(A long memo to self, shared with friends in mind.) That title sounds a little too serious, as a title about something that, after all, is just a blog. Then again, if not a problem of mixed messages, I do have the problem of mixed “wavelengths” of communication: I am one of those unfortunate individuals who is often thought to be serious when just joking, or that I am joking when I instead mean to be serious. In fact, I would probably make a good comedian, if I would only be serious about it... Read Full Story

As mentioned previously here, a movement is taking place in the American Psychological Association to ban participation by American psychologists in the torture of detainees held by the United States. Dr. Steven Reisner, who is a co-founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, spoke of the shocking kidnapping of children by the CIA, then held hostage to coerce Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to give himself up and start talking. Psychologists gave “the best of care” to the children, in what... Read Full Story

In Canada, with its imperial adventure in Afghanistan, its aid workers who speak in suspiciously counterinsurgent terms of “restoring peace and stability” and achieving “progress,” and its continuing belligerence toward First Nations communities protesting for the right to live without uranium poisoning, it should not be surprising to see how much of the mass media sidesteps ongoing Canadian participation in the aftermath of its involvement in the transnational coup in 2004 that removed... Read Full Story

Two pieces of news here. The first is that a second article by John Stanton has just been published by Pravda titled, “US Army’s Human Terrain System: From Super Concept to Absolute Farce.” The second has to do with Montgomery McFate recently becoming a celebrity on city telephone poles. Continued. Read Part I of the article here (or here) “Let’s just put the program on the ground and see if it works…” That statement from a high-level US Army official sums up the ongoing ad hoc... Read Full Story

“Intelligence does not have to be secret to be valuable!” – University of Military Intelligence, Open Source Resources ••••••• Stemming from a discussion initiated at Owen Wiltshire’s Another Anthro Blog, regarding a post by Owen titled, “Open Access and Anthropology — a free and easy interview,” I decided to develop my comments into a full post here, building on my previous post on “National Security Research and the Geopolitical Context of Knowledge Production.” Owen has since decided to... Read Full Story

As I said before, there is no rest for the wicked, so I am only on a holiday from wordpress. When this post vanishes and is replaced by a new post…then I will of course be back. Read Full Story

Principles, Etched into Thin Air From my own limited schooling in International Law, what I took away was that there was no “international law” as such, as a single codified corpus of laws that all nations could or would agree with, or helped to formulate, and then remained permanent. Instead, like current forms of “world governance,” or attempts at such, “international law” is diffuse, flexible, constantly being renegotiated, and consists of many disparate sources: disputes heard and... Read Full Story

What might be called the unofficial “anthem” of the Taíno indigenous resurgence is the beautiful, moving song by Juan Luis Guerra of the Dominican Republic, sung in the Taíno language, titled Naboria Daca Ae Mayanimacaná. The song comes from his 1992 album, Areito, which refers to Taíno dance, an album that featured a number of anti-colonial and anti-capitalist hits, earning it the distinction of being banned in several countries that were fearful of publicizing music with allegedly “anti... Read Full Story

Sara has just announced the formal launch of a new collaborative blog, a blog of blogs, covering anthropology and sociology blogging. I am happy to be involved in what is now my third collaborative blogging activity. I think that Sara’s venture shows great promise and, quite unique, it also offers live chat for anthropology and sociology bloggers. It’s great to see the increasingly very large numbers of anthropology and sociology bloggers, as well as the various blog carnivals, and... Read Full Story

Over at one of the other blogs for which I write occasionally, The CAC Review, you can read a story of how a dealer wrote to me (oddly enough in my capacity as the current, soon to be former, editor of Kacike) advertising various Taino artifacts for sale that were removed from the Dominican Republic, illegally. A collaborator and comrade indicated that this would be just a tiny fragment of what has been seized. Images of the stolen items are shown in that post. It is saddening to see foreign... Read Full Story