Opening ParagraphThe importance of female title holders, especially that of the Queen Mother, is widespread throughout the state systems of Africa. Royal monarchical power and authority is often linked to a senior woman of the royal line, sometimes a real mother, sometimes not, who is the female counterpart to the male royal person. One writer has suggested that in Africa the monarchy itself involves not simply a King but rather a royal couple—the King and his mother—so that centralized authority is in fact inherent in a mother-son ‘royal duo’ (de Heusch, 1962: 145). The Queen Mother in such a view is not simply ‘important’ but an essential ingredient in the nature of royal power and authority, and therefore of centralized government as this has developed historically on the continent.
Listeria monocytogenes is a gram-positive bacillus that is rarely associated with infections in the general population. Those susceptible to this pathogen include neonates, pregnant women, and the immunocompromised. The most common clinical manifestations of listeriosis are bacteremia and meningitis. Endocarditis caused by L. monocytogenes is rare with less than 60 cases reported in the world literature. We report the case of an 81-year-old man who suffered aortic prosthetic valve listeria endocarditis, and examine the literature regarding this rare manifestation of human listeriosis.
Throughout the twentieth century, and even earlier, adults have attempted to publicly control, and even censor, teenagers' access to various artifacts of mass culture-including magazines, music, comic books, movies, television and radio programs, and books. The motivation has been twofold: to shield the young from certain perceived pernicious influences and to encourage a national cultural uniformity/conformity heavily motivated by Christian morality and the dread of racial (and class) mixing. Fears of youthful extremism, sparked by corrupting influences, have waxed and waned, dependingon various social, political, economic,cultural, technological, and other configurations. But attempts at censorship have generally continued, earmarking even newer forms of mass communication, most recently cable television and the computer Internet. Any understanding of this development must take into consideration both the fears and motivations of the adult majority, as well as the complexities of modern youth culture, all within a larger national matrix. Adults' fear of youthful rebellion and their urge to control youth became particularly glaring during the 1950s, when the winds of change seemed particularly brisk.'
In different ways, James Agee and Lacy Wright questioned the importance and influence of public schooling. Learning continues beyond, and perhaps despite, formal school attendance. This seems like common sense. Schools can also be harmful and destructive to children and society. This, too, seems clear. The trend in recent decades, however, has been to extend the years of formal schooling, putting more and more emphasis on degrees and credentials as passports to the future. What this will mean to our children and grandchildren is hard to say. But how we got to this point is rather clear. Simply, schools have been the most visible manifestation of the continued development of age grading in American society since Independence, and age grading has been a vital component of what we broadly term “modernization.”
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