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by Chris in The Lousy Linguist
This is part 2 of my review of Guy Deutscher's new book Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages. This covers The Language Lens (129-249). Part 1 is here. This review will cover the scientific evidence that Deutscher reviews suggesting that language affects thought, and will end with a shocking proposal.To sum up my review of part one: meh. Okay, we've established that culture can influence language. This is a lot less controversial than Deutscher makes it seem and he spent a large amount of text defending that position. Okay, whatever, time to move on. In part 2 he again begins with historical review explaining why he thinks Whorf was a con man, but also why he thinks the core insights of early linguist relativity deserve closer, honest investigation. He complains that based his Hopi claims on just one lonely informant (p142). We'll see later that Deutscher himself falls for the same trap. He replaces Whorf with the Boas-Jakobson principle that languages differ in what they must convey, not what they may convey" (151). I respect Deutscher for making this a central theme in his book because I think he's right. To parrot his own recitation of Humbolt: any thought can be expressed in any language. It is what our native language forces us to foreground that makes linguistic relativity an interesting topic.Deutscher spends most of the second part of the book reviewing three areas of language that have provided evidence that language affects thought: spatial coordinates, grammatical gender, and color terms (familiar from part 1). The general point I want to make about his evidence is that it is far weaker than he maintains. But is is interesting. A brief set of reactions:Spatial Coordinates -- everything is embodiedMost of his argumentation about the affect of spacial coordinate terms on thought stems from Levinson's evidence from speakers of the Australian language Guugu Yimithirr which is famous for giving us the word "kangaroo." Speakers of GY do not generally use ego-centric terms like "right" and "left" but rather use cardinal direction terms like "east" and "west." As a result, Deutscher claims, they remember information about situations differently than speakers of English. They have, so the argument goes, a perfect pitch for direction and they are always attuned to where north is. Deutscher's claim is that only the linguistic repetition of such terms can possibly account for this. Hence, their language affects what they pay attention to and what they remember, hence language affects thought.I've never found this line of research all that convincing regarding linguistic relativity and Deutscher does not really add much to the debate. Like Deutscher's complaint above regarding Whorf's one lonely Hopi speaker, it turns out there are not many native speakers of Guugu Yimithirr left and haven't been for a while. These experiments on directional language involve very few speakers, and most of them have both cardinal direction and ego-centric direction in their dialect. If we're going to complain about Whorf's restricted subject pool, we must complain about Levinson's too.But more to the point, I believe all direction terms are ultimately ego-centric insofar as they are embodied. The terms "north" and "south" are not magically universal. They are based on a human being's body and orientation (i.e., ego-centric). Don't believe me, ask yourself, what does "north" mean in space? What does "north" mean to an amoeba? Mostly what Deutscher does in his discussions of direction terms is reiterate the point he belabored in Part 1: culture affects language. Yeah, we got that already.The rise of similarity judgmentsThat is until he discusses the table experiments. These experiments show subjects tables with objects on them and ask them to arrange them in accordance with a target. Basically, they ask for similarity judgement. How can you make this table arrangement similar to the previous table. This methodological paradigm has become prominent in psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics, especially studies testing linguistic relativity. In fact, all of the studies Deutscher discusses are similarity judgment studies of one sort or another. The point is that I show you one target thing, then two test things and ask, which test is MORE SIMILAR to the target than the other? Ultimately Deutscher himself problematizes spatial coordinate terms so much, they fall flat and remain unconvincing as a base of evidence for linguistic relativity.Grammatical GenderMost languages have terms for classifying things. Some languages have more elaborate classifier systems than others. In German, the term for the fork is die Gabel, marked by feminine die. Ultimately, most languages with elaborate classifiers have systems that can be described as incoherent in so far as most things given one classification have no inherent properties that signify that classification (there is nothing inherently feminine about a fork). However, Deutscher provides evidence that speakers of languages with grammatical gender will evoke properties of things in keeping with their gender classifier, suggesting that the classifier is causing them to imagine a fork would speak with a female voice, for example. But these experiments mainly test vague associations of imagination, not linguistic causality, as Deutscher admits.Color TermsIt is not until chapter 9 Russian Blues that Deutscher really delivers the goods. It is this chapter which provides the most interesting evidence for the effect of language on thought. Pity it is only about 15 pages of the book. The whole book should have been more like this. The facts he discusses involve the basic point that the brain sees what it wants to see. It turns out our perception of color has little to do with any objective feature of the thing we're looking at (he explains this fact brilliantly in the Appendix which I highly recommend, and frankly, should have been the first chapter, not relegated to the attic of an appendix). The point is that our brains change the input. As our eyes take in objective photons, our brain photoshops the input (a great analogy from Deutscher which really brings the point home).The experimental results Deutscher discusses involve more similarity judgements, albeit with a twist. Instead of relying solely on the similarity judgments, researchers studied the more objective reaction time. They showed people different color patches and asked them to judge the sameness. Despite the various and clever variations on this theme, they all relied on subjective judgements of similarity. And this is where they fail to extricate themselves from the problem of strategizing.Unfortunately they all share the critical flaw that making a similarity judgment is a logical reason act and may be mitigated by strategizing. Deutscher discusses this fact, but doesn't realize that none of the fixes work. A similarity judgment is always a logical process susceptible to the effects of strategizing. This will be a major issue in my Shocking Proposal at the end. You see, regardless of how clever the test, as long as you are basically asking a subject to make a similarity judgment, you are asking them to reason about the task. So your results will be tinged by the strategizing of human subjects as they logically try to game the system. This is well known in psycholinguistics and difficult to avoid. So how do you objectively test what colors a person considers blue?A Shocking ProposalThe paradigm already exists. How can you objectively prove that English speakers really do consider aspirated /kh/ and unaspirated /k/ both the same phoneme? You condition them to fear aspirated /kh/ by shocking them every time they hear it (measuring their galvanic skin response). Once they are conditioned, you then play them unaspirated /k/ (with no shock) and check to see if you get the same GSR spike (in anticipation).Okay, now apply this to color terms. Condition subjects to fear center of the category blue, then show them gradations. What causes the GSR spike? That's what they consider blue. now do that with speakers of 40 different languages.If the hippies on the human subjects review board let you do it, there's your dissertation.... Read more »
Guy deutscher. (2010) Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages. Metropolitan Books. info:/
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a tragic, but scientifically fascinating, disease.FTD only accounts for a small fraction of dementias in total (estimates range from 2% to 10%), but it typically strikes people aged in their 50s or 60s, i.e. much earlier than the average for Alzheimer's disease, the most common cause of dementia. As a result, FTD accounts for a large proportion of early-onset cases.The symptoms are different to those of Alzheimer's, at least in the early stages. Memory problems and confusion are not prominent. Nor are hallucinations and delusions, which are seen in 20% of Alzheimer's, but only 2% of FTD.Instead, patients often present with language problems - either forgetting what words mean, starting with uncommon words and progressing to easy ones ("semantic dementia"), or losing the ability to articulate speech ("nonfluent aphasia").But the most disturbing effects are behavioural and personality changes. These are not seen in all cases, but in some people (the "behavioural variant"), they are the main symptom. Patients may begin to act entirely out of character, including criminal acts.Aggressive behaviour is also sometimes seen in Alzheimer's, but it's usually associated with confusion or hallucinations: people "don't know what they're doing". In FTD, patients can commit serious crimes even though their cognitive function is pretty much intact: they do know what they're doing.Mario F. Mendez discusses this in a new paper, The Unique Predisposition to Criminal Violations in Frontotemporal Dementia, and asks whether people who commit crimes while suffering from FTD should be considered legally responsible for their apparantly "sociopathic" actions. He presents 4 case histories.Patient 1: A left-handed male in his sixties began stalking and attempting to molest children for the first time in his life. He followed children home from school and tried to touch them... On another occasion, he stood at the foot of a pool and stared at the children for a prolonged time.When he exposed himself to his neighbor's children, he was arrested. The patient did not deny his actions, could describe them in detail, and endorsed them as wrong and harmful. Despite this, he stated that he did not feel that he was causing harm at the time of his acts.The patient's personality had deteriorated over the prior four years, with decreased concern for others, disinhibition, and compulsive hoarding. He had caused disturbances at work, such as intruding into others' conversations and walking into others' offices... constantly pilfering... hiding money.... In addition, he ate indiscriminately, even going through waste containers and eating garbage. He stopped showering and wore the same clothes every day.Neuropsychological testing and brain scans suggested early FTD, and his mother had reportedly suffered unspecified dementia; FTD is often genetic. He was not prosecuted. This case has a lot in common with the man who became a pedophile after surgery for a brain tumour: not just the pedophilia, but other symptoms like compulsive hoarding, over-eating, etc.Patient 4: A right-handed man in his early fifties had a hit-and-run accident and left the scene without concern. He had struck a van with passengers but kept driving. The police stopped him a short distance away from the scene, and he did not deny his action.Leaving the scene of an accident was not characteristic of his premorbid personality, yet he had had several recent traffic violations... He could recall and describe the accident, knew that it was wrong to leave the scene, but did not feel the need to stop at the time.Over the prior two years, the patient's pervasive behavior had significantly changed. He had become disengaged and emotionally detached; for example, he did not react to the death of his mother...He was no longer embarrassed over passing gas or belching in public or appearing partially clothed in front of others. The patient had a tendency toward hyperorality, especially for peanuts, and had a decline in personal hygiene. Other aspects of the history included dysarthria and a recent tendency to choke on liquids.This patient showed clear signs of motor neuron disease, which occurs in up to 15% of FTD cases. He died, as a result of the progression of the motor neuron disease, one year later, after developing other symptoms of FTD. His death meant he could not be tried for the hit-and-run.Mendez notes that legally, these patients would probably not qualify for the "insanity defence". Under the British M'Naghten Rules, also adopted by the USA, the defendant is only eligible if they werelabouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.These patients do not fit that bill.Finally, why does FTD cause sociopathic behaviour? Mendez says that it is because it involves degeneration of the vmPFC, linking FTD patients to the classic case of Phineas Gage whose vmPFC was destroyed by a flying iron rod. But Gage, while he did show personality changes, actually managed to function fairly well in society.So temporal lobe degeneration probably also contributes to the FTD behavioural syndrome, especially since many of the symptoms (like compulsive eating) are seen in monkeys with temporal lobe lesions.Mendez MF (2010). The unique predisposition to criminal violations in frontotemporal dementia. The journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 38 (3), 318-23 PMID: 20852216... Read more »
Mendez MF. (2010) The unique predisposition to criminal violations in frontotemporal dementia. The journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 38(3), 318-23. PMID: 20852216
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Great too see two papers by our friends at Bioversity come out in rapid sequence recently relating to two project with which I was marginally connected in their early stages back in the 90s. One is on African leafy vegetables (ALV), a common subject here. And the other on homegardens. The ALV paper tries to [...]... Read more »
Gotor, E., & Irungu, C. (2010) The impact of Bioversity International's African Leafy Vegetables programme in Kenya. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 28(1), 41-55. DOI: 10.3152/146155110X488817
Galluzzi, G., Eyzaguirre, P., & Negri, V. (2010) Home gardens: neglected hotspots of agro-biodiversity and cultural diversity. Biodiversity and Conservation. DOI: 10.1007/s10531-010-9919-5
by teofilo in Gambler's House
One of the many similarities between Chaco and Casas Grandes in Chihuahua, in addition to the similar types of effigy vessels, is the presence of significant numbers of scarlet macaw skeletons at both sites. As with most of these parallels, the evidence at Casas Grandes is more impressive in scale, with hundreds of macaws found [...]... Read more »
Somerville, A., Nelson, B., & Knudson, K. (2010) Isotopic investigation of pre-Hispanic macaw breeding in Northwest Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 29(1), 125-135. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2009.09.003
by Krystal D'Costa in Anthropology in Practice
Unveiling of the Mother Theresa postage stamp Sept. 5th, 2010 at the National Shrine. Postmaster General Jack Potter was in attendance (immediately to the left of the stamp).
Over the recent Labor Day weekend, S and I visited Washington D.C. where purely by chance we stumbled on a stamp unveiling. We were touring the National Shrine—the mosaics are breathtaking—when we realized the ceremony occurring at the front had little to do with normal services. The United States Post Office had a covered display at the front, so we wound our way up the side aisle and came across a placard announcing that a stamp for Mother Theresa was being issued. (This actually explained the large number of nuns present wearing her traditional white and blue sari.) So we found a spot along the wall and settled into to watch.
First US Postage Stamp:
Benjamin Franklin, 5¢
Credit: National Postage Museum
While the primary purpose of stamps has been to pre-pay for the transportation and delivery of mail, postage icons have marked histories around the world. The world's first postage stamp was the Penny Black invented by Sir Rowland Hill, founder of the Penny Post. It was issued in 1840 by the United Kingdom, and depicted a young Queen Victoria. Seven years later, in an effort to modernize the American postal system, the Benjamin Franklin, 5-cent stamp was issued. Franklin, the first American postmaster, was selected for the image over the recently deceased Andrew Jackson—in part, because he would be recognized as a unifying figure between the conflicted states.
Kristi Evans (1992) has a really nice study that demonstrates using this type of cultural record with regard to Poland. She discusses unofficial stamps that were created by the outlawed Solidarity union. The images used for these stamps present a particular view of history and provide a snapshot of Poland in the 1980s.
Solidarity positioned itself as representing the desire of the Polish nation (the people) to oppose the state (recognized as "Eastern, alien, despotic—as in a word, Russian") (Evans 1992: 751). The stamps often included imagery suggesting sacrifice on the part of the nation in enduring the state. They highlighted events that could take on huge symbolic import for the nation and become integral to identity—a shared national memory remembered through the printing and use of stamps.
For example, in Poland in 1940 Soviet secret police murdered Polish nationals in the Katyn Forest. The order was based on a proposal to execute the Polish Officer Corps, and some 22,000 people were killed. This event came to be known as the Katyn massacre. Evans describes some of the Katyn stamps in her research (1992: 754):A. The word "Katyn" alone, constructed from crosses. B. "Katyn," with a forest and the emblem of the Soviet Union. C. "Matka Boska Katynska" (Madonna of Katyn) with crosses in a clearing. A box in the upper lefthand corner of the stamp frames the picture of a weeping mother and child. D. "Katyn," with a stylized drawing of a person standing like a cross and weeping. E. "Katyn," with a gun pointed at the head of a blindfolded man. F. "Katyn," with white candles (against a black background flickering in a triangular formation. G. "Katyn 1940," with a prominent red star, a skill wearing a Polish military cap, and the exclamation "[We remember!!!]" written in red and stylized graffiti.The images evoke a sense of "betrayal and sacrifice," and in connection with Polish history create a very specific point of identity:By grounding Poland's defining events in a particular space, representations by place creates a geographically situated consciousness of history and "Poland." Poland is defined in opposition to Russia, to the Soviets, and to the Communists, and all three are collapsed into the Katyn image (Evans 1992: 756).Stamps helped transmit these ideas via circulation, and ensured their longevity as collectors preserved them for posterity. In owning stamps, people claimed a certain connection to the nation and to a shared history. This is a particularly salient point given that the majority of Solidarity stamps were unofficial and not used to circulate mail:In collecting underground stamps, individuals can appropriate for themselves the subversive images of the imagined community and locate themselves within a community partially defined by the circulation of these images (Evans 1992: 750). This sense of sharedness, this connection, can help us understand the significance of certain events as experienced by nations and the ways in which they choose to represent themselves.
This is evident in our own postal stamp history. Unfortunately, I cannot copy US stamp images here because they are protected under copyright law, but a survey of the stamps displayed demonstrate that commemorative stamps through the ages highlight advances in transportation, communication, and industry, as well as achievements in the arts and sciences, and much more. The American Art collection provides a clear example of marking these sorts of achievements.
The Mother Theresa stamp celebrates this amazing woman, but it also claims a portion of her legacy as our own. In commemorating her in this way, we recognize and support the work she has done, and align ourselves with her ideas:Stamps, which are the basis for the circulation of correspondence, facilitate communication while simultaneously expressing certain ideas and emotions through their own imagery (Evans 1992: 750).Stamps may face an uncertain future as we move increasingly toward digital means of communication. I don't know that snail mail will even be entirely eradicated, but there may be less of a need for decorative postage as time goes by. It will be interesting to see whether stamps take on purely a symbolic role, or if they are destined to be removed as cultural currency entirely.
... Read more »
EVANS, K. (1992) the argument of images: historical representation in Solidarity underground postage, 1981-87. American Ethnologist, 19(4), 749-767. DOI: 10.1525/ae.1992.19.4.02a00070
by Kate Clancy in Context & Variation
I use PubMed to make RSS feeds out of searches on topics relevant to my research, because I cannot be trusted to regularly look this up on my own (I also have feeds from many of the main journals in my field, natch). One of my searches, "inflammation endometrium," turned up an interesting article today from the European Journal of Cancer. Friedenreich et al review the literature on physical activity and cancer prevention and find a consistent relationship between physical activity and reduced risk of several cancers. Obviously, I want to focus on breast, endometrial and ovarian cancers, since those are the stuff of ladybusiness.Breast cancerThe authors found seventy three separate studies on breast cancer (they say separate, I assume, to differentiate multiple publications on the same data set). Three quarters of the studies found physical activity to have a positive effect on breast cancer risk; within those, the risk reduction tended to be around twenty five percent when comparing most to least active participants. Interestingly, postmenopausal physical activity seemed to have the strongest effect, which was a bit of a surprise to me. What this says, to me, is that adjustments to lifestyle made late in life can still have significant effects on health. If you were a couch potato when young but are committed to physical activity now, all is not lost.Endometrial cancerFor endometrial cancer, the authors concluded that "physical activity probably protects against endometrial cancer" (p. 2594, anyone else find that wording odd?). There were twenty studies of endometrial cancer, so far fewer than of breast cancer, but the reduction in risk was very similar, of twenty to thirty percent. Sedentary behavior appears to increase risk (like jobs where you sit all day), and more intense or longer bouts of activity tend to have more positive effects.Ovarian cancerHere, the authors found conflicting evidence, where some studies found risk reduction with physical activity, some found no effect, and one found a risk increase with physical activity. There were about twenty studies that looked at ovarian cancer, but the authors claim that the sample size was often small. What surprised me about this section was what little attention they paid to mechanism. Ovarian cancer is different from breast or endometrial cancer: a big part of what researchers think causes it is the "incessant ovulation" of industrial societies. That is, women in industrial populations, due to a positive energy balance, low rates of childbearing and low rates of breastfeeding, have as many as 400 menstrual cycles in their lives, compared to only 50 in a forager population, which would have a later age at menarche and women who are often pregnant or breastfeeding. Continual insults to the ovarian tissue, from the rupture of the ovarian wall during ovulation, and its subsequent repair, increase the risk of cell mutations. Small differences in sedentary or active behavior don't tend to be enough to keep a woman from ovulating.Why parse out physical activity and sedentary behavior?You may have noticed that I mention different kinds of physical activity, but also sedentary behavior. In the paper the authors go into far more detail about different types of behavior, from domestic activities to occupational activities to recreational ones, and whether they are physically active or sedentary. It is important to consider both of these factors because they contribute to an overall lifestyle that can tip the balance towards a more positive (more calories in than out) energy balance, or a more negative (more calories out than in) energy balance.Let's take my Polish field site for instance, the Mogielica Human Ecology Study Site, directed by Grazyna Jasienska. These women burn on average more calories than urban US women (Clancy et al 2009). Women there work alongside the men to do all the agricultural work needed to run their farms. You could just stop there and say that is very different from many populations within the US. But these women also do all their own housework and cooking, they have gardens, if they work they walk or take the bus. They are often sweeping and mopping instead of vacuuming. They spend a lot less time in front of screens, like televisions or computers (they have them for sure, but there are fewer desk jobs in front of a computer there). At least from my observations, they are less likely to order things online, and instead go to the store.So the lifestyle differences, comparing an urban, sedentary person with a desk job in the US to a farmer in Poland, become far more striking, as do the number of calories they likely burn each day in their daily lives.Is there population variation in cancer rates?I thought you'd never ask! The main reason I decided to write about this article was so that I could highlight one of the most elegant, simple little graphs I have ever read, from a 2001 article by Jasienska and Thune. They compare population averages in progesterone (a female reproductive hormone) with breast cancer rates. Here's the graph:Jasienska and Thune 2001Guess what is one of the biggest predictors of progesterone concentrations? Physical activity.Finally, why someone else should always read your manuscriptsThere were a few tough sentences in here that a copyeditor could have really improved. The authors wrote:"There is strong and consistent evidence that physical activity reduces the risk of several of the major cancer sites, and that between 9% and 19% of cancer cases could be attributed to lack of sufficient physical activity in Europe" (p. 2593, abstract)Which I tweeted, and to which Alex Wild of Myrmecos responded:"@KateClancy So if Europeans were more active we'd all have less cancer?#wordingfail"And then as I was preparing this post, I found:"Physical activity reduces breast cancer risk when performed at any age throughout life, but activity done after the age of 50 years does have a stronger effect on risk than activity done earlier in life and sustained lifetime activity is of benefit" (p. 2594).So, sustained lifetime activity isn't as good as activity after 50, or this is a point independent of which time of activity matters? I thought perhaps they were trying to make points about both? Copyeditor, please!Anyway, this article was a fun way to get to share a broader perspective on reproductive cancer rates in women across the world. Share your thoughts or questions in the comments!ReferencesClancy, K., Ellison, P., Jasienska, G., & Bribiescas, R. (2009). Endometrial thickness is not independent of luteal phase day in a rural Polish population Anthropological Science, 117 (3), 157-163 DOI: 10.1537/ase.090130Friedenreich CM, Neilson HK, & Lynch BM (2010). State of the epidemiological evidence on physical activity and cancer prevention. European journal of cancer (Oxford, England : 1990), 46 (14), 2593-604 PMID: ... Read more »
Clancy, K., Ellison, P., Jasienska, G., & Bribiescas, R. (2009) Endometrial thickness is not independent of luteal phase day in a rural Polish population. Anthropological Science, 117(3), 157-163. DOI: 10.1537/ase.090130
Friedenreich CM, Neilson HK, & Lynch BM. (2010) State of the epidemiological evidence on physical activity and cancer prevention. European journal of cancer (Oxford, England : 1990), 46(14), 2593-604. PMID: 20843488
Jasienska, G., & Thune, I. (2001) Research pointers: Lifestyle, hormones, and risk of breast cancer. BMJ, 322(7286), 586-587. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.322.7286.586
by teofilo in Gambler's House
Given the rarity of human effigy vessels in the ancient Southwest, it seems clear that understanding them requires looking elsewhere. Specifically, it requires looking south, to Mesoamerica, where effigy vessels were quite common starting from an early date. Since most evidence of Mesoamerican influence in the Southwest seems to point to West Mexico as the [...]... Read more »
Beekman, C. (2009) Recent Research in Western Mexican Archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research, 18(1), 41-109. DOI: 10.1007/s10814-009-9034-x
by Anthropology.net in Anthropology.net
Both Razib and Dienekes have reviewed a paper on the population genetics of Central Asian peoples. To make sense of Central Asian ancestry has been challenging, to say the least. In particular, the problem is compounded by nomadic peoples without much written history nor uncovered archaeological record. What we do have are the linguistic, physical features, [...]... Read more »
Martínez-Cruz B, Vitalis R, Ségurel L, Austerlitz F, Georges M, Théry S, Quintana-Murci L, Hegay T, Aldashev A, Nasyrova F.... (2010) In the heartland of Eurasia: the multilocus genetic landscape of Central Asian populations. European journal of human genetics : EJHG. PMID: 20823912
If all that you knew about paleontology came from headlines alone, you could be excused for thinking that the science consists of little more than naming one obscure creature after another. There are a few petrified celebrities which can draw sustained attention – Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops foremost among them – but, in general, it seems [...]... Read more »
Gingerich, P., Franzen, J., Habersetzer, J., Hurum, J., & Smith, B. (2010) Darwinius masillae is a Haplorhine — Reply to Williams et al. (2010). Journal of Human Evolution. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.07.013
Franzen JL, Gingerich PD, Habersetzer J, Hurum JH, von Koenigswald W, & Smith BH. (2009) Complete primate skeleton from the Middle Eocene of Messel in Germany: morphology and paleobiology. PloS one, 4(5). PMID: 19492084
Seiffert, E., Perry, J., Simons, E., & Boyer, D. (2009) Convergent evolution of anthropoid-like adaptations in Eocene adapiform primates. Nature, 461(7267), 1118-1121. DOI: 10.1038/nature08429
Williams BA, Kay RF, Christopher Kirk E, & Ross CF. (2010) Darwinius masillae is a strepsirrhine-a reply to Franzen et al. (2009). Journal of human evolution. PMID: 20188396
Williams, B., Kay, R., & Kirk, E. (2010) New perspectives on anthropoid origins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(11), 4797-4804. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0908320107
by Daniel Bassett in Chew the Fat
Predation is a key driver of biological systems over both ecological and evolutionary timescales. Thus, to understand our role as Homo sapiens within this evolutionary framework we must look to the animal kingdom to find our place. This is important for anyone following an evolutionary eating plan as it gives our species an ecological context, which we can consider when making choices about our lifestyle and diet. In the latest edition of Behavioral Ecology, Shultz & Finlayson utilised a range of studies on vertebrate predators to establish the relationship between prey behavioral and ecological characteristics, and predator diet composition at the population level. Although this focuses on non-human species it is easy to extrapolate information from this data and find our place within the animal kingdom.... Read more »
Shultz, S., & Finlayson, L. (2010) Large body and small brain and group sizes are associated with predator preferences for mammalian prey. Behavioral Ecology, 21(5), 1073-1079. DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arq108
by zinjanthropus in A Primate of Modern Aspect
I found a new paper in my reader this morning from the crew who published the first description and taxonomic statements about Darwinius massillae, Phillip Gingerich and his colleagues. This paper is a reply to Williams et al. (2010), which … Continue reading →... Read more »
Gingerich, P., Franzen, J., Habersetzer, J., Hurum, J., & Smith, B. (2010) Darwinius masillae is a Haplorhine — Reply to Williams et al. (2010). Journal of Human Evolution. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.07.013
Williams, B., Kay, R., Christopher Kirk, E., & Ross, C. (2010) Darwinius masillae is a strepsirrhine—a reply to Franzen et al. (2009). Journal of Human Evolution. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.01.003
Seiffert, E., Perry, J., Simons, E., & Boyer, D. (2009) Convergent evolution of anthropoid-like adaptations in Eocene adapiform primates. Nature, 461(7267), 1118-1121. DOI: 10.1038/nature08429
by Krystal D'Costa in Anthropology in Practice
Spurred by questions from readers, I've expanded the coffee series to include two additional posts on this caffeinated drink that will run this week. If this is your first visit to AiP, you can review our coffee discussions here. Monday's post asked, how can we explain the popularity of instant coffee in coffee producing countries? As a follow-up, today we will look at the future of Peruvian coffee among native Peruvian coffee drinkers. As always, thanks for stopping by—and for your questions!
The question of what happens to local culture in the face of globalization is not a new one to anthropology. One view has held that capitalism is a great cultural steamroller, creating homogeneous responses to global markets. But our discussion last time explored an example of cultural contact in which there was a dialogue, and this represents the other side of the coin: the argument that the conditions that permit and encourage international trade, also offers a means maintaining cultural distinction and identity.
In the last post, we discussed the way Lithuania was able to wield a memory of Soviet sausage to comment on the state of their newly formed capitalist state, and create an identity for the nation—this identity seems more domestic the more I think about this issue because the identity really allowed Lithuanians to distinguish themselves from the capitalist processes that were unfolding. Remember that "Soviet" sausages were good, natural, and tasty, while Western-style sausages like salami (that lacked the tasty bits of fat Lithuanians liked) were not as popular and viewed as an inferior product in many ways. I argue that Lithuanians owned sausages in a way that allowed their preferences to hold a majority of the market against Western sausage products. Peruvians have not had a similar relationship with coffee and that has allowed foreign products to dominate general coffee consumption,
But this does not have to necessarily have to be the case. There is a chance for Peruvians to claim their coffee. It will require more than establishing a "Coffee Day." Changes will have to be made at the grower's level—which will certainly not be a simple process. But I found a great case study that suggests that getting growers involved can boost brand awareness locally.
The lives of Peruvian coffee growers and their families are not easy. Coffee growers outside of cooperatives often don't get paid very much for their product. Often they sell beans at market to a middleman, who may sell the beans again to another contact, who may then get the beans to a known roaster and wholesaler. The beans often change hands several times—and for the local grower this means low prices for his product. And that leads to other problems, like the issue of malnutrition:
The basic diet in the indigenous communities and for nearly the entire rural population is based on subsistence products like plantains, manioc and maize. Few can afford a more balanced diet, or meat and milk every day.And on the heels of this is a lack of educational resources. Schools are spread out over great distances, which makes it a hardship to attend. They are inadequately funded and are overlooked for supplies. And malnutrition keeps many students at home. So it all seems to come full circle.
These challenges are not limited to Peruvian growers. Researchers Castillo and Nigh (1998) paint a similar picture among the Mayan growers (Mam) in Chiapas, Mexico, who seem to have followed a similar path as Peruvian growers, first with cacao and then with coffee. The Mam are a Maya-speaking group that is geographically centered in Guatemala with a small group located on the Sierra Madre of Chiapas, also known as the Soconusco. Geography has played a large role in the ways the identities of these groups, which share a heritage, has unfolded. The Guatemalan Mam have been able to preserve political and religious hierarchy and Mam language thanks in part to Guatemalan indigenist practices, however, the Soconusco region has long been involved in widespread trade practices and Mexico has been unable (or unwilling?) to override this history to enact preservation measures.
The Mexican Mam have had a relationship with a commercial product in much the same way that Peruvian growers have with their product. The Mam have been working as exporters since 2000 BCE when the region was conquered by the Aztecs who mined cacao for currency. When the Spanish arrived in the 1600s, Castillo and Nigh report that the plantation systems were already in place:
Early Spanish colonists invested heavily in cacao production during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, expanding the original plantation and introducing Moorish irrigation technology ... Mam Indians probably supplied the skilled labor necessary for the cacao boom that produced some of the first Spanish fortunes in the New World (1998: 137).As a result of this history, Mexican Mam identity has long been tied to capitalist endeavors. When a worldwide depression collapsed the trade market in the 1630s, the Mexican Mam also faded from view until the 19th century when foreign investors revived the region for coffee production, the Mam (this time also including Guatemalan Mam displaced to the Soconusco by seizure of communal lands) once again provided the labor for the production of this commodity, which became a major export product for Mexico:
Thanks to Mam laborers on Soconusco plantations, their owners were able to export 227,040 quintals of coffee to Germany, the United States, England, France, Spain, and Switzerland between 1927 and 1928 (Castillo and Nigh 1998: 138).In the mid-nineteenth century, one of the outcomes of the Mexican Revolution was the redistribution of lands (ejido) to the Mam, which suggested the potential for them to grow and sell coffee for themselves, but for reasons mentioned above, this has historically made for difficult living conditions. Compounded with financial hardship, the Mam also faced systematic attempts at eradicating specific markers of their cultural identity following the Mexican Revolution. For example, Castillo and Nigh provide the following ethnographic account of the "civilization through dress" program as told by a Mam man:
I remember when the law came that prohibited our costume: they tool the weaving from the woman and the short pants from the men, and they burned them in the middle of the plaza. One old man refused; he wouldn't take off his pants, and so the policeman came and threw kerosene on him. We were all in the plaza—I was a child still. He said, "Take it off or I'll set you on fire; you're a stubborn Indian." The poor man tool off his short pants crying" (1998: 139).These types of programs continued until the 1970s, when the international community began to demand that human rights be awarded to indigenous populations. This opened the door for potential growers to receive aid in the form of "technical assistance, credit for agrochemicals, and state-supported channels for marketing" (Castillo and Nigh 1998: 139). However, this did little to change sale practices, which put individual growers at a disadvantage.
In the 80s, the Catholic Church's local cooperative commission met with Mam coffee growers, and the growers decided to form cooperatives that wouldn't rely on government assistance. Subsequent meetings resulted in the formation of the ISMAM (Indigenas de la Sierra Madre de. Motozintla) cooperative. ISMAM was founded on the basis of a shared memory of what it meant to be MAM: that the ancestors had a connection to the land, and understood how to produce high quality, natural foods. This belief is tied to the organic trade in which ISMAM has rooted itself. The cooperative purchases all the coffee produced by the growers at a set price and is the point of contact for trade with other nations. The result has been that the standard of living for MAM has risen—schools have been built, there is greater financial stability, and the people own their product.
Peruvian growers have started to move in this direction according to a few sources that I have found online (see here, here, and here). They have also come to the realization that they must join together to face the global market, and gain domestic recognition. It's not a foolproof plan: initiatives by the Pangoa Coffee Cooperative had to be abandoned when coffee prices fell in 1998.
My research has been largely documentary, and I don't have a sense for the current state of Peruvian growers (which is why I invite those with inside knowledge to share their thoughts with us), but it seems that co-ops may offer coffee a domestic foothold in places where ... Read more »
Castillo, R., & Nigh, R. (1998) Global Processes and Local Identity among Mayan Coffee Growers in Chiapas, Mexico. American Anthropologist, 100(1), 136-147. DOI: 10.1525/aa.19188.8.131.52
by Kate Clancy in Context & Variation
I am slowly re-posting some work from my lab blog. This one received quite a bit of traffic. I actually have a follow-up in the works, so watch for it!You have probably seen the buzz about the recent American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology article (Wax et al 2010) on home birth safety, and the editorial in the Lancet that took the article's shaky meta-analysis to crazytown: "Women have the right to choose how and where to give birth, but they do not have the right to put their baby at risk," they write.I have a lot of thoughts about this study and how it has been covered, by medical doctors and by the media. My main issues revolve around: 1) what these statistics mean from a personal versus a public health perspective, 2) maternal recovery and mortality, 3) the problem with criminalizing home birth, 4) the literature around birth experiences and the process of birth and resources for women, and 5) how we should look at this topic in the future.What do these statistics mean?According to the Wax et al (2010) meta-analysis, the difference in infant mortality between hospital births and home births is 0.2% versus 0.9% (other people have already done a nice take-down of the cherry-picking of older studies that have received significant criticism, yet were included). While headlines have screamed that this is a three-fold difference, it makes sense for us to pay attention to the absolute values. Infant mortality, in hospital or home births, is under one percent. We can't even say that one in one hundred babies die in childbirth in developed countries any more (at least not as a whole – for now I'll side-step some major differences relating to social disparities and race). If you are pregnant and considering where you want to give birth, I'm not sure how this slight difference could really sway you one way or the other. The problem is that the editors of the Lancet (and others) are conflating public health recommendations with personal recommendations… and shaming women in the process.From a public health perspective, I suppose I can grudgingly understand why the difference in infant mortality in home versus hospital births matters. But you cannot take population-wide statistics and apply them to individuals. To do so is to ignore inter and intrapopulational variation, and to take a women's decision about her body out of the context in which it should be understood.Another thing to notice, Wax et al (2010) found that "neonatal outcomes of planned home births revealed less frequent prematurity, low birthweight, and assisted newborn ventilation." So of the more than 99% of babies who were fine, home birth babies tended to be healthier. This of course could be a bias of who chooses a planned home birth versus someone who does not, so I am not assuming the directionality to be that the home birth predicts healthier kids. But I wouldn't be surprised if further analysis showed both directions to be causal; that is, that women more likely to have healthier kids choose to plan a home birth, but also that because home births have fewer interventions those kids are more likely to be healthy.What about maternal health?What the Lancet editorial and Wax et al (2010) mention only briefly, is that for maternal mortality and morbidity in low-risk births, to me, home births (and, I would contend, birth center births) are the clear winner. By not being in the same room as epidural medicine (it's right behind you in big cabinets, just waiting for you to say "ow"*), single beds with little room to maneuver, continuous fetal monitoring and an IV under your skin as soon as you're admitted, you avoid interventions that often carry their own significant risks and precipitate a cascade of other interventions.Many women in the US don't want to give birth in hospitals because being in a hospital increases the risk of maternal mortality and morbidity and, perhaps more importantly, slows recovery time. I say the recovery time issue may be more important, because while the US is embarrassingly bad at keeping mothers alive, the numbers are still better than in infant mortality (though, obviously, this makes sense from a life history perspective). The US is ranked 40th in the world in terms of maternal mortality – that means 39 countries do a better job keeping women alive during childbirth. Our incidence of maternal mortality is increasing, not decreasing, with the latest figures for 2008 being 17 deaths out of 100,000 births (Canada, for instance, has 7/100,000). Developed countries with higher rates of home birth have lower rates of maternal mortality.Criminalizing home birthAnother problem I have is that part of the reason they cite home births as unsafe is that so few of them are staffed by certified midwives (only one third according to the Lancet editorial). The only reason more home births are not staffed by certified midwives is that organizations like the American Medical Association and others have lobbied to keep home births illegal in many states. Midwives cannot legally help a family give birth at home where I now live, in Illinois. Instead, I have been told by local homebirth supporters that there is an underground movement of lay midwives who try to help women stay out of hospitals, if it's what they want. Is this a safe way to give birth if you are low-risk? Maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure I would be keen on a home birth that did not have a Certified Professional Midwife or Certified Nurse Midwife attending, who also had a good relationship to a doctor at the nearest hospital. But I also would not want to give low-risk birth in a hospital, even if I had a midwife, because of the major risks you incur just by stepping into a hospital (like infection). Women in states like mine are stuck between a rock and a hard place: give birth at home and risk not having someone with the right qualifications (and potentially face legal action), or risk giving birth under conditions where you may have interventions you don't want, and treated like something less than human (which I'll get to more in the next section).By criminalizing home birth, medical doctors and their lobbyists force women who don't want a medical birth to find less-than-perfect alternatives. So when Lancet editors and others criticize US women for not having the right people at their home births, I call shenanigans: they were complicit in making the laws that prohibit it in the first place.Birth experiences in hospitals, birth centers and the homeThere is a huge literature already on the medicalization and pathologization of femaleness, and I encourage you to devour it all, from Emily Martin's The Woman in the Body to Robbie Davis-Floyd's Birth as an American Rite of Passage.So the other issue I want to make sure to include here is that pregnant patients don't have the same rights as non-pregnant patients in a hospital (link to pdf), to refuse treatment, to leave, to contest a decision; hospitals can and do get court orders to force pregnant women to receive treatments they have refused. On the one hand, I can understand that sometimes decisions need to be made quickly during labor. On the other hand, I think there is a problem when we place a fetus's rights above that of its mother's. This recent story of police violence against a pregnant woman links to several problems with pregnant patient rights. Here are examples of court-ordered interventions. And here is more information on pregnant patient rights.These are other reasons many women find the idea of a hospital birth frightening, and thus choose home birth or a birthing center. And if you read Davis-Floyd and others, you will see the interviews of women who have had hospital births how they were disempowered by the experience. This isn't to say there aren't many, many women who aren't totally satisfied with hospital births, and would never consider home birth. It's just to say that to acknowledge differences in infant mortality risk that are not necessarily meaningful to an individual making a decision about this, in the absence of all this other information, is disingenuous on the part of the editorial writers at the Lancet.Future work on this topic... Read more »
Wax, J., Lucas, F., Lamont, M., Pinette, M., Cartin, A., & Blackstone, J. (2010) Maternal and newborn outcomes in planned home birth vs planned hospital births: a metaanalysis. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajog.2010.05.028
Editorial staff. (2010) Home birth--proceed with caution. Lancet, 376(9738), 303. PMID: 20674705
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
The other day a friend of mine bumped into some news that concerned her. She could have asked a random person about this to find out more information, but there was a bit of information that came with the news indicating that I might know more than the average person about it. So, she asked me, and as it turns out, I did not know anything. But, having heard the news from her, I noticed a different bit of information that came along with it that told me exactly who would know everything about it, so I sent along a question .... "What's going on with the [deleted]?" I got back a message almost immediately. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Christakis, N., & Fowler, J. (2010) Social Network Sensors for Early Detection of Contagious Outbreaks. PLoS ONE, 5(9). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0012948
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
First, there was plain and simple creationism, a Christian idea that, in an ideal Christian world, would be taught as part of any science dealing with the past, including biology (evolution), geology, and presumably history.
But the constitution stood in the way of implementing basic Christian teachings in public schools in the United States, though that battle took decades. Just as creationists were being driven off he landscape, a sort of Battle of the Bulge occurred, in the form of Intelligent Design. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Rosenau, Joshua. (2010) Leap of Faith: Intelligent Design's Trajectory after Dover. UNIV. OF ST. THOMAS JOURNAL OF LAW . info:/
Despite all the overhyped nonsense which surrounded the debut of the 47-million-year-old primate Darwinius masillae ("Ida" to her fans) last year, I have to admit that the first-described specimen was a gorgeous fossil. It was a paleontologist's dream – a complete, articulated skeleton with traces of hair and even intact gut contents. Never before had [...]... Read more »
Gregory, W.K. (1920) On the structure and relations of Notharctus, an American Eocene primate. Memoirs of the AMNH, 3(2), 49-243. info:/
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
There are two quick and fairly easy approaches to reducing US emissions of CO2 by several percent. These reduction would be at the household level, possibly decreasing the household cost of energy by between 20 and 30 percent (or more, depending on the household) and decreasing national total CO2 emissions by around 10% or so.
But these approaches are nearly impossible to implement. Why? Because people are ignorant and selfish. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Attari, S., DeKay, M., Davidson, C., & Bruine de Bruin, W. (2010) From the Cover: Public perceptions of energy consumption and savings. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(37), 16054-16059. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1001509107
by Krystal D'Costa in Anthropology in Practice
Spurred by questions from readers, I've expanded the coffee series to include two additional posts on this caffeinated drink that will run this week. If this is your first visit to AiP, you can review our coffee discussions here. This post will consider the question that readers have raised: how can we explain the popularity of instant coffee in coffee producing countries? As a follow-up, on
... Read more »
Klumbyte, Neringa. (2010) The Soviet Sausage Renaissance. American Anthropologist, 112(1), 22-37. info:/
by Jason Goldman in The Thoughtful Animal
At least one dog can be found in forty percent of US households, and forty percent of those owners allow their dogs to sleep on their beds. To put this in perspective, in a family with five children, two of them can be expected to become dog owners, and one of them will probably allow the dog to sleep on his or her bed. In an undergraduate lecture class of two hundred, eighty of those students come from homes with at least one pet dog. So as you might expect, dogs are a big business! In 2007, the pet industry was worth about $40 billion in the US, with dogs responsible for the largest share of that expense.
As well as providing pleasure and comfort, though, dogs can also be a source of pain and distress to humans. In the United States, dogs bite around 4.7 million people per year. In fact, by age twelve, an average American child has a 50% chance of having been bitten by a dog. In that same group of two hundred undergrads, one hundred of them have probably been bitten by a dog. Each year, around 2 million dogs are destroyed terminated executed euthanized killed in shelters.
Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Wynne, C. (2009) Editorial. Behavioural Processes, 81(3), 355-357. DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2009.04.007
by Chris in The Lousy Linguist
The publisher Henry Holt and Company was kind enough to send me a review copy of Guy Deutscher's new book Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages which bills itself as "demonstrating that language does in fact reflect culture in ways that are anything but trivial" but which also goes beyond that and purports to demonstrate that language affects thought, if only via habits of mind.This is part one of a two part review. I expect to post Part 2 next Monday, Sept. 20th. My division into two reviews follows the book's own division:Part 1: The Language Mirror (pages 1-126)Part 2: The Language Lens (129-249)Part 1: The Language MirrorThe general goal of the first part of the book is to establish that language does in fact reflect culture; that it is a mirror in some non-trivial ways of the culture of the speakers. However, Deutscher begins the book by clearly debunking many tired canards about specific languages reflecting crude stereotypes about its speakers. Is French really the most logical language, as my PhD advisor was fond of jokingly claiming? No, it is not (sorry JP, haha).Overall, Deutscher is a clear and enjoyable writer to read. He does a good job of reviewing basic, but important facts about language and linguists. Facts that need to be understood by the reader if the rest of the book is to be appreciated. These includes arbitrariness of the sign, cultural transmission, abstraction, and categorization.So how dose languages mirror their speakers?Deutscher spends 95 pages (38% of the whole book and 75% of Part 1) arguing that the inventory of color terms in a language reflects the state of the culture's need to distinguish one color from another as well as its exposure to a wide range of hues (particularly, artificial). The basic facts, which have been established by about 150 years of empirical findings, are these:All languages have a set of color terms (words that name colors).Languages do not share the same color terms (e.g., some have no word for blue and what gets labeled as blue in one language may differ from what what gets labeled as blue in another).Color terms are not arbitrary (each term refers to a coherent subset of the visible spectrum)Acquisition of color terms is predictable (i.e., language acquire names for color terms in a predictable order.The predictable order of acquisition is this:black & white > red > yellow/green > blueWhat this says is that all languages have terms for black and white. If a language has a third color term, it refers to red. If that language has a fourth color term, it refers to either yellow or green. And so on. See WALS for more.Deutscher goes to great lengths to establish these facts. Maybe too great. I felt he beat this horse a bit too long and hard. The average reader may disagree. Ultimately, we get no satisfying answer as to why this pattern exists (that's science's fault, just haven't figured it out yet, but Deutscher build this up pretty high to give us such a weak landing).And this brings me to my first critique of Part 1: This is just too light weight for me. I was expecting a more rigorous scientific work, and what I got was Gladwell-lite. The first three of the five chapters of Part 1 read more like pop biography than serious cognitive science. They each begin by introducing us to an historical 19th Century figure who was crucial in the emerging field of color term research. Deutscher describes each man's lost contribution with the affection of a smitten history student trying to re-fight battles that ended before his grandfather was born. It's a particular genre of history that is not uncommon (think Ken Burns' The Civil War), but I found it beside the point. Can we please get down to the business of how language affects thought, I kept thinking. Worse, despite his lengthy explications, he never quite convinced me that color terms was the crucial topic he needs it to be in order to justify such lengthy discussion. His own obsession with color term research leads him to over-emphasize the topic, to the detriment of many other crucial topics (which he does in fact get to, but a little too late and a dollar short).He's also a little too fond of his own Writing 101 skills. Several times he concocts little explanatory vignettes, but then rather takes it too far, going on not for a paragraph or two, but a full page. He also tends to give us these tantalizing teasers about future chapters (like "X would have to wait until Y before..."). I found these a bit tiresome. A bit too much like Behind The Music documentaries which tease you before each commercial break.Deutscher has been criticized for treating Benjamin Lee Whorf too harshly (see my review of his NYTs article here for specifics). At one point in this book he call Whorf the most notorious of the [linguistic relativity] con men. This is odd, to me, because in Part 1 Deutscher repeatedly channels Whorfs own claims and even language. If you were to read Whorf's original 1940 essay Science and Linguistics (pdf), one of his early drafts of the linguistic relativity hypothesis, you'd have to conclude that he and Deutscher are best pals, simpatico. They both make the same distinction between folk theories and science; they both emphasize the need to question one's own pre-conceived notions, and both concoct straw men to argue against.Both Deutscher and Whorf sketch for us the basic assumptions of the common man (Deutscher actually uses the phrase Joe the Plumber, Peirs the Ploughman, or Tom Piper's son to represent this straw man at one point). But I couldn't help but shake my head at some of the things Deutscher thinks you and his readers are running around thinking, like "primitive people speak primitive languages" (page 99; this is an echoing of Whorf as well). I have no doubt that SOME people think this, but is this the average person? Deutscher needs this straw man to create the space of need that he fills. Joe the Plumber NEEDS Deutscher to save him from his ignorance.In a similar vein, Deutscher also uses some questionable assumptions. On page 101 he seems to assume that our contemporary notions of aboriginal languages comes from Tintin and Westerns...huh? Frikkin Tintin? I had to Google that. And Westerns? Does Deutscher think it's 1955?The portion of Part 1 I liked most was the last 20 pages or so where he really starts to get into the meat of how language and culture intermix. If only this were the FIRST 20 pages, but alas.He finally starts to get into really interesting issues of culture and language when he discusses complexity and language. I found it a little confusing that he would claim, and strongly so, that "No one has ever measured the overall complexity of even one single language, not to mention all of them. No one even has an idea how to measure the overall complexity of a language" (page 105). Then he claims that it is inherently impossible to compare the complexity of two languages (page 109).My position is that this is simply false and it is odd for Deutscher to have published those sentences. What Deutscher is doing, I think, is defining his own version of what it means to "measure the overall complexity of a language" in such a way that the many attempts to do so, dating back to the 1940s, don't count. He's playing a rhetorical game like politicians do when they pledge to cut taxes in such a way that when they fail to do it later on, they can wiggle out beneath their words to make it look like they lived up to them nonetheless. Linguists and logicians have long been interested in measuring linguistic complexity. Deutscher makes it look like this is not so. He may not like these attempts. He may wish to debate their merits, but they do exist. All you have to do is Google "measuring linguistic complexity" and you get a whole host of results, like these:Gruber, J. & Gibson, E. (2004). Measuring linguistic complexity independent of plausibility. Language, 80, 583-590.Juola, Patrick, Assessing Linguistic Complexity, Duquesne University.McWhorter, John (2001). The world's simplest grammars are creole grammars. Linguistic Typology 5, pp. 125–66Bane, Max. ... Read more »
Guy Deutscher. (2010) Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages. Metropolitan Books. info:/
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Sometime in 1996, multiple realities crashed into our own, resulting in a mysterious fusion of both - Superheroes combined with our world, and a "Furry" universe. This event, called "The Change" quite literally changed the world forever. Ever wonder what it's like when you're going through puberty, and feel like you're becoming something different...well Winds of Change happens to make this a literal case.The Winds of Change is a Web Original series that started on the Transformation Story Archive mailing list, and has been going on and off since then. It's a bit of a Long Runner, but there was no defined "Schedule". It also happens to contain a strong amount of Speculative Fiction elements, and stands out for presenting many of the changes as plausible. Many of the writers heavily researched the species the characters became, and presented some of the anatomical notices.Originally a story series that expanded into a universe - it does not follow any defined "arc". A list of the stories, including the original two series can be read here.
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Easy potato skins recipe
Today I'll be sharing an easy potato skins recipe. These potato rounds are topped with cheddar cheese, crumbled bacon bits and taste great topped with a little sour cream!
We made these potato skins on Superbowl Sunday and they were so easy to throw together. Everyone loved them! If I could eat potatoes the rest of my life, I'd be in heaven. They are definitely one of my favorite foods! I never met a potato I didn't like. ;)
I left the bacon and green onions off of the kids potatoes and they gobbled them right up. I find these potato skin rounds much easier than the typical potato skins because you don't have to scoop out the potatoes. You also get a lot more out of one potato. They are so good! Definitely a must try for your next get together!
- 4 large baking potatoes (washed)
- 3 TB butter, melted
- 2 teaspoons of kosher salt
- 1 1/2- 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
- 7 slices bacon -cooked and crumbled (or 1/2 cup bacon bits)
- Pre-heat oven to 400°. Cover a baking sheet with foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Set aside.
- Wash potatoes and then cut the ends of the potatoes off and discard. Next cut the rest of the potatoes into approximately 1/2 inch slices.
- Brush both sides and edges of the potatoes with butter and sprinkle with salt. Place on the foil covered pan and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until lightly browned. Turn potatoes onto the opposite side after about 15 minutes, to brown the other side.
- When potatoes are done, top with cheese, bacon and green onions. Continue baking for 3-5 minutes, or until the cheese in nice and bubbly.
- These also taste great topped with a little sour cream. Enjoy!
Looking for more potato recipes? You'll love these too:
How to make the perfect baked potatoes


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Safest girl to chill with, crakin jokes all de time.... F-KN SEXY LIKE HELL, fair, long brownish-black hair, green eyes, dimples, strait teeth (lolz), hot body..Any guy that see's her will wana f-k her right there
"yo, rima's sexy, i wana beat her styll"
by - T.Muhamed April 15, 2005
Rima: you can't stop smiling when she's around.
Why ae you smiling?
I just saw rima!
I just saw rima!
by M.abdullah March 08, 2009
A female who is considered the perfect wife. She is caring, loving and extremely beautiful. Not only is she considered wife material, but she is also a strong and fearless character - not to mention highly intelligent. Thus Rima is considered a super human, which ultimately means that she is out of every mans league.
Boy 1: No way bro, did you see that girl! Let's go chat to her.
Boy 2: Woahh, you must be out your mind, that's Rima, there's no way we're up to her standards.
Boy 2: Woahh, you must be out your mind, that's Rima, there's no way we're up to her standards.
by Carlos90 April 06, 2013
Amazingly nerdy with a hint of minty freshness
That restaurant may have an arcade, but it's still really rimas'y
by Atticusa Loealla February 21, 2008


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WASHINGTON (AP) - Eric Holder, who served as the public face of the Obama administration's legal fight against terrorism and pushed to make the criminal justice system more even-handed, is resigning after six years on the job. He is the nation's first black attorney general.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A man who jokingly sought $10 from a crowdfunding website to pay for his first attempt at making potato salad and ended up raising $55,000 is making good on his promise to throw a huge party.
NEW YORK (AP) - New warnings are emerging of a security flaw known as the "Bash" bug, which cyber experts say may pose a serious threat to computers using Unix-based operating systems such as Linux and Mac OS X.
GALVESTON, Texas (AP) - A man charged with abducting a missing University of Virginia sophomore has been captured in Texas and is awaiting extradition - but there is still no sign of the student, authorities said.
NEW YORK (AP) - NutraSweet says it will no longer make the artificial sweetener aspartame and instead concentrate on more profitable sweeteners.
CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. (AP) - A grand jury has decided against charging NASCAR star Tony Stewart in the August death of another driver at a sprint car race in upstate New York.
RABAT, Morocco (AP) - Algerian extremists allied with the Islamic State group have decapitated a French hostage after France ignored their demand to stop airstrikes in Iraq, according to a video obtained Wednesday by a U.S.-based terrorism watchdog.
NEW YORK (AP) - President Barack Obama is addressing the United Nations as a commander in chief overseeing a war against militants in two Middle Eastern nations, a striking shift in the trajectory of a presidency that had been focused on ending conflicts in the region.
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Wal-Mart is launching a mobile checking account for its customers that will eliminate some of the fees charged by banks.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is leaving in place mandatory 30-year prison terms for two Atlanta men who tried to provide a machine gun and other assault weapons to people they thought were Mexican drug traffickers.
ATLANTA (AP) - Chipper Jones has retired from the Braves, but he will still be on the field as the team takes on the Philadelphia Phillies in the season-opener in Atlanta.
ATLANTA (AP) - A lawyer for two Atlanta teachers accused in one of the nation's largest test-cheating scandals says they are about to turn themselves in.
ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - A man has been sentenced to life in prison for attempted rape and for attacking a witness who came to the victim's aid.
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - A campaign promising free shotguns for people in Tucson's most troubled neighborhoods has divided some residents in a community still reeling from a shooting rampage in 2011 that killed six people, left a congresswoman and several others wounded, and made the city a symbol of gun violence in America.
PHOENIX (AP) - An 86-year-old man who carried out a mercy killing by shooting his ailing wife in the head was sentenced to probation on Friday after an emotional hearing where family members tearfully spoke on his behalf.
NEW YORK (AP) - A senior portfolio manager for one of the nation's largest hedge funds was arrested Friday, accused of joining an insider trading conspiracy that the government said made more than $6 million illegally for the powerhouse investment company founded by billionaire businessman Steven A. Cohen.
NEW YORK (AP) - Robin Thicke didn't plan on releasing the unrated version of his music video for the song "Blurred Lines," which features nude models prowling around him and rappers Pharrell and T.I.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration proposed new regulations Friday to clean up gasoline and automobile emissions, claiming the new standards would provide $7 in health benefits from cleaner air for each dollar spent to implement them. The costs likely would be passed on to consumers in higher gasoline and automobile prices.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) - A former Children's Hospital of Georgia mental health technician has pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual battery involving patients at the Augusta facility.
JERUSALEM (AP) - Hundreds of Christians streamed through the cobblestone alleyways of Jerusalem's Old City on Friday, hoisting wooden crosses and chanting prayers to mark the crucifixion of Jesus.
The last U.S. combat troops left Vietnam 40 years ago Friday, and the date holds great meaning for many who fought the war, protested it or otherwise lived it.
ATLANTA (AP) - Gun laws in Georgia will not change in 2013.
WASHINGTON (AP) - It's a good bet that in the not-so-distant future aerial drones will be part of Americans' everyday lives, performing countless useful functions.
ATLANTA (AP) - Lobbyists could not spend more than $75 at a time on government officials under a deal reached Thursday by Georgia's legislative leaders on the last day of their annual session, senior lawmakers said.


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Thanksgiving as we know it
Patrick Daugherty 12:30 p.m., Nov. 26
Pinchas Zukerman, conductor and violin
Amanda Forsyth, cello
BRAHMS: Double Concerto in A minor, Op. 102 for Violin and Violoncello
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64
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TVMuse > Movies > B > Batman (1966)
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Stig Van Eijk
|This article may need to be rewritten entirely to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. (May 2009)
|This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. (December 2010)
Stig Andre van Eijk (born March 21, 1981 in Cali, Colombia) is a Norwegian singer, composer and lyricist.
Stig Andre van Eijk is known for his Eurovision career. In 1999 he won the Norwegian final of Melodi Grand Prix with the song "Living My Life Without You", which he wrote. In the European final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Israel, he came in 14th, after gaining 35 points. He is the first ever black man to represent Norway.[1][2]
The album, Where I Belong, which was released the same year, went platinum (over 30,000 copies) and reached number 6 on the VG-list Top 40 in Norway. In 2000, he was named this year's male artist (Hit awards). In 2001, he made Colombianske fredslåten, "Constructors of Peace." He also opened in 2001 B: underground club in Bergen. This club was a livekonsept with a house band who played reggae, soul and funk, and the guest appeared. In 2003, he directed the song that won "Idol" in South Africa – "Once In a Lifetime" was performed by Heinz Winckler. The song was a hit in South Africa and became double platinum (100,000 copies).[3]
"StiGi," which he is now called, is now best known as front figure in the reggae band "The Soul Express Orchestra."[4] For the last couple of years he has also been working with music in a kindergarten in Bergen.
|Preceded by
Lars A. Fredriksen
with "Alltid sommer"
|Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest
|Succeeded by
with "My Heart Goes Boom"
- 1981 births
- Living people
- Colombian emigrants to Norway
- People from Bergen
- Norwegian male singers
- Melodi Grand Prix contestants
- Norwegian Eurovision Song Contest entrants
- Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 1999
- Melodi Grand Prix winners
- English-language singers of Norway
- Norwegian people of Dutch descent
- Colombian people of Dutch descent


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The Buffalo Bills will host the New York Jets Monday night at Ford Field in a game moved to Detroit due to the amount of snow in Buffalo.
Receiver Calvin Johnson and running back Joique Bell returned to practice Thursday after sitting out Wednesday with ankle injuries.
Tim Twentyman covers all the news from Thursday's practice including preparing for Tom Brady, TJ Jones' return to practice and more.
Defensive coordinator Teryl Austin's message to his defense this week is simple: Start faster and better.
Offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi is hoping less is more this week vs. New England.
Glover Quin talks with Tom Leyden about the trip to Foxborough and what it will take for the Lions to snap the Patriots' winning streak.
Tori Petry reports on the challenges the Patriots' surging offensive line will bring to the Lions dominant defensive front and what the Lions defense says they have to do to overcome it.
Detroit Lions head coach Jim Caldwell talks about the importance of getting the team to play its best football late in the season.
Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Teryl Austin talks about the challenges of facing an explosive Patriots offense.
Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi talks about changes to the offense in preparation for Sunday's game against the Patriots.


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poverty »
A Place at the Table
Share (pictured above: Family members touch Michael Brown's copper-top vault during his burial at St. Peter's Cemetery in Normandy, Mo.) Ministers want to engage community in talks about Ferguson and other topics The Ministers' ConferenceRead More »
Circles takes new approach to fighting poverty
Share (pictured above: Circle Leader Denise Terry (center) with her allies, Barbara Keller and Claudia Jokinen.) Circles Winston-Salem held its first "Big View" meeting last Thursday at Green Street United Methodist Church. Circles is newRead More »
Election Hurdle Higher
Share After injunction denial, locals say registration, turnout key (pictured above: Linda Sutton speaks at a rally in July.) Local leaders are disappointed by last week's decision to deny an injunction that would have haltedRead More »
Editorial: Shameful Ad
Share The South African charity Feed a Child chose to highlight child poverty in South Africa by portraying a little Black boy being fed like a dog by a seemingly affluent White woman. InRead More »
Shalom Project seeks Circle participants
Share The Shalom Project is seeking new applicants for its Circles Initiative through July 15. Circles Winston-Salem (Circles WS) is an empowerment program designed to help individuals rise out of generational poverty. Circle Leaders areRead More »
Black lawmakers target poverty
Share (pictured above: Panelists (from left): John Gladman, Margaret Elliott, Minister Alvin Carlisle and Karen McNeil-Miller.) Five decades after President Lyndon Johnson declared War on Poverty, the issue still plagues Winston-Salem and communities across theRead More »


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Families from Catoosa and Walker counties Ga, may find this link helpful.
Seahorn Cemtery
Surnames:Dedmons, Plummers,Condrys,Dunns,Dentons and many others.
Found mine there,
Eteres, Sallie, 11 Nov 1835-3 Jun 1931, Dbl/w W.H.
Eteres, W.H., 22 Mar 1826-29 Jan 1887, Dbl/w Sallie
She was Sarah A Plummer and he was the son Peter Etris and Alcey Mills Morris Etris from Walker and Catoosa counties, Ga. I think her mother was a Dedmon. After William Henry Etris'a death she married Isaac N Elrod who also was from Walker and Catoosa Co, Ga.
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December 9, 2013 - Products
Con-way Freight announced the launch of MyCon-way.com, a new online customer portal which will enable Con-way Freight's customers to more efficiently manage their LTL freight needs.
The new web portal, which can be accessed at www.MyCon-way.com, features predictive search capabilities and streamlined access to management tools encompassing all aspects of a typical LTL shipment transaction. Registered users can easily create and customize a "MyTools" personal dashboard to display the tools they use most, saving them additional time.
MyCon-way.com features a simple "What would you like to do today?" predictive search bar along with three easy-to-use menus: "Ship it," for obtaining customized rate quotes, initiating actions like a pickup request or completing an online bill of lading; "Manage it," for managing a full range of customer-generated reports; and "Support," for access to commonly used forms, customer service and other related support features.
The site will allow customers quick access to key information and reports while enabling them to customize their home page to support the work they do most often on the site.
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Dec 10, 2012 3:21 PM by Melissa Canone
The Scott Fire Department is still on the scene of a fire that happened in Ille Des Cannes apartments, 500 Berlin, outside city limits in Lafayette, this afternoon. The fire is under control at this time and there are no injuries to report at this time. KATC has a crew there now and will have more details as the become available.
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Posts tagged Pentagon
Pentagon project to put game-like display on contact lenses
Using contact lenses to simply change your eye color is so passé. Using contact lenses to augment reality is where it's at. At least it is for the Pentagon, which has put out a request for information on a system to display data "not unlike information provided to players of first-person, sh...
Pentagon: Fear good, facts bad in machinima mix up [update 1]
In their usual sensationalist form, the Pentagon decided to take a machinima fan film of Battlefield 2 and spin it off as a real danger to our national security during a presentation on May 4 in front of the U.S. House intelligence committee. Coming prepared with video clip and fear mongering in tow...
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Quick! Where's the debug menu?
The same thing happened to me with my 17" Samsung LCD, I believe it was even the same type of bug! I too waited for the bug to die off screen but instead, the bug decided to lay his grave in the dead centre, right at eye level. Now whenever friends use my screen they instictually attempt to swipe it away. What do I say to them when they ask about it? "Well, I was playing this game called Bugdom - it crashed really bad one day and left one of the bugs behind". Gets 'em every time.
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Poetics and Poetry Discussion
Click here to list all messagesReplies for this message:
Alice Vedral Rivera
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| Read 1 reply
I do not think it is grandiose. I think it is a a poem about the realization and then affirmation of the fact that 1 person (in this case, a woman who previously believed she was powerless) has the power to make a change. There are some grammatical errors (like 'me who' when it should be 'I who' and missing the verb 'is' in the 5th line) and the poem could be tighter, but I like the concept.Replies for this message:
Jefferson Carter
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| Read 1 reply
Alice, a concept a good poem does not make. AND this concept is grandiose: I'm alone in my fight against evil? C'mon, drop the superheroine pose and get real. This is just another version of teen-ag ... more
- Jefferson Carter (10/17/2013 11:33:00 AM) Post reply | Read 1 reply
Frank James Ryan Jr...fjr
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| Read 1 reply
K, I have to concur with Jefferaon, ...While i'm reading your poem i'm getting the time-tunnel express back to the intros of some of my favorite saturday morning super hero shows...A bit ornate and sermonesque(imo) ...and its " bear" , not " bare" that you want, (I hope) ...Don'rt be stubborn...Put down your pen, go to a library or bookstore and spend some quality time ensconced in the works of your contemporary poets. Trust me...noone that is considered well written and established became so by not reading, learning and experimenting first, in that order...Good Luck, young lady ~FjR~Replies for this message:
Jefferson Carter
Post reply
Nice advice, Frank. Much nicer than mine, but I'm frustrated by the insistently uneducated voices on this site, as if ignorance is a poetic virtue.
- Jefferson Carter (10/16/2013 11:25:00 AM) Post reply
Jefferson Carter
Post reply
K, a little grandiose, error-riddled, and cliched. if you're not going to start reading those poets I suggested, why post your efforts here? You're not going to improve on your own. Nothing coming in, nothing going out is an apt motto for what you're doing.
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|Kings exercise option on C Hawes for 2009-10
|Written by Admin
|Thursday, 16 October 2008 12:55
Hawes, the 10th overall pick out of Washington in the 2007 draft, averaged 4.7 points and 3.2 rebounds as a rookie last season. He is expected to back up Brad Miller this season.
Hawes will make about $2.18 million this season, and more than $2.33 million in 2009-10.


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Monday, November 24, 2014
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A marijuana growing operation is busted up in Watervliet where police seized thousands of dollars worth of marijuana plants. Our Lori Chung has more on how police found out about the operation.
WATERVLIET, N.Y. -- Working from an anonymous tip, police made a discovery inside a home in Watervliet that left neighbors stunned.
"This was the least likely candidate. It's shocking to me" said neighbor Kerri Potter.
Officials say Shawn Patrick, 33, was running a marijuana growing operation. Patrick was arrested after a search warrant turned up a room full of plants and drying equipment. The smell of marijuana was evident as soon as officers walked up to the door. Robert Gloditch, 32, was also arrested. Police say he was at the home helping with the operation when Albany County Sheriff's investigators made their approach.
"They've got a black tent with the lights and ventilation and everything set up, mimicking daylight," said Acting Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple.
Police say the suspect actually rented the entire house, living on the second floor while running the operation out of the first floor. Investigators say he may have been operating there for awhile.
"We don't believe anyone's lived down here for at least five or six years," said Apple.
But neighbors we spoke to never noticed anything suspicious. They also speak highly of Patrick, who officials say lives here with his two young daughters.
"If I couldn't smell it, I don't know how anyone else could," said Vicky Potter. "He's a great dad, great neighbor."
"He shovels my aunt's spot for the winter, mows our lawn, he's really a good guy," said Kerri Potter.
The plants alone estimated to be worth up to $30,000. The investigation into the operation is continuing with social services now being called in to decide what will be done with Patrick's children.
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