Your weekly dose of internet links, blogs and news, with an anthropological twist.
Japan FTW / Japan WTF: Sometimes I come across an amusing link that’s really random and instead of publishing them right away I hang onto them until enough to be considered a theme. This week I’m squeezing off a list of interesting items from Japan.
- The NYT ran a fine obituary of Kazuo Ohno, 1906-2010, the legendary Butoh dancer and performer.
- Remember Push-pops? They were like the least expensive frozen treat at the 7-11. Take the same idea and replace the ice cream with sushi and you have sushi poppers!
- Japanese convenience stores abound in crazy flavors of Kit-Kat bars like soy sauce and ginger-ale, marketed as the chosen snack of students cramming for exams. Mmmmm! Bet they go great with a Cucumber Pepsi.
- How to raise awareness of rice agriculture? I’ve got it, lingerie! The grow-your-own-rice bra.
- A lovely coffee table book about the aesthetics of decorated manhoru (manhole covers).
Oil spill disaster: It seems some conscious consumers are opting to boycott BP, I know my neighborhood store seems less busy than usual. However, may I note that the other oil companies are not exactly paragons of social justice by comparison? Perhaps the most radical action one can make in this instance is to drive less. Much less. I haven’t picked up anything about the Deepwater Horizon from the anthropology blogs yet. I’ll share any such links as I come across them.
- BP’s greatest crime may be that it made a mess on American shores for Shell has been screwing the Nigerian delta for decades with spills greater in volume than the Deepwater Horizon. The corporation has already paid $15.5 million to settle claims that they arranged to have African activists murdered.
- NPR ran a story about a documentary on Chevron, which has been dumping untreated pollutants directly into the rivers of Ecuador. That the filmmakers are now being sued by Texaco (Chevron’s parent company) to surrender all unedited footage raises important questions about methodological choices.
- CNN reports a pervasive sense of dread among the inhabitants of coastal Louisiana. Those that don’t fish for a living are likely to work for the oil companies. With the ruined fisheries and moratoriums on off-shore drilling their livelihoods are being snuffed out.
- With the loss of the Gulf of Mexico fisheries there will be significant impact on the culinary culture of Louisiana. Restaurants that depend on fresh local seafood are scrambling to update their menus while staying true to their traditional foodways.
- Investing in BP could be a smart money move right now. “The world will forget,” sound like famous last words to me. Apparently Scott Adams of Dilbert fame agrees.
War and the social sciences: The blog Zero Anthropology has been running so many posts on the Human Terrain System lately (six this past week), I’ll just direct you to their site rather than link to each posting.
- The BBC blogs about HTS and earlier collaborations between anthropology and the U.S. military in Vietnam and WWII. The story should be familiar to everyone who read Anthropology as Cultural Critique and The Chrysanthemum and the Sword in their undergrad theory class, but the post adds great imagery and video links.
- PBS, Frontline, has a troubling story of one platoon of infantry that since returning from the Iraq War is struggling with a range of psychiatric disorders and criminal behaviors including homicide, suicide, drunk driving, and domestic violence.
- A post on the “Culture Smart Card” and the Army’s Arabic language video games that simulate a variety of social encounters with Iraqis (both of which I heard about years ago, but never have I seen them until now).
- A deeply troubling interview regarding alleged medical experiments run on detainees at CIA black sites, alongside monitoring their health as they were being tortured. IRB committee is going to frown on that one.
Downloading Culture: The Cranky Linguist turned up a web page from an online degree mill that links to “100 Incredible Anthropology Lectures.” I have enjoyed listening to some philosophy and psychology lectures on iTunes U, and I’ve watched some of David Harvey’s lectures of Marx’s Capital too. Has anyone put their lectures online who cares to offer some reflection about it?
Fishy business and other food posts: For three semesters I taught a popular Food and Culture course, and even though that course is on hiatus (until I’m paid to teach it again) I’m constantly on the lookout for food related internet links.
- Fish is brain food, but did it literally help hominins grow large brains?
- Oyster shells confirm that Jamestown settlers endured a terrible drought.
- An ancient Chinese rice recipe… for mortar.
- Competitive grandmas accumulate cultural capital through strategic gift giving of prized food items.
- Pumpkin carving at Halloween is also a fine example of living traditions.
- A school bus full of local produce that drives into the city to sell it’s wares. It’s like a farmer’s market crossed with a Bookmobile.
Visualizing Australia:
- Filmmakers collaborate with Aboriginal communities and display their work at an upcoming conference. I hope some of this makes its way to YouTube because it sounds really interesting.
- A contender for the oldest rock art in Australia, and possibly the world, depicts a giant extinct bird. The Upper Paleolithic is my favorite lecture to give in Human Origins! Can’t wait to use this one.
Timewaster: Enjoy this video of a woman playing the guitar with some seriously creative handwork on the neck. Not exactly “like never before” as the YouTube headline bills it, but maybe kind of like a lap steel? It’s like her skin is so strong she doesn’t need a slide. I don’t know, how would you describe it? Yep, I could totally do this too, if I wasn’t so busy blogging. Heh.
Seen something around the web that you’d like to share with the Savage Minds community? Hit me up at matthew.thompson@cnu.edu
Thanks to all my friends who provided links for this week’s column! It is much appreciated.
That fruit bus picture you linked to reminds me of one I saw in the “only in the Valley,” Facebook page. The page refers to the strange uniqueness of the Rio Grande Valley on the southern border of Texas, where I’m from.
http://www.facebook.com/onlyinthevalley#!/photo.php?pid=31240312&o=all&op=1&view=all&subj=279557454971&aid=-1&id=1434998960&fbid=1480582661273
The video is ripped off from here.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Bokete7
My mother received a preliminary iteration of the Smart Card when her Guard unit was activated during the Gulf War. I remember my department’s listserve had a thread going about the Smart Cards a couple of years ago. The tone was generally derisive—”Ha! They didn’t even know that!?!” But I remember that my mother and I were honestly fascinated by the pamphlet when she brought it home. I particularly recall how interesting we found the injunction against offering things with the left hand. In retrospect it was an early encounter with ethnology, though I wouldn’t learn the word for a few years.
“Squeezing off” LMAO
Hi Matt. Thanks very much for the link!
Great roundup.
@ Seth Wow, that video channel is awesome! Thank you so much!
@ Rick. Yeah, I’m from Texas too. The first thing I thought was “taco truck.”
“I particularly recall how interesting we found the injunction against offering things with the left hand. In retrospect it was an early encounter with ethnology, though I wouldn’t learn the word for a few years.”
With a smartcard every soldier can log onto a secure server with every Rosseta Stone course, and cultural briefs you can take towards promotion points. All the courses you completed would add promotion points to your personal record.
There was an interesting documentary series on PBS called, “Operation Homecoming,” in which visual media were set to essays and various things that soldiers wrote about their experiences as a part of their therapy. I personally think that the series is the future of visual anthropology, but it wasn’t done by anthros. One of the soldiers wrote an essay that blends the things he was taught about the culture of the place by the army, with the things he learned on the ground. It’s titled “What Every Soldier Should Know.” It’s very powerful. The one that relates to this story is here: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/594991/what_every_soldier_should_know/
Matt,
One quick comment about the Culture Smart Card. While better than nothing, there is an inherent risk in the oversimplification required to reduce a culture to something that can fit in your pocket. Dr. Rochelle Davis of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University pointed out at the recent TRADOC Culture Summit that the section on Male Dress was so grossly oversimplified as to be completely wrong. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for instance, regularly wears a white keffiyeh, but we certainly wouldn’t want to judge then that he had not made the Hajj.
These cards demonstrate the military’s long-standing desire to make products that are “soldier-proof”. But as I said, they are better than nothing. The interactive language programs, like Tactical Iraqi, are even better, especially when coupled with live interaction with Iraqis, Afghanis, etc. living in the U.S. These are the best means for equipping soldiers with the basic language and interpersonal skills needed to navigate in a strange environment – at least beyond those skills we hope they developed during their upbringing.
Whether we want our soldiers there or not–indeed whether they want to be there or not–they are there. Anything we can do to better equip them with the skills that can help them cope with the environment and avoid offenses while allowing them to build relationships as a means of speeding our transition and ultimate departure is better than sending them into a foreign socio-cultural landscape unprepared.
Ok, so I just read that linked BBC story about the history of anth with the military, and the story about the woman that was set on fire. I hadn’t actually read that part of the story, because everyone that wrote about it simply said that an HTS member was killed and another member was charged for manslaughter. It seems like telling the context of the story really matters. It’s pathetic the way such a tragedy is used as someone’s propaganda fodder.
The “woman playing guitar” is apparently a man from Botswana named Ronnie.
Original Youtube video is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qSPQOrmvHE&feature=related
Max Forte, it would be nice if you stuck around to defend your views instead of blocking all the comments of HTS supporters even though we were very polite to you even when you were hurling insults. You then proudly proclaim that we are too cowardly to speak against what your’re saying and that you drove us off your site when in reality some of us responded but you just refused to post our response on your website. Even if you wish any respect from anthropologists involved with HTS and if you wish to get people to change their minds about HTS, you might try talking to them in a civil manner. You might also try not posting Al-Qaeda propaganda videos on youtube and voicing your support for them in a over-romantic view of insurgents that is vastly worse then the National Geographic video about HTS that you recently posted.
I forgot to say, that my offer still stands to discuss HTS here Max if you truly believe in what you say and can discuss the issue in a civil manner.
Chris, there’s really no point. You can’t reason or debate a zealot. Such things are so ingrained within some people’s personality that they literally would not know what to do or how to feel without setting up their lives to something they’ve determined is eternally depraved. A good term for it is “therapeutic alienation.” I imagine its much like talking a jihadist for you.
It’s like getting into an argument with a former alcoholic that’s found Jesus. You just can’t do it. You’d have better luck buying him a ticket to the Middle East where the people he supports would likely kill him.
I was an anarchist until I actually started to hang out with anarchists, many years ago.