Curriculum Vitae
(Originally posted: 3/30/2012)
I’ve now had a chance to see SpikeTV’s “American Digger,” the second of the two new series about for-profit mining of historic artifacts. Sad to say (although not at all surprising), it is in many ways worse than National Geographic’s “Diggers.” My full review is on the other side of the jump. Continue reading “SpikeTV’s “American Digger” Review”
(Originally posted: 3/4/2012)
In the last post, I linked to online campaigns against two television series that feature untrained amateurs digging up historic artifacts for profit. The first show, National Geographic’s “Diggers,” has aired, and I’ve had a chance to see it. There’s good news and bad news (but mostly bad). The full post has my review. Continue reading “National Geographic’s “Diggers” review”
(Originally posted: 2/28/2012)
Two soon-to-air basic cable reality shows are set to feature for-profit treasure hunters as they dig up and sell archaeological materials. While both shows are no doubt following the letter of the law, they are inexcusably unethical, and will no doubt lead to far too many copycat looters destroying our archaeological heritage. What can you do? Read the full post to find out! Continue reading “Looting, for fun and profit!”
(Originally posted: 1/15/2012)
To complete my ideas about how our government might be reformed to operate better, in this post I’ll consider how the organization and business of of Congress itself might be changed. Click through for my thoughts. Continue reading “Applied Anthropology, Part 3: Congress”
(Originally posted: 1/10/2012)
In the last post, I suggested that one of the reasons that Congress (and the government in general, but especially the legislature) seems to have so much trouble getting anything substantial done is its sociopolitical organization. In this post and the next, I’ll suggest some changes to the political process to fix that. Click through to the full story for my ideas. Continue reading “Applied Anthropology, Part 2: Elections”
(Originally posted: 12/23/2011)
It seems like, once again, our nation has survived a showdown in Washington. Legislators came together yesterday to agree on a tax-cut extension that everyone agreed from the beginning was a good idea. Even so, they bickered and argued with one another until virtually the last possible instant, each party blaming the other for the dysfunction. Even the president noted publicly that the dysfunctional factionalism in Congress has become a major problem for the country.
Well, anthropology is either of use in fixing society’s ills, or it is nothing but intellectual navel-gazing. I’ll use this post, and a few more in coming weeks, to explore how an anthropological perspective on government might help to shake out some of the wrinkles. Click through to the full article for my thoughts. Continue reading “Applied Anthropology, Washington style”
(Originally posted: 10/24/2011)
In what should come as a surprise to no one at all, as the semester has heated up to midterm and beyond, my free time to think about this blog has dropped dramatically. In fact, my free time these days is mostly devoted to the job search in what might be one of the worst job markets ever. I don’t think it’s any secret that this website–primarily consisting of my CV–is a bit of self-promotion for potential employers. And as long as I’ve got you here reading this, I thought I might comment a bit on the academic job search. Continue reading “Deciphering Job Announcements in Archaeology”
(Originally posted: 9/5/2011)
I’ve been teaching as an adjunct professor for several years now, beginning in January of 2005, and slowly growing my classroom presence until I now teach full time. It isn’t easy. In fact, its probably the most difficult job I’ve had, not barring the bottom of a backhoe trench in 100 degree/100% humidity weather. Aside from the typical classroom issues that all teachers have to deal with, these are just a couple of the monsters one must slay as an adjunct: Continue reading “The Life of an Adjunct Professor”
(Originally posted: 8/3/2011)
This misconception is something that I’ve touched on already in other posts. Its is also more debatable, since there are schools of thought that disagree with my position. However, I think the best way to think about what science is and what it tries to do is to give up on the idea of proving anything, and I also think most scientists who’ve thought about the issue would agree with me. An explanation follows the jump. Continue reading “Misconception 3: Scientists prove things”
(Originally posted: 6/27/2011)
After too long a break, I’m returning to the promised theme of thing about science that even scientists get wrong. This time, I’ll be discussing the relationship betwene theories and hypotheses. Full comments after the jump. Continue reading “Misconception 2: Hypotheses become theories”