War I was part of the Ottoman Empire. His family comes from Salonica, a port city in Northern Greece. (more…)

More Bang for the Biofuel Buck

By Guest PostNovember 18, 2012Environmentabe products, acetone, artillery shells, bacterium, berkeley lab, biofuels, british, bullets, butanol, chaim weizmann, clostridium acetobutylicum, dean toste, diesel, douglas clark, elad gross, ethanol, fermentation technique, fuel molecules, gasoline, gunpowder, harvey blanch, hydrocarbons, jet fuel, joseph binder, lignocellulosic biomass, low carbon, metal catalyst, palladium, palladium catalyst, pazhamalai anbarasan, petrochemical processes, propellant, sanil sreekumar, weizmann organism, world war, zachary baer

Berkeley Lab Researchers Combine Old Fermentation Process For Making Explosives with New Chemical Catalysis to Boost Biofuel Production

A fermentation technique once used to make cordite, the explosive propellant that replaced gunpowder in bullets and artillery shells, may find an important new use in the production of advanced biofuels. With the addition of a metal catalyst, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shown that the production of acetone, butanol and ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass could be selectively upgraded to the high volume production of gasoline, diesel or jet fuel.

Using the bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum, the Berkeley Lab researchers fermented the sugars found in biomass into the solvent acetone and the alcohols butanol and ethanol, collectively known as “ABE” products. They then catalyzed these low carbon number products with the transition metal palladium into higher-molecular-mass hydrocarbons that are possible precursors to the three major transportation fuel molecules. The specific type of fuel molecule produced – whether a precursor to gasoline, diesel or jet – was determined by the amount of time the ABE products resided with the palladium catalyst. (more…)

Prewar Citizen Complaints to Government Explored in ‘This is Not Civil Rights’

By Guest PostNovember 3, 2012Politicsamericans, chicago press, civil liberties unit, civil rights law, civil rights movement, constitution, free speech, george lovell, gravity, Great depression, justice department, minority rights, national archives, political participation, political science, political spectrum, Politics, protect rights, rights talk, rights violations, roosevelt administration, supreme court, topic, university, us politics, uw today, White House, world war

George Lovell, UW associate professor of political science, is the author of “This Is Not Civil Rights: Discovering Rights Talk in 1939 America,” published in October by University of Chicago Press. He answered a few questions about his book for UW Today.

What is the basic concept behind “This is Not Civil Rights”?

The book examines more than 1,000 citizen complaint letters regarding rights from the late years of the Great Depression along with replies written by federal government officials. Looking at what people complained about, and how they tried to justify their claims, reveals how popular understandings of rights and the role of government develop over time. (more…)

Experience The Magic of The Theatre!

By Guest PostSeptember 27, 2012Culture, Entertainmentandrew lloyd webber, architect, art, bernard delfont, bing crosby, british theatre, cameron mackintosh, chronicle, edward stone, evolution, glenn miller, jack warner, london, lord, magical world, orchestra, prince edward, queen elizabeth, queensbury, renaissance, second, sir, style, talian deco, theatre, theatre royal, theatreland, theatres act, theatrical history, west end, william shakespeare, world war

The theatrical history of London’s West End stretches more than three and a half centuries. The first theatre in this area of London, the Theatre Royal opened in 1663 and housed small productions until it was destroyed by fire some years later. While still mainly a pastime of the aristocracy, appreciation for theatre was widespread. Productions occurred in courtyards of public houses, in churches and in small parks for all to enjoy.

In 1843 the passage of the Theatres Act allowed for more theatres to be established in the West End. Several of the venues you pass on the street in what the locals affectionately call “Theatreland” today were part of this movement. (more…)