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Problem setting. Informing the population about the threat and emergencies, timely and accurate information on the actual situation and measures taken, in accordance with the Civil Protection Code of Ukraine, is one of the main tasks of civil protection.Despite the fact that "centralized alert systems are operational and ready for use during peacetime and special periods," "the alert system does not meet current requirements. The structure of the existing alert system does not take into account: changes in the structure of central and local executive and local self-government bodies; the new structure of the civil protection system; structure of emergency response forces and their legal status; legislative and other regulatory acts in the relevant field; economic and legal relations between the entities involved in the notification of the threat of emergencies or emergencies (forms of ownership of newly created entities)".Recent research and publications analysis. The work of public alert systems is being explored by scientists in various fields. In particular S. Bilousov discusses the improvement of technical solutions and the functional structure of regional alert systems, I. Kochin and others provide recommendations on improving the operation of alert systems in general, S. Palaguta gives examples of the functioning of alert systems in NATO countries, V. Polozhezhny analyzes the legislation and offers technical solutions based on modern equipment. The State Emergency Service of Ukraine conducts an annual analysis of the operation of existing systems of centralized notification of threat or emergence of emergencies.Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. The Code of Civil Protection stipulates that local self-government bodies should exercise the authority to create and maintain on a permanent basis the local systems of centralized notification of threat or emergencies, to carry out its modernization and to ensure the functioning, provision of notification and informing the population of threat and emergencies. To date, local automated centralized alert systems, as constituents of the respective territorial systems, are in a state of disrepair, and the respective powers of the civil protection authorities of large cities to notify and inform the population are poorly implemented.Paper main body. Throughout the history of humanity, the means of warning have been constantly changing, becoming more complex, improving, going from the great fireplaces in the hills, wind instruments, drums and church bells to the most modern devices that can instantly form and transmit any information to people.Now an automated centralized public alert system of threat or emergencies - a set of organizationally and technically combined software and hardware, telecommunication networks and other means of processing and transmission (display) of information intended for timely signaling and information on issues of civil protection to executive bodies, local self-government bodies, governing bodies and civil protection forces, enterprises, institutions, organizations and population.For the organization and implementation of measures for ensuring the sustainable functioning of the technical equipment of the local automated centralized alert system in each big city, within the units of territorial subsystems of the unified state system of civil protection, there are city specialized communication and alert services.As of mid-2019, almost all of the big cities are upgrading existing legacy alert systems. The speed and quality of change depends on the understanding of city councils of the importance of the safety of urban residents.Local self-government bodies need to constantly monitor organizational and technical changes occurring at the level of regional and national alert systems, to ensure both the technical compatibility of the systems and the interaction at the level of operational and dispatching services.In the structures of the governing bodies of most of the cities under consideration, operational and dispatching services of the city economy, emergency rescue services with round-the-clock duty, video surveillance centers and guards operate in parallel.Given that any emergency in a large city leads to significant material damage, causes temporary discomfort to residents, it is advisable to create a single city security centers in the form of utility companies (institutions), which would integrate the functions of the above services and, where necessary, promptly notified and informed authorities and the general public, both massively and personally.Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. In general, in the big cities - oblast centers considered, local authorities have the authority to notify the public of a threat or emergency, in accordance with applicable law. Authorities and specialized civil protection services were established. Taking into account local conditions, the existing local centralized alert systems are being modernized to maintain an adequate level of security for citizens, however, there are risks of inconsistency across the country when designing a nationwide system. Further research should focus on developing practical guidance on creating single security centers in urban structures with the task of directly informing authorities and the public about threats or emergencies. ; Розглянуто норми законодавства про виконання органами місцевого самоврядування завдань щодо оповіщення населення великих міст. Проаналізовано стан експлуатації та модернізації місцевих систем централізованого оповіщення. Надано рекомендації щодо удосконалення механізмів управління системами.

Problem setting. Informing the population about the threat and emergencies, timely and accurate information on the actual situation and measures taken, in accordance with the Civil Protection Code of Ukraine, is one of the main tasks of civil protection.Despite the fact that "centralized alert systems are operational and ready for use during peacetime and special periods," "the alert system does not meet current requirements. The structure of the existing alert system does not take into account: changes in the structure of central and local executive and local self-government bodies; the new structure of the civil protection system; structure of emergency response forces and their legal status; legislative and other regulatory acts in the relevant field; economic and legal relations between the entities involved in the notification of the threat of emergencies or emergencies (forms of ownership of newly created entities)".Recent research and publications analysis. The work of public alert systems is being explored by scientists in various fields. In particular S. Bilousov discusses the improvement of technical solutions and the functional structure of regional alert systems, I. Kochin and others provide recommendations on improving the operation of alert systems in general, S. Palaguta gives examples of the functioning of alert systems in NATO countries, V. Polozhezhny analyzes the legislation and offers technical solutions based on modern equipment. The State Emergency Service of Ukraine conducts an annual analysis of the operation of existing systems of centralized notification of threat or emergence of emergencies.Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. The Code of Civil Protection stipulates that local self-government bodies should exercise the authority to create and maintain on a permanent basis the local systems of centralized notification of threat or emergencies, to carry out its modernization and to ensure the functioning, provision of notification and informing the population of threat and emergencies. To date, local automated centralized alert systems, as constituents of the respective territorial systems, are in a state of disrepair, and the respective powers of the civil protection authorities of large cities to notify and inform the population are poorly implemented.Paper main body. Throughout the history of humanity, the means of warning have been constantly changing, becoming more complex, improving, going from the great fireplaces in the hills, wind instruments, drums and church bells to the most modern devices that can instantly form and transmit any information to people.Now an automated centralized public alert system of threat or emergencies - a set of organizationally and technically combined software and hardware, telecommunication networks and other means of processing and transmission (display) of information intended for timely signaling and information on issues of civil protection to executive bodies, local self-government bodies, governing bodies and civil protection forces, enterprises, institutions, organizations and population.For the organization and implementation of measures for ensuring the sustainable functioning of the technical equipment of the local automated centralized alert system in each big city, within the units of territorial subsystems of the unified state system of civil protection, there are city specialized communication and alert services.As of mid-2019, almost all of the big cities are upgrading existing legacy alert systems. The speed and quality of change depends on the understanding of city councils of the importance of the safety of urban residents.Local self-government bodies need to constantly monitor organizational and technical changes occurring at the level of regional and national alert systems, to ensure both the technical compatibility of the systems and the interaction at the level of operational and dispatching services.In the structures of the governing bodies of most of the cities under consideration, operational and dispatching services of the city economy, emergency rescue services with round-the-clock duty, video surveillance centers and guards operate in parallel.Given that any emergency in a large city leads to significant material damage, causes temporary discomfort to residents, it is advisable to create a single city security centers in the form of utility companies (institutions), which would integrate the functions of the above services and, where necessary, promptly notified and informed authorities and the general public, both massively and personally.Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. In general, in the big cities - oblast centers considered, local authorities have the authority to notify the public of a threat or emergency, in accordance with applicable law. Authorities and specialized civil protection services were established. Taking into account local conditions, the existing local centralized alert systems are being modernized to maintain an adequate level of security for citizens, however, there are risks of inconsistency across the country when designing a nationwide system. Further research should focus on developing practical guidance on creating single security centers in urban structures with the task of directly informing authorities and the public about threats or emergencies. ; Розглянуто норми законодавства про виконання органами місцевого самоврядування завдань щодо оповіщення населення великих міст. Проаналізовано стан експлуатації та модернізації місцевих систем централізованого оповіщення. Надано рекомендації щодо удосконалення механізмів управління системами.

Work shown as part of 'Mind Rhymes', curated by Tom Benson at Hidde van Seggelen Gallery, London Mind Rhymes Curated by Tom Benson 24 July – 31 August 2013 This show is about ideas, likes and dislikes. And as far as we can know anything about anyone else, it's dependant on how much we can put ourselves in the place of the other, of their likes and dislikes. It's more or less a form of collaboration. Tom Benson: So, two characters in the background would be Marcel Duchamp and John Cage. John Cage having written a piece of music called Music for Marcel Duchamp for a film by Hans Richter, with a little excerpt in it on Duchamp. It was one of the very, very early prepared piano pieces by Cage and it's a relatively short piece, but in it. I've thought for a long time that it encapsulates a particular quality, which is a quality of thought happening rather than having happened. There are points, in the way that the rhythm is built up and held, where it hovers before some sort of direction is taken. I didn't think to look up very much about the piece when I first heard it, but when I finally did, years later, I was surprised to discover that it was one of the first pieces that Cage had written where he deliberately tried to explore silence in a structured way. So there are bars of silence and bars of sound. These gaps, or these spaces, were spaces that I felt somehow offered me the ability to enter into the piece with my own thinking. Spaces for thought, if you will, within the music, rather than a wall of sound that is all-invading. And also with Cage, as we know, there is an interest in the I Ching and various strategies that were used to generate musical compositions that would remove him to some extent from a more authoritative position of his own subjectivity. The idea of the grid—I was struggling with how to bring a number of disparate works together into a space and give them the same space. It was a question of how to address the space as well as the works within it, in a subtle but determined way. I was thinking about devising a band system, so there would be three bands, a tripartite division running horizontally around the space. It could be black, white, grey, whatever. It would give me different tiers to include works that could exist above, along side, in parallel, askance from other works. But I thought that that would almost be too crude. A much, much simpler way was just a very lightly drawn, using a 4H pencil, linear grid that would run across all the wall surfaces from floor to ceiling, that would give a more planular space, a more extensive space, so that it didn't feel—because of the proportion, because it's 50 centimetres across every facet of the space—it wouldn't feel like, 'that's at the top, and that's at the bottom'. Just, 'it's located on the grid'. It equalises the space. For the name of the show, I was first thinking along the lines of 'rhyme and reason', rather than 'rhyme or reason', to include the analytic and conceptual as well as the emotive and the subjective. Because it seems to me that some of the most interesting works do that - however obdurate they might be, there is a sort of feeling of a mind at work, the mind that brought that thing into existence. But in having a dialogue with so many artists about their work and realising that I was being shown things I wouldn't have thought about otherwise, and also in being slightly worried that 'rhyme and reason' sounded almost too clear and understandable. to come across this term 'mind rhyme'—which does exist—I thought was fantastic, because it included both the conceptual and the poetic, the rhyme and the reason, but in a much more interesting way. A mind rhyme is a situation set up through language, poetry, rhyming, where the mind will anticipate the word that's coming next. So it's possible to have a joke, a pun, an innuendo. A lot of these things revolve around a mind rhyme. But I was more thinking about, if you like, a visual mind rhyme, where you are presented with one artist's work, and you might begin to develop an understanding of that work, but because of what else is situated with it, you are somewhat confounded, or are lead to a point where there's a kind of bifurcation, or split, and the directions are unpredictable. It creates another type of gap for the mind to work with, a space between what might have been anticipated and all kinds of unexpected associations. In thinking about another person's work, it enters into my frame of reference and it becomes sort of a touchstone, and an important thing. It influences my own thinking. It's a form of collaboration. — As told to Kyra Kordoski Jenna Bliss uses video, performance, sound and text, to navigate public spheres intimately through letter writing and ambivalent fandom. Dreaming of singularity and collectivity simultaneously, she creates and then destroys her singular voice. Much of this work began by performing at pub open mic nights in London. Bliss recently exhibited at Woburn Slade Research Centre, London (2012); White Building [SPACE], London (2012); Piet Zwart Institute, NL (2012); and Camden Arts Centre, London (2012). She was born in Yonkers, New York, USA and currently lives and works in London. Joey Bryniarska's practice is concerned with technology, ornament, subjection, power, vitality. Within the self-reflexivity of reprographic mediums, she creates parallels between this technological food-chain and a larger system of parasitical dependency, reproduction, ornamental deceit and conditions of spectatorship. Bryniarska has exhibited at Post Box Gallery, London (2012); Collective Gallery, Edinburgh (2010); Complesso Monumentale Santo Spirito, Rome, IT (2010); and Royal Academy of Arts, London (2008). Born in Swindon, she currently lives and works in London. Céline Condorelli works, broadly speaking, with art and architecture, combining a number of approaches such as developing possibilities for 'supporting' the work of others, resulting in projects merging exhibition, politics, fiction, public space and whatever else feels urgent at the time. One of her long-term projects, Support Structure (in collaboration with Gavin Wade), has been exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2008); GIL, Guangzhou, Beijing, CN (2007); and Chisenhale Gallery, London (2003). Other recent exhibitions include: Centre d'Art Contemporain de Brétigny, FR (2013); Nottingham Contemporary (2012); Victoria & Albert Museum, London (2011); Tate Modern, London (2011); and Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR (2010). Condorelli lives and works in London. Claudia Doms runs a graphic design studio and frequently collaborates with artists and editors from the UK and abroad. Since 2010 she has made a drawing a day and uses these as formal spurs for her songs, music, videos and paintings. Her work has been shown at: London Design Week (2011); Cream Espai Creatiu, Barcelona, ES (2011); Bulthaup Gallery, St. Petersburg, RU (2010); Witzenhausen Gallery, New York, USA (2010); Red October, Moscow, RU (2010); City Gallery, Tallinn, EE (2010); Meneer de Wit Gallery, Amsterdam, NL (2009); and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, IT (2007). Born in Germany, Doms currently lives and works in London. Kati Kärki's explorations in art have taken her through a combination of media, encompassing photography, printmaking, sculptural furniture, writing and spoken word. She has arranged discursive events, providing intimate settings for discussions about and around art. Recently she performed at Art13 London (2013), and organized a daylong event at Whitechapel Gallery, London (2013). Kärki was born in Finland and currently lives and works in London. Elizabeth McAlpine works with video, film, installation and photography. Her work often engages with ideas of temporality, the passage of time, its tones and textures, and various ways of registering it. Recent solo exhibitions include: Laura Bartlett Gallery, London (2012); Laurel Gitlen, New York, USA (2012); Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2010); and Ballina Arts Centre, IE (2007). Her work is currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum, New York, USA. Recent group exhibitions include: Royal Standard, Liverpool (2013); Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, AU (2013); deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, USA (2012); and Barbican Centre, London (2010). Born in London, McAlpine currently lives and works in London. Fay Nicolson's practice spans a set of associations around educational structures, material understanding and knowledge while approaching the difficulties of recording, coding and distributing presence and experience as information. Recent solo exhibitions include: Künstlerhaus Wien, Vienna, AT(2013); and PLAZAPLAZA, London (2012). Current group exhibitions include White Cube, Masons Yard, London (2013); and The Newbridge Project, Newcastle (2013). Other group exhibitions in 2013 include: Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen; Limoncello; and The London Art Fair, Art Projects. Born in Derby, Nicolson currently lives and works in London. Philomene Pirecki works across painting, photography, drawing, sculpture, projected image and language. Her work addresses memory, time, perception, and their representations. Pirecki often physically and conceptually references her existing works and considers how they can adapt and respond to new conditions and change over time. Recent solo exhibitions include: Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, IE (2013); MOTInternational, Brussels, BE (2012); Clockwork Gallery, Berlin, DE (2012); and Laure Genillard, London (2011). Selected group exhibitions include: Wilfried Lentz Gallery, Rotterdam, NL (2013); Wysing Art Centre, Cambridge, (2013); Supplement, London (2012); Cristina Guerra Gallery, Lisbon, PT (2012); Chelsea Space, London (2011); and The Barbican Art Gallery, London, (2010). Born in Jersey, and currently living and working in London, Pirecki founded the curatorial platform, Occassionals, a peripatetic project for artists, writers and curators to make their work public, usually over a single day or an evening. Laure Prouvost's approach to filmmaking, often situated within atmospheric installations, employs story-telling, quick cuts, montage and deliberate misuse of language to create surprising and unpredictable work. Recent solo exhibitions include the Max Mara Prize for Women at Whitechapel Gallery, London (2013); and Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, IT (2013). Her works have also been on view at Morra Greco Foundation, Naples, IT (2013); Tate Britain, London (2013); MOTInternational, London (2012); Sculpture Center, New York, USA (2011); and The Serpentine Gallery, London (2010). Born in Lille, France, and currently living and working in London, she is a Turner Prize 2013 nominee and was the winner of the Max Mara Prize for Women in 2011. Chooc Ly Tan's practice is multi-disciplinary and incorporates sculpture, video, installations and performances. Through her work she attempts to see beyond the physical constants that govern people's lives, their significance, and to make the possibility of their subjugation all the more fantastic. She asks, "what would a world devoid of physical laws, such as gravity and frames of references, geometry and time, be like"? Selected solo and group exhibitions include: Circa Projects, Newcastle (2012); Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery, London, (2012); Drawing Room, London (2012); Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2011); and The Royal Society, London (2011). Tan was born in La Roche sur Yon, France and currently lives and works in London.

Operating squarely within their histories of lack
of transparency, Bossier Parish and Bossier City's legislative organs recently
tackled controversial legal issues differently, one to the benefit and one to
the detriment of the citizenry.

The Police Jury appoints a member to the Cypress
Black Bayou Recreation and Water Conservation District, and that current term
expires at the end of the month. Held at present by Robert Berry, controversy
arose when, two terms back, Berry and his fellow commissioners appointed him
also as executive director. This eventually caught the attention of the state's
attorney general as a violation of dual officeholding, and after a protracted legal
battle this spring the Louisiana
Supreme Court instructed lower courts to rule along those lines.

Even so, the district's Board of Commissioners petitioned
for Berry's reappointment. Perhaps one reason was, according to public
comments made at their meetings, it had become dependent on Berry to make and
execute decisions on its behalf, and another maybe being that state law would force Berry
if leaving the Board to resign as executive director, as a former member
generally of a state board can't be employed by it until two years pass after
end of service, so commissioners wanted to keep him in that job.

But that wish simply didn't comport to legal
reality. At the
meeting, a parade of Berry's and the District's lawyers (it's uncertain to
this point how many taxpayer dollars they have burned on trying to fight the
state's case, but it's certainly into six figures and probably a tenth or more of
all District expenses annually over the last two or three years), other
commissioners, his friends, and family spoke about how great of a guy he was
and how great of a job he had done and how the decision hadn't actually kicked him
out of office, all arguing for reappointment.

However, legal advice rendered by lawyer and area political
insider Neil Erwin to the Jury reminded, if not understated, that eventually it
was a virtual lock that the judiciary in the future would find Berry in
violation. Erwin, rather than the attorney assigned by the district attorney's
office to serve as parish attorney, Patrick Jackson, delivered this message, which
was unusual in that Jackson rarely misses a meeting and only two weeks earlier
had busted a gut to return from the east coast in time to attend that previous
meeting, yet was absent for this one.

In early June, the Jury formally had solicited
applications for the post, drawing half a dozen applicants for vetting. All but
one spoke to the Jury, making the one who didn't conspicuous by his absence –
Rodney Madden, a local business owner and 2019 campaign supporter of Republican
Juror Philip
Rodgers. Although Rogers financed that campaign with mostly his own and
some family resources, Madden had made a testimonial video supporting
Rodgers. Additionally, Rodgers was one of the public complainers about Berry
having too much influence by default over the Board, where he, rather politically
guilelessly, said Berry had made certain representations that came as a result
of Rodgers' political position that now the Board he accused was trying to
renege upon.

Madden, it was asserted, was out of the country on
vacation and couldn't appear in person although he sent along a short video segment
– filmed by GOP Jury Pres. Doug
Rimmer – introducing himself. It would seem odd that somebody who followed
the Berry case and felt committed to offer services as a result, understanding
importance of letting the Jury publicly vet him, would have scheduled a
vacation at the very time he would have known, because of his interest in the
appointment, that the appointment would be made. That behavior seems more
consistent with someone who hadn't considered the matter until asked relatively
close to the opening of the search process to offer his services and who had
assurances that to receive serious considerations that jurors didn't need to
vet him publicly.

Whether this signaled the fix was in, at least one
applicant thought the fix in fact was in. Andy Modica, who actually in past and
present has been appointed to several positions in government by the Jury,
testified he had been told jurors already have decided upon someone, not him. Rimmer
then said he didn't doubt someone had told Modica that, but claimed it was "news"
to him who the mysterious slam-dunk appointee was.

Yet there was a slam-dunk appointee, when all was
said and done. Rodgers nominated the missing Madden and he received at least
seven votes in favor – recall that the Jury, despite having a budget in the
hundreds of millions of dollars annually, refuses to set up anything but a
rinky-dink cellphone-driven narrowcast Facebook Live transmission system for
meetings so it's impossible to tell who or how many votes are cast on measures
without actual physical attendance, until the minutes are approved weeks later.

That takes the issue of Berry being the Jury's
appointee off the table for fall juror elections – and without the timing of
the end of the five-year term happening to be months before the election, without
that spotlight Berry might have won a third term leading taxpayers to fork over
more dollars to defend his lost cause. Of course, other election issues remain such
as having Parish Administrator Butch Ford apparently illegally registered to
vote at a place that is not his residence that disqualifies him from holding
the job with the Jury's tacit consent and jurors illegally serving on the
parish's Library Board of Control.

Still, at least Madden legally may hold the position
and has the potential to serve well, making the action a victory for the parish
residents, most of whom pay directly or indirectly property taxes to fund the
District. Things didn't turn out so well for Bossier City residents in the
previous day's meeting
of the Bossier City Council.

There, a Council majority followed through on making
a formal request to ask for an outside legal opinion on petitioning for a
charter change to install term limits, despite
the fact that the Charter and state Constitution allow
for the process followed, and that the two propositions that limit officeholders
to three lifetime terms don't
unconstitutionally violate retroactivity prohibitions on criminal or penal laws.
It came up as a Council matter as a delaying tactic designed to push farther
into the future to a lower-stimulus election date the inevitable election that
must be called, which could increase the chances of its defeat.

But even more than that, rhetoric from City
Attorney Charles Jacobs and others indicated, arising from questions asked and
unasked, beginning with why Jacobs brought the matter in the first place. It
certainly wasn't at the behest of Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler, who in the
course of discussion made clear he was for term limits and wouldn't impede their
adoption. It therefore came from at least one councilor, as the Charter
permits that.

More blatantly, as articulated by GOP Councilor Chris Smith,
why did the Council have to do something formal about this when, just in the
past month, without seeking Council approval, Jacobs
had engaged outside counsel on another matter? Jacobs' response never
addressed that discrepancy.

However, what it did do was reveal the endgame strategy
behind the request that could benefit at least four of the five who voted for
the resolution, who with adoption of the proposals all would become ineligible
to serve any more terms. Essentially, Jacobs issued a veiled threat, apparently
reflecting the thinking of the Council graybeards, by invoking the long-running
dispute over the establishment of the city of St. George within East Baton
Rouge Parish as what could happen.

Of course, significant differences exist in these
two cases, where St. George's centers on a judgment call whether demands in state
law were met in the petitioning and election that approved the city's
establishment, but Bossier City's term limit proposal is cut-and-dried valid. Still,
the idea of launching costly litigation – weaponizing city government at
taxpayer expense precisely to attempt thwarting the will of the people – visibly
was put on the table.

This scorched earth strategy to save four
part-time jobs hopes best case to wear down those backing limits – who may have
to retain counsel to sue the city if the Council doesn't approve of term limits
in its next meeting or fails to place
the matter on the Nov. 18 ballot by Sept. 25 – so that they give up or to
delay matters to a lower-stimulus election, and worst case to string things out
so much as to buy another term possibility for the graybeards. Regardless, bringing
about such litigation would be a selfish, self-interested response by a handful
of governing elites that, in attempting so hard to get around the clearly valid
rules in place, questions the very fitness of such persons to serve in office.

A number of local governmental bodies and elected
officials, especially from Bossier Parish, won't be happy if a few bills addressing local
government organization and actions pass into law this spring.

As always, the Legislature takes up matters that
affect local governance, but this year such general bills would have greater
impact on entities and politicians in Bossier than comparatively elsewhere. Of
minor importance is HB 103 by
Republican state Rep. Mike Johnson,
which would mandate live broadcasting of meetings by bodies with jurisdictions
of at least 25,000 people, but for municipalities just 10,000. It retains the
requirement of archived audio or video or live transmission of meetings by any authority
that can tax.

Bossier affected entities – the Bossier City
Council, the Bossier Parish Police Jury, and the Bossier Parish School Board –
already transmit live. But if the bill were to be amended to demand archived
meetings available on the Internet, that could put entities into difficulty that
do recordings but don't currently make these available on a web site, such as
the Bossier Levee District.

Hitting a bit too close to home for Bossier City,
and perhaps others, is HB 794 by GOP
state Rep. Foy
Gadberry. This would mandate for architectural and engineering services
that a government have a selection process for these services that implies a
process for soliciting requests and rank ordering these, even as price can't be
a consideration as part of that.

Such a law would put a stop to the practice
Bossier City has had in awarding single source contracting – against
its own rules – most recently and notoriously without competition to
Manchac Consulting. A majority bloc of councilors, aided by Republican Mayor
Tommy Chandler, haven't allowed any competition for a job that in its latest iteration
pays $195,000 monthly for four years. Most audaciously, Assistant City Attorney
Richard Ray ridiculously
has alleged this law prevents requests for qualifications for competitive
bidding – despite the fact other local governments do this and other legal
officials specifically disavow that interpretation – in order to contrive an excuse
for gifting Manchac the business, but this bill unreservedly would kick the
prop out of that argument and force Bossier City to look for competition in the
future.

The Bossier Parish Police Jury specifically could
have to face the music if HB 640 by
Republican state Rep. Jay Galle
makes it into law. This bill clarifies that parish governing authorities can
remove at any time library board of control members.

That would have made it easier for jurors in a campaign
begun in 2016 that ended last year to eviscerate the board's past membership to
allow it to appoint jurors' own selves, a practice not only unheard of in every
other parish for which there is web-based information about library boards of
control but also according
to the state attorney general is illegal and at present subject to an official
opinion request regarding its legality still in the works. To make matters
worse, the Bossier
board now claims all twelve jurors as members whereas state law limits board
size to seven at most.

Breaking the law on size indisputably as well as likely
doing the same over juror membership, if Galle's bill were to be amended
expressly to exclude jurors, this final nail in the coffin would make it absolutely
clear jurors can't usurp the Board, whether in numbers over the limit. Unlike
the other two bills, this one hasn't yet passed out of its original committee.

Yet perhaps the most feared bill by these entities
is HB 273
by GOP state Rep. Rodney Schamerhorn.
This would amend the Constitution to slap term limits on local elected
officials, three terms with retroactivity kicking in for elections after 2024.
None of the Council, Jury, or Board have limits nor Bossier City mayor, and many
members of these collectively have expressed hostility at the idea – with a
majority of Bossier City councilors going
way out of their ways with legal machinations to prevent citizens from voting
to ratify limits – although Chandler has given the idea support. The bill,
which hasn't had a hearing yet, would take that choice out of the hands of these
elected officials and give it to voters this fall.

But at least they don't have Democrat state Rep. Steven Jackson
meddling in their affairs. Jackson represents portions of both Caddo and
Bossier Parishes, although he can be forgiven if he holds a grudge against
Bossier because it was there he
was arrested and last year convicted of false personation, of a police officer.

Yet he has introduced a bill that should have
excited Bossier jurors and had them petition to include the police jury in it.
His HB 848
would take fiscal matters out of the hands of library boards in parishes of a
certain population size – designed so only Caddo qualifies – that would transfer
to it exactly the power the Jury has wanted over library affairs without having
to pull its current shenanigans. Maybe Jackson is mad at the parish (although
it was a Bossier City officer who cited him), or maybe it's too clumsy to make
the bill wording include only Bossier with Caddo.

His other bill, HB 886, would
redirect money from sports wagering that currently goes to Caddo that the
parish can spend on any purpose to infrastructure activities only within a
census tract within his district. That might lend Bossier Parish to breathe a
sigh of relief, although Bossier City might have wished it be a part of such a
bill since Jackson's district encompasses Old Bossier and south to the Jimmie
Davis Bridge on the west side of the Arthur Ray Teague Parkway. Only introduced
last week, neither bill is on tap to be heard.

Although political establishments often
disconnected from constituents' concerns particularly hold power in Bossier, their
versions in local governments across the state will fight – all of Bossier City,
Bossier Parish, and the Bossier Parish School District pay several tens of
thousands of taxpayer dollars annually to lobbyists – against these transparency
and good government measures, Jackson's obviously excluded. The public can hope
legislators see the wisdom of these bills, especially with select modifications,
and follow through with their intentions.

My project explores and compares different forms of gender performance in contemporary art and visual culture according to a perspective centered on photography. Thanks to its attesting power this medium can work as a ready-made. In fact during the 20th century it played a key role in the cultural emancipation of the body which (using a Michel Foucault's expression) has now become «the zero point of the world». Through performance the body proves to be a living material of expression and communication while photography ensures the recording of any ephemeral event that happens in time and space. My questioning approach considers the gender constructed imagery from the 1990s to the present in order to investigate how photography's strong aura of realism promotes and allows fantasies of transformation. The contemporary fascination with gender (especially for art and fashion) represents a crucial issue in the global context of postmodernity and is manifested in a variety of visual media, from photography to video and film. Moreover the internet along with its digital transmission of images has deeply affected our world (from culture to everyday life) leading to a postmodern preference for performativity over the more traditional and linear forms of narrativity. As a consequence individual borders get redefined by the skin itself which (dissected through instant vision) turns into a ductile material of mutation and hybridation in the service of identity. My critical assumptions are taken from the most relevant changes occurred in philosophy during the last two decades as a result of the contributions by Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze who developed a cross-disciplinary and comparative approach to interpret the crisis of modernity. They have profoundly influenced feminist studies so that the category of gender has been reassessed in contrast with sex (as a biological connotation) and in relation to history, culture, society. The ideal starting point of my research is the year 1990. I chose it as the approximate historical moment when the intersection of race, class and gender were placed at the forefront of international artistic production concerned with identity, diversity and globalization. Such issues had been explored throughout the 1970s but it was only from the mid-1980s onward that they began to be articulated more consistently. Published in 1990, the book "Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity" by Judith Butler marked an important breakthrough by linking gender to performance as well as investigating the intricate connections between theory and practice, embodiment and representation. It inspired subsequent research in a variety of disciplines, art history included. In the same year Teresa de Lauretis launched the definition of queer theory to challenge the academic perspective in gay and lesbian studies. In the meantime the rise of Third Wave Feminism in the US introduced a racially and sexually inclusive vision over the global situation in order to reflect on subjectivity, new technologies and popular culture in connection with gender representation. These conceptual tools have enabled prolific readings of contemporary cultural production whether fine arts or mass media. After discussing the appropriate framework of my project and taking into account the postmodern globalization of the visual, I have turned to photography to map gender representation both in art and in fashion. Therefore I have been creating an archive of images around specific topics. I decided to include fashion photography because in the 1990s this genre moved away from the paradigm of an idealized and classical beauty toward a new vernacular allied with lifestyles, art practices, pop and youth culture; as one might expect the dominant narrative modes in fashion photography are now mainly influenced by cinema and snapshot. These strategies originate story lines and interrupted narratives using models' performance to convey a particular imagery where identity issues emerge as an essential part of fashion spectacle. Focusing on the intersections of gender identities with socially and culturally produced identities, my approach intends to underline how the fashion world has turned to current trends in art photography and in some case turned to the artists themselves. The growing fluidity of the categories that distinguish art from fashion photography represents a particularly fruitful moment of visual exchange. Varying over time the dialogue between these two fields has always been vital; nowadays it can be studied as a result of this close relationship between contemporary art world and consumer culture. Due to the saturation of postmodern imagery the feedback between art and fashion has become much more immediate and then increasingly significant for anyone who wants to investigate the construction of gender identity through performance. In addition to that a lot of magazines founded in the 1990s bridged the worlds of art and fashion because some of their designers and even editors were art-school graduates encouraging innovation. The inclusion of art within such magazines aimed at validating them as a form of art in themselves supporting a dynamic intersection for music, fashion, design and youth culture: an intersection that also contributed to create and spread different gender stereotypes. This general interest in fashion produced many exhibitions of and about fashion itself at major international venues such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Since then this celebrated success of fashion has been regarded as a typical element of postmodern culture. Owing to that I have also based my analysis on some important exhibitions dealing with gender performance like "Féminin-Masculin" at the Centre Pompidou of Paris (1995), "Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose. Gender performance in photography" at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of New York (1997), "Global Feminisms" at the Brooklyn Museum (2007), "Female Trouble" at the Pinakothek der Moderne in München together with the workshops dedicated to "Performance: gender and identity" in June 2005 at the Tate Modern of London. Since 2003 in Italy we have had Gender Bender - an international festival held annually in Bologna - to explore the gender imagery stemming from contemporary culture. In few days this festival offers a series of events ranging from visual arts, performance, cinema, literature to conferences and music. Being aware that any method of research is neither race nor gender neutral I have traced these critical paths to question gender identity in a multicultural perspective taking account of the political implications too. In fact, if visibility may be equated with exposure, we can also read these images as points of intersection of visibility with social power. Since gender assignations rely so heavily on the visual, the postmodern dismantling of gender certainty through performance has wide-ranging effects that need to be analyzed. In some sense this practice can even contest the dominance of visual within postmodernism. My visual map in contemporary art and fashion photography includes artists like Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, Hellen van Meene, Rineke Dijkstra, Ed Templeton, Ryan McGinley, Anne Daems, Miwa Yanagi, Tracey Moffat, Catherine Opie, Tomoko Sawada, Vanessa Beecroft, Yasumasa Morimura, Collier Schorr among others.

This paper uses an original database of 469 politically connected firms under the Mubarak regime in Egypt to explore the economic effects of close state-business relations. Previous research has shown that political connections are lucrative. The paper addresses several questions raised by this research. Do connected firms receive favorable regulatory treatment? They do: connected firms are more likely to benefit from trade protection, energy subsidies, access to land, and regulatory enforcement. Does regulatory capture account for the high value of connected firms? In the sample, regulatory capture as revealed by energy subsidies and trade protection account for the higher profits of politically connected firms. Do politically connected firms hurt aggregate growth? The paper identifies the growth effects of the entry of politically connected firms by comparing detailed 4-digit sectors where they entered, between 1996 and 2006, and sectors that remained unconnected. The entry of connected firms into new, modern, and previously unconnected sectors slows aggregate employment growth and skews the distribution of employment toward less productive, smaller firms.

The Ethiopia Investment Climate Program, managed by the World Bank Group's Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice aims at streamlining and simplifying high priority regulatory practices and processes burdensome to the private sector and address investment climate issues that are holding back investment and productivity growth in Ethiopia. This report presents a summary of the major findings about the business registration and licensing regime in Ethiopia and develops recommendations for streamlining and improving it. The report is based on an in-depth review of the country's more than 1,300 licenses; a detailed analysis at a sector level is presented in Annex three. This report consists of two main parts: in Chapter two, we present an estimate of the costs which the registration and licensing regime in Ethiopia imposes on the business sector in the country. Chapter three then presents the key findings and recommendations based on the detailed analysis of Ethiopia's licensing regime and implementation practice, the details of which are presented in the Inventory of Business Licenses. A brief concluding chapter summarizes the recommendations and provides an estimate of the positive effects which they could have both for businesses and Government.

Interventions designed to support small and medium enterprises are popular among policy makers, given the role small and medium enterprises play in job creation around the world. Business support interventions in low- and middle-income countries are often based on the assumption that market failures and institutional constraints impede the growth of small and medium enterprises. Significant resources from governments and international organizations are directed to small and medium enterprises to maximize their socioeconomic impact. Business-support interventions for small and medium enterprises in low- and middle-income countries most often relate to formalization and business environments, exports, value chains and clusters, training and technical assistance, and access to credit and innovation. Very little is known about the impact of such interventions despite the abundance of resources directed to small and medium enterprise business-support services. This paper systematically reviews and summarizes 40 rigorous evaluations of small and medium enterprise support services in low- and middle-income countries, and presents evidence to help inform policy debates. The study found indicative evidence that overall business-support interventions help improve firm performance and create jobs. However, little is still known about which interventions work best for small and medium enterprises and why. More rigorous impact evaluations are needed to fill the large knowledge gap in the field.

This post is from a set of comments I gave at the NBER Asset Pricing conference in early November at Stanford.  Conference agenda here. My full slides here. There was video, but sadly I took too long to write this post and the NBER took down the conference video. I was asked to comment on "Downward Nominal Rigidities and Bond Premia" by François Gourio  and Phuong Ngo. It's a very nice clean paper, so all I could think to do as discussant is praise it, then move on to bigger issues. These are really comments about whole literatures, not about one paper. One can admire the play but complain about the game. The paper implements a version of Bob Lucas' 1973 "International evidence" observation. Prices are less sticky in high inflation countries. The Phillips curve more vertical. Output is less affected by inflation. The Calvo fairy visits every night in Argentina. To Lucas, high inflation comes with variable inflation, so people understand that price changes are mostly aggregate not relative prices, and ignore them. Gourio and Ngo use a new-Keynesian model with downwardly sticky prices and wages to express the idea.  When inflation is low, we're more often in the more-sticky regime. They use this idea in a model of bond risk premia. Times of low inflation lead to more correlation of inflation and output, and so a different correlation of nominal bond returns with the discount factor, and a different term premium. I made two points, first about bond premiums and second about new-Keynesian models. Only the latter for this post. This paper, like hundreds before it, adds a few ingredients on top of a standard textbook new-Keynesian model. But that textbook model has deep structural problems. There are known ways to fix the problems. Yet we continually build on the standard model, rather than incorporate known ways or find new ways to fix its underlying problems. Problem 1: The sign is "wrong" or at least unconventional.The basic sign is wrong -- or at least counter to the standard belief of all policy makers. In the model, higher interest rates cause inflation to jump down immediately, and then rise over time. Everyone at the Fed uniformly believes that higher interest rates cause inflation to go nowhere immediately, and then gently decline over time, with "long and variable lags." Larry Ball pointed this out 30 years ago. The behavior comes straight from the forward-looking Phillips curve. Lower output goes with lower inflation, relative to future inflation. I.e. inflation rising over time. To be clear, maybe the model is right and the beliefs are wrong. It's amazing that so much modeling and empirical work has gone in to massaging theory and data to conform to Milton Friedman's 1968 proclamation of how monetary policy works. The "long and variable lags" in particular are a trouble to modern economics. If you know prices are going up tomorrow, you raise prices today. But that's for another day. This model does not behave the way most people think the economy behaves, so if you're going to use it, at least that needs a major asterisk.  Well, we know how to fix this. You can see that sneaking lagged inflation into the Phillips curve is going to be a big part of that.  Christiano Eichenbaum and Evans, 20  years ago, produced a widely cited model that "fixes" this problem. It has a lot of ingredients. Most of all, it assumes that wages and prices are indexed. Firms and workers that don't get tapped by the Calvo fairy to change their price or wage nonetheless raise by observed inflation. This gives a Phillips curve with lagged inflation. Moreover, in preferences, investment, and this Phillips curve, CEE modify the model to put growth rates in place of levels. (More review in a three part series on new-Keynesian models here.) The result: If the funds rate goes down (right panel) unexpectedly, inflation goes down just a bit but then turns around and goes up a year later. (Several other authors get to the same place by abandoning rational expectations. But that has its own problems, and it's going to be hard to incorporate asset pricing that way. Much more in Expectations and the Neutrality of Interest Rates) Great. But notice that neither Gourio and Pho nor pretty much anyone else builds on this model. We cite it, but don't use it. Instead, 20 more years of NK theorizing studies different extensions of the basic model, that don't solve the central conundrum. Problem 2: Fed induced explosionsThe standard new-Keynesian model says that if the Fed holds interest rates constant, inflation is stable -- will go away on its own -- but indeterminate. There are multiple equilibria. The standard new-Keynesian model thus assumes that the Fed deliberately destabilizes the economy. If inflation comes out more than the Fed wishes, the Fed will lead the economy to hyperinflation or hyper deflation. Under that threat, people jump to the inflation that the Fed wishes to see. But the Fed does no such thing.  Central bankers resolutely state that their job is to stabilize the economy, to bring inflation back from wherever it might go. Despite thousands of papers with new-Keynesian equations written at central banks, if anyone were ever to honestly describe those equations in the introduction, "we assume that the central bank is committed to respond to inflation by hyperinflation or deflation in order to select from multiple equilibria" they would be laughed out of a job. This has been clear, I think, since 2000 or so. I figured it out by reading Bob King's "Language and Limits." My  "Determinacy and Identification" in the JPE 2011 was all about this. We've also known at least one way to fix it, as shown: fiscal theory. OK, I'm a broken record on this topic. Instead, we go on with the same model and its underlying widely counterfactual assumption about policy. Problem 3: The fit is terribleA model consists of a set of equations, with the thing you want to determine (say, inflation) on the left, the economic causes described by the model on the right, plus "shocks," which are things your model can't capture. In the explanation part, there are parameters (\(\sigma, \ \beta, \ \kappa, \ \phi\)), that control how much the things on the right affect the things on the left. The fit of new-Keynesian models is usually terrible. In accounting for economic variables (\(x_t,\) \(\pi_t, \) \(i_t \) here), the error terms (\(\varepsilon\)) are much larger than the model's economic mechanisms (the \(x,\) \(\pi\) on the right hand side). Forecasts -- predicting  \(\pi\), \(x\) ahead of time -- is worse. For example, where did inflation come from and why did it go away? Expected inflation hasn't moved much, and the economy just plugged along. Most of the rise and fall of inflation came from inflation shocks.  Related, the fit of the models is about the same amount of terrible for different values of the parameters. That means the parameters are "poorly identified" if identified at all. That means that the mechanisms of the model -- say, how much higher interest rates lower output, and then how much lower output affects inflation -- are weak, and poorly understood. In part this isn't often noticed because we got out of the habit of evaluating models by fit in the 1980s. Most models are evaluated, as I showed above for CEE by matching select "identified" impulse response functions. But as those response functions also explain small variances of output and inflation, it's possible to match response functions well, yet still fit the data badly, i.e. fit the data only by adding big shocks to every equation. I don't know of good fixes here. Old fashioned ISLM models had similar problems (See Sims 1980). But it is a fact that we just ignore and go on. The Phillips curve is a central problem, which has only gotten worse lately. Unemployment was high and declining throughout the 2010s, with stable inflation. Inflation came with high unemployment in 2021. And inflation fell with no high real interest rates, no unemployment, and strong growth in 2022-2023. But what will replace it? So where are we?Macro is surprisingly un-cumulative. We start with a textbook model. People find some shortcomings and suggest a fix. But rather than incorporate that fix, the next paper adds a different fix to the same textbook  model. One would think we would follow the path on the right. We don't. We follow the path on the left. This is common in economics. The real business cycle literature followed much the same path. After the King Plosser Rebelo stochastic growth model became the standard, people spent a decade with one extension after another, each well motivated to fix a stylized fact. But by and large the next paper didn't build on the last one, but instead offered a new variation on the KPR model. Posteriors follow priors according to Bayes' rule, of course. So another way of putting the observation, people seem to put a pretty high prior on the original model, but don't trust the variations at all. I sin too. In Fiscal Theory of the Price Level  I married fiscal theory with the new-Keynsian IS and Phillips curve, exactly as above, despite problems #1 and #3. Well, it makes a lot of sense to change one ingredient at a time to see how a new theory works. I'm unhappy with the result, but I haven't been able to move on to a new and better textbook model, which is what has occasioned several of these related posts.  Wę need a digestion. Which of the new ingredients are reliable, robust, and belong as part of the new "textbook" model? That's not easy. Reliable and robust is very hard to find, and to persuade people. There are so many to choose from -- CEE's smorgasbord, capital, financial frictions, heterogeneous agents, different expectation formation stories, different pricing frictions,  and so on. What's the minimal easy set of these to use? Part of the trouble lies in how publishing works. It's nearly impossible to publish a paper that removes old ingredients, that digests the model down to a new textbook version. The rewards are to publishing papers that add new ingredients. Even if, like CEE, everyone cites them but doesn't use them. I've asked many economists why they build on a model with so many known problems, and why they don't include known fixes. (Not just fiscal theory!) The answer is usually, yes, I know about all these problems, but nobody will bother me about them since every other paper makes the same assumptions, and I need to get papers published.     I went on a bit of a tear here as I referee lots of great papers like this one. Every part of the paper is great, except it builds on a model with big flaws we've known about for 30 years. It feels unfair to complain about the underlying model, since the journal has published and will publish a hundred other papers. But at what point can we, collectively, scream "Stop!" The new-Keynesian model has been the standard model for an astonishing 30 years. None of ISLM, monetarism, rational expectations, or real business cycles lasted that long.  It's even more amazing that it is so unchanged in all this time. It is definitely time for a better textbook version of the model! Maybe this is a plea for Woodford, Gali or one of the other NK textbook authors, which much better command of all the variations than I have, to bless us a new textbook model. Or, perhaps it's time for something totally new. That's not fiscal theory per se. Fiscal theory is an ingredient, not a model.  You can marry it to new-Keynesian models, as I, Leeper, Sims, and others have done. But you can also marry it to old ISLM or anything else you want. Given the above, maybe there isn't an existing modification but a new start. I don't  know what that is. (My comments also have some similar comments about term premiums and how to think about them, but this post is long enough.) Update:Twitter correspondents Stéphane Surprenant and Tom Holden point me to The Transmission of Monetary Policy Shocks by Silvia Miranda-Agrippino Giovanni Ricco in the AEJ Macro, and Inflation, output and markup dynamics with purely forward-looking wage and price setters by Louis Phaneuf, Eric Sims, and Jean Gardy Victor in the European Economic Review. The former is a VAR with high frequency measurement of the monetary policy shock. And.. Source: Miranda-Agrippino and RiccoThe price level as well as the inflation rate can jump down immediately when the interest rate rises! (I think the graph plots the level of CPI, not growth rate.) That's even stronger than the baseline model in which the price level, being sticky, does not move, but the inflation rate jumps on the interest rate rise. The latter is a nice theoretical paper. It adds a lot of the CEE assumptions.  I overstated a great deal that others have not used these ingredients.  They are used in these "medium scale" models, just not in "textbook" models. However, it gets rid of indexed prices and wages with purely forward looking Phillips curves. It adds intermediate goods however. This makes prices changes work through the network of suppliers adding interesting dynamics, which has always struck me as a very important ingredient. And...Source: Phaneuf, Sims ,and VictorThe main estimate is the dark line. Here you see a model with the conventional response: inflation does not move on impact, and increases some time after the interest rate rise.  So, we can switch places! Estimates can replicate the conventional model, with an instant inflation response. Models can replicate the conventional estimates, with a slow inflation response. This one is much prettier than CEEs. 

Energy poverty is a global problem: access to energy services is crucial to meet basic household needs, deliver and access public services, and generate income. Less than 10 percent of Sub-Saharan (SSA) rural households have access to electricity, with an overall access rate below 25 percent. One of the main obstacles for SSA electrification practitioners is the difficulty in obtaining practical and timely knowledge on how to overcome economic, technical, institutional, and political barriers to electrification in their day-to-day work. Launched in 2008, the Africa Electrification Initiative (AEI) seeks to create and sustain a living body of practical knowledge and a network of SSA practitioners for the design, development, and implementation of rural, peri-urban, and urban on-grid and off-grid electrification programs. AEI supports the network by organizing workshops and promoting online discussions and knowledge exchanges on topics important for its members. The workshop set out to address a number of relevant electrification topics previously identified through in-depth discussions and ongoing knowledge exchanges among a growing network of SSA practitioners. The workshop's main focus was on ground-level implementation of different institutional approaches to electrification, with particular focus on the experiences of rural energy agencies/rural energy funds (REAs/REFs) across SSA. The workshop lasted two and a half days, comprising 21 sessions, including regular session panels and discussion clinics with a longer duration. It also featured exhibition space for posters submitted by participating institutions, an expo of approved lighting products from the lighting Africa program, and an awards ceremony to recognize the best papers submitted by SSA electrification practitioners in response to the AEI call for papers.

A whole generation goes by, and nothing changes for
Bossier Parish apparently playing fast and loose with the law when it comes to
squeezing money from the citizenry.

The Bossier
Watch transmission of Apr. 16 contained a couple of minutes of commentary
and video of a sign reading "VOTE SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024 BOSSIER PARISH
LIBRARIES" planted near a roadway. The hosts recounted they had seen some
around, although the exact location of this one was unknown. On that date is
the spring municipal runoff elections in Louisiana, where a 7.43 mils property
tax renewal to fund Bossier Parish libraries reengaging in 2026 for 10 years is
the one item that will appear on ballots parish-wide.

What follows is a reprint of a post
I made at my Louisiana-centric blog site, Between the Lines, on Dec. 30, 2010
that reviewed events of four years previous. (Keep in mind nearly 18 years ago
that the Arthur Ray Teague Parkway stopped at the southern end of the
now-Brookshire Grocery Arena). It's amazing how little things (and people
involved) change:

As 2011 approaches and observing that Bossier
Parish seems to have no difficulty, even in trying economic times, in finding
money to service road construction, as well as reviewing the past year and
digesting the renewed enthusiasm that the people have acquired courtesy of
over-reaching national government to monitor the activities of government, it
makes me think back some years ago about an object lesson concerning how
government operates. The specific example is Bossier Parish's, and the apparent
whimsy of situation might amuse save for the unsettling consequences implied
had things turned out differently.

Perhaps somebody remembers in the days leading up
to the 2006 fall elections that a sign touting an affirmative vote for Bossier
Parish raising property taxes essentially threefold, at what was then the
southern end of the Arthur Ray Teague Parkway, was moved a short distance away
only a few days before that election. Blame me for the consternation.

I first noticed the sign on Sep. 21 and became
simultaneously curious and concerned. It didn't state who sponsored it, and it
was in a spot I thought might be part of the public right-of-way, and certainly
was on public property (Bossier City's). Obviously, it was an attempt to
encourage passage of the measure which should bring pause to anyone who
believes in fairness by government: Bossier City was permitting a pro-vote
sign, supporting a Bossier Parish measure which would enrich the parish coffers
by $2 million a year, to be placed on its property, regardless of whether its
citizens supported such a measure.

According to the Unified Development Code for both
the city and parish, this is permissible under certain circumstances. Article
9 Section 10 states: "Temporary signs containing no commercial message and
related to an election or other event or matter of public interest may be
erected in any zoning district of the city or parish but not within the public
right-of-way." Note, however, that the Code does not mention placement on
government property.

After a couple of phone calls I got hold of Parish
Engineer Joe "Butch" Ford, who said a private entity had put up the
sign (and a similar one elsewhere). At least no government was using taxpayer
dollars to try to influence its citizens voting behavior. Still, apparently it
was on city property and the right-of-way question he couldn't answer, so on I
called the Bossier City engineer to find out the answer to the latter.

He took time out of his busy day to relay to me
that the public right-of-way extended to the back side of the barricade
blocking the end of the pavement (about 25 feet from the roadway). However, the
sign was located on the front side of the barricade, meaning it was in the
public right-of-way and therefore illegally placed.

I then placed another call to the Metropolitan
Planning Commission (I had placed one the day before but, like the call to
Ford, had been close to the end of the workday and, unlike the one to him, was
not answered). The employee there said they would deal with the situation, once
I informed him of it. Since this was early Friday afternoon, I didn't know
whether anything would happen before the weekend.

Early the next Monday, now five days prior to the
election, I got a call from the Bossier MPC director Sam Marsiglia, who said it
was legal to have the sign there because "it's a public sign." He alleged that
a government had put it there, and that was legal. I informed him that the
parish engineer had said otherwise and tried to explain that wouldn't look very
good if a government was using taxpayer dollars to sway their votes so a
government wouldn't do that, but he was insistent and said I should call Parish
Administrator Bill Altimus about the matter.

I had duties to attend to so it was about 20
minutes later that I dialed Altimus. He cheerfully informed me the sign would
be moved. As soon as I hung up, Marsiglia called, saying it would be moved to
the Reeves Marine property (adjacent east of the barricades) and to check back
with him if it wasn't done. (It would have been out of the right-of-way simply
by moving it behind the barricades but would have remained on city property.)

This, I might add, is simply wonderfully
neighborly behavior by the city and parish and Reeves Marine. Silly me, I
thought whenever illegal campaign signs were discovered they either were
destroyed or confiscated to a location where their owners could liberate them.
Instead, not only were the interests behind the sign being allowed to move it,
within only minutes of being informed of that necessity Reeves Marine
graciously volunteered to host the sign. What a friendly place! Future
candidates for office, now you know, if you place a sign on Bossier City
property and/or illegally, it won't be destroyed or removed, they'll let you
move it, maybe even to Reeves Marine. (If you ask nicely, maybe they'll even
move it for you!)

(Note: in a subsequent communication, even Bossier
City elected officials seemed confused over the incident. At my request, city
councilman Scott Irwin wrote to Mayor Lo Walker, whose office's reply did not
even discuss the legal issue and did not address the propriety of an
electioneering sign on city property, adding "With your concurrence I will
consider this ITEM CLOSED." Maybe not; maybe this issue of propriety is
something that ought to be addressed by the city.)

Regardless of the sign's position (or of any
others; there were several other similar ones touting the bond issue around the
parish), the proposition narrowly failed. It took one concerned citizen to make
the system work properly regarding the sign. Sep. 30, 2006, it took a majority
of concerned citizens voting to make the Bossier Parish Police Jury see the
truth that it didn't need to raise taxes to make sure the parkway was extended
expeditiously and, even with deteriorated economic conditions, then to proceed
to fulfill the other projects that had argued could be completed only with the
increased taxation.

And confirmation of this came earlier this month,
when the extension to the Parkway opened (through where the sign originally had
been) without the extra tax dollars having gone into its construction. Lesson:
watch government very closely lest it take what it does not need nor deserve
from the people.

And now to 2024 … the sign displayed on Bossier
Watch seemed awfully close to the road, meaning it's in the right-of-way, and
the Bossier UDC hasn't changed since making that placement illegal. Thus, it would
be incumbent on either the parish or whatever municipality may have such signs to
remove these.

And where are they coming from? Campaign
finance disclosure law would mandate that any political committee spending
money on electioneering at this date close to the election would had to have
filed a report about the expenditure for signs. None has, meaning either some
PAC somewhere illegally hasn't reported this or no registered PAC has done it.
That leads to a loophole in the law (R.S. 18:1501.1): any person who spends in
opposition or support of a candidate or ballot item must report that – unless
the aggregate contributions and expenses involved don't exceed $500. It is possible
that, if there are few enough of these signs, that their cost didn't exceed
that figure, and that someone or a few people got together and did that.

So, the public never may know who is doing this, and
what their potential relationship is to Bossier Parish's government and libraries.
In fact, it may be quite close, given the wording of the sign which ambiguously
doesn't advocate for or against the ballot item. It merely exhorts the viewer
to vote on that day and slips in "BOSSIER PARISH LIBRARIES." By doing this, if
discovered government employees actually were involved, the parish could claim
it wasn't electioneering but merely informing the public there was an election
on Saturday, Apr. 27.

Of course, the signs' presentation implies something
critical about libraries will appear on the ballot and, further, people should vote
in whatever manner available to support libraries. After all, who is against libraries?

If anybody in Bossier Parish government knows
about this, they need to go public. At the very least, parish government must remove
any such signs on public rights-of-way; tolerance of this denotes acceptance
not only of illegal behavior but also endorsement of a political preference.
And state lawmakers would do well to clarify statute to make it expressly
illegal for any government to spend any dollars to electioneer, even if in a
manner that doesn't explicitly advocate for or against something on the ballot.
Because when it comes to gorging themselves on taxpayer dollars, government
will try any dodge available to keep other peoples' money rolling in.

El IV Seminario Internacional de Práctica Pedagógica - ISPP 2021 es una apuesta académica que surgió desde la Facultad de Educación, Artes y Humanidades de la Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander, para convocar a docentes de todos los niveles y campos de conocimiento con el fin de fortalecer el proceso de enseñanza a través de prácticas pedagógicas que garantizan el aprendizaje. El congreso ofrece los siguientes temas: Educación, Pedagogía y Didáctica; Gestión educativa; Ciencias Naturales, Enseñanza y Aplicaciones (Física Biológica, Física Química y Química Física, Ciencias Computacionales, Educación y Comunicación, Física Matemática); Calidad de educación; Práctica pedagógica y formación del profesorado; Matemáticas, Estadística y Educación Matemática; Educación y Sociedad.Debido a la situación actual de aislamiento preventivo y la normativa establecida por el gobierno en cuanto a la realización de eventos masivos, se propone realizar un evento híbrido el cual tendrá algunas presentaciones (limitadas y definidas por el Comité Organizador que también serán transmitidas vía internet) que cumplen con los estándares de bioseguridad y el resto será transmitido de forma sincronizada a través de internet por los distintos canales de comunicación disponibles como Facebook, Youtube, entre otros. Este será un espacio de formación y cooperación académica que surgirá como escenario para la construcción, ; TABLA DE CONTENIDO Pág. CONFERENCIAS CENTRALES . DESARROLLO DEL CONOCIMIENTO PRÁCTICO COMO MEDIADOR DE LA PRÁCTICA PEDAGÓGICA LOS RESULTADOS DE APRENDIZAJE: LIMITACIONES Y POSIBILIDADES HACIA UNAS PRÁCTICAS PEDAGÓGICAS POST-PANDEMIA INNOVACIÓN EN EDUCACIÓN Y LA DOCENCIA . UNA MIRADA EN EL ESPEJO: PRÁCTICA PEDAGÓGICA Y EDUCAPITAL EVALUACIÓN FORMATIVA-COMPARTIDA PARA EL APRENDIZAJE PRÁCTICAS PEDAGÓGICAS EN EDUCACIÓN DE JOVENES Y ADULTOS (EDJA): UNA MIRADA DESDE LA EDUCACIÓN POPULAR CONVERSATORIO. TRADUTTORE-TRADITORE: LA CUESTIÓN DE LA (IM) PERTINENCIA DEL ANÁLISIS ACADÉMICO DE RELATOS DE EXPERIENCIA DOCENTE CONFERENCIAS CALIDAD DE LA EDUCACIÓN. ANÁLISIS DE LAS CONDICIONES MOTIVACIONALES Y PSICOSOCIALES Y SU INCIDENCIA SOBRE EL DESEMPEÑO DEL DOCENTE DE UNA INSTITUCIÓN UNIVERSITARIA DE LA CIUDAD DE BOGOTÁ RESULTADOS DE APRENDIZAJE DE UN PROGRAMA ACADÉMICO DEL ÁREA DE LAS CIENCIAS COMPUTACIONALES EN EL CONTEXTO DEL MODELO DE ASEGURAMIENTO DE LA CALIDAD DE COLOMBIA GESTIÓN CURRICULAR EN LA NUEVA RURALIDAD DISEÑO GRÁFICO: EL CURRÍCULUM Y LA FORMACIÓN PROFESIONAL EN EL CONTEXTO DE LA EDUCACIÓN SUPERIOR. UN ANÁLISIS EN AMÉRICA LATINA Y ESPAÑA REFLEXIONES SOBRE LOS DESAFÍOS DE LA EVALUACIÓN EN DISEÑO GRÁFICO DIAGNOSTICO DE LAS COMPETENCIAS TIC ESTUDIANTES DE UN PROGRAMA DE SALUD PROPUESTA MODELO EVALUACIÓN DE RESULTADOS DE APRENDIZAJE EN CONTEXTOS POSTGRADUALES CONFERENCIAS PRÁCTICA PEDAGÓGICA Y FORMACIÓN DEL MAESTRO PRÁCTICAS FORMATIVAS DE LAS DANZAS TRADICIONALES DEL CONTEXTO A LA ESCUELA METODOLOGÍA PING PONG COMO EXPERIENCIA DE ENSEÑANZA PARA CONECTAR AL DOCENTE CON EL ESTUDIANTE ESTRATEGIAS DIDÁCTICAS PARA EL FORTALECIMIENTO DE LOS CONCEPTOS BASE DEL PENSAMIENTO ESPACIAL Y GEOMÉTRICO EN GRADO QUINTO DE PRIMARIA REPRESENTACIONES SOCIALES DE LOS DOCENTES DE LA UNIVERSIDAD FRANCISCO DE PAULA SANTANDER A SU PRÁCTICA DOCENTE EVALUACIÓN DE LAS PRÁCTICAS PEDAGÓGICAS DESDE LOS ACTORES DE LA LICENCIATURA EN CIENCIAS NATURALES Y EDUCACIÓN AMBIENTAL, UNIVERSIDAD DE CÓRDOBA-COLOMBIA. HUELLAS Y NUEVOS CAMINOS PREGUNTAR Y PREGUNTARSE: EXPLORACIONES EN TORNO A LA PREGUNTA EN LA INTERACCIÓN DIDÁCTICA DISEÑO DE MODELO DE FORMACIÓN DOCENTE PARA EL DEPARTAMENTO DE CIENCIAS NATURALES Y EDUCACIÓN AMBIENTAL. UNIVERSIDAD DE CÓRDOBA REFLEXIONES DOCENTES DE LA RELACIÓN PRÁCTICA PEDAGÓGICA Y LA INVESTIGACIÓN. EL CASO DE LA LICENCIATURA EN CIENCIAS NATURALES Y EDUCACIÓN AMBIENTAL, UNIVERSIDAD DE CÓRDOBA-COLOMBIA LA PRÁCTICA PEDAGÓGICA INVESTIGATIVA: UN ENFOQUE INTERDISCIPLINAR EN LA ENSEÑANZA DE CIENCIAS NATURALES Y EDUCACIÓN AMBIENTAL DESDE LA REALIDAD TEÓRICO-PRÁCTICA SISTEMATIZACIÓN DE EXPERIENCIA INVESTIGATIVA SOBRE MODELOS PEDAGÓGICOS CON MAESTROS EN FORMACIÓN CARACTERIZACIÓN DE LAS ESTRATEGIAS DIDÁCTICAS IMPLEMENTADAS EN NIÑOS CON DÉFICIT AUDITIVO PARA EL DESARROLLO DE LA COMPETENCIA MATEMÁTICA-RESOLUCIÓN DE PROBLEMAS LA PRÁCTICA PEDAGÓGICA: UN EJERCICIO DE CONSTRUCCIÓN CONCEPTUAL ENTRE MAESTROS EN FORMACIÓN ESTRATEGIAS PARA LA INTEGRACIÓN DEL JUEGO EN LA ENSEÑANZA DE LAS MATEMÁTICAS Y SU INFLUENCIA EN EL APRENDIZAJE CONCEPCIONES SOBRE EVALUACIÓN EN MATEMÁTICAS DE DOCENTES EN FORMACIÓN LAS REPRESENTACIONES SOCIALES DE LOS DOCENTES SOBRE LA EVALUACIÓN DEL APRENDIZAJE Y EL PENSAMIENTO COMPLEJO . PENSAR LA EDUCACIÓN INICIAL DESDE LA EXPERIENCIA: APROXIMACIONES AL ESTADO DEL ARTE DESEMPEÑO DE LOS ESTUDIANTES EN EL PROCESO DE ENSEÑANZA APRENDIZAJE TRADICIONAL EN EL DESARROLLO DE LAS ECUACIONES LINEALES 2X2 TECNOACADEMIA CÚCUTA-SENA COMO DESARROLADOR DE PRÁCTICAS PEDAGÓGICAS BASADAS EN METODOLOGÍA STEM EN TECNOLOGÍA, INNOVACIÓN E INDUSTRIA 4.0 LA REGULACIÓN ESTATAL DE LA FORMACION CIUDADANA EN LA ESCUELA DIÁLOGOS INTERCRÍTICOS ENTRE EL SABER PEDAGÓGICO Y EL CURRÍCULO MODELOS PEDAGÓGICOS Y FACTORES IDENTITARIOS DE LAS PRÁCTICAS DE ENSEÑANZA EN CONTEXTOS EMERGENTES PRÁCTICAS PEDAGÓGICAS, FORMACIÓN DEL MAESTRO Y EDUCACIÓN INCLUSIVA EN DOS INSTITUCIONES EDUCATIVAS DE NORTE DE SANTANDER, COLOMBIA CONFERENCIAS DIDÁCTICA DE LAS CIENCIAS NATURALES Y SUS APLICACIONES INVESTIGACIÓN GUIADA, OPORTUNIDAD DIDÁCTICA EN LOS PROFESORES DE CIENCIAS LA IMPORTANCIA DEL ANÁLISIS DE LA OBRA ARQUITECTÓNICA EN LA ENSEÑANZA DE LA ARQUITECTURA. EL MUSEO DE ARTE CONTEMPORÁNEO NITERÓI DE OSCAR NIEMEYER INCIDENCIA DE LA GAMIFICACIÓN EMPLEADA EN UN CURSO VIRTUAL DE ESTEQUIOMETRÍA, EN ESTUDIANTES DE EDUCACION MEDIA ANALYSIS OF LINEAR AND NON-LINEAR EFFECTS IN THE FREQUENCY DOMAIN FOR A 10 GBPS THREE-CHANNEL OPTICAL TRANSMISSION SYSTEM DESARROLLO DE UN LABORATORIO VIRTUAL DE UN BANCO DE PRUEBAS DE MOTORES UTILIZANDO MATLAB PARA EL APRENDIZAJE Y LA ENSEÑANZA EN EL ENTORNO EDUCATIVO PORTAFOLIO DIGITAL: UNA HERRAMIENTA PARA EL APRENDIZAJE DE LAS CIENCIAS NATURALES ANALYSIS OF EMOTIONAL SIGNALS FROM A MOBILE APPLICATION SOFTWARE DEVELOPER THROUGH A BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACE IMPLEMENTACIÓN DEL USO DE LA PLATAFORMA MOODLE EN LA ENSEÑANZA DE PATOLOGÍA MÉDICA COMO UNA DE LAS ESTRATEGIAS DE APRENDIZAJE SIGNIFICATIVO POR MEDIO DE LA APROPIACIÓN DE LAS TIC EN LA UNIVERSIDAD DE PAMPLONA, NORTE DE SANTANDER LABORATORIO REMOTO PARA LA IDENTIFICACIÓN DE MATERIALES POLIMÉRICOS POR MEDIO DE ANÁLISIS DE PROPIEDADES FÍSICAS USO DE VIDEO TUTORIALES PARA EL APRENDIZAJE DE LAS LEYES DE NEWTON EN ESTUDIANTES UNIVERSITARIOS ACTITUDES HACIA LAS CIENCIAS NATURALES EN ESTUDIANTES DE EDUCACIÓN MEDIA EN EL CONTEXTO COLOMBIANO SOLUCIÓN TECNOLÓGICA PARA ASISTIR EL APRENDIZAJE EN EL ÁREA DE ROBÓTICA PARALELA APRENDIZAJE DE LAS CIENCIAS NATURALES BASADO EN EL USO MAPAS CONCEPTUALES REGISTROS SEMIÓTICOS DE REPRESENTACIÓN PROMOCIONADOS POR EL DOCENTE DE FÍSICA EN SU PROCESO PEDAGÓGICO DE ENSEÑANZA APORTES PARA LA HUMANIZACIÓN DE LA ENSEÑANZA DE LAS CIENCIAS EN EL CONTEXTO AXIOLÓGICO DE LA ACTIVIDAD CIENTÍFICA FUNDAMENTOS FILOSÓFICOS Y EPISTEMOLÓGICOS PARA LA ENSEÑANZA DE LA FÍSICA CUÁNTICA EN EDUCACIÓN MEDIA DESDE EL MÉTODO NARRATIVO DISEÑO DE UNA SECUENCIA DIDÁCTICA PARA LA ENSEÑANZA, APRENDIZAJE Y EVALUACIÓN DEL CONCEPTO MODELO ATÓMICO Y LA INTERPRETACIÓN DE LA NATURALEZA DISCONTINUA Y CORPUSCULAR DE LA MATERIA IMPLEMENTACIÓN DE UN LABORATORIO REMOTO PARA LA IDENTIFICACIÓN DE MATERIALES POLIMÉRICOS POR MEDIO DE ANÁLISIS DE PROPIEDADES FÍSICA COMPRENSIÓN DEL MOVIMIENTO EN UN CURSO INTRODUCTORIO DE FÍSICA A NIVEL SUPERIOR DURANTE LA PANDEMIA DEBIDO A COVID- 19 LA INGENIERÍA DIDÁCTICA EN LA ENSEÑANZA DE LA FÍSICA. CONFERENCIAS EDUCACIÓN Y SOCIEDAD SOCIOESTÉTICA CIUDADANA EN EL PACTO DE CONVIVENCIA ESCOLAR IMPLEMENTACIÓN DE APRENDIZAJE INTEGRADO BASADO EN PROYECTOS PARA LA ENSEÑANZA DE INSTRUMENTACIÓN VIRTUAL EN LA EDUCACIÓN SUPERIOR EL APRENDIZAJE Y ENSEÑANZA DE LA LECTOESCRITURA MUSICAL CON ESTUDIANTES DE EDUCACIÓN PRIMARIA MEDIADA POR TIC EN MEDIO DE LA PANDEMIA DEBIDO A LA COVID-19 IMPORTANCIA DE LA CONSTRUCCIÓN DE PAZ DESDE LOS DOCENTES DEL CATATUMBO IMPACTO DE LAS TECNOLOGÍAS DE LA INFORMACIÓN Y LA COMUNICACIÓN EN EL PROCESO DE ENSEÑANZA DURANTE EL COVID-19 ADQUISICIÓN Y ANÁLISIS DEL NIVEL DE ESTRÉS DE UN DOCENTE UNIVERSITARIO EMPLEANDO HERRAMIENTAS TECNOLÓGICAS DE BAJO COSTO 4 LA INNOVACIÓN Y LA SOSTENIBILIDAD EN LA PEDAGOGÍA DE LA INGENIERÍA EN TIEMPOS DE PANDEMIA PEDAGOGÍA EN EL SECTOR TRANSPORTE PARA LOGRAR LA APROPIACIÓN DE LOS PROCEDIMIENTOS DE TRABAJO SEGURO EDUCACIÓN Y ALTERIDAD: ANÁLISIS DE LAS PROPUESTAS TEÓRICAS DE C. SKLIAR DISEÑO METODOLÓGICO PARA UN GRUPO FOCAL DE PROFESORES DE MATEMÁTICAS DE EDUCACIÓN BÁSICA Y MEDIA TENDENCIAS CURRICULARES Y DE INVESTIGACIÓN EN LOS PROGRAMAS DE COMUNICACIÓN SOCIAL Y PERIODISMO EN NORTEAMÉRICA. ANÁLISIS DESDE LA BIBLIOMETRÍA CONFERENCIAS MATEMÁTICAS, ESTADÍSTICA Y EDUCACIÓN MATEMÁTICA COMPARACIÓN DE LOS MÉTODOS ANALÍTICOS Y LOS MÉTODOS NUMÉRICOS EN EL MODELAMIENTO DEL FENÓMENO FÍSICO DE CONDUCCIÓN DE CALOR CON LA PRESENCIA DE LA RADIACIÓN LIBRE MODELAMIENTO DEL FENÓMENO DEL TRANSPORTE DE CALOR MEDIANTE EL USO DE LAS ECUACIONES DE LA FÍSICA MATEMÁTICA MODELAMIENTO DEL FENÓMENO FÍSICO DE GENERACIÓN DE CALOR MEDIANTE LAS ECUACIONES DIFERENCIALES PARCIALES ENSEÑANZA DE LA TEORÍA DE LAS MATRICES CON APLICACIONES A LAS ECUACIONES DIFERENCIALES UNA MIRADA DESDE LA METODOLOGÍA INVESTIGATIVA DE LAS DIFICULTADES EN EL PROCESO DE ENSEÑANZA -APRENDIZAJE DE LAS MATEMÁTICAS ACTIVIDAD DE ESTUDIO E INVESTIGACIÓN PARA LA ENSEÑANZA DE LA CODIFICACIÓN DE MENSAJES, MEDIANTE PRAXEOLOGÍAS DEL ÁLGEBRA LINEAL ; ORGANIZAN Facultad de Educación, Artes y Humanidades ; COMITÉ ORGANIZADOR MSc. Raúl Prada Núñez (Director Ejecutivo) MSc. César Augusto Hernández Suárez (Coordinador General) Dr. Audin Aloiso Gamboa Suárez (Coordinador Académico) MSc. Betty Julieth Villabona (Coordinador Logístico) MSc. Erika Maldonado (Apoyo Institucional) Dr. Jesús Ernesto Urbina Cárdenas (Apoyo Institucional) ; COMITÉ CIENTÍFICO INTERNACIONAL Dr. Tomás Izquierdo Rus – Universidad de Murcia (España) Dr. Raquel Fernández Cézar - Universidad Castilla La Mancha (España) Dr. Martha Vergara Fregoso - Universidad de Guadalajara (México) Dr. Horacio Aldemar Ferreira - Universidad Católica de Córdoba (Argentina) Dr. Javier Rodríguez Moreno - Universidad de Jaén (España) Dr. Alicia Inés Villa - Universidad Nacional de la Plata (Argentina) Dr. Alex Javier Montes Miranda - Instituto de Formación Docente (República Domini ; COMITÉ CIENTÍFICO NACIONAL Dr. José Arlés Gómez Arévalo - Fundación Universitaria Juan N. Corpas (Colombia) Dr. Gustavo Adolfo Marmolejo - Universidad de Nariño (Colombia) Dr. Diego Fernando Barragán Giraldo - Universidad de la Salle (Colombia) Dr. Oscar Leonardo Mosquera - Escuela Militar de Cadetes-Ejercito Nacional (Colombia) Dr. Juan Gabriel Bastida Martínez - Universidad Católica (Colombia) Dr. Cecilia Garzón Daza - Fundación San Martín (Colombia) Dr. Sulgey Bolivia Caicedo - Universidad de Pamplona (Colombia) Dr. Jesús Ernesto Urbina Cárdenas - Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander (Colombia) Dr. William Ricardo Avendaño Castro - Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander (Colombia)

Over the last twenty years, there has been a large increase both in terms of number of interconnected hosts and in terms of link capacities. At the beginning of the ARPANET in 1969, more than forty years ago, there were four nodes, all located in the USA and connected with a link speed of 50 kilobits per second. In 1986, when the NSFNET, the network of the US universities, was created, the number of hosts was over a few thousands, but the backbone links' speeds were still of 56 kilobits per second. From that moment on, the growth in number of interconnected hosts and in link capacity has been exponential, thanks to the success of popular applications like the WWW and technological advances like SDH, SONET or DWDM in the fiber optics networks domain or like ATM and the DSL technologies derived from it. The current-day Internet interconnects billions of users (half a billion hosts in late 2006) all around the world, has a cumulated core links speed over several Terabits per second and access links up to 10 Gbps. Another fundamental technological change is also that nowadays, access links start having speeds in the same order of magnitude as the backbone link's speed. For instance, it is common to find data centers where the nodes are interconnected with 1 Gbps or 10 Gbps links and have a connection to the outside with a similar speed. This change is important as only a few connections would be necessary to cause saturation in the backbone. This situation is likely to spread as DSL technologies are gradually replaced by Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH). 5 Mbps connections aggregated on OC48 (2.5 Gbps) links will then be replaced by 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps links aggregated over 10 Gbps links or less depending on the actual optical technology used in the access network. In such environments, high congestion levels might not be rare and might cause disruption to high-end applications. Lots of promising applications have emerged and would benefit from this increase in capacity like Video On Demand (VoD) that allows end-users to host their own high-definition movie entertainment whenever they want or scientific experiments that gather huge volumes of data (e.g. LHC) that need to be transported to computational facilities scattered all around the globe. The interaction of users with remote objects through the use of communication networks, also known as Telepresence, starts to have a paramount role in a variety of domains ranging from medical or military applications to space exploration. But these applications are still built on top of the very successful softwares or protocols like TCP and IP that were designed a long time ago for a context of low-speed networks. Their design was dictated by one goal: providing a robust and fair interconnection between existing networks. Now put in a high-speed networks context, these extremely robust and scalable protocols are still able to deliver but they are starting to show their limits in terms of performance, security, functionalities and flexibility. The most typical example is the quasi ``one-size-fits-all'' TCP protocol at the transport layer. This protocol was designed to provide a connection-oriented ``virtual circuit'' service for applications like remote login or file transfer. These two applications have two nearly conflicting sets of requirements: the first one needs a low delay and has low requirements for bandwidth while the second one mostly requires high bandwidth. Both require reliable transmissions. TCP was designed as a ``one-size-fits-all'' protocol but as the capacity of the links increased in the wired networks, as the intrinsic characteristics changed for the wireless networks and as the application requirements diverged, TCP is no longer able to scale up in performance. Multiple solutions have been proposed over time, but today's protocol designers have a large disadvantage over those forty years ago: making four similar computers interact is not exactly the same thing as designing a communicating software or protocol fit to be used by billions of vastly heterogeneous computers. Introducing change in a system of such a scale is problematic: it makes it very improbable to make a complete overnight migration of every element in the network, especially if it requires an upgrade of all physical equipments. Thus the change can only be gradual and as software updates in the end-hosts at the very edge of the networks, as it would be easier than changing core hardware elements. The fear to see congestion collapse events in the Internet as in the late 80s is coming back. Caused by too much traffic on crowded links leading to poor performance for everybody over long periods of time, it had advocated for the introduction of a congestion control mechanism in the transport protocol. If the new solutions are behaving selfishly when sharing the common resources (the links), this fear is grounded. It is then necessary to provide ways to assert if a given solution has the appropriate properties before allowing it to roam freely over a large-scale shared system. ; Au cours des vingt dernières années, c'est une évolution très rapide non seulement en termes de nombre d'éléments inter-connectés mais surtout en termes de capacités des liens qui a pu être constatée au sein des réseaux de communications. A la création du réseau ARPANET en 1969, il y a plus de quarante ans, quatre ordinateurs, tous situés aux États-Unis étaient connectés avec des liens avec un débit de 50 kilobits par seconde. En 1986, à la création du réseau des universités américaines, le NSFNET, le nombre de machines dépassait déjà plusieurs milliers mais le débit des liens de coeur était encore de 56 kilobits par seconde. A partir de ce moment, la croissance à la fois en termes de nombre d'éléments inter-connectés et de capacités des liens a été exponentielle, grâce au succès de nouvelles applications populaires comme le WWW ou les avancées technologiques comme SDH, SONET ou DWDM dans le domaine des réseaux de fibres optiques et ATM et les protocoles DSL qui en dérivent. L'Internet actuel interconnecte des milliards d'utilisateurs (un demi-milliard de machines fin 2006) répartis partout dans le monde, pouvant utiliser des liens de coeur dont les débits cumulés sont supérieurs à plusieurs Térabits par seconde et dont les liens d'accès peuvent atteindre jusqu'à 10 Gigabits par seconde. Une autre évolution technologique fondamentale est que, aujourd'hui, certains liens d'accès ont des débits du même ordre de grandeur que les débits des liens de coeur auxquels ils sont connectés. Il est aujourd'hui courant de trouver des fermes de serveurs où les noeuds sont interconnectés avec des liens à 1 Gbps ou 10 Gbps et qui ont une connexion vers l'extérieur avec un débit similaire. Cette modification est importante car désormais quelques connexions suffisent à provoquer une saturation des liens de coeur. Cette situation risque d'empirer au fur et à mesure du remplacement des technologies DSL par la Fibre-Jusqu'à-La-Maison (FTTH). Des connexions à 5 Mbps agrégées sur des liens OC48 (2.5 Gbps) vont alors être remplacées par des connexions à 100 Mbps, voire 1 Gbps, agrégées sur des liens à 10 Gbps, voire moins suivant la technologie optique utilisée sur le réseau d'accès. Il est fort probable que dans de tels environnements des niveaux de congestion élevés ne soient pas rares, engendrant des perturbations pour de nombreuses applications. Un grand nombre d'applications prometteuses ont émergé et pourraient bénéficier de capacités de communication accrues, comme par exemple la Vidéo-à-la-Demande (VoD) qui permet aux utilisateurs de regarder des films en haute définition chez eux quand ils le désirent ou les expériences scientifiques générant des quantités massives de données (comme le LHC) qui doivent être acheminées dans des centres de calcul répartis tout autour du globe. L'interaction d'utilisateurs avec des objets distants via un réseau de communication ou Téléprésence commence également à prendre un rôle prépondérant dans de nombreux domaines allant du médical au militaire en passant par l'exploration spatiale. Mais ces applications sont encore construites au dessus de logiciels ou de protocoles à succès comme TCP et IP, conçus il y a longtemps pour un contexte de réseaux bas-débit. Le conception était dirigé par un but principal: fournir une interconnexion robuste entre des réseaux existants. Plongés maintenant dans un contexte de réseaux très haut-débit, ces protocoles extrêmement robustes et capables de passer à l'échelle sont toujours en activité mais commencent à montrer leurs limites en termes de performance, sécurité, fonctionnalités et flexibilité. L'exemple le plus typique est TCP au niveau de la couche de transport. TCP a été conçu comme un protocole ``à tout faire'' mais à mesure que la capacité des liens augmente dans les réseaux fixes, que les caractéristiques intrinsèques changent pour les réseaux sans fils et que les besoins des applications divergent, TCP n'est plus capable de permettre une utilisation performante pour tous des capacités nominales des liens du réseau. De nombreuses solutions ont été proposées, mais les concepteurs de protocoles d'aujourd'hui ont un large désavantage par rapport à ceux d'il y a quarante ans. Faire fonctionner ensemble quatre machines identiques n'est pas exactement pareil que concevoir un logiciel de communication ou protocole susceptible d'être utilisé entre des milliards de machines hétérogènes. Apporter du changement dans un système d'une telle ampleur est problématique: il n'est pas possible d'envisager une migration massive du jour au lendemain surtout si des équipements physiques sont concernés. Le changement ne peut être que graduel et via des mises à jour logicielles dans les hôtes d'extrémité. La peur d'un effondrement de l'Internet dû à la congestion comme à la fin des années 80 resurgit. Causés par une surabondance de trafic réseau sur des liens saturés, ces troubles ont mis en avant la nécessité d'introduire un mécanisme de contrôle de congestion dans les protocoles de transport. Si les nouvelles solutions introduites se comportent de façon égoïste quand elles partagent une ressource commune (un lien), alors cette peur est fondée. Il est donc nécessaire de fournir des moyens de vérifier si une solution donnée possède les propriétés adéquates avant de l'introduire dans un système partagé à très large échelle.

Reality shows cast relatively diverse groups with the intention of seeing whether conflict or harmony will result. Success in reality competitions is often achieved through the development of alliances and strategic relationships and the process by which these unions form can be sociologically fascinating to watch. Yet, sociology, in method and theory, has rarely been applied to the analysis of reality television. This is not to say that reality television has not been examined academically. In fact, there is a growing body of research, primarily conducted by communication studies scholars, that takes this type of television seriously. Thus, there is a foundation for teaching the sociology of reality television and excellent resources for doing so.Author recommendsAndrejevic, Mark 2004. Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.This book was one of the first monographs on reality television. Andrejevic looks at the significance of the 'digital era' and the idea of how genres like reality television encourage interactivity. He was able to interview cast members of reality programs and analyze their experiences, a body of data not available elsewhere. Also, Andrejevic discusses multiple shows including Survivor, The Real World, and Big Brother.Brenton, Sam and Reuben Cohen 2003. Shooting People: Adventures in Reality TV. London, UK: Verso.Although not a piece of scholarly research, this book would be useful in a course on reality television or new media as it raises questions regarding ethics in the genre and it is also very readable and engaging. Brenton and Cohen discuss underpublicized controversial episodes in reality television production and ask at what cost to society and participants are these shows made. They ponder the future of reality television and where and when lines will be drawn as to what is too invasive or private or inhumane to be broadcast.Dubrofsky, Rachel 2006. 'The Bachelor: Whiteness in the Harem.'Critical Studies in Media Communication 23: 39–56.Dubrofsky looks at depictions of race and gender on the reality dating show The Bachelor. She notes how shows like this privilege whiteness through casting and editing. The Bachelor occasionally makes use of racial and ethnic minorities as exotic others when it serves the show to contrast such contestants. This is a good example of how racial, ethnic, and gender stereotypes can be reinforced by media.Hill, Annette 2005. Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television. London, UK: Routledge.Hill is one of few researchers who has conducted detailed audience analysis. Using survey research and ethnographic methods, Hill looks at the ways viewers watch and interpret reality shows. She discusses motivations for watching, what appealed to viewers and what did not, and the degree to which viewers take what they see as real.Jones, Janet Megan 2003. 'Show Your Real Face: A Fan Study of the UK Big Brother Transmission (2000, 2001, 2002). Investigating the Boundaries between Notions of Consumers and Producers of Factual Television.'New Media & Society 5: 400–21.Janet Megan Jones conducted a three‐wave survey of 8,000 viewers of Big Brother UK in order to determine what audiences respond to on the program, particularly which characters and characteristics are most appealing. She argues that viewers enter into a 'personalized reality contract' with the show and the contestants in which they suspend their disbelief regarding the constructed nature of the show. Fans search for the truth or reality within the unreal environment; even though they know the show and its premise are contrived. This is one of the most comprehensive pieces of audience research and its interesting findings should generate class discussion.Misra, Joya 2000. 'Integrating The Real World into Introduction to Sociology: Making Sociological Concepts Real.'Teaching Sociology 28: 346–363.A guide to using clips from the reality program, The Real World, to teach sociology. The principles suggested in this article may be useful in stimulating use of clips from reality programs generally and specifically.Escoffrey, David S. 2006. How Real Is Reality TV? Essays on Representation and Truth. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.Holmes, Su and Deborah Jermyn (eds) 2004. Understanding Reality Television. London, UK: Routledge.Murray, Susan and Laurie Ouellette (eds) 2004. Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture. New York, NY: New York University Press.These three edited volumes are excellent collections of articles about reality television. All deal with production, content, and consumption. Any would be suitable as a text for class as they all contain interesting chapters that cover themes like defining the genre, the reality television industry, political culture, and representations of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.Online materialsTo my knowledge, there are no online resources specifically dealing with academic analysis of reality television. However, there are some Web sites that would be useful for exploration and incorporation in a course and in course projects. http://www.nielsen.com/ The Nielsen media group, who conduct the Nielsen ratings of television viewing, provides a limited amount of free information regarding viewing patterns on its Web site. There is some material regarding ratings and some reports that can be accessed here. Information about grants and internships and other resources for students are also available on this site. http://www.realitytvworld.com This Web site contains comprehensive listings and information about reality shows, past and present. If you are unfamiliar with a particular reality show or students are unfamiliar, this Web site could be consulted for background information. Links to news articles about reality shows and contestants are also listed here. http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com Television Without Pity provides very detailed recaps and discussion forums for selected television programs, including many reality shows (including America's Next Top Model, Survivor, Big Brother, The Biggest Loser, Project Runway, and Top Chef). If you are studying a show in depth or analyzing a particular show and miss an episode or want detailed summaries to use in class, this site is quite useful.Sample syllabus Course Outline and Selected Reading Assignments 1. Studying television from a sociological perspective Ang, Ien 1985. Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination. New York, NY: Routledge.Gamson, Joshua 1998. Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Grindstaff, Laura and Joseph Turow 2006. 'Video Cultures: Television Sociology in the "New TV" Age.'Annual Review of Sociology 32:103–25. 2. Foundations of reality television Baker, Sean 2003. 'From Dragnet to Survivor: Historical and Cultural Perspectives on Reality Television.' Pp. 57–72 in Survivor Lessons: Essays on Communication and Reality Television, edited by Matthew J. Smith and Andrew F. Wood. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.Biressi, Anita and Heather Nunn 2005. Reality TV: Realism and Revelation. London, UK: Wallflower Press.Cavender, Gray and Mark Fishman 1998. 'Television Reality Crime Programs: Context and History.' Pp. 1–18 in Entertaining Crime: Television Reality Programs, edited by Mark Fishman and Gray Cavender. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.Clissold, Bradley D. 2004. 'Candid Camera and the Origins of Reality TV: Contextualising a Historical Precedent.' Pp. 33–53 in Understanding Reality Television, edited by Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn. London, UK: Routledge.Corner, John 2002. 'Performing the Real: Documentary Diversions.'Television & New Media 3: 255–269.Gillan, Jennifer 2004. 'From Ozzie Nelson to Ozzy Osbourne: the Genesis and Development of the Reality (Star) Sitcom.' Pp. 54–70 in Understanding Reality Television, edited by Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn. London, UK: Routledge.McCarthy, Anna 2004. '"Stanley Milgram, Allen Funt, and Me": Postwar Social Science and the "First Wave" of Reality Television.' Pp. 19–39 in Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture, edited by Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette. New York, UK: New York University Press. 3. Defining a genre Biressi, Anita and Heather Nunn 2005. Reality TV: Realism and Revelation. London, UK: Wallflower Press.Bignell, Jonathan 2005. Big Brother: Reality TV in the Twenty‐First Century. New York, NY: Palgrave.Fetveit, Arild 1999. 'Reality TV in the Digital Era: A Paradox in Visual Culture?'Media, Culture & Society 21: 787–804.Holmes, Su and Deborah Jermyn 2004b. 'Introduction: Understanding Reality TV.' Pp. 1–32 in Understanding Reality Television, edited by Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn. London, UK: Routledge.Kilborn, Richard 1994. '"How Real Can You Get?" Recent Developments in "Reality" Television.'European Journal of Communication 9: 421–39.Murray, Susan 2004. '"I Think We Need a New Name For It": The Meeting of Documentary and Reality TV.' Pp. 40–56 in Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture, edited by Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette. New York, NY: New York University Press. 4. Production of reality Andrejevic, Mark 2004. Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Brenton, Sam and Reuben Cohen 2003. Shooting People: Adventures in Reality TV. London, UK: Verso.Couldry, Nick 2004. 'Teaching Us to Fake It: The Ritualized Norms of Television's Reality Games.' Pp. 57–74 in Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture, edited by Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette, 57–74. New York, NY: New York University Press. 5. Images, stereotypes, and issues of content a. Representation and stereotypes Andrejevic, Mark and Dean Colby 2006. Racism and Reality TV: The Case of MTV's Road Rules. Pp. 195–211 in How Real is Reality TV? Essays on Representation and Truth, edited by David S. Escoffrey. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.Callais, Todd M. and Melissa Szozda 2006. 'Female Police Officers and Reality Television: Analyzing the Presentation of Police Work in Popular Culture.' Pp. 133–48 in How Real Is Reality TV? Essays on Representation and Truth, edited by David S. Escoffrey. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.Dubrofsky, Rachel 2006. 'The Bachelor: Whiteness in the Harem.'Critical Studies in Media Communication 23: 39–56.Heinricy, Shana 2006. 'The Cutting Room: Gendered American Dreams on Plastic Surgery TV.' Pp. 149–64 in How Real is Reality TV? Essays on Representation and Truth, edited by David S. Escoffrey. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.Johnston, Elizabeth 2006. 'How Women Really Are: Disturbing Parallels between Reality Television and 18th Century Fiction.' Pp. 115–32 in How Real Is Reality TV? Essays on Representation and Truth, edited by David S. Escoffrey. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.Kraszewski, Jon 2004. 'Country Hicks and Urban Cliques: Mediating Race, Reality, and Liberalism on MTV's The Real World.' Pp. 179–196 in Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture, edited by Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette. New York, NY: New York University Press.LeBesco, Kathleen 2004. 'Got to be Real: Mediating Gayness on Survivor.' Pp. 271–87 in Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture, edited by Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette. New York, NY: New York University Press.Rapping, Elaine 2004. 'Aliens, Nomads, Mad Dogs, and Road Warriors: The Changing Face of Criminal Violence on TV.' Pp. 214–230 in Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture, edited by Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette. New York, NY: New York University Press.Stephens, Rebecca L. 2004. 'Socially Soothing Stories? Gender, Race and Class in TLC's a Wedding Story and a Baby Story.' Pp. 191–210 in Understanding Reality Television, edited by Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn. London, NY: Routledge. b. Other analyses of content Cavender, Gray 2004. 'In Search of Community on Reality TV: America's Most Wanted and Survivor.' Pp. 154–72 in Understanding Reality Television, edited by Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn. London, UK: Routledge.Propp, Kathleen M. 2003. 'Metaphors of Survival: A Textual Analysis of the Decision‐Making Strategies of the Survivor Contestants.' Pp. 111–31 in Survivor Lessons: Essays on Communication and Reality Television, edited by Matthew J. Smith and Andrew F. Wood. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.Wingenbach, Ed 2003. 'Survivor, Social Choice, and the Impediments to Political Rationality: Reality TV as Social Science Experiment.' Pp. 132–152 in Survivor Lessons: Essays on Communication and Reality Television, edited by. Matthew J. Smith and Andrew F. Wood. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. 6. Audience response and analysis Crew, Richard E. 2006. 'Viewer Interpretations of Reality Television: How Real Is Survivor for Its Viewers?' Pp. 61–77 in How Real Is Reality TV? Essays on Representation and Truth, edited by David S. Escoffrey. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.Hill, Annette 2005. Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television. London, UK: Routledge.Jones, Janet Megan 2003. 'Show Your Real Face: A Fan Study of the UK Big Brother Transmission (2000, 2001, 2002). Investigating the Boundaries between Notions of Consumers and Producers of Factual Television.'New Media & Society 5: 400–21.Ticknell, Estella and Parvati Raghuram 2004. 'Big Brother: Reconfiguring the "Active" Audience of cultural studies?' Pp. 252–69 in Understanding Reality Television, edited by Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn. London, UK: Routledge.Wilson, Pamela 2004. 'Jamming Big Brother: Webcasting, Audience Intervention, and Narrative Activism.' Pp. 323–43 in Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture, edited by Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette. New York, NY: New York University Press.Zurbriggen, Eileen L. and Elizabeth M. Morgan 2006. 'Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? Reality Dating Television Programs, Attitudes Toward Sex, and Sexual Behaviors.'Sex Roles 54: 1–17. 7. The business of reality television Brenton, Sam and Reuben Cohen 2003. Shooting People: Adventures in Reality TV. London, UK: Verso.Madger, Ted. 2004. 'The End of TV 101: Reality Programs, Formats, and the New Business of Television.' Pp. 119–36 in Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture, edited by Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette. New York, NY: New York University Press.Raphael, Chad 2004. 'The Political Origins of Reali‐TV.' Pp. 119–36 in Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture, edited by Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette. New York, NY: New York University Press.Films and videosSurvivorOne of the earlier and more influential (in the USA) reality television series; some seasons are available in their entirety on DVD. Survivor is a show where 16 people live in a remote area with no modern conveniences. Every 3 days, participants compete in challenges and the outcome of these challenges determines which contestants are subject to being voted out of the game. At the end of the approximate 40 days, ousted players vote for who they believe should be the winner of the game. There are many in class analyses that can be done in conjunction with readings. Most reality shows would work in this manner (Big Brother, The Bachelor, The Amazing Race, Top Chef, etc.). Stereotyping, group dynamics, ethics, representations of reality are all themes that can be explored using episodes of Survivor. 1900 House (or any other PBS reality show). http://www.pbs.org/wnet/1900house/In this show, a family volunteered to live in a house that was set up to replicate the conditions of 1900. It is a good contrast to reality programs that air on network television, in terms of production values, editing, casting, etc. A professor might show clips from 1900 House and clips from Survivor and compare and contrast in a discussion of audience, entertainment, the reality of reality television, etc. The Reality of Reality TV (produced by Bravo, September 2003). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381797/This six episode miniseries featured an analysis of reality television production. It is likely to be difficult to find; however, if one is able to access it, it would be useful in to show in class. I mention it because there are no other comparable programs that I am aware of.Project ideasRepresentations of race, class, gender, and/or sexuality This assignment is intended to have students measure representations of race, gender, sexuality, and social class on reality shows. Students should watch a particular series throughout the semester or for several weeks. They should be given coding sheets (which can be designed in class) where they take note of representations of things like race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. For example, if they were assigned or chose to focus on representations of gender and sexuality, they might note the way men and women are dressed, emphasis on different body parts and body images, the amount of attention directed to appearance both by the contestants/participants and the editors, terms used to refer to women and men, activities that men and women are shown participating in, skills or tactics women and men are shown using to make alliances and/or win challenges. Students should write a paper where they describe these representations of gender and discuss whether or not they feel this is reflective of actual reality, with supporting evidence from academic articles on gender and sexuality. They should also discuss the implications of these images and whether or not such representations matter.Fan discussion of reality television This assignment is intended to expose fans to the ways in which viewers make meaning of and interact with reality shows. Direct students to a Web site for fans of reality television that allows nonmembers to browse or 'lurk' in forums (e.g. http://community.realitytvworld.com/boards/cgi‐bin/dcboard.cgi; http://forum.realityfanforum.com/)Have the students review topics on message boards and several pages (10–12) of message board dialogue in order to determine the ways in which fans use message boards, the subjects they discuss, whether or not they accept the dominant reading offered by the shows, their awareness of editing and production, popular and unpopular contestants, etc.Students should write a paper in which they discuss the ways in which viewers make meaning of and interact with reality shows, noting specifically how technology can change the relationship between viewers and producers and television programs.