Seth Godin wanted to know:

What's the deal with brown rice? How do people become so attached to the social implications of food that they are willing to starve or suffer from malnutrition rather than take a step backward? The price of rice has soared, yet it seems like people are still demanding white rice, instead of the more nutritious (and almost certainly cheaper) brown rice. How high does the price have to go before people make a different choice?

In the wake of the death of one of the HTS anthropologists last week in Afghanistan, The Guardian covers some of the controversy around the use of anthropology by the military. The article discusses the "Anthropology and Global Counter-Insurgency" conference I presented at last month, and features quotes from and mentions of several of the participants, including John Kelly, Marshall Sahlins, David Price, Hugh Gusterson, Brian Selmanski, and Kerry Frosh -- the latter two representing the Air Force and Marines, respectively.

I've just posted information at Savage Minds about the conference I will be presenting at later this month. Rather than repost the whole post, I'm going to direct you there to have a look.

Update: The website for the Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency conference is now live, with a schedule, attendee listing, and abstracts of both the panels and the papers to be presented.

The UK-based Socialist Review has just posted their review of Anthropology at the Dawn of the Cold War: The Influence of Foundations, McCarthyism and the CIA.

It's the most wonderful time of the year! The time of year when educators (like me!) get 25% off nearly everything at Borders (some exceptions apply: periodicals and Sony e-Readers excluded). April 2 - 6 this year. The best is to go in on Friday and they treat you like you're important to society. Remember: nobody else ever will, so enjoy it while it lasts.

More information on the Borders Educator's Savings page.

There's a reason I'm up at 2:30 in the morning. I'm trying to wrap my head around a concept I came across in my research for the paper I'm presenting at the Chicago conference on anthropology and counter-insurgency. Here's the quote that's got me all worked up:

One of the most useful contributions of native anthropology could be the "decontamination" of settler youth by building the analysis of the formidable role of non-knowledge in settler culture into their training for the profession [or anthropology]. (Gwaltney, John L. "On Going Home Again -- Some Reflections of a Native Anthropologist". Phylon 37:3. 1976/ Pp. 241-2.)

This morning I launched The Writer's Technology Companion, a new blog covering the tools of the writer's trade. This is a project I've been working on for several months, now -- I wanted to make absolutely sure I could keep it up for the long haul with everything else that's on my plate. So a lot of planning went into the site, with several dozen posts written and "in the can" so I don't have to worry about running short on content anytime soon.

For some reason there's been an especially high level of spam lately. A lot of it's for ForEx (foreign exchange) schemes, which makes sense with the dollar tanking -- a small investment in Euros or Pounds a couple years ago would have made a nice return. I'm not sure teaming up with the guy that's spamming you about it is really the best way to enter the field, though.

But the spam that's really getting my attention is the stuff with totally made-up words. This morning, I submitted spams with titles like "intercalative parafloccular" and "jager nomistic fipple". I mean, how gorgeous are those phrases? A science fiction writer could name an entire galaxy of futuristic devices, new worlds, and extraterrestrial characters from what I delete from my spam queue every morning!

I've been invited to speak at a conference next month of anthropology and counter-insurgency. Details are still sketchy; all I know so far is that the conference will be held at the University of Chicago on April 25-26.

That means I have just over a month to write something new and meaningful. I'm thinking of surveying the history of anthropological involvement with the military, and closing with a list of fundamental incompatibilities between military practice and anthropological practice.

More info to come...

Free Poverty is another click-for-charity site, with a twist: to win fresh water for impoverished nations, you have to identify where places are on a map of the world. There are several rounds, ranging from "Easy" (with places like Seattle, WA and London, UK) to "Medium" (Rabat, Morocco) to "Hard" (Angkor Wat, Cambodia) to "Super-Hard" (Sunshine Coast, Australia). Maybe higher; I only made it to "Super-Hard", donating 302 cups of water in the process. The closer you get, the more they donate, with 10 cups for each perfect answer.