text:
|Derek P. Brereton
|A Fair Reflection: The "Dirt Anthropology" of Robbins Burling
|Publication Info:
|Ann Arbor, MI: MPublishing, University of Michigan Library
This work is protected by copyright and may be linked to without seeking permission. Permission must be received for subsequent distribution in print or electronically. Please contact email@example.com for more information.
A Fair Reflection: The "Dirt Anthropology" of Robbins Burling
Derek P. Brereton
vol. 16, no. 1, 2006
Issue title: Retrospectives: Works and Lives of Michigan Anthropologists
|Link to full PDF [251kb ]
A Fair Reflection: The "Dirt Anthropology" of Robbins Burling
Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Criminal Justice, Adrian College
"Now, that's data!" Some seven years past his formal retirement, anthropological linguist Rob Burling looked up from the emeritus desk where, nearly every day he's in Ann Arbor, he prepares books and papers for publication. Holding up a broad spread sheet comparing the tones of dozens of words from 16 dialects of Bodo, a subgroup of Tibeto-Burman, he took a justified scholar's pride in being able to display the partial result of a half-century's linguistic investigation. In that time, among other projects including over one hundred papers and reviews, Burling has published what he refers to as an "old-fashioned" ethnography of a Southeast Asian hill tribe village; offered an undergraduate text on the socioeconomic structure of rural mainland Southeast Asia; prepared the definitive, three volume, lately revised, and exquisitely detailed description of Garo grammar, lexicon, and glossary; penned a text for introductory anthropological linguistics; justified black English vernacular as a functional, structured, historically explicable dialect of English; devised a revolutionary, linguistically founded method of second language learning for adults; compiled a comparative description of transfers of political power in several regions of the world; and just last year brought out with Oxford a seminal theoretical statement on the evolutionary origins of language. Burling's published work thus runs the anthropological gamut from the immediacy of actual social intercourse, to the mid-range exigencies of power transfer, to the immensity of language's role in human evolution.
This retrospective starts with a summary of Rob's most recent work explaining the evolution of language via the advantage which preexisting receptive and interpretive capabilities afforded the most adept individuals. It then weaves together the most salient details of his personal and scholarly biography. When some six years ago I first thought of doing this piece, Rob was surprised I would be interested in such an undertaking during a career stage most devote to more eye-catching projects. More than once he referred to my determined perusal of his corpus as "masochistic." But I saw it as a way of developing my historical sense of anthropology, focusing on a subdiscipline other than my native one of ethnology, and honoring a wise and generous pedagogue. Unlike the other subjects of retrospectives in this volume, the scholar of whom I write was never formally linked to me as a dissertation advisor. I never even had a class with him, other than one audited late in my training that he co-taught with Milford Wolpoff on the evolution of mind. So I have taken this opportunity to enact the respect I feel by building on his work, to a small degree, at the same time I describe it.
The talking ape
The poles of the anthropological enterprise, data from observation and theory to explain them, Burling links with the simple, sweeping, unorthodox observation that, in concrete situations of overt or tacit competition, the advantage goes to those best able to interpret others' emotional and cognitive states. These states suggest others' likely intentions. Burling uses this phenomenological fact to argue that the driving force behind evolving linguistic competence was almost certainly not an advantage derived from production, but from reception. He also casts grave doubt on the sometime claim that language likely evolved from proto-hominid gesture–call systems, despite the validity of the assumption that these must have been analogous to those of present apes.
Knowing others' intentions allows prediction of their behavior with far better than random accuracy. This affords such inference–makers precious information about germane social and environmental circumstances. Though intentions as such are not empirical, they are nonetheless real, as is known from their effects. And generally reliable access to the intentions of others is available through proxies that are empirical, like open palms or furrowed brows. Because all present apes have elaborate systems of bodily gestures and facial expressions—and the crucial capacity to interpret them—both the expressions and the interpretive capacity can be assumed to have preceded the emergence of spoken language in hominids. Indeed, in humans both modes of the originary gesture–call system continue to coexist alongside language. Had language evolved out of them, however, they would no longer exist any more than ambulatory forelimbs continue to exist in birds; when forelegs became wings, they were lost as aids to walking. In this sense, as Burling duly notes, evolutionary theory virtually precludes the possibility that language could have evolved out of gesture–call systems, for humans continue to use their own elaborate ones quite energetically.
Because the complex social environment of contemporary apes requires individuals to be skilled at interpreting gestures and calls, it is a virtual certainty that our hominid predecessors would also already have been expert social interpreters. This would have been true before language emerged to further exploit the interpretive moment in communication. The human primate still employs a wide range of nonverbal but emotionally direct grunts, wheezes, moans, shrieks, sighs, and giggles, every bit as interpretable as well formed sentences. Since to early hominids some spontaneous non-verbal expressions were audible, and others visible, Burling argues that it's the interpretive ability, well in place before the intentional use of verbal signals, that was and still is at the bottom of linguistic communication. Comprehension, via inference, precedes expression.
This also discounts another common supposition about language, that in its remotest origins its development was driven by the intentions of individuals wishing to make their meanings clear. This view wrongly gives preeminence to the expressive side of communication and hides the priority of its interpretive side. But selection can only operate on existing phenotypic conditions, and the interpretive capacity was available. So language must have originated as marginally more skilled individuals interpreted pre-existing calls and gestures like grunts and bared fangs, thus gaining a competitive advantage. Later, also among the more astute, an awareness developed that some conspecifics, by means of interpretation, were likewise (1) making useable signals out of (2) pre-existing indications of (3) behavioral intentions; in effect, that some conspecifics had receptive and constructive minds adaptively striving to comprehend impinging conditions.
Such originary interpretations were only possible because patterns do exist in nature. Prior to the arrival of any intelligent creature into the environment, nature itself, because it is patterned, manifests millions of indications. A hill's slope indicates the likely location of water, whether or not any sentient being is present to appreciate it; circling vultures similarly indicate the likely presence of carrion. Such myriad and ubiquitous indications were the very extant resource sentient beings learned to appreciate in the interest of survival and procreation. True, environments are dialectically affected by the creatures that exploit them. But it is not true that indications do not exist unless exploited as such by some creature. Though the interpretive moment in the development of language does create signals, it does not create the indications that make signals possible. Tidal pools indicating the likely presence of life existed for eons before sentient creatures evolved to exploit the fact. Such indications exist, in their own right, as "interpretabilities"—a useful but awkward neologism, consistent with Rob's position, for which I hope he will forgive me. Because nature exhibits regularity, interpretability is an intrinsic property of some circumstances. Only if and when such indications are interpreted do they become emotionally and behaviorally constraining signals, on the basis of which the interpreting creature may guide its behavior.
So, in principle and in fact, natural indications must precede adaptive interpretations. The next step for would-be humans, having become skilled at turning natural indications to account by realizing that they could be interpreted, and so used as signals guiding behavior, was to intentionally produce such indications in the knowledge that others too would duly interpret them. Some individuals learned to produce indications for others to interpret in ways the producer intended. But this intentional moment could not occur before the interpretive capability was already well developed. And conversely, from the interpreter's perspective, this last step amounts to using others' interpretable intentions as a resource through which to extend one's own life chances into the future.
This was the step that amounted to the gradual emergence of consciousness, defined as the awareness of the fact that others are turning indications into signals guiding their own activities. Following Nicholas Humphrey, Burling thinks of consciousness as the awareness that others have feelings that motivate behavior guided by indications. Though Burling treats the issue but briefly, it is consistent with his approach to note that consciousness must therefore be the top layer in a four-tiered model of mind. The first layer, prior in both logic and evolution, entails crude representations, rudimentary conceptual models of germane aspects of reality. These are mental phenomena that all creatures with cerebral cortices must have, at least to some extent. Either cortical advances over the basal reptilian hindbrain, and over the affectively adept mammalian midbrain, evolved because they more effectively modeled real conditions impinging on the individual, and so afforded such individuals a competitive advantage, or their evolution is inexplicable. After conceptual representation, the second mental layer entails affectively charged intentions, to approach or to avoid, based on the primary conceptual models of reality. Representations, however crude, had to exist before intentionality could emerge; by their very nature, naturally selected behavioral intentions presuppose that reality largely corresponds to one's model of it. The third emergent tier is an awareness of having intentions, and so bringing them under some measure of voluntary control. This realization, this awareness, is not only that one has intentions oneself, but that other individuals, both of one's own species and others, have them as well. Finally, knowing that others have intentions leads to the emergence of full-blown consciousness: elaborate, manipulable, virtual models of social and natural conditions of the past, present, and future.
Because mental models themselves are inconsequential, in the sense that merely imagining something does not impose real immediate consequences on the imaginer, consciousness is properly regarded as transcendental; real conditions and constraints are transcended in the human imagination. This is the phenomenon of referential detachment, a red light in the bawdy house of theory which culturists and postmodernists have found irresistible. Burling, thankfully, has proved immune to its seductions. References, indeed, are not necessarily linked to real world referents. This has led culturists and postmodernists to suppose, wrongly, that no references at all have real referents; that reality itself is either unknowable or irrelevant; that arbitrary cultural representations totally trump ones based on an illusory reality. But the actual actions we perform, based on whatever models, do bring about consequences in the real world; such real consequences, in turn, become the structures, the dialectically subsequent conditions, for further possibilities of agency. A fifth, presently emerging mental tier may be the wholesale externalization of mind now being affected by virtual, computerized modeling whereby any input can be used to test any scenario in advance, prior to exposure to real consequences.
In any event, one possessed of consciousness is (4) conscious of being (3) aware of having (2) intentions regarding (1) impressions of reality. Consciousness is in essence proleptic, anticipatory; it reaches into the future for the likely outcomes of present indications. So the evolutionary emergence of consciousness incorporated the temporal dimension on behalf of interpreters already exploiting the spatial one. But consciousness did not create temporality; it had always existed as a potential affordance. Some creatures merely learned how to avail themselves of it, for where some indications exist in space, as slopes for the presence of water, others exist in time, as grooming for the likelihood of durable intersubjective bonding.
Burling's model thus reverses the French linguistic tradition from Saussure through postmodernist, irrealist versions of discourse theory. That trend emphasizes speaking, intentionality, and the production of texts. Burling, however, appreciates that no model aspiring to viability can ignore, let alone be incompatible with, Darwinian evolutionary theory and natural selection. The French tradition, unfortunately, takes its cue from Henri Bergson. He tried vainly to preempt Darwinism with his vitalism and "creative evolution," and his intellectual heirs remain blind to the true significance of evolutionary theory. Accordingly, their models tend to turn out hopelessly incomplete. Burling, however, stays true to the twin Darwinian principles that selection operates only, and also inexorably, on available conditions. His model shows how, in the evolution of language, comprehension of existing phenomena, a comprehension that in its own first stages was likely just a byproduct of fortuitously affective behavioral reactions to threats or opportunities, must have preceded production. The model thus includes a clear notion of reality, in that the conditions impinging on individuals and species are, in fact, real. This is combined with conceptions of temporality, existence, virtual (mental) models of reality, virtual manipulation of cognitive tools, other minds, and, for humans, the existential requirement of mentally mediated sociality for survival in an—or any—environment.
It is a realist theory, not a relativist one. All its elements are posited as existing independently of what anyone knows about them, and are knowable by their effects. Though Burling himself hesitates to take the final step, that of duly affirming the existence of the world—to which language can only be an evolved adaptation—it is in fact an entailment of his position (personal communication). The reality of the world is demonstrated by the very emergence of language, which evolved as an adaptive tool regarding it. This fundamental truth thus precedes, and so makes possible, all the more familiar, secondary, particularistic assertions of culturism and discourse theories of the irrealist sort.
Sounding Right
Burling has been profitably focusing on the interpretive rather than the productive side of linguistic communication since his 1982 book, Sounding Right. There he detailed for the classroom a comprehension-based method of teaching and learning a second language. It made use of the very technique that comes most naturally to students—and is typically most repudiated by their teachers: having learners place easily substitutable words from their native tongue into the syntactical sequences of the target language. "In passing in front of la town hall..." By gradual stages the substitutions are increased so that students remain motivated by their own narrative comprehension, while they almost inadvertently gain exposure to, and so internalize, the target language.
This method requires the abandonment of eight linguistically ill-founded, though influential, tenets of typical language instruction: 1) All aspects of language are tightly interdependent; 2) Languages do not mix; 3) Grammar and phonology, being more central to language than the lexicon, deserve a corresponding priority in instruction; 4) Adult learners cannot rely on tacit acquisitional processes, but need explicit instruction, particularly in grammar; 5) The four skills of reading, writing, speaking, and comprehension should all be taught together; 6) Because for infant native learners speaking has priority over writing, the same must be true for adult, non-native learners; 7) Students' production should be at least as advanced as their reception; and 8) Language is behavior.
Regarding this last faulty premise, Burling's disagreement is with a formerly prevalent behaviorism in linguistics and the pedagogy of language learning. His point is that language is, in the first instance, not behavior but knowledge, not production but comprehension. This is the point of Burling's phylogenetic model of language development described above. It is also ontogenetically applicable, as shown by the natural means infants use to learn their native tongues. While learning to speak they typically receive no instruction at all in how to move their vocal apparatus, or how to string words together. Burling also provides ample reason to reject the other seven assumptions, and proceeds to show how a focus on reading, based on what adult learners already know about their own language, can have striking results in the classroom. True to form, he constructed and classroom-tested an entire semester-long model of the program based on French. Though it succeeded admirably, one senses that the method may already have suffered the fate of those alternatives to the QWERTY keyboard that have sometimes been proposed. They might indeed be demonstrably superior, but nobody wants to endure the massive changes their implementation requires. Yet Burling's central point, that language is primarily reception, comprehension, and knowledge, rather than intention, production, and behavior, eventually lead him to profound insights regarding its evolution. These, in turn, greatly enhance our understanding of humanness and the processes through which it has emerged.
Administrative travails
I first encountered Rob Burling's kindness when in 1976, though Southeast Asia was then my primary area of interest, I had to drop his course "Peoples and Cultures of Southeast Asia." Appreciating my distress, he simply said, "It's OK." I sensed, accurately as it turns out, that he could be supportive, direct, and reliable. Some 25 years later his editorial and intellectual guidance was invaluable as, after a long hiatus in my anthropological training, I prepared my first professional publications. But in those early days I heard that, due to some departmental controversy, he did not work with graduate students. This too was disappointing, but, coupled with his towering frame, made him seem all the more mysterious. Only recently have I learned that, as the faculty member responsible for assigning incoming students their advisors at that time, he listed himself as advisor for those who had not had a chance to select the permanent advisor they wanted. Rob fundamentally disliked the patron–client system through which advisors got their strokes from obedient students, but he wanted to ensure that students had contact with some faculty member until they got their bearings and linked up with a mutually satisfactory advisor. But some colleagues feared he was misusing his position. To place himself above reproach, he permanently and completely opted out of the system of competing for graduate students.
No faculty member stays long in an academic department without finding himself or herself in the midst of some turf–related contest. On another occasion, when Rob was given the chairmanship of the Department of Linguistics, an unsuspected rival for the position was piqued and promptly retired—at the peak of his productive career, and quite ahead of schedule. This gave Rob no chance to consider all the pros and cons of accepting the position, and remains a burr under his saddle. Rob himself has a semi-serious hypothesis as to why it is that, in four-field departments, it is the archaeologists who collectively succeed in organizing their departmental priorities, agenda, requests, and follow-through, and the ethnologists who, behaving as free radicals, get individually overheated and careen fractiously off department walls. It is because the methods of archaeological fieldwork require a team approach and the ability to self-organize. Ethnographic fieldwork, by contrast, is typically conducted by solitary individuals who perforce must establish their own priorities and agendas. Each subfield thus attracts a certain type of individual, the team player and the renegade. These proclivities play themselves out in departmental politics. Rob once stood in the doorway of one such free radical and explained that, as chairman of the department, he, Rob, was responsible for eliminating two positions. If the radical resigned Rob's job would be half-solved. The person blanched, and soon left anthropology altogether.
The fact of having served as chair of few dissertation committees, and so boasting no immediate protégés, is one reason Burling's scholarly impact, though considerable, has perhaps not equaled the potential influence residing in his actual production. Another is his avowed preference for writing about what interests him most at any given time, about which more later. The strongest scholarly reputations are built on having one's name tied to a single subject others find indispensable, and by some measures Burling has not developed a single topically focused body of work.
The Passage of Power
Emblematic of his determined sawing against the grain is his 1974 book, The Passage of Power: Studies in Political Succession. It deals comparatively with the problem of transitions of political power in various regions of the world. It has little to do with linguistics, is only tangentially relevant to ethnology's traditional emphasis on marginalized peoples, and, despite its brilliance, received not a single scholarly review. Its message echoes Churchill's dictum that the worst form of government is democracy—except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. This tacit affirmation of the American system was not geared to garner popularity when, at the end of the Vietnam era, radical students and faculty were challenging foreign policy and global hegemony.
In keeping with his usual wont, Burling severed the polemical knot with mere finely honed evidence. He had both the presence of mind to see that the transfer of political power is one of the world's most costly and disruptive problems, and the scholarly wherewithal to produce a cross-cultural comparison on how societies have actually faced it. The book starts with the human tribal heritage—still very much with us as revealed recently in parts of Africa and the Middle East. It then moves through cases from India, China, Latin America, and Russia. The Maratha Empire of 17th–century Maharashtra, for example, tried to consolidate power by inducing loyalty among its outlying principalities. It granted them local hegemony in return for political and military support. But this diffusion of power contributed to the very centrifugal forces that eventually destroyed the Maratha's own accomplishment of centralization.
In a similar case, the 17th–century Manchus conquered China and adopted her administrative apparatus. This led to regionalization and corruption, so this victory too proved pyrrhic, and contained the seeds of its own destruction. In Latin America, Spanish colonial cities with extensive jurisdiction expanded into what amounted to city-states run by remarkably loyal councils. These conditions prepared the way in the colonies, following Napoleon's Iberian victory, for a reactionary activism on behalf of the throne. Soon a once-effective administration was devolving into patronage, oligarchy, and misrule.
In the Soviet Union, an ostensible dictatorship of the proletariat under the tutelage of a vanguard elite saw no need to consider succession at all. What could succeed the proletariat? Yet despite this pretense of monolithic unity, the contests exemplified by the split between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks (majority/minority) inevitably ushered in deep ideological schisms. This turned the Communist Party into a shadow government, actually run by an inner coterie of strongmen. The expedience of a vanguard elite had transmogrified into an entrenched oligarchy. Eventually the whole internationalist ideal was replaced by the reality of Stalin's totalitarian one-nation socialism. After Stalin, without his massive purges and pogroms to enforce an ironic stability, rival bureaucrats resorted to infighting and coups. Lacking any provisions for orderly succession, dictators like Khrushchev and Brezhnev tried vainly to balance stability with the demands, again, of oligarchy and patronage.
Had Burling included a case illustrating the similar failures throughout the history of Arab and Middle Eastern succession, the book would almost certainly be considered required reading today. Be that as it may, the book still bore an unmistakable message for the self-styled "revolutionaries" of the American new left of the 1960s—whose skills, means, and sacrifices amounted to no more than a parody of true revolutionaries like Leon Trotsky. Rob's message was that the democratic provisions for orderly succession we enjoyed in our own society were, if nothing else, the least pernicious of the available alternatives. This pearl of wisdom, prized out through solid scholarship, came from a man anything but conservative in his own politics. Indeed, immediately following the Watergate affair he contributed a piece to The Nation demonstrating the risk of executive tyranny shown by the entire history of political republics.
The third reason for Burling's relatively limited impact, ironically, is probably that his books are easy to read. He bears an unregenerate, unrepentant loathing for ponderous or pretentious rhetoric, for any style that does not put ideas plainly. Having endured forced labor on certain such verbal rock piles as a graduate student, he vowed to write so that any college freshman could understand him. It's his dogged pursuit of this simple directness that on most days has him hunched over his keyboard, tinkering with phrasing to make it immaculately transparent. In the late 1990s, after a visiting scholar gave an impossibly abstruse talk to the department, Burling fired off an objecting e-mail to all Michigan graduate students—and had no hesitation in forwarding a copy to the speaker himself. It reassured the students that it was not their fault if they found the talk incomprehensible. It was because it was gibberish. Similarly, after once slashing his way through the first two overgrown sentences of Pierre Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice, Rob foreswore all further treks through Bourdieuian undergrowth once and for all.Though he doesn't entirely accept my hypothesis, I think one reason an important work such as The Passage of Power has been ignored might be that understanding it is not an intellectual challenge. Some readers expect Foucaultian poses of recondite erudition (a phrase that, if it appeared in a manuscript for Burling's inspection, would quickly find itself expiring in a pool of red ink). Discovering no challenge, they may have confused a lucid transparency for lack of insight, the error being entirely theirs.
The man and his dissertation
Having separated in the mid–1970s from the former Sibyl Staub, and following the death in 2001 of Anne Hvenekilde, the Norwegian Ph.D. in Norwegian second language acquisition with whom for two decades Rob had a year here, year there relationship, he now lives alone, across the Huron River in northwestern Ann Arbor. His two-story frame house he designed and mostly built by himself. The blueprint, prepared in a drafting course at Washtenaw Community College, hangs prominently in the hallway. Burling considers his house, not his scholarship, his most creative accomplishment. Perhaps it's due to his having spent several early years in Rhode Island, Yankee territory where the formal, front entrance to many a home is nearly never used, that the only obvious entrance to Rob's hand-made home is through his garage. I had to get used to this phenomenon during my own fieldwork in New Hampshire, where I devoted many an awkward moment to confusing the natives by knocking in the wrong place. Likewise, you're already in Burling's private space when he greets you, under his looming old wood-and-canvas canoe, specially rigged so he can single-handedly raise it from his car's roof. Such devil-may-care individualism also appears in his having cut and sewn dresses for his young daughters, and in the passion for needlepoint in which he formerly indulged while listening to lectures. It was striking, to say the least, to observe the eminent scholar at his needlepoint, as one day in the 1980s we listened to Gregory Bateson.
Rob was born on April 18, 1926, in Minneapolis, his father a psychiatrist, his mother a homemaker of staunch—though thoroughly anticlerical—Puritan stock. Rob thus comes by his own fundamental anticlericalism quite honestly, though both grandfathers were Congregational ministers. When he "came out" as a non–Christian he found it a wonderfully freeing experience. To answer the Garo's question on this matter, for many of them are now Christian, he answered that he was songsarek, their word for the pre–Christian Garo. They seemed puzzled to learn that this did not mean he sacrificed chickens. When in a friendly way I asked if he and Anne had gotten married, he drew himself up to his full imposing height in mock indignation, the better to take sight of me along his nose. He then archly proclaimed that he would certainly not, ever, do anything quite so foolish as to have a church wedding. He sees the dogmas and attendant practices of organized religions as exclusionary, divisive, and uselessly provocative. Neither was his very proper mother's view of things ever clouded by the least uncertainty concerning what was right. For her, this most assuredly did not include non-standard English. So it came as no surprise when, at the age of 90, she interrupted his earnest validation of the black English vernacular he had detailed in English in Black and White by exclaiming, "Oh, Robbie! Shut up!"
After eight family moves during his youth, his family settled in Foster, Rhode Island and he attended high school in Providence. At Yale University he majored in sociology, of which he is not proud, and in pre-med, of which he is. A course with Ralph Linton introduced him to anthropology, and he took readily to the scientific, biological aspects of it, as well as to the rigors of meticulous linguistics. To avoid the draft he enlisted in the Navy in 1944 and served two years as a radar technician stationed off Newport, with a discharge rank of Third Class Petty Officer. Though accepted at Harvard University, he delayed matriculation in favor of traveling solo by bus and rail around the entire world: "first on the hippie trail." Experiences in cross-cultural communication gleaned from that trip still show up in his writing, like his ad-lib experiments with interpreting Turkish hand gestures. At Harvard he became interested in questions of kinship and social structure, and it was Harvard's Cora Dubois whose ruthless editing of his course papers showed him just how clear good writing could be. In 1954 on a Ford Foundation fellowship Burling sortied with wife and one child, a little boy—though when they came back that boy had a sister—into the Garo Hills of Assam. A second daughter was born shortly after. Upon completion of his degree he taught for six years at the University of Pennsylvania, and then came to Michigan for the remainder of his career. At various times throughout it he funded his research with fellowships from the Fulbright, Ford, Guggenheim, National Science, and Wenner-Gren Foundations.
A formative interest in social structure
Burling designed his dissertation research to contribute to a discussion of structure in unstratified societies. Anthropology wanted to know how society in general is structured; to ascertain the elements of social coherence; to analyze the structures that make sociality possible. For the answer it looked primarily to kinship relations in preindustrial societies. There had even been a suggestion that Garo men sometimes practiced an unusual form of marriage—with their mothers-in-law. This merited scrutiny. In general, anthropologists thought that forms of relatedness, and the behaviors habitually associated with them, followed rules of lineage affiliation, marriage, and familial authority. For long it had been recognized that, with near universality, final authority resides primarily in males. Their energies and activities are not constrained by pregnancy, parturition, and nursing, and, should push come to shove, males have the testosterone to be enforcers.
From such a model certain predictions can be made back to the data. If a society shows a preference for matrilateral cross-cousin marriage, for example, where will authority be located? In societies where a man is expected to marry his mother's brother's daughter, the adult male with the most leverage on his behavior will not be his mother's brother, his future or present father-in-law. This is because, as George Homans and David Schneider argued in their 1955 Marriage, Authority, and Final Causes, a work that both followed A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and inspired Burling, relations of authority tend to preclude those of intimacy. A young man is not likely to develop feelings of closeness to the daughter of the man exercising authority over him. Instead, if he does marry his mother's brother's daughter, the primary authority in his life is far more likely to be his own father. In such a society, residency will likely be constructed around male lineage mates, a tendency referred to alternately as "patrilocality" or "virilocality." Conversely, in contrasting cases of patrilateral cross-cousin marriage, authority will indeed tend to reside in the mother's brother, and in such cases residence will likely be matrilocal.
Burling's Garo research highlighted the possible additional importance of simple spatial proximity, over and above genealogical proximity, in the channeling of authority. The actual enactment of social "rules," such as those by which authority is allocated, depends significantly on what is practicable. Being ready-to-hand, co-residents, regardless of lineage affiliation, can sometimes provide the most effective leverage. So practicability constrains practice. Though Burling himself does not label it so, his work thus turns out to be a forerunner of what is now known as "practice theory"—albeit of a considerably more direct sort than lurks in the work of most better-known practice theorists. Sometimes one must think comparatively to see the beauty of simplicity. Those preferring Burling will be the puritans of academic fashion. Sooner or later, as his work so well attests, we have to deal with the presence, or the absence, of evidence. This question of the primacy of practice is most fully elaborated by Margaret Archer, Burling's peer in sensible directness, in her morphogenic model of social transformation. That model dialectically links conditioning structures and agentive practices (e.g., Archer 1996[1988], 2003).
The cue to the influence of proximity in constraining authority comes from societies, such as the Garo, that are matrilineal but not matrilocal. The Garo are avunculocal. When Garo newlyweds reside in the village of the mother's brother, it is the fathers and husbands of the women who, because they are present, take on roles of authority. So while Homans and Schneider suggested that locus of authority, rather than line of descent, is the important determinant of marriage type, Burling argues that residence, or proximity, also has its effect. Men living near younger lineage mates are more likely to supervise them than those living elsewhere. This practice is also linked to Garo inheritance customs. A daughter and her husband inherit property, such as house, bronze gongs, and access to fields, in return for caring for the aging elder couple.
Burling also uncovered a further important Garo structural principle they refer to as a'kim. It is the ongoing linking, as a principle of kinship, of two lineages by means of successive intermarriages. The Garo highly prize the a'kim relation, conceiving of it as analogous to that between siblings. The due enactment of a'kim in deciding who marries whom lends stability, continuity, predictability, security, and comfort to ongoing social relations. By the same token, whereas in the ethnographic present repeated interlineage marriages are ideal, the Garo also exhibit what is essentially a moiety system requiring exogamy.
The question as to whether a Garo man can marry his mother-in-law turns on one of those classificatory sleights of hand, such as the well known "ghost marriage" of the Nuer, whereby some peoples have customs allowing for fulfillment of social responsibilities in creative ways. After an elder Garo couple selects a daughter to be their heiress, and has her married to the young man who thus becomes their heir, the older man may die. When this happens, his widow will likely remain in the household of her son-in-law, and be referred to as his "wife." This will be done using the same term that designates his original wife, the woman's daughter. In this social sense the young man can then be said to have two wives, mother and daughter to each other. However, the arrangement with the elder woman is almost certainly exclusively economic, despite the suggestive terminology that led prior investigators, taking the term in its usual sense, to infer a fairly bizarre mode of marriage. However, if the young man happens to have married the older woman first, he certainly is expected to have conjugal relations with her; then, if he later marries her daughter as well, conjugality is likewise expected (Burling 1969:823). So yes, a Garo man can have a wife who is his mother-in-law, but only in a way qualified by due ethnographic inquiry into actual practices.
A house society?
I have already mentioned that Burling's early ethnographic work presaged practice theory. His emphasis was on the primacy of practice, not culture or rules, in the organization of social life. Another arena in which his work also made a similarly early and unrecognized contribution has come to be referred to as "house society theory." Lévi-Strauss posited the house society as a transitional form between simple and complex modes of social organization. Several anthropologists have capitalized on this hypothesis in the analysis of sociocultural phenomena and tendencies in particular parts of the world (e.g., Brereton 2005; Carsten and Jones 1995; Chance 2000; Geertz 1975; Joyce and Gillespie 2000; McKinnon 1991; Vansina 1990).
Combing Burling's monograph for evidence that Garo society may be a type of house society, we find items such as the following. The word nok applies to both the material house structure and the social "household," i.e., those family members basing their residence inside it. This identification of material and social relations, characteristic of both the houses of European nobility and Northwest coast social structure that Lévi-Strauss drew upon, typify the house society in general. Among the Garo, moreover, a death occasions earnest efforts to reestablish the particular house/household as a structural link between two lineages. That of the deceased normally feels intensely obliged to provide a "replacement" for the now-absent member. In addition, death requires compensatory prestations. Most commonly, some of the water that was used to wash the corpse is taken, along with an heirloom gong carried by exactly the same means Garo also carry infants, from the house of the deceased back to a man's mother's natal village. Burling notes that this explicitly symbolizes that the gong is sent in return for the man who lived and worked in his wife's house. His ghost, in apprehending the gong and associating it with the water that contacted its, the deceased's, body, will be able to find its way back to its natal village, there to be reborn. So the social loss occasioned by death is repaired by symbolic restitution. This in turn makes possible the reoccupation of a social slot, as it were, by a new birth taking place in the mother's natal village. In the terms emphasized by critical realist philosopher of social science Roy Bhaskar, this is a case of an absence, in this instance effected by death, being a primary, motivating force in social affairs (e.g., Bhaskar 1993). (Similarly, it is the absence of sexual relations with a wife's daughter, not the having of them, that for the Garo would be disruptive [Burling 1985:132].)
Several additional facts support consideration of Garo society as having houses as prominent organizing principles, in keeping with house society theory. Garo houses that are geographically close tend also to be close genealogically. Then, this association carries over into the formation of work groups, further strengthening the phenomenological tie expected in a house society between social and material relations. Again, ownership of houses as bamboo structures tends to pass from generation to generation via women of the same lineage (Burling 1985:131). Fourth, the office of headman adheres more closely to the house itself than to any individual; the office's symbols, like supernaturally powerful drums, pertain not to the man but to the house he is from. The very word for "headman" literally means "big house." As these data suggest, material pertaining to and explicable by house society theory may be found among the Garo. It seems not unreasonable to suspect that throughout the hills of Southeast Asia may lie other societies organized, at least to a significant degree, in such terms. Reviewing such reliable monographs as Burling's Rengsanggri, ethnologists may someday discover as many examples in the hills as have already surfaced among the islands.
A telling detail of historical ethnography, as Burling's recent trips back to Garoland reveal, is that despite much Garo migration to cities in the last half century, the near disappearance of their traditional swidden agriculture, and much missionary interference into traditional ways, the a'kimbond between lineages remains the centerpost of Garo social structure. It is still manifested in marriages, preserved in households, and reinforced in mortuary ritual. On the other hand, marriages that technically violate the former strict practice of moiety exogamy do now sometimes occur. Participants are aware of the change, and seem a little sheepish about it.
Especially in areas of the former Garoland that now fall arbitrarily within the borders of Bangladesh, some other typical practices that used to highlight structures of kinship and society are waning. Bridegroom capture, the practice of which was nearly unique to the Garo, is falling by the way. Again, the practice of "marrying" a widowed mother-in-law, if one is already married to her daughter, is disappearing. Likewise, selection of a daughter and her husband to be the heirs/caretakers of her aging parents, and bequeathing to them all real property, is giving way to more equitable property distribution among siblings. But the notion of lineage affiliation remains solid, as does the a'kim system of ongoing lineage relations through repeated marriages.
These observations of social change derive from Burling's comparative, follow-up study in the Modhupur area, just north of Dhaka, done in the mid–1990s, some 40 years after his initial village study in the Garo Hills. He specifies that he wrote the monograph, Strong Women of Modhupur, expressly for the Garo. It was published by the University Press in Dhaka, and it resembles the sort of ethnography once regarded as a "report," such as Derek Freeman's Report on the Iban. Its primary aim is to present empirically grounded information, though Burling by no means ignores ethnography's inherent problems of reflexivity. He seems to capture the best of both paradigms, marrying observation and subjectivity, by the scrupulous phrasing of what his own observation allows him to say. "If women have abortions they do not advertise the fact." (Not: "Garo women have few abortions.") "I have also been surprised by the number of stories I have heard of a single visit to the distant village of a friend or sibling that led to marriage." (Not: "Many Garo find mates by visiting distant villages.") "A few seem almost reluctant to admit that theirs had been, as they sometimes call it, a 'love' marriage." (Not: "It is socially unacceptable for Garo to discuss how they became spouses.") "I was always gratified when villagers made judgments about others that corresponded to my own, and on individual skills and aptitudes we generally agreed quite well. They pointed to the same people that I had recognized as hardworking or lazy." (Not:"Deterministic cultural differences between ethnographer and target population preclude shared impressions and judgments.")
The postmodernist dictum that all is nothing but perspectivally disjunct texts and their interpretation carries no weight with Burling. He holds implicit realist assumptions about the social and natural dimensions of the world. Against the indeterminacy propounded by W. V. O. Quine and followers, Burling demonstrates that to understand the linguistic choices speakers make, "[W]e have to consider features of the world outside of language," i.e., referents that really exist apart from the presence or absence of any possible references to them (Burling 1966). He refers to himself as a "dirt anthropologist." He unabashedly hopes the Garo will find his accounts a "fair reflection" of their circumstances. Few anthropologists have sacrificed the time and energy that could be spent on high profile publications to prepare a basic monograph, published in a third-world country, expressly for the people they have studied. But because Burling writes precisely, with consummate organization and duly qualified insight about social facts, Strong Women of Modhupur valuably records Garo lifeways and changes in them.
Parallel to Burling's ethnographic work, and supporting it from below, as it were, are detailed studies of descriptive and historical linguistics of certain Tibeto-Burman language groups. Like all historical linguists, Burling implicitly holds that the fact that historical reconstructions of extinct proto-languages are possible at all is testimony to the force of rationality, irrespective of cultural particularities, in human affairs. The culturist hyperbole that humans live in incommensurate "worlds" wholly constrained by particular, and ungrounded, presuppositions is easily deposed by studies such as Burling's reconstruction of Proto Lolo-Burmese. Such are only possible because linguistic transformations are explicable in terms derivable from humanness per se, entailing, as it does, basal rationality. All peoples at least tacitly recognize the law of non-contradiction—for example, that the same thing cannot both be a spoon and a not-spoon, here and now. This is all that basal rationality requires; without it nobody could tell the difference between their mouth and the spoon outside of it. That they can tell that difference means their brains are functioning rationally, giving the lie to claims that non-western peoples also evince utterly "non-western" modes of reason. Rationality isn't western; it's human. Moreover, were linguistic transformations serendipitous, or if the world as modeled and negotiated in terms of one language were not largely commensurate with that of another, historical linguistics would not be possible. The purpose of engaging in historical reconstruction is to show the most plausible genetic relations between languages or dialects. This sheds light on historical questions such as migration, notwithstanding that, through human learning, it is possible for languages to "migrate" even when people don't.
Burling takes particular umbrage at the assumption behind the common question, voiced all too frequently by anthropologists themselves, "Where did the 'X' (Garo, French, Burmese) come from?" The question implies that a group of people with fixed ethnic and racial characteristics, and speaking a language close or identical to present-day Garo, came intact, at a certain point in time, to Garoland from somewhere else. It was Franz Boas who first disentangled race, language, and culture; but the layperson's presumption of their tight-braidedness still lurks in the queries of some ethnologists. Burling subscribes to what might be called an emergent model of ethnicity, whereby those we now call the "French," say, can be assumed not to have existed anywhere else until, in fairly recent times, linguistic, cultural, ethnic, and historical factors converged in the place called France. Varieties of "semi-French" at the borders of Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain testify to the absence of anything essentially French that could have been carried from elsewhere to present-day France. It is, nonetheless, observable that phonetic, semantic, and grammatical regularities make some dialects more similar to each other than either to a third, less similar one. In turn, those three may form a group, or "family," vis-à-vis other even more distant cousins. It is reasonable to assume, in such cases, that closely related dialects "descend" from a common ancestral language, for no other rational account of their similarity is available.
Burling's approach is the scholarly one of first thoroughly gathering, meticulously checking, and rationally organizing the data. Then he draws only such limited conclusions as due scientific caution will allow. The emphasis is clearly on the data, and not on fancy theories to explain them. Burling's work might even be considered an example of how much can be accomplished without doctrinaire theory of any kind. It is for this reason that notions such as realism, phenomenology, practice theory, and house society theory have to be imported to properly situate his work; his aversion to pretense is so visceral that he simply writes what he thinks is true, without searching for its place in the archives of theory. His is a method trimmed lean by Occam's razor, ridding itself of assumptions beyond necessity. Burling knows as well as anyone that some theory must inform the gathering and presentation of data, but his work shows both a methodological rigor and a horror of adornment that are almost Calvinistic.
Indeed, Rob is perhaps best known among older linguistic anthropologists for in 1964 writing the piece that, according to Skip Rappaport, dealt the coup de grâs to componential analysis. "I didn't mean to kill it," says Rob, looking a bit apologetic concerning his "Componential Analysis: God's Truth or Hocus Pocus?" Some, nonetheless, might suspect that the title alone betrayed something of the article's conclusion. It has been translated and reprinted repeatedly. But Burling himself was not just a naysayer. He himself had used componential analysis in his Man's Many Voices. It is a method for deriving the conceptual structure of a language by analyzing the semantic entailments of concepts embedded in related lexical items. Early applications appeared to yield favorable results in relatively bounded semantic domains, such as kinship designations, color terminology, and species' taxonomies. Having experimented with the method, however, Burling realized not only that similar results were achievable by alternate means, but that the method precluded consideration of much indigenous thought and experience: whatever is not expressed, or does not occur, in clearly bounded domains. The aim of componential analysis was to feature empirical analysis; it was an attempt to move ethnology away from hermeneutics and toward science. This was undoubtedly its initial attraction for Rob. But he had not only the due caution to critically survey his own field, but also the courage to acknowledge its barrenness and the wisdom to cease cultivation.
Rob asserts that throughout his career he has just written about whatever happened to interest him at any time. This may be true. It does not, however, mean that his corpus is either random or incoherent. If one conducts and publishes original research on all aspects of language from phonology, dialectology, and pedagogy to social structure, history, and evolution, then one's subject is, quite simply, language. Then one is truly called a linguist. Rob Burling has devoted his working life to understanding language—and helping us to understand it—as a tool for adaptation in spheres ranging from phenomenological immediacy to evolutionary immensity, in and through space and time. Though the estate is grand, this surveyor has been anything but grandiose. No one could have been, at one and the same time, more meticulous about detail and more modest about conclusions. In reading Burling's work it is the very absence of far-reaching claims that sometimes gnaws at me. I find myself wanting him to make more of his own contribution. I once even asked him to let me notify a scholar, claiming credit for a certain insight, that Burling's work had anticipated his by several years. But Rob demurred. "I do have a sense of pride," was his justification, ironically revealing a profound aversion to self-aggrandizement.
As I was completing this essay during the early winter, Rob, at the age of 79, left for several months in Bangladesh and India. The trip would let him keep up old acquaintances with local scholars and Garo friends of half a century. He could update the village census he's been keeping since the 1980s, the one that shows both reduced infant mortality and a falling birth rate, revealing that Garo women are tending to have fewer pregnancies. "Once I've done that," he said, energizing his plan with pure boyish enthusiasm, "then I think I'll just take a bus back up into the hills as far as I can get, find a dialect nobody has studied, and begin to learn about it from scratch. That's what I really love the most! Just wade into the middle of a language and learn about it!"
The hills of Southeast Asia are Rob's Galapagos. As naturalists first fathomed speciation by analogy with Sir Charles Lyell's geological morphogenesis, so linguists of Burling's mettle have made of dialects the substance of classification, history, and human adaptation. Though the name "Burling" may never flash throughout textbooks, the light his life of work casts on the reality of humanness will prove durably revealing. Burling is the Peter and Rosemary Grant of Tibeto-Burman linguistics, one from that cadre of tireless fieldworkers willing to persist for decades in amassing the material from which they then construct, test, and revise sound theory. As John Dewey so brilliantly argued in his great work, Experience and Nature, humans evolved to occupy the knowledge niche in nature.If, therefore, the expansion of sound knowledge is such creatures' noblest achievement, so our finest exemplars are such as Robbins Burling, those who have devoted the vastly better part of their lives and energy to cautiously expanding it.
The content and presentation of this paper have benefited from kind and careful readings by Josh Reno, Susan Blum, and Thomas Trautmann, and from Rob Burling's reading of it for factual correctness in Shillong, Meghalaya, India, at 5,000 feet elevation, "...a bit breathless and cold."
References cited
Archer, Margaret. 1996[1988]. Culture and Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2003. Structure, Agency, and the Internal Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bhaskar, Roy. 1993. Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom. London: Verso.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977[1972] Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brereton, Derek P. 2005. House Society and Practice Theories Illuminate American Campsteads. Journal of Anthropological Theory 5(2):135–153.
Burling, Robbins. 1966. The Role of Meaning in the Study of Language: a Defense of Reference. Word 22(1):138–162.
———. 1969. Linguistics and Ethnographic Description. American Anthropologist 71:817–827.
———. 1985. Garo Marriage to the Wife's Daughter: Further Support for the Westermarck Hypothesis for the Origin of the Incest Taboo. American Anthropologist 87:130–133.
Carsten, Janet, and Stephen Hugh-Jones, eds. 1995. About the House: Lévi-Strauss and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chance, John K. 2000. The Noble House in Colonial Puebla, Mexico: Descent, Inheritance, and the Nahua Tradition. American Anthropologist 102(3):485–502.
Dewey, John. 1971[1925] Experience and Nature. LaSalle, IL: Open Court.
Freeman, Derek. 1970. Report on the Iban. New York: Humanities Press.
Geertz, Hildred, and Clifford Geertz. 1975. Kinship in Bali. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Homans, George C., and David M. Schneider. 1955. Marriage, Authority, and Final Causes: A Study of Unilateral Cross-Cousin Marriage. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.
Joyce, Rosemary A., and Susan D. Gillespie, eds. 2000. Beyond Kinship: Social and Material Reproduction in House Societies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
McKinnon, Susan. 1991. From a Shattered Sun. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Vansina, Jan. 1990. Paths in the Rainforests: Toward a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.


text:
This member has provided no bio about themself...
Mod Review on Dec 25th, 2014
No review provided
Game Review on Nov 16th, 2013
This game is so great , i wish more poeples could know about this game.
Mod Review on Jul 31st, 2013
No review provided
Game Review on Jul 18th, 2013
This game is based on a epic idea , need a better story and THIS WILL BE KICKING *** !
Game Review on Mar 21st, 2012 - 1 person doesn't
So funny , cant stop play it :D
Game Review on Nov 13th, 2011
OMG ******* GOOD GAME this is sad they got hacked )': i espere you can make another best version ! :)
Game Review on Nov 11th, 2011
No review provided
Game Review on Nov 7th, 2011
awesome game !

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The year 2005 marked the inaugural class of the Missouri Photojournalism Hall of Fame. The idea, developed by William L. "Bill" Miller Sr. became a reality on Oct. 20, 2005, with the opening of a gallery in Washington, MO. The building which housed the gallery was constructed in the mid-1800s near Miller's newspaper, the Washington Missourian. Initially, the Photojournalism Hall of Fame was open with volunteer staff from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sundays. It displayed examples of work and a summary of each inductee's contributions.
The Washington gallery closed Dec. 2014. Plaques and a majority of the pieces held in the Washington gallery were put into archives. A limited display was temporarily setup in a hallway leading to the journalism library in the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute on the campus of the University of Missouri. The display was complete Jan. 2015 and was designed and installed by Shelby Feistner, MPA; David Rees, chair, MU photojournalism faculty; and Hany Hawasly, recent Master's graduate in photojournalism.
Missouri Press Foundation is working to find a permanent location for the Photojournalism Hall of Fame. A fund of $ 40,000 has been established with the Foundation, but more fundraising will be necessary before a permanent space becomes reality.
To help, please contact Melody Bezenek, Missouri Press Foundation director, firstname.lastname@example.com.
A website www.photojournalismhalloffame.org has been created to house the names of past inductees and samples of their work.
Do you know a great photojournalist, with a connection to Missouri, who should be recognized for his or her work? A Photojournalism Hall of Fame nomination form can be downloaded here. Nominations must be submitted by April 30.
The Missouri Photojournalism Hall of Fame endeavors to recognize those people who have made outstanding contributions to Missouri photojournalism, and to provide an exhibit venue to showcase these visual reporting pioneers, and the work of current photojournalist. The nomination process is open and nominees may be living or deceased. Send nominations to:
For pictures and bios of the inductees, click on their name.
— Bob Briggs
— Cliff and Vi Edom
— Betty Love
— Angus McDougall
— Charles Stacey
— Arthur Witman
— Jack Zehrt
— Duane Dailey
— Keith F. Davis
— Gerald R. Massie
— Keith McMillan
— James L. Miller, Sr.
— Joseph H. "Jack" Wally
— W. E. "Bill" Garrett
— Jack Hackethorn
— Wes Lyle
— Joe Wood
— Townsend Godsey
— Bill Hankins
— Tim Janicke
— Belle Johnson
— Fred Waters
— Curtis Winchester
— Bill Eppridge
— James A. Finley
— Ival Lawhon, Jr.
— Scott Dine
— Bob Foos
— Roy Inman
— Tim Jaynes
— Alan Berner
— J.B. (James) Forbes
— Cliff Schiappa
— Lee Battaglia
— Wiley Price
— Jean Shifrin
— Bob Linder
— Geri Migielicz
— Jim Miller Jr.
Monday March 30th
Make your nomination today! Newspaper Hall of Fame: http://bit.ly/1IqB0bx Photojournalism Hall of Fame: http://bit. Link
Monday March 30th
Happy Monday! Don't forget — the deadline to apply for the 2015 Better Newspaper Contest is TOMORROW! Link
Friday March 27th
MPA wishes the happiest of birthdays to Kristie Williams, our Membership Services Director! Kristie handles a myriad of tasks, from planning our annual convention and trade show to organizing MPA memberships! Thanks for all that you do, Kristie! Link
RT @inlandpress: Don't miss the April 1 early bird deadline for @inlandpress' NICS! Register today! http://t.co/0MGoKt1FWB (h/t @MissouriPr…
Monday March 30th
Happy Monday! Don't forget — the deadline to apply for the 2015 Better Newspaper Contest is TOMORROW! http://t.co/Umgc3kzFmR
Monday March 30th
MPA wishes the happiest of birthdays to Kristie Williams, our Membership Services Director! Thanks for your work! http://t.co/F6YTdu99yW
Friday March 27th
"How newspapers can thrive in local markets" — an interesting read by @NAAupdates http://t.co/EjLsob0DSo #newspapersmatter
Thursday March 26th


text:
Sep 22, 2013; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Athletics second baseman Eric Sogard (28) singles to left driving in two runs during the second inning against the Minnesota Twins hits a single during the second inning at O.co Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Bob Stanton-USA TODAY Sports
8 remain, click here
75 remain, click here
40 remain, click here
Can't wait for golf season? Neither can we. Like the Minnesota Golf Show and enter...
Baseball season is upon us and Massage Envy Apple Valley, Burnsville & Eagan want to give you a...
1500 ESPN Twin Cities is giving away the ultimate Chicago Pro Draft experience.


text:
Quality Inn Waddling Dog
2476 Mt. Newton Cross Roads
Saanichton, BC V8M 2B8
Phone: (250) 652-1146
Fax: (250) 652-4946
Craigdarroch Castle
1050 Joan Crescent
Victoria, BC V8S 3L5
+1 250 592 5323
Jun to Sep - Mo to Su from 09:00 AM to 07:00 PM,Sep to Jun - Mo to Su from 10:00 AM to 04:30 PMSteeped in history, Victoria is rich in the remnants of its past. One such national historic site is the magnificent Craigdarroch Castle. The castle featuring over 39 rooms was believed to have been built by the wealthy Robert Dunsmuir. This structure is made of granite and houses oak staircases, coupled with royal furnishings. The castle in its original form has been featured in many commercial films and also plays hosts to theater events. Retained in its former glory, the castle is one of the most sought after tourist destinations in Victoria. Tour the beautiful mansion and explore this incredible Victorian marvel. Check the website for varying open days.
Earn valuable points toward free nights.


text: 000 WGUS43 KBIS 300208 FLWBIS BULLETIN - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED FLOOD WARNING NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BISMARCK ND 908 PM CDT SUN MAR 29 2015 ...The National Weather Service in Bismarck has issued a flood warning for the following rivers in North Dakota... Souris River near Bantry affecting McHenry County For the Souris River Basin including Bantry...Minor flooding is expected . Lake Darling outflows are increasing to match increased outflows from Canadian reservoirs upstream. These releases will push the river level at Bantry into minor flood stage by early Monday morning. The river level is expected to peak near 11.7 feet and remain near that level through the first week of April. At these release levels little impacts are expected. However, additional increases from Lake Darling may be needed in the future. NDC049-310808- /O.NEW.KBIS.FL.W.0002.150330T1000Z-000000T0000Z/ /BANN8.1.DR.150330T1000Z.150402T1800Z.000000T0000Z.NO/ 908 PM CDT SUN MAR 29 2015 The National Weather Service in Bismarck has issued a * Flood Warning for The Souris River near Bantry * From early Monday until further notice * At 8PM Sunday the stage was...10.4 feet * Minor flooding is forecast * Flood stage is 11.0 feet * Forecast to rise above flood stage by early Monday and continue to rise to near 11.7 feet by Thursday afternoon. Additional rises are possible thereafter. * Impact...At 11.5 feet...No major flooding impacts && FLD OBSERVED FORECASTS (7PM) LOCATION STG STG DAY/TIME Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Souris River Basin Bantry 11 10.4 Sun 8 PM 11.3 11.5 11.6 11.7 11.7 LAT...LON 4875 10088 4875 10080 4852 10039 4845 10037 4845 10047 4860 10076 $$ ACOOP


text:
Some Advertising
The average wife of Paul McCartney has 1.6666666667 legs
Jun 19, 2012 @ 3:50pm
"Fuck your wallet AND your cup holder." -Fiji water
Guys, check out my Facebook page today. I just uploaded 17,000 pictures of myself.
Way into "Game of Thrones". Are there any shows that are games of other kinds of chairs?


text:
August 28, 2013, marked the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, a civil-rights march that has become a legendary moment in the fight for civil rights in the United States. (Nota bene: Interestingly enough, marches on Washington for civil rights take place every January, and annually...
filter by Author
filter by Year/Month
filter by Category
"I listen to Catholic Answers Live via the internet all the time. Your show is truly edifying! You always present our great Catholic Faith in a clear and concise manner. Indeed, you speak the truth in love. Thank you for all that you do. Keep fighting the good fight!"
~ Matt, Toronto, Canada
"It is impossible for me to understand on what scientific grounds is founded this resurrection of the old materialistic view of the world that had its first great expression from Epicurus and Lucretius. Nothing that I can see justifies it."
~ Joseph Hyrtl; Austrian anatomist; renowned educator, author of classic textbooks on applied anatomy, chair of anatomy at the University of Vienna, Catholic.


text:
Date: March 5, 2015 at
6:30 p.m.
Location: Rosemount Branch, Ottawa Public Library
This month we will have a short mystery talk from Ian Gorman followed by the main presentation on emacs by Roland.
There will be a one hour pre-meeting item from 17:30 to 18:30 for people who are new to Linux, have general questions, or wish to help out with people who are just getting started.
After Meeting Social:
After the meeting, there will be a social event at one of the nearby pubs or restaurants. A short discussion and vote as to location will be taken then.
GPG Keysigning:
After the main talk and possibly the BoF, there will be the opportunity for a GPG key signing. This is a monthly offering, just look for Scott after the talk and we can go from there. Bring some kind of photo ID and some keyslips if you expect people to sign your key.If you need some method of creating pages of keyslips, there is an online slip generator available.
Join Ian Gorman who will be giving a short (15m) talk. Come for the intrigue, stay for the information.
GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more.
Roland has been using Emacs for over 20 years for software development, sysadmin, reading and sending email, documentation, etc...
The talk will give an overview of GNU Emacs from basic editing to advanced features and customization.
Do you have an idea about how to promote Linux and Open Source Software in Ottawa? OCLUG may be able to help with up to $500 towards your expenses.
Netdev 0.1 (year 0, conference 1) is a community-driven conference geared towards Linux netheads. Linux kernel networking and user space utilization of the interfaces to the Linux kernel networking subsystem are the focus. If you are using Linux as a boot system for proprietary networking, then this conference may not be for you.
You can find more info at the conference web site
For 2015, we will be meeting at the Rosemount branch of the Ottawa Public Library, 18 Rosemount Avenue near Wellington. Street parking is available and there are bus routes (2, 14) that run nearby. We also have a new start time, 18:30. As this is the OPL, we also have to be done by 20:15


text:
Book your room at Dove Nest Bed and Breakfast
Saint Joseph bed & breakfast with free self parking
Situated in Saint Joseph, this bed & breakfast is in the same area as Lakeland Regional Medical Center, Lake Michigan College, and Andrews University. Regional attractions also include Silver Beach and Harbor Shores Golf Club.
Property Features
In addition to wireless Internet access (surcharge), Dove Nest Bed and Breakfast provides free self parking, a garden, and a library.
Room Amenities
Guestrooms have fireplaces, air conditioning, and DVD players; rooms also include irons/ironing boards and private bathrooms.Information missing or incorrect? Tell us!
Hotel Amenities
Hotel Amenities
Dove Nest Bed and Breakfast features a library, a terrace, and tour/ticket assistance. High-speed wireless Internet access is available for a surcharge. This Saint Joseph bed & breakfast also offers a garden, coffee/tea in the lobby, and a fireplace in the lobby. Onsite self parking is complimentary.
Dove Nest Bed and Breakfast has designated areas for smoking.
- Total number of rooms - 4
- Coffee/tea in lobby
- Fireplace in lobby
- Designated smoking areas
- Tours/ticket assistance
- WiFi (surcharge)
- Library
- Garden
- Terrace
- Free self parking
- Beach umbrellas
- Beach sun loungers
Available in some public areas: WiFi (surcharge)
Free self parking
Room Amenities
- DVD player
- Fireplace
- Air conditioning
- Private bathroom
- Iron/ironing board
- Television
- Connecting/adjoining rooms available
Nearby Things to Do
The recreational activities listed below are available either on site or nearby; fees may apply.
- Golfing nearby
- Sailing nearby
- Rowing or canoeing on site
Hotel Policies
Check-in time starts at 4 PM
Check-in time ends at 6 PM
Special check-in instructions:
Check-out time is 11 AM
Payment types
You need to know
Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on hotel policy.
Government-issued photo identification and a credit card or cash deposit are required at check-in for incidental charges.
Special requests are subject to availability upon check-in and may incur additional charges. Special requests cannot be guaranteed.
We should mention
The property has connecting/adjoining rooms, which are subject to availability and can be requested by contacting the property using the number on the booking confirmation.


text:
See who helped us celebrate as we honored the remarkable accomplishments of this year's three winners, along with several celebrity do-gooders, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
more slideshows
36 New Sneakers To Top Off Your Spring WardrobeSometimes, the accessories make the outfit.
7 Yoga Moves for Strong, Gorgeous ArmsA quick, effective yoga flow that targets your arms, back
Green Your Routine: Luxe Eco-Friendly Fitness GearFocus that eco-consciousness energy on your workout wardrobe.
SELF's 3rd Annual Women Doing Good Awards
"We spend most of our days interviewing entertainers and you feel like the people who get overlooked often are the people who live in their communities and quietly do very cool and terrific things," says the event's special emcee Hoda Kotb, here with friend (they competed in a triathlon together last fall!) and SELF's Editor-in-Chief Lucy Danziger, "It's fun to finally say, you know, today is your day. You spend 364 days giving, here's the one day that your going to be on the receiving end. So I think it's a very, very cool event."
KEYWORDS: Celebrity,Charity,Women Doing Good


text:
It would take a whole lotta stamps to send an elephant in the mail, so young Sadie opts for a more personalized touch in Special Delivery, the new picture book romp from Philip C. Stead and Matthew Cordell. Sadie and her pachydermic package try a plane, a train and even an alligator. As stamp collectors will recognize, the cover of Special Delivery is a nod to the famous Inverted Jenny stamp. Even more delightful are the book's end pages, which feature a great big pile of stamps, many of which seem to be inspired by classic children's literature. Cordell and Stead go behind their new book to share a bit more about the stamps in Special Delivery.
Have you ever bemoaned the price of stamps as you hauled a large package to the post office? Maybe it's time to consider alternative methods of conveyance. Special Delivery has some exciting—if slightly unusual—suggestions.
It's trick-or-treat time again, but we've got something better than candy—a roundup of the season's creepiest new books! Readers, beware: Nothing says "boo" like the spooky titles below.
Philip C. Stead, author of the 2011 Caldecott winning A Sick Day for Amos McGee, brings his considerable talents to this fanciful story of a boy who goes in search of adventure. Sitting on his roof one night, Sebastian decides that there's nothing very interesting to see on his street: It is definitely time for a change. What spells adventure more than a journey in a hot air balloon, especially one constructed from Grandma's afghans and patchwork quilts?
In what has to be the best-named picture book of the year, Newbery Medalist Patricia MacLachlan brings readers the story of the young Henri Matisse and his childhood inspirations, with eye-catching illustrations from Hadley Hooper.
"Once there was a library that opened only at night." Thus begins Kazuno Kohara's endearing story of one devoted librarian who gets the job done—and gets it done right.
Everyone should read Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird; at least that's what eighth-graders Lucy and her friends Michael and Elena think. In fact, they believe so strongly in this summer reading-list classic that they decide to put their clever and surreptitious marketing skills to work to get everyone talking about—and searching for—the book. The trio begins creatively "hiding" copies of the book in stores and libraries; they're not doing anything illegal, just generating some buzz.
Remembering the sacrifices and successes of African Americans—from unexpected champions of civil rights to talented performers who dreamed big—is one of the most inspiring ways to celebrate Black History Month. If we keep teaching our children well, racism just may someday be a thing of the past.
On the day that his beloved grandmother, Mem, dies, Billy "Brother" Grace dreams of the sea. While he's never been to the ocean in his 18 years, Brother has grown up hearing his grandmother's stories from her childhood.Brother holds a single memory of his mother, who dumped him with Mem and then was killed in a car crash. After the loss of Mem, he believes he is alone in...
It's positively postmodern: Jeff Mack's inventive new offering, The Things I Can Do, is a book about a book that takes a close look at the nature of creation, kid-style. Jeff, the story's narrator, is a spunky little boy who's taking giant steps, and who's pleased as punch at his own progress. So pleased, in fact, that he fashions a wrinkled, crinkled,...


text:
Have You Been Causeing The Sales Killing Mistake?
I'll offer it to you directly, many web marketers fail online because of inferior copy-writing skills.
Copywriting is just trying to sell utilizing words. Creating enticing phrases that may pull on a prospect change them into a person and to to do this is the entire point of copywriting.
I got an e-mail another day, it was from a fellow internet marketer trying to sell me some product. The subject line read, "Kevin, buy the item NOW!"
I really could not believe he merely said that and perhaps even it was in the field line! Like actually, what was that man thinking? Am I going to wish to buy whatever he was selling me because of the heading? OF COURSE MAYBE NOT.
You'll find principles to copy-writing, you know that. The number one guideline that is absolute is that you just arvixe coupon the most beneficial facet of your goods/service the many.
Here is what what I am referring to. I can't even recall what the guy was selling me but let's just say it was an online online marketing class.
What he ought to have done was chosen the best element of the plan and chose to SEMrush promo code that instead of screaming "PURCHASE THIS TODAY" at me. And I Will inform you why. When the product is bought by someone, what are they actually getting? The product or the results?
Let's say he did it the right way and mentioned "Generate $56,258 in less than 30-days on full auto-pilot using my method" in the subject line. That is the the most beneficial outcome so that is why it might be the part that he's boosting the most that his program could be achieved from by you.
Easily noticed that matter line when compared with "GET THIS TODAY" I'd have really been fascinated to click on his email and discover a little more concerning this system.
But the guy didn't do that. He whined and howled at me to buy his product. To be honest, it makes him look distressed and not professional for a purchase.
So here's the price, next time you compose a message or compose a headline for for instance, emphasise the biggest most advantage that is prodigal to your product/service.
Don't forget to ask yourself, what exactly is the client really currently buying? My goods or the benefits and consequences of my goods?
To your success,
Kevin Pasco
CEO & Founder
Ultimate Online System
Qnet – Business Model And Company Portfolio
Medianet _breadth ='600′;
Medianet _height ='120′;
amasuite 4.0 review Medianet_ crid='711758437′;
QNet is among the biggest multi level marketing companies, which will be making efforts to alter its strategy for direct-selling representatives and its Internal Revenue Service. It powerfully considers that it should mold itself to fulfill the ever changing needs of its own customers. This shows individuals oriented they are, and how attentive. One of the necessary points that each business man should comprehend would be to shift with clients.
Being boring so alter your rules and schemes, wont spend in the end and The Launch Bible Review make fresh ones.
To be booming your company needs so that you enhance, whether it's interacting to nominees, searching for customers, or running training sessions, demos, one to be constantlyiactive on all problems. The Crucial 2010 is your exact company that combines the QNet Advisor along with the QNet Merchandise Portfolio allinone acceptable bundle; as the itself is your ease all it is readily offered to you.
For better understanding of the terms stated earlier:
funnel trax review IQNet Business Planner: It includes Reparation Strategy, Policies & Procedures pamphlets the QNet Company Account, Quick Start Manual, and DVDs that are exciting.
IQNet Merchandise Collection: The QNet Product Portfolio contains high quality colour-published brochures presenting the product lines of QNet, helps the products to be presented by you in a method that is informative.
All that is packed in QNet Company Instance which helps to give an intelligent and professional appearance to you.
Furthermore, QNET has and has already come in many different languages.
Also Essesential 2010 will present it self, although it is not just in language that is English. Allow it to be Arabic, Farsi, France, Bahasa Philippines, Russian, Traditional Chinese, Turkish that is ior, help and to all ease you.
Therefore, one can now have a modern and booming career in-direct selling readily.
Businesses which might be contemplating in direct marketing should similarly, concentrate on creating life simpler, for everybody it handles.
HOW CAN YOU Influence YOUR BUSINESS USING Online Marketing STRATEGIES
How do YOU influence YOUR BUSINESS USING INTERNET MARKETING STRATEGIES
Net marketing strategy have assisted companies . Internet medium of promotion, that's online media-marketing is considered to possess mobilized the process of promotion is an enormous manner which has leveraged the businesses. Internet media promotion offers cost-effective method of marketing goods or services, which unquestionably results the enterprise in enormous way's ad revenue. A substantial quantity of money might be saved to internet media of advertising in the event the company resorts.
This really is one of the major advantages of web new media advertising that has made is hardly unpopular amongst the businesses. Besides this, web media advertising resources are much too to accomplish the future prospects in comparison with conventional instruments of media-marketing. Web media promotion tools can target the prospective clients on a level that is global and like internet sites, e-mail notifications and social network sites have their reach far and wide. The entire process of web media marketing is very fast for the marketer to attain his customers. Through online media marketing resources, his ad campaign can be sent by the internet press marketer to his customers with all the tap of the mouse nearly forthwith.
Also referred to as electronic media-marketing on line media-marketing, is easily trackable. The responses created from web media advertising tools could be easily and precisely tracked. If internet media promotion tools are employed meticulously, the reply generated increases manifolds compared to the usual media-marketing resources. These replies in the clients are an essential part of making the whole process of net media marketing successful. The feedback from prospective leads allows the internet marketer modify the item according to his customers' demands and understand they better.
The internet media marketing strategy incase, doesn't create initial expected response from the customers, the media marketer can change his campaign to suit availability and the needs of his clients. The internet media marketer can set a direct contact by means of these dynamic tools of media-marketing with his clients. These edges of web media dogesled helps leverage the company prospects.
Electronic Media
Mktg Dark Post Profits 2.0 ; new media
Advertising ; internet
marketing TrafficAid strategy
Analyzing Social Networking Honesty Component II
Analyzing interpersonal Media Ethics component II
Legal regulations have been restricted by the quick growth of technology that was societal from adapting along side of these, which leaves the world . This transitive condition makes the value systems of the latest social networking a grayer place if regulations were in spot to implicate an activity as legally wrong than it might be. Legality is often orders what people believe to the socially and morally appropriate, so this lack of specialist H-AS caused an ambiguous understanding of standards that are ethical in the society of social media. Somebody to tend towards the honest side that's most valuable to people is frequently caused by indecisiveness. To a belief that people aren't accountable for the activities in their social profiles, this has led in the case of the latest social websites. So, actions that folks may consider to be hazardous and dishonest in the real life are far more amoral moral that is if not . People frequently turns a blind eye towards these amoral activities as an answer to the lack of power in the social media range; the lack of an expert signifies there is over what's exactly what isn't a socially appropriate conduct no ruling. Insufficient restriction of social websites has ramifications that are major. An essential outcome is the fact that people don't have any basis off which to develop what Aristotle called "sensible motive," or a middle-ground between opposing sides of behavioral and mental
social media consultant
social media
The effort to eventually become this authority of the government's is the thing that causes conflict between the condition along with individuals. The people then decide whether these actions are ethically acceptable, as the state challenges to control and restrain the public's use of the latest social networking. The issue in this trade is the fact that you can go to this site has already existed a state of freedom, so any activity the state determines to take will still only be seen as restrictive even if it meant-to be protective of personal solitude and people's details.
This concudes Part II of "analyzing interpersonal Media Ethics," component III addresss the seclusion ethics of social networking.
Goa Social Travel
Indian Culture: Melting Point Happy Holi 2015 HQ Of A Civilization that is Great
"Indian is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human language, the mother-of history, grandmother of legend, and great grand-mother of tradition. Our best and most instructive materials in the background of man are treasured up in India just."
-Mark Twain (Writer 1835-1910)
As the political and societal force that influences the progression of person as a whole, culture is defined in terms. O lifestyle is a bunch of idiosyncrasies as well as the way distinct social organizations keep in touch with one another as it pertains to India. Through the years, a whole lot has transformed regarding living standard but even then customs and the value continue to be whole and stay unchanged.
+Atithi devo bhaava+ is a prime illustration of indian culture's richness. It serves the guests as they're from the same family and means that culture treat them as Gods. The patriarch of the household can't and commitment to the elders and the deep respect be discovered any where otherwise. Across the household, everything centers in India also it is of extreme importance that each of the family have precisely the same respect and love . The truth is that tradition is more like a legacy that will be handed over from generation to generation.
Still another aspect of the culture in India's might be seen when some one is facing serious difficulty. Aside from tribe, the course or faith, everyone will step forward to supply help and assistance.
Lifestyle in India is an aspect right considering that birth was taken by the Indus valley culture, which has been constructed by its own lengthy history of taking conventions and customs, and its unique manner. If one takes an effective look in the various aspects of Indian culture, then it can be found that it has been affected a good deal on the periods by the Vedas also into a particular extent the British colonization. This combining up of varied cultures created it on its own that was unique. The diversity found in languages the dwelling techniques, customs has enormously form the progression of this civilization that is remarkable.
Technology Keeps Moving – How Do You Keep Up
Technology keeps going, how could you possibly keep up? This is what exactly is the answer that is correct and a really legitimate issue? Well, the world wide web is a superb way to obtain advice and you're guaranteed to obtain the info you must keep you on-track!
With such fast progress in engineering it is difficult to keep up-to-date with every thing that is happening, specifically for folks from the older years. As an example have a look at music. MP3s, I pods can seem like a genuine headache! It isn't as easy as it may look. Trade goods out there such as the recording are designed particularly for the generations that were older – in the event that you've not heard your tune that was favourite for years but you've got it on recording, now you can!
There's no easy way around it; in case you'd like to maintain-to-date with all the newest scientific developments you then really need to do your research! How often do you browse the latest technology-mags? How frequently would you surf the web reading the most up-to-date information and websites from individuals inside the computing sector? Likely not very! This is only one of the items you ought to do on a regular basis to stay tuned in to the latest goings-on.
Yahoo can be your buddy.
.no issue exactly what you must get on the internet Google will possess the answer! What's Google? It's a search engine which enables you to enter completely something plus it brings back millions of results associated with what you entered, with the most important first.
Hunt online to keep yourself up thus far with technology
Don't let the technological world be a place that is daunting. Hunt on the internet to understand how you can remain up thus far with technology. There are lots of excellent items such as the recording which you can find on the internet that restore those wonderful memories, and will make your daily life much easier! It is also possible to save cash along the way not just is hunting on the web a way that is convenient to discover the most recent technology!