I burned twenty-six CD’s for Mahou, today. I’m wondering, now, whether it will really be possible for me to work with him as an informant.

The bush as bush is no bush…

Interesting and thoughtful interview with Lebanese American University journalism professor Ramez Maalouf, about whom I’ve been able to find next to nothing on-line. Not much surprising, but first-hand information always beats speculation. Approximately nine minutes.

Next Monday’s issue of Time Magazine is running a story entitled “Fast Times in Tehran” by Iranian-American journalist and author Azadeh Moaveni. I don’t speak Farsi, have never been to Iran, and know very little about Iranian culture or history. That said, Moaveni’s article seems like a pretty good human interest story. But here’s what [...]

If you read the B-Log because of an interest in cultural anthropology, then you probably also read Savage Minds, in which case Kerim’s post on Albanian Anthropology has made you aware of NewAnthro, a collective blog written by a group of New School anthropology grad students in the field — in Israel, Albania, the UK, [...]

Twenty paces down, a black guy selling the Street Sheet, probably the same age. I had nothing left in my pocket — no change, no cash — and I didn’t make eye contact. Passing him, I said ‘Sorry, man. I just gave away my last change.’ ‘I didn’t say nothing to you.’

I looked back over my shoulder toward him, but not at him, while walking away: ‘Well, I saw the—’ ‘Yeah, yeah… Didn’t even say Good day.’

The CIA is (openly) secretly training anthropologist spies.

As of my previous post, I am now experimenting with Ranchero Software’s MarsEdit Weblog editor. It seems like good software, but I’m still getting the hang of it. Please excuse the frequent changes which you may see in the next few posts, throwing off the news aggregators that I know you’re all using.
Thanks for understanding.

If ethnographies were making waves, would the Academy tolerate ethnographers?

In her classic work, Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt articulated the central qeustion of the Holocaust, and indeed of civilization, which is “how to overcome… the animal pity by which all normal men are affected in the presence of physical suffering?” How, indeed? There is, at this point, though, I think a far more important [...]