Category: VOLUME V, No. 4

EDITORIAL NOTE

Since our last issue the Fidesz government and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán have won a second landslide election giving them, even if narrowly, a two-thirds majority in the Hungarian Parliament. Though it is unwise to take History’s name in vain, we think this election worthy of being called historic because

HUNGARIAN ELECTIONS AND AFTER

For a centre-right party, for any political party really, to win a democratic election by a two-thirds majority is rare enough (as in 2010). To repeat the experience is unprecedented. One can well imagine the Fidesz-haters – and their number is legion – muttering into their bowls of gruel about

WHITER HUNGARIAN MITTELSTAND?

For a centre-right party, for any political party really, to win a democratic election by a two-thirds majority is rare enough (as in 2010). To repeat the experience is unprecedented. One can well imagine the Fidesz-haters – and their number is legion – muttering into their bowls of gruel about

SOFT POWER: UNRELIABLE, DIFFICULT TO MANAGE – AND MASSIVELY OVER-SOLD

Until the end of the Cold War it was largely taken for granted that an effective foreign policy depended crucially on the possession of military power. While diplomacy and other forms of what has become known as “soft power” had a role, it was generally assumed that in the absence

SEX ON THE BRAIN: WHAT BRAIN PLASTICITY TEACHES ABOUT INTERNET PORN

We are in the midst of a revolution in sexual and romantic tastes unlike any other in history, a social experiment being performed on children and teenagers, captured in a powerful, poignant scene in the recent British documentary InRealLife, about the effects of the internet on teenagers, directed by Baroness

CZERNOWITZ – REMINISCENCES OF A DROWNED MAN

My connection with Czernowitz runs deep. I can even gauge it by eye: approximately two metres. The cemeteries of this city host the remains of my aunts, my grandmother, my father and my elder brother. Even today my bride, now my widow, alas, and my cousin still live there. I

MINORITY ELEGY

A spectre is haunting the universal map of humanity: the spectre of minorities. The map is overwhelmingly complex and these travellers are small and vulnerable. A distant viewer would not even discover this chaotic and anarchic stream of people aimlessly yet stout-heartedly drifting on pathless ways, far away from the

CC: CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate is what you expect; weather is what you get.(Mark Twain) Climate change (CC) is not exactly a new phenomenon: the climate has been “changing” for four and a half billion years, “change” being what climate does. However it was officially discovered as an imminent threat to the planet and

WATERSHED CONSCIOUSNESS – THE DANUBE: A JOURNEY UPRIVER

WATERSHED CONSCIOUSNESSThe Danube: A Journey Upriver* Nick Thorpe acknowledges Gary Snyder up front. In this book he brings over to “the shoulders of the old Danube” (Thorpe’s phrase) some of Snyder’s ideas on ecological and cultural bioregionalism. Snyder has been writing about reclaiming the home watershed, from his farm in