Moral and public health duties of preventing and treating infectious disease in prisons By José de Arimatéia da Cruz and Leigh E. Rich An Unjust Burden “Prisoners go to jail to be punished for offending society and not to get infectious diseases” (Simooya 2010, 33), yet communicable disease rates among prisoners and detainees are consistently […]
03.01.2014
Categories: Ethics, Health, Politics, Social Science, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on Competing imperatives?
03.01.2013
Categories: Editorials, Ethics, Health, Social Science, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on From personal misfortune to public liability
The ethics, limits, and politics of public health saving ourselves from ourselves By Leigh E. Rich and Michael A. Ashby The tension between a notion of the “common good” and individual liberty is one that political theory knows well. Indeed much of human political history is written around this central theme. In health matters, for […]
03.01.2013
Categories: Feminism, Media, Philosophy, Social Science, Television, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on Feminism ain’t funny
Woman as “fun-killer,” mother as monster in the American sitcom By Jack Simmons and Leigh E. Rich Whether America has realized President Herbert Hoover’s 20th-century vision of a “chicken in every pot,” there is a television in nearly every home. Powerful and accessible, television programs, whether explicitly, convey values and messages to viewers and, thus, […]
12.01.2012
Categories: Editorials, Ethics, Health, Social Science, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on Cases and culture
The benefits and risks of narrating “life as lived” By Michael A. Ashby and Leigh E. Rich In Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill wrote that “[t]here exists no moral system under which there do not arise unequivocal cases of conflicting obligation” (1957, ¶2.25). This is what makes the practice—as well as the teaching—of bioethics so difficult […]
09.03.2012
Categories: Editorials, Ethics, Feminism, Politics, Social Science, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on Real dialogue needed on rape
Rep. Todd Akin’s comments a missed opportunity for cultural and ethical debate By Leigh E. Rich These days, one has to feel some sympathy for politicians, political candidates, celebrities and others in the public eye. Modern media technologies and the proliferation of communication channels have created something of a Panopticon, where the relative ease of […]
04.16.2010
Categories: Books, Science, Social Science, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on The elusive but useful epidemic
Does the ‘preparedness industry’ predict calamity or promote the illusion of a ‘risk-free’ life? By Leigh E. Rich Dread: How Fear and Fantasy Have Fueled Epidemics From the Black Death to Avian Flu By Philip Alcabes Public Affairs April 2009 336 pages When it comes to many of today’s epidemics, perhaps, as FDR warned during […]
04.07.2010
Categories: Books, People, Science, Social Science, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on Prepared or panicked?
Epidemics and the concept of ‘Dread’ with author Philip Alcabes By Leigh E. Rich In the mid-1300s, the “Great Mortality” decimated nearly one-third of Europe’s population. One of every three or four individuals was stricken with the “pestilence,” a mysterious illness that began with a headache, fever and swollen lymph glands—around which red spots on […]
03.08.2010
Categories: Books, Religion, Social Science, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on On demons and doctors
What does horror have to do with public health? By Leigh E. Rich American sportswriter Red Smith once said, “There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.” Two Denver-based horror novelists have done away with the metaphor and are literally mixing their blood with ink, selling […]
06.01.2008
Categories: Books, Ethics, Health, History, Media, Philosophy, Social Science, Television, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on The afterbirth of the clinic
A Foucauldian perspective on “House M.D.” and American medicine in the 21st century By Leigh E. Rich, Jack Simmons, David Adams, Scott Thorpe, and Michael Mink Mirroring Michel Foucault’s The Birth of the Clinic (1963), which describes the philosophical shift in medical discourse in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Fox television series House […]
08.01.2006
Two AASU rebuilding trips in Pearlington and Kiln, Miss. By Leigh E. Rich In March and May, AASU’s ongoing Give for the Gulf campaign and Savannah-based Pickin’ Up the Pieces sent volunteers to Hancock County, Miss., to help rebuild communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina. What follows are excerpts from the personal journal of L.E. Rich, […]
04.01.2005
Categories: Ethics, Politics, Social Science, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on Marriage measure debated
Lundberg introduces latest attempt to ban same-sex unions By Leigh E. Rich Deeming it “the most significant domestic issue of the decade,” Rep. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, announced his intentions Thursday to introduce a House concurrent resolution that would recognize marriage in the state of Colorado “only if it is between one man and one woman.” […]
02.05.2004
A memoir from an anthropologist who found acceptance in the street life of 1960s Guaymas, Mexico By Leigh E. Rich The Guaymas Chronicles: La Mandadera By David E. Stuart. University of New Mexico Press $24.95. Often invisible from the mainstream and still somewhat misunderstood, the modern anthropologist is relegated by society to either an intriguing […]
