Thomas G. Palaima

AN INSCRIBED STIRRUP JAR OF CRETAN ORIGIN FROM BAMBOULA, CYPRUS

Aegean stirrup jars with incised or painted linear signs (ISJs) have received considerable attention in recent years. These inscribed vases provide fundamental data for such topics äs Aegean trade, the organizarion of regional industries, the development of scripts, and the chronology of Crete and the mainland in the late Bronze Age. Studies have properly concentrated on the provenience of the ISJs (using elemental analysis [OES] or stylistic considerations) and on the linear signs them-

Single-Sex Education: Parameters Too Narrow

In their Education Forum “The pseudoscience of single-sex schooling” (23 September, p. [1706][1]), D. F. Halpern et al. evaluate school success solely by standardized test scores. They make no attempt to do or cite research that measures parameters such as self-confidence, self-reliance, and

Reviewing the New Linear B Tablets From Thebes

Abstract Interested scholars should read my two reviews of the edition with commentary of the new Thebes tablets carefully and decide for themselves whether the account provided in the preceding article by V. L. Aravantinos, L. Godart and A. Sacconi (hereafter AGS) is accurate. The whole first page of my review in Minos (p. 475) praises the scholarly team involved in excavating, preserving, joining, drawing and editing the new Thebes tablets. I call aspects of this work ‘fine’, ‘superb’ and ‘expert’. I praise its speed. In my AJA review (p. 115), I stress that “[t]he transcriptions, photographs, drawings, indices and palaeographical tables in this volume are good and useful”. I conclude that the edition of the texts, i.e., the drawings and transcriptions and related indices and tables, in TOP is “good work” and “reasonably well done”. Why? Because it is good work that is reasonably well done.

When War Is Performed, What Do Soldiers and Veterans Want to Hear and See and Why?

For the typical American soldier, despite the perverted film sermons, it wasn’t “getting another Jap” or “getting another Nazi” that impelled him up front. “The reason why you storm the beaches is not patriotism or bravery,” reflects the tall rifleman. “It’s that special sense of not wanting to fail your buddies. There’s sort of a special kinship.” An explanation is offered by an old-time folk singer who’d been with an antiaircraft battery in the Sixty-second Artillery: “You had fifteen guys who for the first time in their lives were not living in a competitive society. We were in a tribal sort of situation, where we could help each other without fear. I realized it was the absence of phony standards that created the thing I loved about the army.”1

The Texas professoriate and public political discourse before and after 9/11

Robert Jensens critique of the participation of academic intellectuals in Texas in public political discourse after the 9/11 terrorist attacks underestimates what professors have done to inform a politically apathetic public about warfare, American foreign policy, civil liberties, and cultural and humanitarian issues. Jensen undervalues non‐confrontational political strategies and broader forms of intellectual political engagement. Confrontational strategies mobilize citizens inclined to activism, but less overtly political strategies invite larger numbers of citizens to think seriously about politics. Jensens locally famous post‐9/11 Houston Chronicle editorial is analyzed as rhetorically egocentric and alienating, and ultimately counter‐productive in the post‐9/11 political environment.