Countering exclusion: the ‘St. Pats for all’ parade

The St. Patrick's Day parade in New York City has historically been a crucial site for annually reproducing narratives of Irishness through a very public performative ritual taking place on Fifth Avenue. However, in recent years controversy has surrounded this event, associated with the organizers' decision to ban self-identifying Irish homosexuals, a decision supported by the US Supreme Court. In response, a ‘counter-parade’ now takes place in the neighboring borough of Queens, which is beginning to mount a serious challenge to the more established ritual. Billed as the first all-inclusive St. Patrick's Day parade in the city's history, this ‘St. Pats for All’ parade articulates a very different narrative of Irishness than that paraded on Fifth Avenue. In this article I seek to examine this alternative event and the contested identity politics associated with Irishness in New York City, focusing primarily on the axes of nationalism and sexuality, and the role played by public space.     

Donkey Domestication

Donkeys are one of the least studied large domestic animals, even though they are economically important in many regions of the world. They are predominantly used as transport animals. Consequently, they are not kept in large numbers and this limits the number of archaeological specimens available for study. The donkey’s closest relative is the African wild ass, and genetic studies and zooarchaeological analyses of early donkeys indicate domestication of two genetically separate groups of wild asses in Africa. Maternal relationships revealed by mitochondrial DNA show that one group of donkeys was derived from the Nubian wild ass and that one was derived from an unknown ancestor distinct from the Somali wild ass.     

Logistic Population Growth in the World's Largest Cities

This article demonstrates that recent population growth in the world's largest cities has conformed to the general parameters of the logistic process. Using data recently provided by the United Nations, logistic population growth for 485 million-person cities is analyzed at 5-year intervals during 1950–2010, with the UN projections for 2015 adopted as upper limits. A series of ordinary least-squares regression models of increasing complexity are estimated on the pooled data. In one class of models, the logarithms of population proportions are specified to be linear in time, which is the standard approach, but in a second class of models those proportions are specified as being quadratic. The most complex models control logistic growth estimates for (i) city-specific effects (e.g., initial population), (ii) nation-specific effects (e.g., economic development, age distribution of population), and (iii) global coordinates (for unobserved effects). Moreover, the results are segregated according to each city's membership in four different growth clubs, which was an important finding of previous research.     

The Reichswehr, the Republic and the Primacy of Foreign Policy, 1918-1923

This article contends that the relationship between the Reichswehrand the Republic was shaped by the primacy of foreign policybetween 1918 and 1923. In this period the major concern of theofficers was the stabilization of the German Reich, which wouldpreserve Germany as a Machtfaktor in Europe and serve as thebasis for a revisionist and militarized foreign policy. Foreignpolicy matters and aims shaped their attitude to domestic politics.Cooperation with the Republic enabled the officers to achievethe stabilization of the Reich by 1923. They were also ableto introduce important reforms in the military structure ofthe Reich, which showed that cooperation with the Republic couldpay dividends. In terms of the substance of foreign policy theReichswehr followed a pragmatic, unideological approach by developinglinks with the Red Army. By examining the relationship betweenthe Reichswehr and the Republic from the perspective of theprimacy of foreign policy, it is possible to come to a fullerunderstanding of the shifting nature of civil-military affairsin the Weimar Republic.     

Properties of a General Hierarchial City-size Model

Beckmann and McPherson recently outlined a general hierarchial model of city size. The authors argued that by imposing particular constraints upon this general model they would make it compatible both with the rank-size rule and a much simpler (basic progression component) model previously outlined in the literature. The present paper challenges these two contentions. It is first demonstrated that the constraints proposed by Beckmann and McPherson do not lead to either form of compatibility. Then the author illustrates how such compatibility may in fact exist under somewhat different conditions.