Friday, October 31, 2008
Women authors that come to mind immediately
Thursday, October 30, 2008
"Medical School Burnout and the Challenge to Patient Care," from the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/health/chen10-30.html
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Mennonite Life's swan song
We regret to announce that Mennonite Life will suspend publication as of this issue.
Over the decades of its existence, Mennonite Life has mostly focused on a particular niche for its readership. We have attempted to reach a literate, well-informed audience, but not a narrowly specialist one.
One of our major strengths since the beginning in 1946 has been in the use of visual materials. No other Mennonite publication has done this so extensively. In the web era, since 2000, we have also been able to add a good deal of audio excerpts. Related to this has been our ongoing focus on the arts.
We have intentionally covered a wide variety of topics across several disciplines. Thus one might call our approach "Mennonite studies."
During our paper publication era, 1946-1999, we were able in certain ways to measure our readership, simply by counting the number of subscribers, and by sending out occasional paper-based surveys to subscribers. In the web era, 2000-present, measuring is more difficult. We regularly send out an announcement of each issue to a list of around 275 email addresses. Some of those addresses are themselves lists, so that an unknown number of recipients (at least several hundred) are told of each issue when it becomes available.
One other way to measure our situation is in our contacts with writers and submissions. Here the situation is gloomy, and it was so already ten years ago, before the transition to the web format. We do not receive enough submissions for real viability for Mennonite Life.
Although we do have enthusiastic readers, and hear from them, it appears that our publishing niche is no longer viable in the Mennonite world. Mennonite publications have split into two segments—those intended for the broadest possible audience, and those consisting of academic specialists writing for other specialists. Readers and writers for a niche in between these don't seem to be a critical mass in the Mennonite world anymore.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Harper's Weekly Review
I also thought this was a pretty powerful entry:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/10/hbc-90003746
Friday, October 24, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
What is a hedge fund?
From the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia:
"A highly speculative, largely unregulated investment device. Originating in the 1950s, the funds 'hedge' by offsetting 'short' positions (borrowing a security and then selling it at a higher price before repaying the lender) against 'long' positions (borrowing money to speculate on undervaluedstocks ; seehedging ;speculation ), but not all so-called hedge funds are actively involved in hedging. In general, hedge funds, besides being unregulated, are investment capital funds that are limited to wealthy investors and large institutions, that are structured as partnerships, and that use investment strategies involving higher risks in an attempt to produce greater financial gains. The fees associated with hedge funds are high, and can reduce the returns to levels in line with investments involving lower risks. Aggressive hedge funds work with highly leveragedsecurities , often purchased with less than 5% of actual investor capital, with banks covering the balance. Macro hedge funds speculate in currencies of various countries; financial analysts and government officials blamed such funds, including GeorgeSoros 's Quantum fund, for disrupting the economies of Asian and Latin American countries in 1998. Other funds speculate in gold and other volatile commodities, or simultaneously buy and sell a stock or other financial instrument in two different markets to profit on the difference in value in the two markets (a technique called arbitrage). Funds are classified as U.S. or offshore; U.S. hedge funds are private investment partnerships that generally invest in traded securities. Offshore hedge funds (normally not open to U.S. investors) aremutual fund companies.
"Hedge funds came to public view in 1998 when Long-Term Capital Management (a U.S. fund) nearly collapsed, requiring a $3.5 billion bailout organized by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and paid by private banks. The bailout led to a number of U.S. and international investigations into hedge funds and calls for greater regulation and scrutiny. An attempt by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004 to require hedge funds to register with it was overturned by the federal courts. In 2006 a another major U.S. hedge fund collapse, that of Amaranth Advisors, cost investors more than $6 billion. By 2007 the assets of such funds were estimated at more than $1 trillion; in February of that year the Bush administration and U.S. financial regulators rejected increasing the regulation of the funds and instead recommended that persons, institutions, and banks engage in sound practices before investing in or lending to a hedge fund."