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Claude Levi-Strauss dead at 100.
Updated: well, no, not "updated" in that sense-he’s still quite dead. I meant my post-here’s a better obituary from the Guardian.
I know, I know, you were expecting some sort of structuralism joke, but I’m just not on it today. Feel free to have at it in the comments if you’ve a good one.
The British Library is making their entire sound archive available, for free, on the Internet.
I admit a certain curiosity to hear the recording on a woodworm eating a windowframe.
THIS is why I’m homeschooling. I never imagined I would need to homeschool my child to teach him science.
The scary quote:
"I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school."
The Guardian has an article about the push to get South Asians in the UK to eat a lower-fat diet (cooking curries without ghee, for example).
It would be interesting to know how many people in these communities with high incidences of diabetes and cardiovascular disease are really adhering to a non-Western diet. Sure, curries swimming in ghee are fatty, but they become worse if part of a diet that also includes trips to the local chippy.
It would also be interesting to see some numbers on those diseases in the South Asian countries. I can’t help but wonder if such a programme would sound absurd to people struggling to get enough calories to get through the day. Is this perhaps a middle class problem for immigrants doing a bit better )and eating more)in the UK? I don’t know-I’m just speculating.
It takes about a pound of butter to get a cup of clarified butter. Where I live, that costs about $ 2.00 for the butter. I don’t think I could purchase a cup of good quality oil for that. I’m not even sure I could buy Crisco cheaper, and we all know that isn’t exactly a healthy alternative. I don’t know what dairy prices are like in the UK.
Anyway, an interesting thing to think about, though sadly the article didn’t really go into enough detail.
I’m not sure the headline has it quite right calling them human footprints, as Homo erectus is an ancestor-unless that’s changed since I was in school (which is, I suppose possible) or been explained away by a relevant bible passage.
Would you look at the size of those feet? How cool of a find is that?
I’m going to chalk up my sudden disgust with people to the massive dose of prednisone I’m on at the moment but uh, I’m also going to go ahead and roll with it.
Did you know that there are couples who like to eat different foods? No really, there was a long-ish article in the newspaper today. They can’t get along because one likes steak, and the other likes sushi. Even when one parter gives in, it apparently isn’t enough to simply eat the food, they are expected to fall all over themselves proving they enjoy it. Geez, I thought that sort of lying was restricted to the bedroom. Now you have to praise the cous cous too?
From the article:
"Even if Parker agrees to try a new restaurant, it doesn’t solve the problem. “I want someone who will be excited to go to the Ethiopian place, not say, ‘Yeah, I’ll try it for you,’ ‘’ Smith says. "
-I like that she’s getting the micro-managing in early in the relationship.
Seriously, people need to consult psychologists over this? Look, just do what my dad did every time my mother presented the family with an obscenely large courgette stuffed with ground beef that had been seasoned in V-8 juice: he’d eat a few bites politely and then tell her it was delicious "but so filling, I couldn’t possibly eat another bite." Then, after she’d gone to sleep, he’d head into the kitchen and make himself a couple cheese sandwiches (American cheese on rye bread, no mustard). There, problem solved. If he knew the V-8 special was coming he’d eat before getting home.
I can say, as an Anthropologist, I’ve eaten things I’d rather not have. Unless it contains something I’m actually allergic to (like nuts) I feel obligated to eat whatever someone prepares for me because it really is a gesture of kindness to share food. I also firmly believe that you need to do a convincing job of praising it as well. That is not the appropriate time for honesty, or eye rolling or squinty faces. Eat the food, tell the cook it was wonderful, and try to be a decent person. It won’t kill you to eat something you dislike.I’ve eaten enough cucumbers in my life (blech) to prove it. I don’t know where people get the idea that they have to like everything they eat. I’ll just go ahead and blame Reagan for the sake of being consistent in blaming Reagan for everything else that goes wrong with society.
This part really got me:
"Sometimes, differences in food choices are too great to overcome. Martha Wright, a former Washington Post editor who now works as a communications manager in Chicago, made a deal with her vegan boyfriend when they moved in together in 2002. If she agreed not to bring meat or dairy products into the kitchen, she’d get a discount on the rent.
Wright tried to stick to the rules, but she confesses she occasionally hid chocolate chip cookies in the house and chugged small bottles of milk on the sly. One day, Wright’s boyfriend caught her in the kitchen with a slice of leftover pizza. “It was like he walked in on me in bed with another guy. We had a huge fight!
“The food differences didn’t break us up, but it made things difficult,’’
-How is that not bullying, obnoxious behaviour? Granted, no one should ever agree to that sort of arrangement, but trying to control another adult’s diet like that is kind of a red flag that the relationship isn’t going to be based on mutual respect. Grown-ups don’t need to sneak food in their own home. I could see it if you’d agreed to keep kosher and then served dairy on the meat dishes, but getting hysterical over an unreasonable request (made possible only through bribery) kind of screams, jerk.
Wow, insomnia AND I’m ranty. Isn’t this fun?
An interesting article about seed banks. Not shocking, when the museums were being destroyed in Iraq, there was also a loss of seeds. You know, Mesopotamia, "The cradle of civilisation." birthplace of agriculture. History Begins At Sumer.
Eh, nevermind.
The coverage of this is appalling. I’m not saying it is reasonable to expect every journalist to have a cultural understanding of the people they write about, but THIS is beyond awful reporting. The message seems to be:
"Oh those primative savages!"
At least the story mentioned a specific country rather than "Africa" like so many articles do.
No, actually teachers should not be "tackling creationism", unless they are teaching at a religious institution. You cannot take faith into a lab and test it.
I wonder if the university will buy back my anthropology degree?
OK world, you win. Maybe it’s time to do an Internet version of taking to the gas pipe and stop blogging. There’s only so much stupidity a person can withstand. I have other pursuits that interest me. I like cocktails, and embroidery, and tattoo magazines. I don’t need to continue reading the rubbish the popular culture, media and other powers that be insist on assaulting me with. I have homemade cherry cordial to pass my time.
We’re all expected to become suitably panicked this week by the new danger to children-digital drugs. No, I’m not making this up. Binaural beats. Freaked out yet? Me either. Any anthropologist that ever had to sit through four hours of a healing/drumming ceremony that consisted of maybe two bangs on a drum per ten seconds will tell you this is not the equivalent of taking acid-perhaps somewhat hypnotic but also heavily dependent on the environment in which it takes place. It isn’t going to cause illness, or brain damage-but that isn’t going to stop people from publishing hysterical screeds against the newest threat to the wee ones. After an hour of playing Tetris I will have falling block dreams. Are we going to try and ban Tetris because it screws with people’s brain waves? Yoga? Meditation? Ever see coal walkers, or people sleeping on a bed of nails? Rationale for the fear of digital drugs? It could produce a placebo effect! As the kids like to say, "Oh noes!" How many people swear they’ve been healed by shamans?
From the article:
"Let’s think about this for a moment. The sites claim binaural beats cause the same effects as illegal drugs. These drugs impair coordination and can cause hallucinations. They’ve caused countless fatal accidents, like traffic collisions."
-In the same article she mentions sites that claim to develop telepathy and eliminate grey hair. I don’t see any actual evidence being presented that any of this works-but don’t let that logical point interfere with your freaked out reaction to what Junior might be looking at on the computer. In fact, you should stop reading right now and go check the history files-he might be looking at dirty pictures too.
"The sites also look favorably on the effects of illegal drugs. So, talk to your children. Make sure they understand the dangers of this culture. It could be a small jump from digital drugs to the real thing."
-The horrors! A gateway drug. I know how this works from experience-I read On The Road when I was ten and the next thing anyone knew, I was sneaking sips from the bottle of Concord grape Mogen David in the fridge and reading comic books in the parking lot of the Swift. I would have found a real railroad yard but damn, we lived in the suburbs. Some bad poetry may also have been penned. This tendency to over-write the simplest paragraphs persisted into adulthood. I moved on from Mogen David to something a bit more sophisticated like Draumbuie. I no longer write poetry, but can enjoy it with sufficient quantities of scary, scary, alcohol. Have you ever had homemade cherry cordial? It kicks ass. Hey, anyone want to have some cherry cordial, download a few doses of digital drugs and go try and levitate the Pentagon? There are people who are convinced to this day they actually saw it happen. I’m sure we could do it.
Honestly, what leaves me feeling so absolutely utterly defeated is the article acknowledges that there isn’t any actual evidence this causes any harm-but then continues saying it doesn’t matter-because users are thinking about it. I’m trained in the sciences-this just makes me want to stick my head in the oven (except it’s electric-bloody GE Hotpoint piece of shit). How can I be expected to conduct myself day to day when there are presumably large numbers of people (the author is considered an expert and has a nationally syndicated show) that accept this nonsense as having any value? This is worse than the belief systems that have the world flat as a board, three thousand years old and created on a Tuesday at ten AM (GMT). I can tolerate the far out belief systems for their cultural value, but the morons ready to cower beneath the bed at the suggestion that their youngsters might be showing some interest in something beyond sports or the banality of television-something that might actually promote concentrating on something for more than twenty seconds at a time-well oh dear, no-can’t have that. Break out the anti-psychotics instead. Those are therapeutic.
Mind you, I’m all for becoming hysterical under the right circumstances. Bears, for instance. If you’re out in your yard and a large bear advances on you and looks reasonably fierce (well, even if it doesn’t) you should immediately flee the scene. In the event said bear begins chewing on your head, it is probably best to play dead, but that doesn’t mean you cannot become hysterical-quietly. By all means, go ahead after all, there’s a bear munching on your skull. That is a suitable use of the fear response.
I might need to take a holiday from the Internet until I can start reading without feeling assaulted.
Toddlers who express a dislike for spicy food are to be treated as potential racists. No really, they’re serious.
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