George Orwell and the Palestine Question

This article discusses George Orwell’s attitude to Zionism and the Palestine question, a controversial and emotional subject in left-wing circles in his time and since. There have been a number of studies on Orwell’s attitude to Jews and anti-Semitism and some of these have touched upon Orwell’s approach to Zionism. However, his stance on the Palestine question specifically deserves further exposition. This is so, not least because on this subject too Orwell’s views—largely anti-Zionist—differed from the prevailing, passionate beliefs of most left-wing intellectuals of his time, including some of his closest friends and political allies. Furthermore, Orwell’s views were expressed at a time when the Palestine conflict peaked during the last decade of the British Mandate with results which resound to this day.     

Pacifism and the Question of Responsibility

ABSTRACT

This article explores the relationship between pacifism and responsibility through conversations with four white U.S. women formed in historic peace church traditions. The conversations resist the dominant tendency to present pacifism and responsibility as dichotomies. For these women, responsibility is not an absolute criterion to which a pacifist position must answer; nor is it a worldly commitment shunned by faithful adherence to the gospel. Rather, responsibility is a crucial yet highly contextual consideration in the pacifist life one cannot but live. This article concludes that it is a mistake to utilize responsibility as an external criterion by which to judge pacifism and a mistake to deny the importance of responsibility in a pacifist life. Both of these dichotomous arrangements mischaracterize the lived experience and moral reflection of the interviewees. The question of responsibility is not whether one should be a pacifist, but how to live nonviolently in a violent world.     

Agriculture,Trade and Sustainability

In recent decades there has been growing concern about the combined undesired consequences of rapid economic growth, based on the free market movement, and developments in science and technology. This concern has placed the sustainable development concept on the world's agenda. The notion of sustainability, which originally referred mostly to the environmental consequences of human activities, along with their economic and social aspects, has been discussed not only at the national and the global levels but also in relation to particular sectors of the economy. One such sector is agriculture, which to be sustainable must be ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially responsible. Unless current trade and agricultural policies are geared to creating such a structure, sustainability will be no more than a myth in the industrialized and globalized world, while considerable numbers of people will be left struggling with hunger and poverty. Ethical, fair trade and ecologic agricultural practices, such as organic farming, have been suggested as alternatives to existing practices. However, with their current and potential size, these alternatives cannot compete with existing production and trade systems. But these alternatives nevertheless highlight the main problems of current day free trade and industrialized agriculture structures and their related solutions.

This paper reviews the concepts of sustainable development and sustainable agriculture: it raises the question whether the world-wide free market economy is really free, and it considers the undesired consequences of this economy by focusing on the relationship between sustainable agriculture and agriculture-related trade policies.     

Australia,India and the Uranium Question

This article examines the bipartisan nuclear ‘grand bargain’, namely that Australia would only export uranium to states signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), in framing Australian policy and debate towards India. India has not signed the NPT, and shows no willingness to do so. Since 2006 the domestic political and media debate regarding uranium sales to India shows that this grand bargain is fraying. This article explores the major arguments that have been elucidated by Australian political party leaders either for or against uranium sales to India and concludes with a discussion of the opportunities and challenges presented to Australia if it were to make an exception for India.     

威尔逊与菲律宾的"菲化"

美国统治菲律宾初期,共和党采取双重的殖民政策,拒绝对其独立做出明确的承诺。威尔逊执政以后,不仅委派弗朗西斯·哈里森在菲律宾推行一系列“菲化”政策,而且还力促议会讨论通过并亲自签署《琼斯法案》,答应在菲律宾人建立稳定政府后就给予他们最终的独立。但他又认为,自治是一种性格,菲律宾的独立,要等到美国所强加的命令和他们应该拥有的自治达到最好调节的时候,扩大自治的速度和兑现独立承诺的时间要视菲律宾的安全和美国的长远利益而定。所以,威尔逊对菲政策的实质就是美国殖民统治下的激进改革,目的仍然是为了维护美国的国家利益。     

Measuring Relative Sustainability of Regions Using Regional Sustainability Assessment Methodology

Scientists analyze sustainability at the regional level with a combination of multiple indicators which reflect different characteristics of regions without combining the results in a single comparative unit. Moreover, the assessment of interdependencies between different characteristics requires experts' analyses, which makes sustainability analysis subjective, time consuming, and limited in use. This article analyzes the relative sustainability of subnational level regions through the application of regional sustainability assessment methodology (RSAM) based on accounting of resources capital and its internal and external transfers. This approach allows for assessment of regional sustainability as a function of resource quantity, quality, and interchangeability. The comparison of the two case study regions presented in the paper indicates the difference between a more sustainable region and a region of “weak sustainability.” First, the article indicates the discussion of the relevant geographic, economic, and social literature for both sustainability assessment and regional comparison. This discussion is followed by a conceptual representation of proposed RSAM and its application to various regions. Next, the article covers the data used and applied methods to test the proposed methodology and compare the two case study regions. The article concludes with a discussion of findings and recommendations for further application and testing.     

The Heritage of War and the Discourse of Sustainability

Since the concept of sustainability (or sustainable development) became famous through its adoption in the UN’s report, ‘Our Common Future’ in 1987, it has travelled widely to become a global and omnipresent key concept also in the field of heritage. The inclusion into this field was facilitated by the understanding of heritage as resource, which has become the norm within cultural heritage management discourses and strategies. This understanding is increasingly sustained by an associated vocabulary of concepts that promote cultural heritage sites as economically and socio-politically beneficial, emphasising their value as resources for us. This paper explores what happens when this conceptual repertoire of resource thinking is applied to WWII Wehrmacht sites in northern Norway, a heritage that previously has been othered and excluded. How does it impact on the understanding of this particular heritage and how may it be challenged and transformed through encounters with an unruly heritage that potentially defies and distances such conceptualisation?     

Neurognostics Question

Abstract

Dopamine is among the most well‐researched neurotransmitters at the present time. For the first half‐century of neurotransmitter research, however, interest in dopamine was minimal, and only a few scattered groups of researchers studied it. It was their research that stimulated current interest, and provided the background for our present understanding of this important substance. By the late 1950s, it was clear to these individuals that dopamine served an important physiological role in mammalian brains, and that its role was most likely that of a central nervous system agonist. Soon after this, dopamine, or more specifically the depletion of dopamine, was clearly implicated in Parkinson's disease. This paper looks at the early history of the physiological roles of this intriguing compound.