Questions about ‘security’ provide a lens that brings issues of national independence into sharp focus. In the first instance, security concerns the ability of a state to protect its inhabitants from danger. The idea that security is the first responsibility of government has long been a political mantra. But choosing strategies to ensure a country’s eff…
Astonishingly exotic and utterly compelling, Vietnam is a country of breathtaking natural beauty with a unique heritage, where travel quickly becomes addictive. Eat, drink and shop til you drop in beautiful, ancient Hoi An; kite surf in Mui Ne; or visit the impressive pagodas and royal tombs of Hue; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Vietnam and begin your journey no…
Veganism is on the rise, and so is the worldwide consumption of meat. The Vegan Society defines veganism as "a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to animals for food, clothing or any other purpose". The extent to which individuals, groups, and institutions all over the world adhere to this way of living has cruc…
The principal parlor of the New Golden Gate Hotel in San Francisco, fairly reported by the local press as being "truly palatial" in its appointments, and unrivaled in its upholstery, was, nevertheless, on August 5, 1860, of that startling newness that checked any familiarity, and evidently had produced some embarrassment on the limbs of four visitors who had just been ushered into its glor…
Where the San Leandro turnpike stretches its dusty, hot, and interminable length along the valley, at a point where the heat and dust have become intolerable, the monotonous expanse of wild oats on either side illimitable, and the distant horizon apparently remoter than ever, it suddenly slips between a stunted thicket or hedge of "scrub oaks," which until that moment had been undistinguis…
Where the North Fork of the Stanislaus River begins to lose its youthful grace, vigor, and agility, and broadens more maturely into the plain, there is a little promontory which at certain high stages of water lies like a small island in the stream. To the stronglymarked heroics of Sierran landscape it contrasts a singular, pastoral calm. White and gray mosses from the overhanging rocks and…