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GPOY: Infinity Edition (Taken with instagram)

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Since in my opinion anthropology should begin at home, let me give you an anthropological impression of modern culture and recount a personal experience in which I very poignantly became aware of the power of things over man.

No experience in my exotic wanderings among the Trobrianders and the Chagga, among the Masai and the Pueblo, has ever matched the shock I received in my first contact with American civilization, on my first visit to New York, when I arrived there ten years ago on a fine spring evening and saw the city in its strangeness and exotic beauty. The enormous yet elegant monsters blinking at me through their thousand starry eyes, breathing white steam, giants which crowded in phantastic clusters over the smooth waters of the river, stood before me—the living, dominating realities of this new culture. During my first few days in New York, I could not shake off the feeling that the strange ‘genius’ of this most modern civilization had become incarnate in the skyscraper, the subway and the ferry boat. Large insects in the shape of automobiles crept along the gutter called street or avenue, subordinate but important. Finally, as a fairly insignificant and secondary by-product of the enormous mechanical reality there appeared the microscopic bacteria, called man, sneaking in and out of subway, skyscraper or automobile, performing some useful service to their masters, but otherwise rather insignificant. Modern civilization is a gigantic hypertrophy of material objects, and contemporary man will still have to fight his battle in order to reassert his dominance over the thing.

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— Bronisław Malinowski, Culture as a Determinant of Behavior

I miss Róisín. The odd single now and then is nice, I guess, but it’s been almost five years since Overpowered.

(Source: totenrobot)

(Source: johnnykaiser)

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brettbretterson:

Bay to Breakers (aka straight pride) judging from above. (Taken with instagram)

A woman dressed as Daenerys Targaryen walks under Brett’s window and half a dozen queers all scream “I love you Khaleesi!”

Vermont becomes first U.S. state to ban fracking →

(Source: climateadaptation)

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“We know what you’re thinking and no we’re not related.”

Where Did the Taco Come From? →

The origins of the taco are really unknown. My theory is that it dates from the 18th century and the silver mines in Mexico, because in those mines the word “taco” referred to the little charges they would use to excavate the ore. These were pieces of paper that they would wrap around gunpowder and insert into the holes they carved in the rock face. When you think about it, a chicken taquito with a good hot sauce is really a lot like a stick of dynamite. The first references [to the taco] in any sort of archive or dictionary come from the end of the 19th century. And one of the first types of tacos described is called tacos de minero—miner’s tacos. So the taco is not necessarily this age-old cultural expression; it’s not a food that goes back to time immemorial.

The first mention that I have seen [in the U.S.] is in 1905, in a newspaper. That’s a time when Mexican migrants are starting to come—working the mines and railroads and other such jobs. In the United States, Mexican food was seen as street food, lower-class food. It was associated with a group of women called the Chili Queens and with tamale pushcarts in Los Angeles. The Chili Queens of San Antonio were street vendors who earned a little extra money by selling food during festivals. When tourists started arriving in the 1880s with the railroad, these occasional sales started to become a nightly event. Tourists came looking for two things in San Antonio—the Alamo and the Chili Queens. Mexico was considered a dangerous place. The Chili Queens were a way of sampling that danger, but not at the risk of being robbed by bandits. The risk was that the food was hot—people described it as “biting like a serpent.” These women were also sexualized and seen as “available.” So the idea was that you would flirt with the Chili Queens. I think that image of [something] exotic, slightly dangerous, but still appealing has really persisted with Mexican food.

Why is “A Different World” not on Netflix or Hulu?

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(Source: whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)

"Does the global pattern of phenotypic variation seen in skin color and craniometric traits support the idea of race? The answer depends on initial definitions and use of the term ‘race.’ On the one hand, the idea of discrete races in the typological mindset of past centuries clearly does not apply to humans. There is, however, geographic patterning to human biological variation, both for traits affected strongly by natural selection, such as skin color, and for traits whose distribution tends, on average, to be more neutral, such as craniometrics and many genetic polymorphisms. I suggest that typical uses of the concept of geographic race today are simply crude labels imposed upon this geographically structured variation. In that sense, race is culturally constructed, as all labels are, but it is also based on an underlying reality of biological variation. Rather than argue about whether race is a cultural construct (an idea that many unfortunately take as being equivalent to a denial of variation) or that race is ‘real,’ it might be more useful to consider race as a culturally constructed label that crudely and imprecisely describes real variation."

— John H. Relethford, Race and Global Patterns of Phenotypic Variation

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It feels good to know that at least one person at my job appreciates me. (Taken with Instagram at Plaza 360)

Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is →

Dudes. Imagine life here in the US—or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world—is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it?

Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.

This means that the default behaviors for almost all the non-player characters in the game are easier on you than they would be otherwise. The default barriers for completions of quests are lower. Your leveling-up thresholds come more quickly. You automatically gain entry to some parts of the map that others have to work for. The game is easier to play, automatically, and when you need help, by default it’s easier to get.

Now, once you’ve selected the “Straight White Male” difficulty setting, you still have to create a character, and how many points you get to start—and how they are apportioned—will make a difference. Initially the computer will tell you how many points you get and how they are divided up. If you start with 25 points, and your dump stat is wealth, well, then you may be kind of screwed. If you start with 250 points and your dump stat is charisma, well, then you’re probably fine. Be aware the computer makes it difficult to start with more than 30 points; people on higher difficulty settings generally start with even fewer than that.

As the game progresses, your goal is to gain points, apportion them wisely, and level up. If you start with fewer points and fewer of them in critical stat categories, or choose poorly regarding the skills you decide to level up on, then the game will still be difficult for you. But because you’re playing on the “Straight White Male” setting, gaining points and leveling up will still by default be easier, all other things being equal, than for another player using a higher difficulty setting.

Likewise, it’s certainly possible someone playing at a higher difficulty setting is progressing more quickly than you are, because they had more points initially given to them by the computer and/or their highest stats are wealth, intelligence and constitution and/or simply because they play the game better than you do. It doesn’t change the fact you are still playing on the lowest difficulty setting.

You can lose playing on the lowest difficulty setting. The lowest difficulty setting is still the easiest setting to win on. The player who plays on the “Gay Minority Female” setting? Hardcore.

And maybe at this point you say, hey, I like a challenge, I want to change my difficulty setting! Well, here’s the thing: In The Real World, you don’t unlock any rewards or receive any benefit for playing on higher difficulty settings. The game is just harder, and potentially a lot less fun. And you say, okay, but what if I want to replay the game later on a higher difficulty setting, just to see what it’s like? Well, here’s the other thing about The Real World: You only get to play it once. So why make it more difficult than it has to be? Your goal is to win the game, not make it difficult.

Oh, and one other thing. Remember when I said that you could choose your difficulty setting in The Real World? Well, I lied. In fact, the computer chooses the difficulty setting for you. You don’t get a choice; you just get what gets given to you at the start of the game, and then you have to deal with it.

anticapitalist:

Our real first gay president

The new issue of Newsweek features a cover photo of President Obama topped by a rainbow-colored halo and captioned “The First Gay President.” The halo and caption strike me as cheap sensationalism. I realize airport travelers look at a magazine for 2.2 seconds before moving on to the next one. I grant that this cover will probably get Newsweek a 4.4 second glance. I also understand that Newsweek is desperate for sales. Nevertheless, I doubt that the Newsweek of old, before it was sold for a dollar, would have pandered as shallowly.

The caption is a superficial way to characterize an important development of thought that the president — along with the country — has been making over recent years. It is also entirely wrong. Like the mini-furor a couple of months back about the claim that Richard Nixon was our first gay president, the story simply ignores that the U.S. already had a gay president more than a century ago.

There can be no doubt that James Buchanan was gay, before, during and after his four years in the White House. Moreover, the nation knew it, too — he was not far into the closet.

Today, I know no historian who has studied the matter and thinks Buchanan was heterosexual. Fifteen years ago, historian John Howard, author of “Men Like That,” a pioneering study of queer culture in Mississippi, shared with me the key documents, including Buchanan’s May 13, 1844, letter to a Mrs. Roosevelt. Describing his deteriorating social life after his great love, William Rufus King, senator from Alabama, had moved to Paris to become our ambassador to France, Buchanan wrote:

I am now “solitary and alone,” having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.