Leveling the Playing Field tells the story of the African American members of the 1969–70 Syracuse University football team who petitioned for racial equality on their team. The petition had four demands: access to the same academic tutoring made available to their white teammates; better medical care for all team members; starting assignments based on merit rather than race; and a discernible effort to racially integrate the coaching staff, which had been all white since 1898. The players’ charges of racial disparity were fiercely contested by many of the white players on the team, and the debate spilled into the newspapers and drew protests from around the country. Mistakenly called the "Syracuse 8" by media reports in the 1970s, the nine players who signed the petition did not receive a response allowing or even acknowledging their demands. They boycotted the spring 1970 practice, and Coach Ben Schwartzwalder, a deeply beloved figure on campus and a Hall of Fame football coach nearing retirement, banned seven of the players from the team. As tensions escalated, white players staged a day-long walkout in support of the coaching staff, and an enhanced police presence was required at home games. Extensive interviews with each player offer a firsthand account of their decision to stand their ground while knowing it would jeopardize their professional football career. They discuss with candor the ways in which the boycott profoundly changed the course of their lives. In Leveling the Playing Field, Marc chronicles this contentious moment in Syracuse University’s history and tells the story through the eyes of the players who demanded change for themselves and for those who would follow them.

In the face of climate change, knowledge of the global carbon balance is critical. A free global GPP product is available from the MODIS satellite sensor. Its algorithm is based on a biome specific maximum Radiation Use Efficiency (RUE) value. On a small spatial scale, local growing conditions create a high spatial variability in RUE which the biome specific RUE value in the MODIS GPP algorithm does account for. As a result, MODIS GPP has often been found unreliable at local and regional scales. An alternative method is to remotely estimate RUE by means of the Photochemical Reflectance Index (PRI). Various studies have already found strong correlations between PRI and RUE in Mediterranean and boreal forests. The objective of this study was to investigate the usage of the PRI as an estimator for RUE for the purpose of monitoring GPP with MODIS data in temperate forests. A GPP dataset was established for the Veluwe forests in The Netherlands for 2002-2006 by using MODIS data and the PRI as estimator of RUE. The results of this study support the thesis that on a small spatial scale MODIS GPP is unreliable and that accuracy can be improved using the PRI approach.

The gift of the land of Israel by God is an essential element in Jewish identity, religiously and politically. That the gift came at the expense of the local Canaanites has stimulated deep reflections and heated debate in Jewish literature, from the creation of the Bible to the twenty-first century. The essays in this book examine the theological, ethical, and political issues connected with the gift and with the fate of the Canaanites, focusing on classical Jewish texts and major Jewish commentators, legal thinkers, and philosophers from ancient times to the present.

"Quite simply, a tour de force--a wonderful synthesis of history and criticism."--Daniel Czitrom, author of "Media and the American Mind" "A cooly sophisticated analysis . . . of American televsion."--"American Studies International" In "Demographic Vistas," David Marc shows how we can take television seriously within the humanist tradition while enjoying it on its own terms. To deal with the barrage of messages from television's chaotic history, Marc adapts tools of theatrical and literary criticism to focus on key personalities and genres in ways that reward serious students and casual viewers alike. This updated edition includes a new foreword by Horace Newcomb and a new introduction by the author that discusses the ways in which the nature of television criticism has changed since the book's original publication in 1984. A new final chapter explores the paradox of the diminishing importance of over-the-air broadcasting during the period of television's greatest expansion, which has been brought about by complex technologies such as cable, videocassette recorders, and online services. From reviews of the first edition-- ""Demographic Vistas" analyzes television in the tradition of a Gilbert Seldes or Michael Arlen. Exhibiting fluency in television history, theories of culture, and American literature, the book offers a thoughtful, idiosyncratic interpretation of television's life so far in American culture."--"Critical Studies in Mass Communication" "Marc does a good job of drawing links between the American literary tradition and television themes, which illustrate that television texts are not isolated from the critical mainstream of American creative efforts. . . . These links illustrate that television texts offer themselves to much the same analytical forms as any other literary endeavor."--"Southern Speech Communication Journal" David Marc is Adjunct Professor, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, and Visiting Professor, School of Theater, Film and Television, University of California, Los Angeles.

This volume focuses on the relationship between the rise of the multi-media environment-television and electronic media-and the decline of the humanities in academia, the changing role of print literacy, and the disintegration of historical consciousness. David Marc is as mad as hell about some things, and he's not going to take it any longer. He finds that most university humanities programs remain top-heavy with embittered careerists who would rather deny the evidence than admit that, with the rise and popular acceptance of mass media, their most cherished interests, their techniques, and skills have become archaic. New students are treated as if they read and write as often, and for the same purposes, as their counterparts before the rise of the television camera, telephone, and communications satellite. Professors get paid. Students receive diplomas. And yet, humanities courses are the joke of the campus. In analyzing the decline of the humanities on college campuses, Marc covers a wide range of issues, including political correctness, the growing tolerance of academic cheating, and institutionalized grade inflation.