My article, for Anthropology News, “Stop Yelling at the TV and Get Online!” has just been published. This is the first of a series of articles I am writing and co-editing about the role that online publishing can play in anthropology. In this first article I give a general introduction to the concept of “blogging”: [...]
Via Sepia Mutiny an article on Yiddish speaking Gujaratis in Antwerp: In Antwerp, Jews and Indians are so embedded in each other’s lives that many of the Indian dealers speak Hebrew and Yiddish. It is common to see donation boxes for Jewish charities in the entrances of Indian businesses, and after a devastating earthquake in [...]
From Boingboing.net, three stories on “freedom of speech” (1, 2, 3): First, a story from the ACLU, whose court filing was censored by the Justice Department. Here is the passage they redacted: The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect [...]
Enough about T-shirts. The RNC is in town and its poster time: And, from the New York Times: Scott Sala, a Republican with a blog called Slant Point, urges citizens to report illegally posted protest graphics to city officials and offers on his Web site a downloadable version of the official city complaint form. Right, [...]
In September of last year Jonathon Delacour wrote eloquently about the role of “sadness” in Japanese aesthetics: It’s this “aesthetic empathy of things and feelings” connected with time’s passing that the eighteenth century literary scholar, Motoori Norinaga, defined as mono no aware, which I’ve seen variously described as deep impressions produced by small things sympathetic [...]
There has been a lot of talk about how hypocritical Bush is for asking Kerry to disavow 527s (such as MoveOn.org). As Nick Confessore writes: If President Bush is opposed to 527s, somebody better tell his senior campaign staff, and quick. It is certainly true that the Republicans now rely upon 527s as much as [...]
I didn’t even realize that cotton was a verb. From The American Heritage Dictionary: To come to understand. Often used with to or onto: “The German bosses . . . never cottoned to such changes” (N.R. Kleinfield). The context in which I came across this is a joke, since it is the title of an [...]
So what’s happening with the senate races? Electoral-vote.com has a rundown: In this year’s election, 19 seats currently held by Democrats and 15 seats currently held by Republicans are up for grabs. Not only do the Democrats have to defend more seats, but five popular Southern Democratic Senators are retiring. The Democrats face an uphill [...]
Whether it is taking pictures in public places, or using a wireless connection outside a library, it seems that the police and even the population at large feel free to just make new laws up as they please. So, while we’re at it, here are some new laws I will start enforcing today: No playing [...]
Two handy URLs for anyone planning on being in town during the RNC. (I’m still not sure whether I will be or not…): August 29 Protest: Directions and info for the march past RNC headquarters. This is where the main action will be RNC Not Welcome Calendar: A huge list of other events, including poetry [...]