Word: westernness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...vanish, or at least change beyond recognition. In many African nations, minority tribes are being culturally assimilated--if not physically wiped out--by the ruling majority; in others, rural villagers are migrating to the melting pots of the cities. Even those who stay behind are finding the lure of Western music, culture and clothing irresistible. Nobody believes the trend can be stopped, or that it is necessarily a bad thing--for example, in the case of female circumcision. But scientists do want to document Africa's existing cultures before it's too late...
...ceremonies in the Sahara. Says Beckwith: "These ceremonies are some of the most powerful events in these tribes. They promote healing and provide a powerful new sense of identity. Some of the rituals we've photographed no longer exist. And many of those that do have been altered by Western influences. We're trying to document as many...
Since 1990, about 100 paralyzed patients have been given 4-AP in clinical trials, and about one-third of them have regained some function. Keith Hayes, a neuroscientist at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, who has been involved in the trials, says, "We have seen improvements in sensation and motor function, reduced spasticity and reduced pain, and improvement in bowel, bladder and sexual functions." MS researchers may come up with yet another useful therapy for spinal-cord injuries. At the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Dr. Moses Rodriguez is testing the use of antibodies as catalysts...
This may be a heavy agenda. But for the Lakota--what the western Sioux tribes call themselves--and many of America's nearly 2 million Native Americans, the situation is critical. Tribal health-care specialists say that on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, an area about the size of Connecticut where 10,000 Lakota live, 85% of the population between ages 12 and 35 binge on alcohol and other drugs; child abuse is rampant; and gangs like the Crips and Bloods have been offering a brutal form of sanctuary for lost or neglected kids...
...erstwhile reformer and now "nowhere man" Boris Yeltsin [WORLD, Aug. 5] has surrounded himself with other "nowhere men." They fiddle while the country burns. In the meantime, Western idealists and cynical Russians despair of ever finding a savior for the Motherland. Poor Russia, so far from God, so close to Siberia. LYNN R. ELIASON Logan, Utah