Let’s give it up for the AAA blog

I’d like to think the reason I am so critical of our professional organization is not that I am some sort of curmudgeon, but because it so often fails to get anything right. In the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, therefore, I think it is high time that we give it up for the American Anthropological Association’s ‘new’ blog: The AAA Blog. After an initial proliferation of blogs — I think the AAA created a separate blog for each post it wanted to make — the new consolidated blog has really gotten off the ground. The blog manages to balance  institutional boilerplate with more heartfelt commemoration of events in our disciplinary history, along with everything in between. Its not a place where you go to be provoked or shocked (Maximilian Forte is still fighting the good fight on that end of things), but it has managed to successfully put a face on our discipline’s professional organization that is both respectable and not boring: they track the appointment of AAA members to prestigious positions, they have a flickr photo stream of Indigenous Children In Authentic Textiles playing with iphones and laptops, announce grants, and so forth. Its an important niche in the anthropology noosphere that has finally been filled. So let’s give it up for the AAA blog — good job folks!