The Road Goes Ever On and On: A Path Through the Wilderness on R.S. 2477 Litigation in Alaska

Seeking to encourage people to settle the public domain, the federal government established the R.S. 2477 right of way, a grant to construct highways over land in the public domain. There are now thousands of miles of highway across the Western United States constructed pursuant to the authority in R.S. 2477, but most of these rights of way were never documented by any formal process. Alaska has made it a priority to document existing R.S. 2477 rights of way in an effort to manage and develop public lands. Identifying existing R.S. 2477 rights of way is essential for economic development, but the State’s aggressive litigation strategy threatens the rights of private property owners, the integrity of land allotments under the Alaska Native Claims Act, and federal conservation efforts in Alaska. After examining the history of R.S. 2477, Alaska’s litigation strategy, and how these rights of way conflict with interests of Native Corporations and federal wilderness and conservation efforts, this Note offers possibilities for resolving the conflict over R.S. 2477 rights of way in Alaska

African-American Mental Health Community: Information Needs, Barriers, and Gaps

This paper articulates the importance of African Americans regarding mental health: how they obtain information, lack of available resources, internal and external pressures of receiving help, and the gathering of their information from non-traditional sources in comparison to traditional. Historically, the community has faced stereotypical pressures, which they actively fight against to be viewed as equal. After segregation being abolished and many sources and organizations offering support for many different races, there is still an imbalance in what is offered and available for African Americans. A mix of current and dated studies and texts will be highlighted to discover findings, notate critical gaps of information, and create a discussion. Information has been gathered using databases such as National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), PsychNet, Science Direct, as well as organizations focusing on mental health like National Alliance of Mental Illnesses and Mental Health America (MHA). Through this search, smaller organizations named the Association for Black Psychologists, HBCU Center for Excellence in Behavior Health, and BlackGirlsSmile were found. The organization, BlackGrilsSmile, was created in response to the lack of available resources for African Americans and females in terms of mental health. Larger organizations like the National Alliance of Mental Illnesses have created a symposium in 2004 focusing on African Americans and mental illnesses and recovery, to close the gap. The resulting findings indicate that while there have been advances made towards creating more resources and support in mental health awareness for the African American community, it is imperative to form an understanding of what African Americans face with limited resources due to racism, discrimination, poverty, the social climate, and even the community itself

The demographic forces shaping New Zealand’s future. What population ageing [really] means

This paper outlines the key demographic forces shaping New Zealand’s future. It ranges broadly across birth rates, life expectancy and migration to show how this converging demography will result in a regionally-disparate future. It identifies a migration-driven bite in New Zealand’s age structure across the young adult ages that is pronounced in non-urban areas, and argues that while rural regions have long lost young adults and sun-belt regions gained older, what differs is that this phenomenon is now occurring alongside population ageing, rendering such age structures no longer conducive to growth. The converging trends will not only make responding to baby boomer retirement more difficult but will increase competition for workers and push up labour and consumption costs. With the exception of larger urban areas and some retirement zones, it shows that sub national growth in much of New Zealand has already ended and that this scenario will continue to unfold until zero growth or population decline embraces all but the major urban areas. This is despite a national growth rate which is currently near equal the annual global growth rate. The paper posits that it is time to re-evaluate the question ‘when does population growth ‘end’?

Is diversity changing religious education? Religion, diversity and education in today’s Europe

The study of religious diversity as part of public education has become an important issue in recent times across Europe and in the wider international arena. In a sense the events of the events of September 11, 2001 in the USA, their causes, ongoing global consequences and associated incidents are a symbol of this shift in attention. However, arguments for policy changes encouraging the study of religious diversity in public education were being advanced well before 9/11. In one inter-governmental body, the Council of Europe, the shift from argument to policy development was held back by a reluctance to address a complex and controversial area reflected in different histories of religion and state within member countries and by a reluctance to acknowledge issues concerning religion as a mode of discourse within the public sphere. As noted in a Council of Europe document, the attacks on the World Trade Centre and other targets in September 2001 acted as a ‘wake up call’, bringing the issues directly to the attention of influential international bodies and precipitating action at the level of public policy (Council of Europe, 2002)

Moral Particularism and the Role of Imaginary Cases: A Pragmatist Approach

I argue that John Dewey’s analysis of imagination enables an account of learning from imaginary cases consistent with Jonathan Dancy’s moral particularism. Moreover, this account provides a more robust account of learning from cases than Dancy’s own. Particularism is the position that there are no, or at most few, true moral principles, and that competent reasoning and judgment do not require them. On a particularist framework, one cannot infer from an imaginary case that because a feature has a particular moral importance there, that it must have that import in an actual case. Instead, for Dancy, cases can yield “reminders,” and a person with a lot of experience (real or imagined) brings a “checklist” of features that can matter to a situation. Using the Nathan-David exchange from 2 Samuel and Martha Nussbaum’s “Steerforth’s Arm” from Love’s Knowledge, I show that this account does not explain all instances of learning from cases. Drawing on recent work on cases, I argue that cases can be educative by serving an exploratory function, probing what one takes to be known and provoking change in the background one uses in evaluating a situation. I then argue that Dewey’s work on imagination in his comments on sympathy and in A Common Faith and Art as Experience enables such a role for cases on a particularist framework. Mark Johnson’s recent work on metaphor further illuminates how Dewey’s account of art can be exploratory. I contend that this account affords an exploratory role for cases consistent with Dancy’s particularism

African adventure and metropolitan dissent in Thomas Hardy’s Two on a Tower (1882)

Recent studies of late 19th-century imperialism have challenged postcolonial arguments for the existence of a uniform imperial culture in colonial Britain that unquestioningly supported its overseas expansionist agenda. Through a cultural materialist reading of Thomas Hardy’s Two on a Tower (1882), this article extends these critical challenges to claims for a cohesive colonial society by exploring moments of textual and biographical dissent in relation to African adventure and travel writing. It demonstrates the way in which colonial pursuits in the African interior control and devastate metropolitan worlds. It additionally considers a range of oppositional responses that unite the novel’s metropolitan heroine and labourers against the African colonizer. Examples in Hardy’s tale of radical scepticism in relation to debasing representations of autochthonous cultures are likewise evaluated in this article for the riposte they offer to 19th-century travel writing about Africa

Contextual religious education and the interpretive approach

This article responds to Andrew Wright's critique of my views on the representation of religions. Using various literary devices - associating my work closely with that of others whose views are in some ways different from my own, referring very selectively to published texts and exaggerating, and sometimes misrepresenting, what I actually say - Wright presents my work as dualistic, nominalist and as not genuinely hermeneutical. Wright contrasts what he sees as my extreme idea of religions as 'constructions' with his own view of them as 'social facts'. My reply illustrates and responds to Wright's account of my work, clarifies my own position and raises questions about Wright's views, especially in relation to those of Gavin Flood, whom he cites with favour. My conclusion includes the suggestion that, although our epistemological positions are different in some ways, they spawn pedagogies utilising some common principles and values