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September 24, 2004

Research briefs

Drugs, sex and rock 'n roll

Historian Patrick Barr-Melej is the "hippie guy" in Chile. His research on the country's counterculture movement, dovetailing with a new soap opera about 1960s Chile called Hippie, has caught the attention of Chileans.

Last summer at Chile's national library in Santiago, "I couldn't walk through the library or the archives without someone stopping me and asking me a question about hippies and the counterculture," he said. "I was the 'hippie' guy."

Barr-Melej, who is of Chilean descent and was born in South America, said the early 1970s were an important time in Chile's historical development. The Marxist government of Salvador Allende had fallen in a coup lead by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and the countercultural movement wasn't popular with the new government.

But Barr-Melej has reached the conclusion that hippies weren't popular with the left-leaning Allende either.

"My interpretations are raising some eyebrows in Chile and here in the United States because there exists a very strong nostalgia for the Allende government, especially among progressive youths," he said. "But sexual liberation, smoking marijuana or listening to beat music was not the kind of 'revolution' Salvador Allende wanted in Chile.

"He wanted youths to be clean-cut and marching in the ranks of Marxists parties, and he deplored any form of revolution outside of the one he was building. My research indicates that hippies were actually repressed during this time period and that Allende's government and the Pinochet regime shared much of the same cultural conservatism that, in many ways, permeates Chilean society today."

Down in the pawpaw patch

Patrick O'Malley, an extension field specialist in commercial horticulture, is working on a long-term project to evaluate the potential for a pawpaw fruit crop in Iowa.

The pawpaw is a small deciduous tree growing to about 20 feet, with large drooping leaves and burgundy flowers. The fruit is three to five inches long. Pawpaws are described as tasting like banana combined with mango, pineapple, melon, berries or other fruit.

O'Malley said preliminary investigations also show that compounds in pawpaw bark have the potential to fight cancer and serve as a natural pesticide.

Researchers have planted several varieties of pawpaw trees in Iowa for evaluation.

"Pawpaw trees could add a new fruit crop for Midwest growers," O'Malley said. "They could be an integral part of a sustainable farm."

Quote

"My interpretations are raising some eyebrows in Chile and here in the United States because there exists a very strong nostalgia for the Allende government, especially among progressive youths. But sexual liberation, smoking marijuana or listening to beat music was not the kind of 'revolution' Salvador Allende wanted in Chile."

Patrick Barr-Melej