Drinking, Family Relations and Authority in Early Modern Germany

The ideal of orderly family life in early modern Germany did not exclude drinking. In fact, drinks shared at the family table were closely tied to early modern notions of the marital bond and were also a necessary component of normal work relations. Drinking became a problem only when it threatened the stability of the household. The amount of alcohol involved in such cases might be as little as one drink if the circumstances were unsuitable. On the other hand, drinking that would by our standards be viewed as excessive or chronic could be considered acceptable . Even during and immediately after the period of Reformation, when polemical and prescriptive literature addressing the household was dominated by the problem of sin, drunkenness was rarely treated as a spiritual issues. The primary concern of both authorities and populace was not to protect the health or the rights of individuals but to protect the sanctity of the household and the stability of the community.

[Verification of normative values for the Swiss version of the Freiburg speech intelligibility test.]

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: In the Swiss version of the Freiburg speech intelligibility test five test words from the original German recording which are rarely used in Switzerland have been exchanged. Furthermore, differences in the transfer functions between headphone and loudspeaker presentation are not taken into account during calibration. New settings for the levels of the individual test words in the recommended recording and small changes in calibration procedures led us to make a verification of the currently used normative values.PATIENTS AND METHODS: Speech intelligibility was measured in 20 subjects with normal hearing using monosyllabic words and numbers via headphones and loudspeakers.RESULTS: On average, 50% speech intelligibility was reached at levels which were 7.5 dB lower under free-field conditions than for headphone presentation. The average difference between numbers and monosyllabic words was found to be 9.6 dB, which is considerably lower than the 14 dB of the current normative curves.CONCLUSIONS: There is a good agreement between our measurements and the normative values for tests using monosyllabic words and headphones, but not for numbers or free-field measurements.

Federal Authority and the Development of Corporate Mining, 1807-1847

While the 1913-1914 copper country miners’ strike undoubtedly plays an important role in the identity of the Keweenaw Peninsula, it is worth noting that the model of mining corporations employing large numbers of laborers was not a foregone conclusion in the history of American mining. Between 1807 and 1847, public mineral lands in Missouri, in the Upper Mississippi Valley, and along the southern shore of Lake Superior were reserved from sale and subject to administration by the nation’s executive branch. By decree of the federal government, miners in these regions were lessees, not landowners. Yet, in the Wisconsin lead region especially, federal authorities reserved for independent “diggers” the right to prospect virtually unencumbered. In doing so, they preserved a comparatively egalitarian system in which the ability to operate was determined as much by luck as by financial resources. A series of revolts against federal authority in the early nineteenth century gradually encouraged officers in Washington to build a system in the copper country in which only wealthy investors could marshal the resources to both obtain permits and actually commence mining operations. This paper will therefore explore the role of the federal government in establishing a leasing system for public mineral lands in the years previous to the California Gold Rush, highlighting the development of corporate mining which ultimately set a stage for the wave of miners’ strikes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Implementation of Evidence-Based Practices for Treatment of Alcohol and Drug Disorders: The Role of the State Authority

The current climate of increasing performance expectations and diminishing resources, along with innovations in evidence-based practices (EBPs), creates new dilemmas for substance abuse treatment providers, policymakers, funders, and the service delivery system. This paper describes findings from baseline interviews with representatives from 49 state substance abuse authorities (SSAs). Interviews assessed efforts aimed at facilitating EBP adoption in each state and the District of Columbia. Results suggested that SSAs are concentrating more effort on EBP implementation strategies such as education, training, and infrastructure development, and less effort on financial mechanisms, regulations, and accreditation. The majority of SSAs use EBPs as a criterion in their contracts with providers, and just over half reported that EBP use is tied to state funding. To date, Oregon remains the only state with legislation that mandates treatment expenditures for EBPs; North Carolina follows suit with legislation that requires EBP promotion within current resources.

Social Work as Laboratory for Normative Professionalisation

In most Western countries, the professional status of social workers is instable and insecure. Of course, most Western countries are themselves instable, ridden with feelings of insecurity and in search of reassurance and promises of control. But social work hardly lends itself as a projection screen for visions of professional control and efficiency in the face of insecurity. On the contrary: within the present cultural and political climate, social work connotes primarily with unpopular social problems, with people unable to cope adequately with the competitiveness and the rate of change of post-industrial societies, that is to say: it connotes more with dependency and helplessness then with autonomy and control. Moreover, whereas public discourse in most Western country is dominated by a neo-liberal perspective and the intricate network of economic, managerial, consumerist and military metaphors connected with it, social work still carries with it a legacy of 'progressive politics' increasingly labeled as outdated and inadequate. Although the values of solidarity and social justice connected with this 'progressive heritage' certainly have not faded away completely, the loudest and most popular voices on the level of public discourse keep underscoring the necessity to adapt to the 'realities' of present-day postindustrial societies and their dependence on economic growth, technological innovation and the dynamics of an ever more competitive world-market. This 'unavoidable' adaptation involves both the 'modernization' and progressive diminishment of 'costly' welfare-state arrangements and a radical reorientation of social work as a profession. Instead of furthering the dependency of clients in the name of solidarity, social workers should stimulate them to face their own responsibilities and help them to function more adequately in a world where individual autonomy and economic progress are dominant values. This shift has far-reaching consequences for the organization of the work itself. Efficiency and transparency are the new code words, professional autonomy is dramatically limited and interventions of social workers are increasingly bound to 'objective' standards of success and cost-effectiveness.