Humanities & Society

Dear Mr. President: With your economic team in transition, Murray Weidenbaum thought you could use some advice. Weidenbaum is an economist who has wrestled with federal budgets for six decades during a long career in public service and as an advisor to two presidents. Weidenbaum has prepared a list of budget cuts that calls for a new approach to fiscal restraint.

An investigation by an international consortium of scientists, including an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, has discovered the origin of the world’s deadliest form of human malaria, Plasmodium falciparum.

Mr. Smith went to Washington, again. Instead of staging a filibuster, Steven S. Smith, PhD, political science professor and parliamentary procedure expert  testified Sept. 22 before the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration on proposed rule changes governing debate and cloture.

p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:’Times New Roman’;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} Missouri has one of the highest statewide smoking averages in the country, more than 23 percent. And racial and ethnic minorities, people with lower incomes and education levels, Medicaid recipients and the LGBT community smoke or experience secondhand smoke at a rate significantly higher than the state average. These findings are highlighted in a recent report by the Center for Tobacco Policy Research (CTPR) at Washington University in St. Louis. The report, “Who is Most Affected? Tobacco-Related Disparities in Missouri,” identifies statewide differences related to who is smoking, who is exposed to secondhand smoke and who is quitting. 

Kevin Washburn, JD, professor and dean of the school of law at the University of New Mexico, will deliver a talk on “Improving Criminal Justice for American Indians,” at noon Thursday, Sept. 23, for the Assembly Series. The program, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom in Anheuser-Busch Hall.

Current census figures show that one in seven Americans is living below the poverty level, a rate that nears the record poverty levels of 1960. “The latest rise in the poverty rate illustrates how many more Americans are at risk of poverty and economic insecurity in this country,” says Mark R. Rank, PhD, poverty expert and the Herbert S. Hadley Professor of Social Welfare at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. 

The French senate approved a law Sept. 14 banning any veils that cover the face, making France the first European country to nationally impose such a ban. A WUSTL anthropologist who has written extensively on this subject says that the French government is finding it easier to fight clothing than to fight poverty and violence.

Internationally known human rights attorney and Washington University in St. Louis alumnus Arsalan Iftikhar, JD, also known as “The Muslim Guy,” will address the timely topic of “Islamic Pacifism” as the next speaker in the annual WUSTL School of Law Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series, titled “Access to Justice.” This popular series, now in its 13th year, runs from fall 2010 through spring 2011 and includes nationally prominent lawyers, academics, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists with expertise in human rights, environmental justice, death penalty, social justice, and free speech and fair use online. 

In its 15th year, the “Work, Families and Public Policy” series, a schedule of Monday brown-bag seminars presented on campus biweekly through Dec. 6 will give faculty and graduate students of St. Louis-area universities an array of opportunities to lunch and learn. The series features one-hour seminars on research interests including labor, households, health care, law and social welfare by faculty from local and national universities.

Even a few weeks of international volunteer service may result in a long-term relationship between the volunteer and the host country, suggests the research of the Brown School’s Amanda Moore McBride, PhD, assistant professor.