Thursday, October 28, 2010
baseball magic
In class we talked about baseball magic and how it is only magic if you are pitching or hitting. This video shows the magic of pitching and it is really funny.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/beliefs/jesusandbuddhism_1.shtml
Monday, October 25, 2010
Politics in my familyt
Social Conflict
In our class last week, we talked a lot about social conflict and if they can ever be resolved. This article focuses on how our government needs to make a change to resolve the conflicts that we see today. Also it gave pointer on how we as individual can make a change to end social conflict. I’m not sure if social conflict can end but I did like that this article for giving us a good start on how to changes because its not just about our leader but about ourselves also.
http://www.helium.com/items/974439-how-to-resolve-social-conflicts?page=3
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Amazing Journalism
We are touching on the topics of warfare and political conflicts in class I thought that one interesting show that related to our class was the episode "Narco War Next Door". This episode focuses on the drug violence that has changed the towns of Juarez and Tijuana Mexico, both close to the US border. There is a great section in this episode surrounding a drug lord and the influence his cartel has over public relations and communities loyalty.
If this sort of show seems interesting to you, free episodes can be watched at hulu, http://www.slashcontrol.com/free-tv-shows/vanguard
or you can visit http://current.com/shows/vanguard/ for complete details.
Vanguard has earned Peabody Awards (excellence in electronic media) and also the 2010 Television Academy Honor Award for its excellent reporting and journalism. This show is the new era of powerful investigative journalism. Also, a three part series looking deeper into our "war on the border" should be featured some time soon so be sure to check it out!
breisig
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Journal Articles
I was browsing through http://www.sciencedirect.com researching for another class and then realized that you can also find journal articles and books most of which you can read on-line over just about every topic we cover in class. Most of the stuff is research based and I thought it might help you out with your papers. You do have to create an account but its free and last forever so you can use it for other classes too.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Gangs and Families- Examples of Social Groups
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
new bball friends
Monday, October 11, 2010
Margaret Mead v. Derek Freeman
Margaret Mead is one of the most well known women in the field of anthropology. She is known for her book Coming of Age in Samoa published in 1928 as well as for her conflicting views with Derek Freeman. She is so well known that there was a stamp made with her image on it. She was the head of the AAA and one of the three best known women at the time of her death.
Margaret and Derek both studied the women in Samoa. They both came to very different conclusions. Freeman had many good cases built against Mead; at least they looked good until you did some research on your own. Derek accused Mead of being tricked by the Samoan girls. He said that when Mead was asking them what they did at night and they said they were “out with boys” that they were tricking her. Derek went back to Samoa after Mead and found the same girl that Mead interviewed and she said that Samoan girls are “terrific liars”. Upon further research it is discovered that in the Samoan culture you do not talk about things like sex in public or around someone of the opposite sex. The girls said they were joking around because that was what was culturally acceptable.
When another anthropologist, Paul Shankman, decided to look into Derek’s work things started to get ugly. Freeman wrote many letters and cards to Shankman that were mean in nature. When Shankman asked Freeman if he could see him postgraduate thesis and his field notes, Derek refused. It wasn’t until Freeman’s death in 2001 that Paul was able to see them. When Paul went through Derek’s field notes it showed something completely different than what Freeman had been saying. Basically his field notes completely contradicted just about everything he had said about Mead and the Samoans.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Polygamy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OEaRn3uHsc&feature=related
Western Tribes
http://www.papuatrekking.com/Dani_Lani_tribe_Baliem_valley.html
Wedding Traditions and Customs
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Revolutionary Road- Kinship
Saturday, October 2, 2010
I just attended a talk by two very interesting people. One speaker talked about indigenous languages in the Rocky Mountains. The other speaker spoke about the layers of history and his tribes stories and beliefs.
The first speaker covered a lot of information very quickly so there was a lot that I didn’t catch. There were some points that he made that I thought were very interesting though. He said that we, as human beings, are expendable, but language stays forever. This is in reference to the fact that even when people or a race die, their language can still persevere. When we looked at a map of the language boundaries in the Rocky Mountains I noticed that all of the boundaries are either on the left or the right of the mountains ridge. The speaker explained this, it is because no people live on the very top of the mountains, they all live in the valleys. It is easier to live in the valley and on the side of the mountains, so that is where the languages are.
Also in his speech he talked about how many of the languages are dying. He said that there is only good information on about 11 out of the 30 languages that are, or once were, in the Rocky Mountains. One of the great anthropological figures that documented some of these languages was Franz Boas. Even some of the languages that we know of now are dying. The people of the Rocky Mountain area are trying to teach their native language to young students in school in hopes of preserving the language.
The second speaker was part of the Maori tribe in New Zealand. He spoke a lot about how important history is, and the layers of history involved. In his tribe there are many stories that can explain various historical facts. For example the story of how the Northern island was created. It is said that their great ancestors went out fishing and didn’t want to bring their little brother with them. But the little brother snuck into the canoe anyway. When they were far enough away from the shore the brother popped up and surprised them. The older brothers said that he couldn’t fish anyway because he didn’t have any equipment. But the little brother was prepared, he used his dead grandmothers jawbone as a hook and his own blood as the bait. Of course he caught a huge fish, but the little brother asked the others to look away while he recited and incantation before reeling him in. The brothers did not look away and so the fish fell apart, creating what is now the northern island. When you look at a pictures of the island you can see that the fish was a sting ray, and in the southeastern part there is a chunk missing where the hook was.
Another thing that he talked about that I found very interesting was topophilia. Topophilia is the affective bond between people and place. One thing that they believe a lot in is mauri, which means life force. Everyone has a life force, a mauri, and there are certain places where a persons mauri can be replenished. Waterfalls the place with the strongest mauri, so that is where people will go if they need to be healed. He said that people go to waterfalls to be cured of sickness, depression, or even just to “recharge your batteries”.