Around the Web is back and sputtering through the start of the fall semester. This September’s collection of links could have been more robust as I got out of the habit of tweeting @savageminds while I juggled all my other responsibilities. In fact I wrote this column a week ago but never clicked ‘Publish’ if that gives you a sense of where my brain’s been at lately. But never mind, it’s a new Friday and I’m turning over a new leaf and writing more links.
If you found something around the web that you’d like to share with the Savage Minds community, email me at mdthomps @ odu.edu. And now, to the links!
- UCL anthropologists lose letters in diff neighborhoods to see which arrive at destination. But is it altruism? //MT
- On the Facebook status updates of the dying and terminally ill. //MT
- Homebrew biohackers never stop looking for new ways to put machines inside their bodies. //MT
- IRB’s a stumbling block for engaged anthropology? Med student who aspires to study prison popns reflects. //MT
- Google Street View reaches Nunavut hamlet. //MT
- Appeals court rejects researcher’s bid to protect oral history confidentiality ahead of govt investigation. //MT
- Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibility: A Handbook for Scholars and Teachers of the Middle East /KF
- Indigenous people of Cheran, Mexico, reclaim their forests by taking illegal loggers hostage, closing roads. //MT
- Article title ftw: “Our Failure to Exercise Our Responsibilities by Digitizing Life & Surrendering It to Computers”
- “Natural Experiments of History” J.Diamond and J.Robinson, eds. [review] //MT
- Modern use of ancient farming techniques still works at the household level in Bolivia. //MT
- Boys throw farther and faster than girls… but so what? Speculations about human evolution and neurology ensue. //MT
- Chinese govt will launch “cultural theme park” in Tibet to attract tourists. via @indigenous_news //MT
- People don’t understand how much wealth the top has or how little the bottom is left with. //MT
- Poverty in America. Why can’t we end it? //MT
- Author of “Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food” ruminates on the possible origin of the taco. //MT
- Montana Blackfeet wrestle with decision to allow fracking on tribal land. //MT
- Ancient rock-art may push back the date for earliest human occupation of the Azores. //MT
- What’s an ethnographer to do with Big Data? //MT
- What is at stake in the Chicago Teachers Union strike? /KF
- “Innocence of Muslims” performers were hoodwinked, led to believe they were in a film titled “Desert Warrior” //MT
- Mmmmmm! Bonus Candy from Banker body parts /KF
- Frans de Waal wins IgNobel prize for research on chimp butts. //MT
- It’s time to stop researching and start writing. //MT
- Keep track of your hunches as if they were stray children. //MT
- Hippies, Indians, and the Fight for Red Power [author interview] //MT
- John Searle on consciousness: “The brain is a tough nut to crack.” //MT
- Metabolic processes, not cranium size vs pelvic inlet, was selective pressure acting on human birth & develop. //MT
- Six in ten SAT takers not ready for college level work, 2012 reading scores lowest since ’72. //MT
- An African Lyssistrata in Togo as local women urge their men to stand up to the President’s election reforms. //MT
- Open letter to people who think they have found the artifact that will change archaeology as we know it. //MT
- Reservation “Capitalism”: Economic Development in Indian Country [book review] //MT
- The man who wanted to change the world: RIP Eric Hobsbawm /via @mosabou /KF
Thank you Matt Thompson for sharing these links, especially the one about my community, Cheran. In Mexico, a conventionalized understanding of P’urhépecha community organization in particular, and Indigenous organization in general, holds that we never had nor possess “laws”, but simply abide to “usos y costumbres” (uses and customs). Only through Western intervention are we finally under rule of law. Sadly, these ideas leak, and a many fellow P’urhe repeat such nonsense. Enough of this societal critique. Keep em coming.