Mark Dawson posted the video of Thomas Barnett’s talk to Ethnography.com on Febrary 2 in the expectation that you might be pissed off, or you might be impressed. I appreciated seeing it. I was mostly impressed, and not too pissed off even though I disagree with a number of Barnet’s basic assumptions about how the world and the military work. Anyway, Barnett seems like an articulate guy, and I recommend you have a look.…
Category: Blogs by Tony
Popular and Traditional Culture
Living in another country means that you are always drawing comparisons with your own culture. Sometimes it seems like globalization runs rampant. Commonalities are seen all around you, in our case between our home in California, and our temporary home in southern Germany. An example is my daughter’s analysis of the television show “Deutschland Sucht den Superstar” (DSDS), which in English is “Germany searches for a Superstar.”
“Just like ‘American Idol,’” Kirsten said. …
Letter of Recommendation, Academic Influence Peddling, and Related Pet Peeves
Letter of recommendation writing season has come and passed. I probably did 10 or 15 letters for a variety of academic jobs, graduate school applications, and served as a reference on a couple more job applications. I do not mind writing the letters, because I know that my students need to get past this hurdle. I also always try to do well by them, although without fabricating things. But there are things that bug me about this whole process, such as the forms that ask us to make untenable numerical estimates of a students abilities (i.e.…
Cleaning the Trash
Germany is known for its green attitude towards the environment and recycling. It is a leader in wind and solar energy, and has an excellent public transportation system which keeps many of us off the roads. There are also many recycling programs, with machines that collect recyclable bottles, and pay back deposits in many grocery stores. The recycling extends even into the household where we separate, clean, and collect various kinds of trash.…
Dinner for One–The World’s Most Frequently Broadcast Film!
We spent the 2nd Day of Christmas (December 26) at the home of German friends. There I was asked what I thought about the film “Dinner for One,” a film where a 90 year-old woman is served a birthday dinner by her butler. I’d never hear of it. Turns out it is an 11 minute long British film (in English) from the 1960s which has something of a cult-following in Germany, as well as a few other northern European countries.…
Human Terrain System: Too Little, Too Late, and So What?
Ok, Mark Dawson finally wrote often enough about the Human Terrain System for me to investigate what this military program actually is. I have some sympathy for the idea of using anthropology in the military because I have seen too many anthropologically incorrect lieutenants proclaiming to the press something along the lines of “You gotta be here to understand the bad guys. All the bad guys understand is strength/power/force/money. It is just their culture.…
Jeffrey Sachs, William Easterly and…Bronislaw Malinowski???
It is popular today to frame the development debate in the context of two books by economists, the glass half-full story of Jeffrey Sachs The End of Poverty, and the glass half-empty story of William Easterly The White Man’s Burden. Both writers observed the world of foreign development aid for years. Sachs’ conclusion is that given the weak investment in remote third world villages, it is not surprising that development has not occurred.…