Why does Stephen Colbert now say out of 434 when he discusses his American congressional district interviews on the show the Colbert Report? Aren’t there 435?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: On show 122 (i.e., #22), which aired in November 2005, it came out that “Better Know a District” is no longer a 435 part series due to the fact that Colbert has banished the California 50th district from the show. He was devastated by the bribery scandal that had just caused its Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham to resign.

how many swimming pools are there in texas? I’m mostly interested in privately owned ones, but if there is a texas-wide number, I’ll take it.

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: AP can’t find any compiled figures on this, and I think you might have to contact every single municipality and county in the state. The local propery taxing authorities would be the ones most interested. However, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s “2002 Economic Census: Construction: Geographic Area Series” for Texas, the value of *new* construction of outdoor swimming pools for only 2002 was $657,627,000. That’s 2/3 of a billion dollars annually in new swimming pools. If you fly into the Dallas or Houston airports, you’ll believe it.

The Durham Morning Herald recently carried a story describing a major expansion of the Duke Hospital — a $73.2M project that will include new operating rooms, an 8 story office building, and a roof-top helicopter pad. For a project of this size and scope, there has been remarkably little opportunity for public comment or review of the plans. Do you know of a source where I could learn a little more about the project with perhaps some site drawings or plans? There does not seem to be anything about this project on the Duke website — isn’t this a little surprising? Thanks for your help.

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: No, it’s not too surprising. Duke is private and doesn’t need to have all those public comments and so forth that they might need at a public institution. (Actually, I think projects at public universities can get railroaded through the same way!)

Being in Durham, buildings would have to conform to local zoning and environmental regulations (although there might be some leniency for an institution employing 20,000+ persons). There’s a “University and Collge” zone withing the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) that might apply, although for the Medical Center some other regulations might apply. The UDO is managed by a Durham City/County Planning Department at http://www.ci.durham.nc.us/departments/planning/udo/ . You also might want to look at this Durham city web page: http://www.ci.durham.nc.us/departments/clerk/boards.cfm There’s a Durham Planning Commission and a Durham City-County Appearance Commission (!) that might be able to shed light on building projects. One of these departments or commissions should have public hearings if a variance to the UDO is requested, you’d think.

There’s an article now in “Inside” (the Medical Center and Health Center newsletter) that is about the same as what’s in the Herald-Sun. It mentions that state approval for the new building is pending. They promise an update in the upcoming January “Inside.” AP doesn’t know for sure, but the state agency that approves this might be the Division of Facility Services of the Dept. of Health and Human Services: http://facility-services.state.nc.us/

The Duke University Architect Capital Projects web page http://www.architect.duke.edu/capitalprojects/ doesn’t yet seem to have information on this project.

What universities have the best graduate programs that give out MPAs (Masters of Public Administration)? I’m interested in the best programs in the entire world. Has someone bothered to rank them?

Danke.

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: AP can’t find any such international listing. I suppose there are similarities, but I’d also think there are major differences in the concept of “public administration” in different societies, so I’d be a little skeptical of international rankings (if not national rankings as well).

In the ranking-obsessed USA, the magazine U.S. News & World Report puts out annual rankings of U.S. degree programs. In their 2005 edition of America’s Best Graduate Schools, in the section on “Public Affairs” (p. 61), under the speciality “Public Management/Administration,” they rank the top five in this order: Syracuse, University of Georgia, Indiana University, Harvard, and University of Southern California. I don’t know which of these places calls their degree an “MPA.” You can find this publication at the Reference Desk in the Bostock library building.

Do any Jews believe that the Torah is the literal word of God? Or does every scholar admit that they are later versions, knowing the earliest versions were lost?

I think lots of American evengelicals think that the entire Bible is the word of God, but I know Jews don’t buy the Christian version, right?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: As a librarian, I need to shy away from religious questions as much as I must shy away from legal, medical, and tax advice. There are a number of reference books on Judaism and religion that you’re welcome to look through. For instance, look in the index of Encyclopedia Judaica under “Torah.” A quick glance didn’t yield any clear answers.

The reference librarians at the Duke Divinity School library — who handle the subject of religion (all religions, not just Christianity) — would be most qualified to point you to discussions of this subject.

There is a term “Jewish fundamentalism” (perhaps that term itself is controversial), but it’s probably like comparing apples to oranges to make too many parallels with Christian fundamentalism. As might be expected, the article on “Jewish Fundamentalism” online in Wikipedia has a big warning at the top: “The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see discussion on the talk page.” (AP suspects that the articles in traditional published encyclopedias and reference works would also include warnings, corrections, and elaborations if their format only allowed readers to do so.)

My friends and I have been arguing this, and I was wondering if you could shed some light on the subject:

The movie “Teen Wolf Too” is considered by many to be the sequel to “Teen Wolf,” however it stars a different actor who plays a different character (The original Teen Wolf’s cousin, if I’m not mistaken) and a totally different setting with only one character from the previous movie. Although they are both directed by the same person, is the theme of simply being a teen wolf sufficient to consider the second movie a sequel? Don’t sequels usually imply a continuation of plot or story from the previous movie?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: According to the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, “sequel” can mean “subsequent development” or “the next installment (as of a speech or story); especially : a literary, cinematic, or televised work continuing the course of a story begun in a preceding one.” If you’re a stickler, then perhaps you shouldn’t count it as a sequel since you’re correct that it does imply continuation (or vice versa, in the case of Star Wars and many other movies). It’s more like the Andy Hardy, Charlie Chan, or Thin Man movies: each subsequent one isn’t a sequel, it’s just another in the series. You can cry “foul!”

But, is such a crummy movie really worth crying foul about? Aren’t there other reasons to trash it? It seems to me to be close enough “the next installment” of the Teen Wolf franchise to fit the definition, certainly in the minds of the producers who hoped to make a few bucks off of a really cheap film that attempted to cash in on the popularity of Michael J. Fox in the earlier one. The consensus of citizen-reviewers at imdb.com seems to be that it’s a sequel.

What percentage of weapons confiscations in American schools were the result of students reporting weapons? What percentage was from school workers being observant? Thank you.

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: AP knows of no collecting or tabulating of data to this level of detail, at least not consistently enough across the tens of thousands of schools in the country to prepare valid compilations of data. There don’t seem to be categories for “snitch” in such statistics.

There have been surveys that sort of touch on this subject. For instance, a report entitled the Students’ Report of School Crime, arising out of the School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Study (NCVS), has information on whether students had witnessed a firearm in school (but there’s no information on whether they reported it):
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/srsc.pdf

I don’t know if local school districts would have this data or be willing to share it, but you can try contacting them. You may have to develop your own research proposal and set up your own survey.

How does the Supreme Court decide which cases to hear? Where do they make announcements once they have decided?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: From the article “Supreme Court of the United States” in Wikipedia: “A case is brought before the Supreme Court by way of: (1) a petition for writ of certiorari filed by a party to a case that has been decided by one of the United States courts of appeals or the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, or (in extremely rare cases) a case that is pending before a court of appeals but not yet decided, (2) a certified question or proposition of law from one of the United States courts of appeals, (3) a petition for writs of either mandamus, prohibition or habeas corpus (each of which is known as a petition for an extraordinary writ), or (4) a petition for writ of certiorari from a decision of one of the state courts, after all state appeals have been exhausted, involving an issue of Federal constitutional or statutory law.”
and …
“By custom, certiorari is granted on the vote of four of the nine Justices. In most cases, the writ is denied; the Supreme Court normally only considers matters of national or constitutional importance.”

There are also several excellet Supreme Court encyclopedias and reference works that go into more detail in the Reference Department.

At the Supreme Court web site http://www.supremecourtus.gov/ , you can find listings of “certiorari granted” from the “Orders and Journals” links, eventually getting to the “Order List.” The official published versions eventually end up in the “Orders” sections of the United States Reports, in the Law Library or in the Public Documents Department of Perkins/Bostock.

Hey AP,
I was wondering why the library doesn’t have 24 hour access for students in Bostok Library?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Please see the answer in the regular paper suggestion book to 3220C. Basically, for student and collection security reasons we can’t have the library opened when unstaffed and we have to balance the costs of staffing with the minimal use that it would get at 4, 5, or 6 in the morning. If we can get staff, we’re considering an extension of the hours until 4:00 AM, and it’s already open 24 hours during finals.

Since it might be a while before it gets posted to the web, here it 3220C and answer:

Q: Why does a top-5 university have a library that is not open 24 hours?

A: We try to base our service hours balancing demand and staffing costs, and we do keep some study areas open all night (e.g., Gothic and Deryl Hart Reading Rooms). Looking at the hours of other libraries, Princeton’s main library closes at 11:45, Yale’s at midnight, Stanford’s at midnight, and Harvard at 11:00, so I think they’ve come to similar conclusions about 24-hour service. In fact, we’re open more.