End of semester: The good

This is Kiersten Bradley and me, after our reception Friday for our anthropology graduates. Kiersten is our Outstanding Anthropology Graduate for 2012-13, and after doing way more linguistics-related credit hours (12) with me than anyone probably should, she's off to graduate school at the University of Colorado/Boulder in.... Linguistics!

In addition to our standard introduction to Linguistic Anthropology, Kiersten took a course on American English dialects, and also two independent studies.  In one she explored the evolution of the concept of  linguistic relativity (aka the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis).

In the second she began getting a handle on phonological analysis by collecting data from Korean speakers, transcribing, and looking for the sound patterns.  Although she may not know it yet, the most valuable lesson she might have taken away from this exercise is that analyzing a language is hard, and almost never goes smoothly. 

Anyway, over the years I've managed to send a small handful of students to graduate school, and it's always gratifying to be a tiny part of the stream of linguistic anthropology that began with Franz Boas, ran through my mentor, MJ Hardman, and, modestly, on through me.  So, MJ, meet Kiersten, your newest grand-student.

The terrorism of the Homeland

Driving to work this morning, I listened to Diane Rehm on NPR. Some guests were contrasting the "terrorism" committed in Boston with the "industrial accident" in West, Texas.

I'm sorry, but the explosion in West, which killed 14 people and injured a couple of hundred, is an example of state-sponsored terrorism against the American people.  This is the terrorism of the capitalist mode of production, aided and abetted by sociopaths in government who don't believe in regulating potentially dangerous industries or in safe zoning laws to ensure that people aren't living and working in harm's way of these facilities.

We are in far more danger from this type of home-grown, structurally pervasive terrorism than we are from any Islamic jihadists.

I agree with Bill Maher

Bill Maher said this on "Real Time" Friday night (April 12), and I agree:

"This is the problem with the gun debate is that it’s a constant center-right debate. There’s no left in this debate. Everyone on the left is so afraid to say what should be said which is the Second Amendment is bullshit. Why doesn’t anyone go at the core of it?"

Why indeed? This amendment is an anachronism. The firearms we have today can shoot more bullets in one second than people in those days could fire in five minutes. But that's not the main issue. The crucial point is that this amendment was added to the Constitution to satisfy white southern slaveowners, who wanted to be sure of having their arms handy in case of slave revolts. And, it was written at a time when the US, in its fledgling state, had no serious standing army. When the Framers wrote of a "well-regulated militia," they weren't thinking about whackjobs like Ted Nugent leading a force of white supremacists against imaginary black helicopters sent from Washington to enslave them.