Reading Circle Supplements: crazy inflation and f*ed up laws.

For those of you who haven’t yet picked up, or received, your copy of Suffering for Territory, here’s some sources for learning about current affairs in Zimbabwe. Inflation is currently somewhere around 4500%. I think that basically means that the price goes up before you can dig for change in your pocket. Or would that be your wheelbarrow of cash. The US has apparently offered food aid. The Times of London has an article about starvation and the “silent genocide” with the startling claim that no one seems to know what the population of Zimbabwe is anymore. Also (via boingboing) a series of Internet-related laws allowing monitoring of all phone and data traffic.

A few good blogs (1| 2| 3) seem to be out there as well… please post others if you know of them.

Christopher Kelty does anthropological and historical research on science and technology, free and open source software, intellectual property and open access, the history of software, and the ethics and politics of nanotechnology. He also teaches classes about all of these things. From 2001 to 2008 he was assistant professor of anthropology at Rice University, in Houston, TX. He know teaches at UCLA and splits his time between the Information Studies department, the Anthropology Department and the Center for Society and Genetics.