Marc | January 29, 2010
Margaret Atwood was recently honoured with a Chrystal Award at the World Economic Forum. The true esteem in which the Arts are held by the WEF, however, was clearly shown in how they handled the acceptance speaches by the various winners: the canceled them. I really can’t let this go by both as an Anthropologist [...]
Marc | January 28, 2010
In a recently released article in prospect magazine, Edward Luttwak argues that the US should adopt a “Byzantine” strategy in dealing with the Taliban. His suggestion is simple With Afghanistan, the west faces a simple strategic calculus: too costly to stay in, too risky to leave. A Byzantine response would be, first to withdraw the [...]
Marc | January 26, 2010
The Medium is the Massage (no, that isn’t a spelling error), is the name of a rather famous work produced by Marshall McLuhan and Quenten Fiore in 1967. It is, in many ways, a popularizing, as well as exemplar, version of McLuhan’s major research focus on how media influences messages or, in it’s better known [...]
Marc | January 25, 2010
My friend and fellow SWC denizen Mark Safranski (aka Zenpundit) has an excellent post today entitled The post-COIN Era is Here. It is, IMHO, an excellent post on the (supposed) “COINdinista vs. Big War” debate; a “debate” that exists more in the minds of the policy crowd that the actual debaters. Mark makes some really [...]
Marc | January 24, 2010
A new briefing on how the Human Terrain System has surfaced in a story by John Stanton over at Cryptome (thanks for sending me the note, John!). As any of my students know, I dislike large powerpoint presentations and can spend hours talking about a single slide. This presentation, at 133 slides, is, IMO, somewhat [...]
Marc | January 22, 2010
Hugh Gusterson has a new piece over at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists entitled An American suicide bomber? It’s worth taking a look at for a number of reasons. I think that the central reason I found it interesting was because Hugh presents a very nice cautionary tale about how forgetful people can be.
Marc | January 15, 2010
A very interesting discussion is starting to heat up over at the Small Wars Council over a paper written by Matt Lauder called Religion and Resistance: Examining the Role of Religion in Irregular Warfare (March 2009, DRDC Toronto TN 2009-049; NB: originally posted by milNews.ca over at army.ca forums). I expect the discussion to expand [...]
Marc | January 12, 2010
CBC just carried a story that Sarah Palin will be joining Fox News as a commentator. I think that her comment that It’s wonderful to be part of a place that so values fair and balanced news. just about says it all. Needless to say, I will continue my personal classification of Fox News as [...]
Marc | January 10, 2010
NPR just carried a nice story about Dr. Paula Holmes-Eber on teaching culture at the Marine Corps University (hat tip to Kerry Fosher who sent out the link over MilAnthNet). I’ve had several chances to talk with Paula about her teaching there, and I have been quite impressed with both what they are teaching and [...]
Marc | January 7, 2010
A friend and colleague over at the SWC, Beezebubalicious (what a handle!), just posted a link to a BBC story on the rise of human sacrifice in Uganda. What sparked some of my interest was that he said he found this “hard to understand from a cultural (or a relativist) point of view.” Why?
Marc on Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 1Marc on Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 1
In Harmonium » Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 3 on Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 2
MM on Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 1
Backwards Observer on Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 2