Next weekend I’ll be talking about Uzbekistan at a conference organized by Awareness Projects International, an organization committed to raising awareness of social and political issues among Uzbek youth. I’m excited to be speaking with a diverse group of panelists … Continue reading →
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Sarah Kendzior: Speaking about Uzbekistan in Seattle
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Ethnography.com: This Week in Ethnography: Blog, “LivingEthnography”
This Week in Ethnography I found an interesting blog entitled,
LIVING ETHNOGRAPHY: Research and Conversations on Ethnography, Writing and Folklore
As personal blogs go, it’s more productive than most and the content is appealing. The About page is interesting in that it provides a few hints at the authors identity but no name:
I am a Folklorist, writer and ethnographer; I study immigration, communities and change. My current academic book project, Diversity Dependence: Suburban Identity and the Quest for a Multicultural Ideal examines three locations where immigrants and newcomers fundamentally influence political dynamics and identity. I am also completing a novel, The Unfinished.
I did finally figured out who the author was but not without a little work! Are you enticed yet?….
What initially caught my attention was a posting entitled, “The New El Norte: Canada” where the author discusses a new immigration trend in North America.
I lived in Mexico on and off from 1999 through 2005. Working with immigrants traveling back and forth to Pennsylvania, we spend a lot of time talking about the broken U.S. immigration system and the difficulties workers faced when crossing into the U.S.
Back then I asked a question that seemed far-fetched: why not go to work in Canada? Their immigration laws were certainly more flexible.
The responses were consistently the same: “it’s too cold” or “I don’t know anyone in Canada.” I already knew that most immigrants followed their networks north–one person would find and setting in a new area, then travel back to Mexico and share the cultural knowledge with family, friends and neighbors who in turn would start to join the “pioneer” migrant in the new locale. Migrant patterns are enduring, but they are not unchanging. This article from the Washington Post highlights how a model guest worker program in Canada is making a new El Norte.
For years I have argued that the U.S. needs a revised guest worker program. Many of my colleagues scoff at the idea, thinking that our H2-A visa program, which links agricultural workers to their employer for housing and health care. It’s a program that might work well for farmer, but it makes the immigrant worker beholden to his or her employer.
Continue reading the post here
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trinketization: Cotton for My Shroud – 6pm 16.1.2013
Filed under: ✪ what's on
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The Global Sociology Blog: The Walking Dead – Feral Season
I did not watch the new half season of the Walking Dead at the time it aired because (1) I can’t stand commercial breaks, and (2) I was saving it for the Holiday season and an 8-hour transatlantic flight. I have now watched the whole eight episodes back to back and I am pleased (and by pleased, I mean, disgusted) to report that this season is that of the feral misogyny. The same misogyny as the previous seasons, except without any of the social restraints (such as they were) from the previous seasons.
The unfaithful slut gets her comeuppance
… By dying in a bloody and painful childbirth, butchered by Maggie and with a coup de grâce administered by her son. I guess it was worth it not having this first-term abortion after all. The baby, of course, is fine (except infected, like everybody else).
Carl and his stupid hat.
The young actor has obviously considerably grown up over season break (supposedly a Summer season in the show timeline), but somehow the ridiculous hat still looks way too big on him and somehow, this new found maturity (as materialized by his full ownership of a gun as well as protective attitude towards the females in the herd) has not made him realize the ridiculousness of the hat. Oh well. I’ll leave it up to you to get all Freudian on the mercy-killing one’s mother.
One old patriarch out, one old patriarch in
Out with Dale, in with Hershel. Since Andrea was left behind, there was no need for Dale to lecture and patronize her all the time. Hershel is still around although now that everybody has submitted to Rick’s alpha male status, he is relegated to subordinate patriarch. However, patriarchs still have their special relationships. After his amputation and near-death experience (saved by Lori), the first hand he squeezes his Rick’s (not his daughters’). The alpha male gets first recognition in the clan.
WTF did the writers do to Andrea?
Good grief, Laurie Holden does not deserve this. Seems to me the writers have had it in for Andrea since the beginning, what with the character being constantly shown as the uppity woman, who wants to be like the guys, only she can’t because she’s got girl cooties, and everybody has to remind her of her lowly status (Dale, Lori, etc.).
So I initially had some hope when she was separated from – and left behind by – Grimes’s group. I even had higher hopes when she partnered with Michonne! Tough broads together! Ugh. No, as soon as they find the Potemkin village, Andrea falls under the spell of the other alpha male, The Governor. Her character goes all lame. Of course, he puts her in her place at the slightest trace of uppitiness.
Also, kudos for reducing Michonne to the stereotype of the angry black woman, barely socialized and fit for human company. Ugh.
Feral patriarchs
As I mentioned in the title, this season is the season where survivors go feral. Grimes is more advanced down that path than the Governor but he’s getting there. This first half season was especially bloody. Under the guise of saving ammunition, we get treated to a lot of hand-to-head bludgeoning, blood splattered all over people’s faces.
That is especially the case when Grimes (who had been a brooding dick to his wife) goes apes*it when he realizes she has died in childbirth. So, he disappears for a while and goes on a rampage, because, never mind the newborn that needs taken care of, that’s a woman’s job. And he’s gotta do a guy thing.
The killing thing, of course, extends to other survivors (same for the Governor who massacres a bunch of soldiers for supplies). It is actually uncanny how the two groups resemble each other: one alpha male with BIG dominance issue, a black guy (interchangeable, in Grimes’s group… so long T-Dog, we hardly knew ya), one Asian guy, one lame female, one neo-nazi brother (from the same family), one creepy doctor experimenting / keeping walkers.
The Governor does not go on rampages as savagely as Grimes, but he does some pretty creepy stuff, like the zombie head collection he keeps in his man cave, along with his now-turned daughter (VERY creepy stuff there).
Where Grimes has crossed the line into savagery and feral clan protectiveness, even if it means killing other survivors, the Governor is not quite there yet, but I suspect he will in the second half of the season. We can expect a Big Confrontation with the Grimes group. I’m guessing it’s too much to hope for for both Grimes and The Governor to die.
This progressive turn to savagery for the whole Grimes group is materialized with their physical degradation. They’re all filthy, with dirty and torn clothes. There is not much left civilized in them and their solidarity does not extend past their limited (and dwindling) group.
Oh, and there’s another group showing up at the end of the last episode of the half season, and within five minutes of showing up, a woman is told to shut up as a grown man thinks a boy with a stupid hat has higher status.
But they’re black, so, don’t you all get too attached here because black people are disposable on this show.
The only saving grace: Glenn and Maggie, apparently, the only characters who care about diapers and baby formula.
Seriously.
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Nineteen years and counting in Papua New Guinea: Ok Tedi, BHP and the gift that keeps on giving
I’m confused by this Post Courier caption and photo last week. Didn’t the Trust beneficiaries/landowners pay for the Fly Warrior themselves? Why is this touted as charity from OTDF? I suggest Middleton himself take the ship on his fly in-outs from Cairns. That’ll save a lot more money.
CEO of OTDF and Western Province Governor, Mr Ati Wobiro, dancing with villagers at Obo Station in Middle Fly on Saturday after launching the MV Fly Warrior. The vessel will help bring their project materials from Port Moresby to their jetty free of charge. Photo: OTDF Public Relations
A recent Australian reporter was brought up to Western Province to report on thebenevolences of Ok Tedi Development Foundation in light of some of the recentcriticism it has received. After ten years of ‘research,’ according to Middleton at this year’s Mining Conference in Sydney, OPTDF is now finally able to deliver some ofthose long-lost health and education services they have been promising sinceBHP left. Apparently, as OTML CEO Nigel Parker explained to the reporter,Jemima Garrett, when Inmet, the last foreign investor pulled out in 2011, OTDFwas finally free from commercial mandates and could concentrate on its social responsibilities.
NIGEL PARKER: It's very much an interesting position because we now have a full social mandate. When BHP exited we still had Inmet as an 18 per cent shareholder and there was a mix of the commercial mandate with social mandate. Inmet were very good in the social mandate side of it but now Inmet has exited it is full social mandate so everything we do has a focus on the Papua New Guinean people, what we can deliver to the economy, to the peoples of the Western Province, and of course to a wider group of people that are not just impacted by the mine.
Well why didn’t you say so before? INMET was holding you back from investing inthe social needs of Western Province people, despite the original mandate ofthe Trust. And now that it can turn its attention to buying planes and ships and other big ticket items ‘for the Western Province people’ , and publicize this as charity, it can also divert unknown amounts from this fund to spend on PR campaigns that just might drown out the abysmal reports emerging from people on the ground in Western.
OTDF: A charity that needs your support!
Better yet, OTDF has begun to partner with other donor organizations tobetter implement these services, and save the Fund more money.
In fact, if you look at he OTDF website you will find it seeks yoursupport:
"Get involved! Join us in helping PNG! We will soon have an online facility to allow you to donate, volunteer, or become a partner! “
Why support OTDF?
As a not for profit charity, all donations go to improving the lives of thosedirectly in need of your support.
We visit PNG homes and work with the locals to understand what improvements theyreally need.
How do we do it? Many people and organisations volunteer their support.
Our team are local Papua New Guineans with experience and a passion for making realchanges.
[www.otdfpng.org]
Thank god there's a way for us to volunteer. 59% of our donations will go to infrastructure! 16% to other---would that include Middleton's pay package? 4% to livelihood development! ---that would be restoring the subsistence base destroyed by miles of die-back from the mine tailings?
I know I'm glad that, considering the low levels of investment thus far (as reflected in this recent report on Lower Fly health services, below), there will be no need to actually tap the hundreds of millions of kina in that Singaporean Trust account to provide these services. Instead, that money can be saved for a rainy day, or to buy more big ticket planes and boats.
WOMEN are dying from abnormal bleeding along the banks of theSouth Fly river system and nothing is being done about it by the Ok TediDevelopment Foundation (OTDF).
The OTDF is the organisation responsible for the implementationand delivery of impact projects along the Fly River and the mine villages inthe Western Province.
This claim stems from a general health investigation report forthe Suki Fly Gogo and Manawate regions from April 24 to May 4 this year. Thereport was done by Michael Gen (field supervisor for capacity building project)and James Yore (monitoring and evaluation officer for OTDF).
The report was presented to the then team leader for communitydevelopment and acting capacity project program manager for the women’s andchildren program, Bill Rua, after a request from the Suki Fly Gogo and Manavetewomen’s Association executive members Saridu Saudi , Nanacy Isikin, Nareme Makai and Lynette Ogari.
Mr Rua then presented the report to OTDF chief executive officerIan Middleton and executive manager Alison Tammy. Since then both haveallegedly not acted upon the report.
Mrs Makai, the women’s and children’srepresentative in the Manawate Trust yesterday confirmed that numerous womenand children have died since this report was given four months ago.
“We have been patiently waiting for OTDF to act upon the reportand bring the medical assessment team to conform the reports. Now we are forcedto seek Government support, but due to lack of proper medical services in theregion we are being sent to Kiunga,” she added.
The process to get to Kiunga is too costly and OTDF do notsupporting in funding for logistic support as well. What can we do now? Sheasked.
The request for immediate attention to their medical needs comesoff the back of daily occurrences reports of abnormal bleeding from youngwomen, plus abnormal growths or lumps on babies, children, young women and men.
This includes what is being described as ‘burnt out looking sores’or ulcers that are prevalent amongst users of the river. The ulcers usuallystart from a scratch.
This is also a normal occurrence for water users of the Fly River whichflows from the Ok Tedi Mine down to the mouth of the river. This report covers18 villages in Suki and 17 villages in the Manawate region.
The total population of the Continuation Mine Community Agreement(CMCA) region is in the region of 70,000.
The methods used in the investigation were focused group discussion with long hoursof approximately 4-5 hours questioning of all aspect of diseases from personalhygiene, family planning, general health service, diet, safe water and otherrelated diseases. The three villages visited from Manewete region were Teapopo,Wariobodoro and Kea while six villages (Pukaduka 1, Kautru, Kiru, Riti,Pukaduka2, and Eniawa) from Suki were visited for this assessment.
The findings shows that health services throughout these regions have beendeteriorating for so long and all key health indicators have fallen behind thenational average. According to this investigation, many people have died fromcurable diseases, health facilities are at an appalling state, inconsistency ofdrugs supply, staff absenteeism, women die of loss of blood from abnormalbleeding and half the children under the age of 1 receive their immunizationvaccines.
Ends…
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Shenzhen Noted: bao tong analyzes the southern weekend incident
Zhao Ziyang’s former secretary, Bao Tong has weighed in on the Southern Weekend Incident. And once again, his quirky take sheds all sorts of light into the dark corners of … Continue reading →
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Folklore Forum: The Cloak of Dreams: Chinese Fairy Tales
Balázs, Béla. The Cloak of Dreams: Chinese Fairy Tales. Trans. Jack Zipes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010. Pp. ix+177. Illus., two appendices, bibliography. $24.95 hardcover. Brittany Warman The Ohio State University The Cloak of Dreams: Chinese Fairy Tales is a collection of literary fairy tales penned by the Hungarian author, film critic, filmmaker, and [...]
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tabsir.net: Have Muslims Misunderstood Evolution
The importance of Evolution and Islam debate in London
by Salman Hameed, Irtiqa’, January 7, 2013
I’m now back in US and I’m glad that I had a chance to attend the London debate, Have Muslims Misunderstood Evolution? It was organized by The Deen Institute and I posted some quick thoughts on Saturday.
You can find a good summary of each speaker’s presentation at Farrukh’s blog.
Here are a few reasons why I think the London debate on evolution and Islam may turn out be a game-changer in the way Muslims look at evolutionary biology, and science, in general.
This was an intra-faith debate. There is no question that the topic was controversial. However, the conversation on evolution often gets derailed by common misconceptions and juvenile creationist ideas. The debate would have been a failure, had it been simply between biologists and those who follow Harun Yahya. There is no common ground - as Yahya’s group has no understanding of science.
The reason for the success of the debate was that almost all of the speakers (with the exception of Harun Yahya acolyte, Oktar Babuna) accepted the scientific consensus on evolution. Then the question became: Can Muslims reconcile human evolution with their faith? Now this is an important question.
Here are a few take-aways from the London debate: (more…)
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anthropologyworks: IGIS faculty affiliate Bob Maguire discusses Haiti on NPR
Bob Maguire, professor of the practice of international affairs and director of the International Development Studies (IDS) Program at the Elliott School of International Affairs, discussed Haiti three years after the earthquake on WBEZ 91.5 Chicago’s Worldview.
Maguire is also a faculty affiliate in the Elliott School’s Institute of Global and International Studies and its newly forming Western Hemisphere Research and Policy Group.
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anthropologyworks: New book of interest on post-earthquake aid
The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind A Disaster
by Jonathan M. Katz. Palgrave Macmillan. 320 pages. $26.
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Nineteen years and counting in Papua New Guinea: We Remember Dr Tingay's Ok Tedi Report
OTDF and PNGSDP have embarked on a campaign to resuscitate their image. Before we talk describe the years of benevolence, world class health care, sterling infrastructure and educational facilities bequeathed to the people of Western Province during the past decade…or not bequeathed….Let us review some recent history.
When Ross Garnaut handed his Chairmanship of the OTML Board seat over to Sir Mekere Morauta this past year, we were all reminded of how enduring this friendship has been between the two men.
Wasn’t it Sir Mekere who, as PM in 2001, oversaw the passage of the Mine Continuation Agreement that indemnified BHP from all past and future damages to the environment and the Fly River, and then, despite declarations of its quitting Ok Tedi entirely, allowed BHP to mortgage back all its shares (122,200,000 in all---the controlling interest) in the $1.4 mill PNGSDP? That was a clever bit of financing.
Now, as a result, Sir Mek received the best golden parachute of a six-figure sinecure on the Board.
The question some have raised, is whether this represents a return of the Chairmanship to PNG, or to BHP?
Ross Garnaut resigns as Chairman of OK Tedi
12 January 2013
Papua New Guinea's ban on Australian economist, Professor Ross Garnaut, has forced Mr Garnaut to resign as Chairman of one of PNG's biggest companies.
Professor Garnaut has resigned as Chairman of Ok Tedi Mining Ltd saying it is not possible for him to fulfil his responsibilities to this large and complex company while the PNG government maintains its ban on his travelling to the country.
The ban was imposed in September after BHP Billiton refused to comply with Prime Minister Peter O'Neill's demand to renegotiate its agreement governing control of Ok Tedi's major shareholder, PNG Sustainable Development Ltd, a $1.4 billion charitable trust set up for the benefit of Papua New Guineans.
Does anyone else smell a fix?
Let’s turn now to the work of PNGSDP
In 2006 OTML hired Dr Alan Tingay to conduct an independent assessment of the social and environmental effects of the mine on Papua New Guinea.
His report was briefly available online, and has since been rescinded. But we can recall what the media said about it at the time:
Ok Tedi swamp toxic for centuries
by: Greg Roberts
From: The Australian
November 30, 2006
THE environmental effects of the Australian-managed Ok Tedi mine in Papua New Guinea will be felt for hundreds of years and vast areas of rainforest on the Fly River floodplain are being converted to toxic swampland.
An independent assessment of the copper mine by Australian consultant Alan Tingay found there had been no marked improvement in the living conditions of 50,000 people in its catchment area in 20 years of operation.
The assessment was raised yesterday by shareholders at the annual general meeting in Brisbane of former Ok Tedi operator BHP-Billiton, which quit the mine in 2002 but funds compensation for landholders through the PNG Sustainable Development Program.
Mr Tingay's report paints a much bleaker outlook for the region and its inhabitants than previously acknowledged. "Not only are the effects going to continue after the mine closes (in 2012), they are going to get worse," he said.
With 1.7 billion tonnes of waste being poured into the Ok Tedi and Fly river systems during the life of the mine, the build-up of toxic sediment in the Fly and consequent flooding would continue for "several hundred years".
About 3800sqkm of rainforest would be flooded, most of it "long after the mine has closed".
"Flooding will cause major changes to the whole floodplain ecosystem and these will be permanent," the report said.
Fish populations had declined by 95 per cent in the Ok Tedi River, with more than a million tonnes of copper discharged into it during the life of the mine.
On the basis of Tingay’s important report, OTML and the GoPNG proposed an increased compensation package in a NEC decision dated 29 November 2006.
This was put to the CMCA representatives by the Minister for Mining and accepted as the Memorandum of Agreement dated 29th June 2007. This has come to be known as the Mine Continuation Agreement, allowing OTML to remain in operation to 2013. What then happened to Tingay’s strong recommendations?
At the time, OTML reported that Dr. Tingay recommended , for example, there be a funded community health initiative linked to long-term monitoring of the river and mine related health impacts.
In fact, this is what Dr Tingay said:
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Discard Studies: CFP: Landscape Across the Disciplines
Many of our readers are interested in the relationships between waste and space. This is for you: Landscape Across the Disciplines: A Symposium April 5-6, 2013 Sponsored by SUNY Conversations in the Disciplines Teri Rueb and David Mark, Symposium co-Chairs This two-day SUNY ‘Conversation’ on Landscape Across the Disciplines provides a platform for inter- and … Continue reading »
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ICCI Home: Patterns of Biological and Sociocultural Evolution
International Conference on Evolutionary Patterns: Horizontal and Vertical Transmission and Micro- and Macroevolutionary Patterns of Biological and Sociocultural Evolution.May 27-29th, 2013,Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal. Deadline Submissions: February 1st, 2013The 3-day International Conference aims to provide an interdisciplinary platform where evolutionary scholars from the exact, technological, life, human and sociocultural sciences can exchange ideas and techniques on how to conceptualize, model, and quantify biological and sociocultural evolution.Plenary Speakers: Michael Benton, Tal Dagan, John Jungck, Carl Knappett, Daniel McShea, Alex Mesoudi, Mark Pagel, Tyler Volk, and Richard Watson.
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Discard Studies: CFP: Waste and indeterminacy
Call for Papers: Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, August 11-15, 2013 Special Session: Waste and indeterminacy Waste foments a lively conversation in geography, the social sciences, engineering, and the humanities. Specific topics proliferate – plastic bags and bottles, ocean waste, shipbreaking, e-waste, (in)formal economization, household recycling, landfilling, and sewage to name only a few – but a recurrent theme in what … Continue reading »
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trinketization: Where’s Friday?
I have started to gather my notes for the next lecture on Marx tomorrow. Here is what I had last year on Robinson. To which I hope to add some more this evening… Spivak uses the occasion of Derrida saying ‘hello to Marx’ (Spivak 1995:78) to make some key points about women in the contemporary [...]
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tabsir.net: Mud brick building in Yemen
People work near a kiln at a traditional brick-manufacturing site in San’a, Yemen, Nov. 20; photograph by Mohamed Al-Sayaghi / Reuters
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Erkan in the Army now...: Alternatif Bilişim’den Aaron Swartz açıklaması…
Amerikalı yazılımcı, yazar, politik organizatör ve internet aktivisti Aaron Swartz, 11 Ocak 2013’de, Brooklyn, New York’taki evinde intihar etti. 26 yaşındaydı.
RSS standardının kurulumundan Creative Commons patent sisteminin inşasına, Reddit’in ortak kuruculuğundan Demand Progress hak ve özgürlükler platformunun kuruculuğuna, kısa hayatına çok şey sığdırmıştı.
İntiharında ABD adalet sisteminin ve FBI’ın doğrudan sorumluluğu var, çünkü ölçüsüz bir davayla bu parlak internet aktivisti üzerinde ciddi taciz ve baskı uygulandı. Tim Berners-Lee’den Lawrence Lessig’e internet dünyasının önde gelen isimleri bu konuda ABD hükümetini kınadı. Ailesi dava açmaya hazırlanıyor.
Biz de Alternatif Bilişim Derneği olarak Aaron Swartz hakkında bir açıklama yayınladık. Şu adresten erişebilirsiniz: [www.alternatifbilisim.org]
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anthropologyworks: Anthro in the news 1/14/13
• The Paul Farmer effect in Haiti three years after the earthquake
Paul Farmer and Partners in Health are making a difference, according to an article in The Tampa Bay Times.
Paul Farmer before the cornerstone ceremony in 2010 for the teaching hospital in Mirebalais, Haiti/Daniel Wallace, Tampa Bay Times, 2010 “Of the billions of dollars nations and aid agencies pledged for earthquake recovery, too much still sits in bank accounts or exists only as budgetary line items. Too many earthquake victims still live under tarps. Too few live in solid homes. Very little has been done to bring lasting benefit to the people of Haiti. It’s enough to make a travesty of former President Bill Clinton’s famous pledge to ‘build back better.’ It’s enough to make anyone cynical about the possibility that charity can help create a strong and independent country. That’s why you might want to click on pih.org, the website of Partners in Health, co-founded by Hernando High School grad — and 2008 Great Brooksvillian — Paul Farmer. Its main post-earthquake project, a new teaching hospital in Mirebalais, 38 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince, was completed in October.”
Farmer’s work in Haiti is also mentioned in GlobalPost and The Globe and Mail (Canada).
• Aid shortcomings to Haiti driven by national interests
An article in The Gazette (Montreal) offers a generally negative view of the effectiveness of aid to post-earthquake Haiti and points out that critics of aid to Haiti are quick to cite the apparent failures of aid as a rationale for curtailing further aid.
The article mentions the work of Mark Schuller, professor of anthropology at Northern Illinois University: “In his recently released book Killing with Kindness, author Mark Schuller … said Haiti’s earthquake highlights that there has to be a human rights-based approach to development, rather than one based on national interest.”
Schuller has written: “The earthquake is exposing the weaknesses in the system of international aid … Since the quake, the general public and the mainstream media are thinking and talking about NGOs in a more realistic, critical light.”
• Men like it hot
On a lighter note: AW blogger Sean Carey published a piece in The Independent about the first person to have finished eating The Widower, a chicken curry so strong that the chef who prepares it uses goggles and a face mask for protection.
Chicken Tikka Jalfrezi/Wikipedia The winner is Dr. Rothwell, a 55 year-old radiologist. The £20 curry, prepared at the Bindi restaurant in Grantham, Lincolnshire, uses 20 ultra-hot Naga Infinity chilies. Naga Infinity chilies measure 6 million units on the Scoville Scale, which is 10,000 times hotter than Tabasco sauce. For many years the mild and creamy chicken tikka masala was the U.K.’s favorite dish, but it has been overtaken by the spicier chicken jalfrezi.
The increased preference for hotter dishes in the U.K. is especially marked among white males. Of the 300 people who have tried to conquer The Widower in the two years that it has been available, only 10 or so were female. The Sun, The Mirror and the Daily Mail all reported that the wife of the winner, found him “hallucinating” on Grantham High Street halfway through the challenge. Rothwell says that, although he was sweating and experiencing an endorphin rush, he was merely considering whether it was in his best interests to return to the restaurant to complete his task. He did, but it took another 30 minutes to finish off the dish. Before eating the curry, Rothwell signed a disclaimer.
• Wonderful things: Downton Abbey and tourism in Egypt
Tutankhamun/Wikipedia Egypt’s tourism industry, formerly a mainstay of the country’s economy, has been severely affected by the Arab Spring and following political unrest. The Daily Mail‘s travel section carried an article discussing the possible boost to the tourism industry from Downton Abbey, which is filmed at the estate of Lord Carnarvon.
Carnarvon’s famous question in 1922 to the archaeologist Howard Carter, at the tomb of 14th-century B.C.E. pharaoh Tutankhamun — “can you see anything?” — lives on in archaeology. The answer was … “Yes, wonderful things.”
• New BBC series
In a new television series for BBC 4, Lost Kingdoms of South America, archaeologist and Americas curator at the British Museum, Jago Cooper explores mountain citadels and sprawling stone ruins to learn about the peoples who lived in them long before the arrival of the Incas and Spanish conquistadors.
• Erotic gladiators of Rome
Italian archaeologists have found brightly colored fragments of frescoes depicting heroic and erotic scenes inside a corridor of the Colosseum in Rome, along with samples of ancient graffiti. An article in The Sydney Morning Herald mentions Rossella Rea, director of excavation project of the 2000-year-old amphitheatre. Read more.
Koutroulou Magoula figurine/University of Southampton • Clay figurines in Greece
Archaeologists from the University of Southampton studying a Neolithic archaeological site in central Greece have unearthed over 300 clay figurines, one of the highest density for such finds in south-eastern Europe. The Southampton team, working in collaboration with the Greek Archaeological Service and the British School at Athens, is studying the site of Koutroulou Magoula which is, around 160 miles from Athens. Koutroulou Magoula was occupied during the Middle Neolithic period (5800 – 5300 B.C.E.) by a community of a few hundred people who made architecturally sophisticated houses from stone and mud-bricks. The figurines were found all over the site, with some located in wall foundations.
• Going upstairs to have a pee in Pompeii
The residents of the ancient city of Pompeii were not limited to street-level plumbing. Many in the city headed upstairs when nature called. Most second floors in the Roman city are gone, claimed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii in C.E. 79. But vertical pipes leading to lost second stories indicate that there were once toilets up there, according to a new study by A. Kate Trusler, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Missouri.
“We have 23 toilets that are connected, that are second-story preserved, that are connected to these downpipes,” Trusler told LiveScience at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Seattle, where she presented her research.
• Kudos
Deborah Boehm, assistant professor of cultural anthropology and women’s studies at the University of Nevada at Reno, was awarded the Ruth Benedict Global Citizenship Award by the Center for a Public Anthropology. Boehm was recognized for her research and her involvement in the Public Anthropology’s Community Action Project.
“Professor Boehm is to be commended for how she takes classroom knowledge and applies it to real-world challenges, thereby encouraging students to be responsible, global citizens,” said Rob Borofsky, director of the Center for a Public Anthropology. “In actively addressing important ethical concerns within anthropology, Boehm is providing students with the thinking and writing skills needed for active citizenship.”
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Language Log: Remembering Aaron Swartz (and Infogami)
There have been many online remembrances of Aaron Swartz, the brilliant young programmer and Internet activist who killed himself on Friday at the age of 26. (See, for instance, Caleb Crain's piece for The New Yorker's Culture Desk blog and the many tributes linked therein.) It's typically noted that in 2005 Swartz founded the startup Infogami, which then merged with Reddit shortly thereafter. (In obituaries, Swartz has often been identified as a co-founder of Reddit — that's not quite accurate, though the Infogami wiki platform was a key to Reddit's early success.) I don't have any first-hand reminiscences to share, but with Infogami back in the news I thought it would be a good time to look back on something I wrote in 2006 about the company's name.
On April 11, 2006, I followed up on something Mike Pope wrote for his Evolving English II blog with a Language Log post, "Unfolding Infogami." I was chiefly interested in how the -gami, derived from origami, was supposed to be interpreted. I was also curious about the pronunciation: for those who grokked its basis in origami, a pronunciation of [ˌɪnfoˈgɑmi] (after [ˌɔrəˈgɑmi]) would make sense, but others might be tempted to pronounce it as [ɪnˈfɑgəmi] on the model of words ending in -gamy like monogamy [məˈnɑgəmi]. To show that this was a bit confusing from the beginning, I quoted a post by Swartz on the origins of the startup:
'When would you have the first prototype done?' 'Well, we'd hope to work on it over the next term so we'd have it ready over the summer.' 'Oh, wonderful, wonderful.' he says. 'What about this name? Infogami? You're going to always have to spell it out.' Paul [Graham] says. 'Isn't it just origami with info at the beginning?' 4 of 4 asks. 'Well, it's confusing,' Paul says. 'In-FAH-gomee,' Trevor [Blackwell] chimes in. 'All the names with blog in it are probably taken,' 4 of 4 says. 'No, you don't want blog in it,' Paul says. 'You want something bigger, something that can face the world. You're not wedded to the name, are you?' 'No, we just picked it so we could stop discussing the name and move on,' I said. 'Oh, good,' Paul says, and moves on.
I also quoted Paul Graham, in a post about startup names from Mar. 14, 2006, indicating that he had warmed up to the sound of "Infogami" after his initial reluctance:
Infogami is a pretty decent name too. Aaron already had that when we first met him. It can't conveniently be used as a verb, but it looks and sounds good, and has the advantage that it can naturally expand to cover whatever this software evolves into.
(Graham's post is an interesting attempt to quantify the factors going into a successful startup name, using seven criteria: Evocativity, Brevity, Greppability, Googlability, Pronounceability, Spellability, and Verbability. He didn't think much of "Reddit" at first either.)
After writing the Language Log post, I received an email from Sean B. Palmer, an early collaborator of Swartz, providing some further insight into the source of the Infogami coinage:
Regarding your post about the name "infogami" on Language Log, I'm not even sure if Aaron remembers this himself but please note that the name was actually coined by a friend, Steve Ivy, way back in the murky mists of time… Apparently the term was coined on 2002-03-07, but I don't have my logs for that date to hand, so the seminal moment may be lost to the bit bucket. Perhaps Aaron remembers more?
Swartz was cc'ed on the email but never followed up with additional information. The origins of Infogami have, however, come up again on Swhack!, an IRC channel that Swartz and Palmer created in 2001. Here is a chat log from Nov. 5, 2012, in which Palmer again talks about how the name was borrowed from Steve Ivy:
13:16:21 how do you pronounce 'infogami'? I (mentally) pronounced it like "polygamy' with 'in-fog' instead of 'polyg' but talking to you about it once, i realised the connection to 'origami'
13:17:10 yeah, it's a straight portmaneau of information and origami. we didn't come up with it, Steve Ivy came up with it—nickname redmonk on Swhack. it was just something he came out with on Swhack at some point and we asked whether we could use it
13:17:27 so I say "in-fo" + "gar-me"
(The pronunciation spelling of /gɑ/ as "gar" is a tell that Palmer speaks a non-rhotic British dialect. For more on such spellings, see "Pinker's almer mater.")
Though I don't see anything about Infogami on the Swhack! log for Mar. 7, 2002 (the date given by Palmer for Ivy's coinage), it does show up in logs later that month (Mar. 18, Mar. 25, Mar. 29). Swartz is front and center in these conversations… at the tender age of 15.
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The Global Sociology Blog: The Visual Du Jour- Les Misérables (NOT Les Mis) Timeline
This awesome timeline of character distribution of Les Misérables (click on the image for ginormous view):
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