Marc | February 24, 2009
One of the more frustrating (for me) so-called “contributions” to the discussion of the Human Terrain System (HTS) is coming out of the Robert Young Pelton article – Afghanistan: The New War for Hearts and Minds – over at Men’s Journal. In particular, it appears as if Pelton – RYP to his friends, many other [...]
Marc | February 21, 2009
Last Thursday (Feb. 19th, 2009), Inside Higher Ed published an article by Dr. Adam Silverman called The Why and How of Human Terrain Teams. This piece, which is well worth reading, is one of the few that has come out by an HTT member describing their actions in the field – it also “enjoys” comments [...]
Marc | February 18, 2009
I’ve been thinking about the effects of ‘net interactivity on perception and the formation of meaning systems for a long time now (about 20 years). A lot of this thinking has been focused on population level, structural changes that have taken place, i.e. a shift from redistributive communications systems to reciprocity based communications systems (e.g. [...]
Marc | February 16, 2009
I was getting bored with the old look of the site, so I will be playing around with new themes for the next little bit.
Marc | February 15, 2009
I just came across this little gem thanks to the Internet Scout Project. The Library of Congress has a series of podcasts (amongst other things) on Music and the Brain, with some really great talks on it. Worth a look if you are interested in how music works.
Marc | February 15, 2009
Well, Wired has picked up on the shift of the HTS from contractors at BAE to temp Gov’t employees. Noah’s article, ‘Human Terrain’ Contractors’ Pay Suddenly Slashed, doesn’t really have much more detail that John Stanton’s original post on the subject, although it does have a few new quotes, one of which echos a concern [...]
Marc | February 11, 2009
According to the latest reports by John Stanton (thanks for letting me know, John!), it looks like the HTS is being “nationalized”. While John’s report has a lot of quotes in it, including an email from BAE, many of them appear to reflect rumours running around inside the HTS. If this is the case, then [...]
Marc | February 10, 2009
Tom Ricks has a series of posts on the Battle of Wanat last summer over at Foreign Policy that is well worth reading for a number of reasons. First of all, Tom has done some excellent research and, unlike many, offers questions rather than answers (although he has a few of those). Second, his research, [...]
Marc | February 10, 2009
In case anyone was wondering why Drew hasn’t been around making comments, it’s because he is over in Afghanistan. He is doing a form of micro-blogging on his trip at CycloneFanatic.com His latest post is available at http://www.cyclonefanatic.com/forum/off-topic/50014-culture-etc.html
Marc | February 6, 2009
There are times when I get totally frustrated with computers. I had this post all ready to go with just some final edits to make on the 1st when my laptop died and I was stuck without a keyboard. I have been thinking a lot, lately, about how the map-territory paradox applies to cross-cultural (mis)communications. [...]
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