Holy crap an update!
Yeah, I was particularly bored at work today.
1. The billboard I keep seeing for that ‘Letters to Juliet’ movie. I saw a trailer for that when I went with Whitney to see ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ (which was awesome, btw), and they pretty much showed the whole movie in three minutes. It looked like a lame popcorn romantic comedy, surprise surprise, but what I really love is the main premise: there’s some wall in Italy where people - mostly women, of course - leave ‘letters to Juliet’ regarding their romantic lives.
Because adults should be asking for relationship advice from a 14-year-old girl who married her first boyfriend after two dates and then made a suicide pact when her family tried to break them up. That’s healthy.
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. Not a romance. Shakespeare did not write romance. The play is about the pain and suffering caused by a pointless feud between two powerful families, a message that would have been appreciated in the 16th century when it was written and performed. The romance is just the vehicle for illustrating that message! I love how America never got that memo…
2. Web articles about archaeology that anyone can comment on! Like this one: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/07/lost-wwii-battlefield-found-war-dead-included/
To really get the full effect, you need to read the comments. I love this shit - people who know absolutely nothing about archaeology spouting off about it as if they have something constructive to say. I mean first of all, this is an extremely short article, obviously intended to get the public’s attention rather than convey information, so the people actually working on this site can get donations to give it a proper treatment. But what they never seem to take into account is that most of the internet-based public is retarded. Here are some of the best opinions expressed by multiple ‘readers’:
-“This must be a fake, because after 70 years in a rainforest everything would have decayed and there would be nothing left.” Apparently, you read in a magazine once that dampness makes things decay! Wow! That makes you an expert on the preservation of archaeological materials! Actually, constant dampness or constant dryness often work to keep so called perishable materials intact longer. What causes decomposition, in wood, flesh, leather, etc, is the repeated process of getting wet and drying out. That’s what makes decay set in. Keep it in one state and you’ll do a bit better, and of course there are a thousand other factors to consider (air temperature, insect activity, weather patterns, etc etc etc). Oh, but what do I know, I’m just an archaeologist. You left a book out in the rain once and it got ruined. That means wetness destroys things. You’re the expert!
-“There’s no way teenagers from the nearby village wouldn’t have looted this.” Right, except the article says flat out that when they asked the locals about the site, they said they stayed away from that whole area because they believed the spirits of the dead haunted it. Maybe that comment would be vaild in America, but apparently these people don’t realize that *gasp* American culture is a culture like any other?! That other cultures might be different?! That maybe beliefs actually mean something in PNG? That the very concepts of a ‘teenager’ and ‘teenage behavior’ is a cultural construct which might not exist outside the USA?! EGADS!
-“That stuff wouldn’t have stayed in place! The wind would blow it all away!” I’m sure that statement is based on your extensive knowledge of weather patterns in the Pacific Islands. And your extensive knowledge of how materials hold up against wind. In point of fact, the aforementioned dampness of wood and soil would have given the features added elasticity that would allow them to shift, bend, but maybe not break, under the force of the elements. Also, how much wind do you actually think you get in a canopied rain forest? You tell me, since it seems you were there. Thanks for giving us all the benefit of your experience…oh wait, you don’t have any.
And then there were just the fun ones:
-“May all these brave souls find peace! Put crosses up for the Catholics!!” Guess you skipped the part where they said this was a Japanese encampment. Sure, there may have been a few Christians (but probably not Catholics!) sprinkled in there, but the vast majority were likely Shinto or Buddhist if they were anything.
-“Excavating this site is disrespectful to our American dead!” See above.
-“This is promotional material for a new WWII video game!” Yep. You’re right. We killed people, steam-cooked their bodies, and left them out in the rainforest with priceless archaeological artifacts to make you buy Halo XI: The Fellowship of the Pacific Islands. You got us.
You know that phrase ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’? So true. So very true. Especially when it comes to archaeology and anthropology. People read one freaking book and think they’re experts. What no one seems to realize is that virtually everything you read in a beginner archae or anthro text is wrong. That’s what they do when you enter the field, they give you all this background information and say ‘okay, here are the broad generalizations that our forebears came up with in the 60s and 70s to try and explain things,’ and then you spend the next four years learning about why the generalizations are wrong, how the field has advanced, and how to actually approach other cultures, past and present, on their terms instead of yours. Trouble is, most of the general public doesn’t have the attention span for that last bit, and so to get money out of said public the archaeological powers that be put out little blurbs of crap like this article. And then some computer junkie with delusions of intellect reads one and pokes it with all these wrongheaded questions that you can’t even begin to address because they are so blatantly ignorant and irrelevant. And they take that as ‘oh look at me, I stumped the expert, I ask good questions, I must be super-duper smart.’ GAH. Let me see if I can come up with an analogy…it’s as if you were talking about the ecological environment of the ocean and someone came up and asked you what happens when the water all evaporates. Well, the water doesn’t all evaporate. But how do you know that, what if it does, I’m asking a smart question because I read in the second grade that water evaporates! How do you argue with that? You either have to go into a long, detailed explanation of how a huge body of water doesn’t ALL evaporate, because you know this person won’t take ‘it’s too big’ for an answer, or you have to sit them down and make them watch it for as long as you’ve watched it and see for themselves that it doesn’t evaporate. I’m not kidding, I have had questions about archaeology and anthropology that are just as frustrating. But how do you know people didn’t do this? Because they didn’t. But how do you know?! Because the entire ocean does not evaporate overnight, goddamit! If you won’t take my word for it, go get your OWN master’s degree in the subject!!! Just because the focus of the discipline is on human beings doesn’t mean that you are qualified to comment on it just because you’re a human being! You don’t go around asking physicists how do they know the atoms don’t split down the middle, do you? No, you assume that their years of training and study have led them to know what they are talking about. And since you lack the years of training and study, you do not. ARCHAEOLOGY IS A SCIENCE TOO YOU BASTARDS!!!!! *pants and dies*
3. I love how little I care about my job these days. Since I’ve already decided that I don’t want to take a permanent position with this company if they offer one, I’ve been actively searching for employment elsewhere…and that mean I’m just counting the days until I complete this project and get out of here. I know I haven’t been talking about it much lately to anyone except poor Cory, but I’m pretty disappointed in the way this whole gig has worked out. When I was hired, they told me they had 80 sites to excavate, and that was going to be my primary task. Sounds great, yeah? Except that they actually had no idea what was going on, the contract ran out of money, and the government decided to sub-contract out the excavation, oh wait, except now it’s been postponed indefinitely. But I’m already here, so what do they have me do instead? First, they have me organize the in-house reference library. Then, they have me sort a bunch of boxes with old papers that need to be shredded. Finally, they make me do this National Register nomination, which is basically a big research paper on military history. Military history being something that I am not interested in. At all. On the plus side, it’s hot as fuck out there and I’m sitting at a computer reading about Transformers half the day. On the minus side, this is really, really not what I signed up for and not something I’m interested in continuing to do.
In other news, anyone know a good podiatrist in the LA area? Cory thinks my foot is going to explode.... :P
1. The billboard I keep seeing for that ‘Letters to Juliet’ movie. I saw a trailer for that when I went with Whitney to see ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ (which was awesome, btw), and they pretty much showed the whole movie in three minutes. It looked like a lame popcorn romantic comedy, surprise surprise, but what I really love is the main premise: there’s some wall in Italy where people - mostly women, of course - leave ‘letters to Juliet’ regarding their romantic lives.
Because adults should be asking for relationship advice from a 14-year-old girl who married her first boyfriend after two dates and then made a suicide pact when her family tried to break them up. That’s healthy.
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. Not a romance. Shakespeare did not write romance. The play is about the pain and suffering caused by a pointless feud between two powerful families, a message that would have been appreciated in the 16th century when it was written and performed. The romance is just the vehicle for illustrating that message! I love how America never got that memo…
2. Web articles about archaeology that anyone can comment on! Like this one: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/07/lost-wwii-battlefield-found-war-dead-included/
To really get the full effect, you need to read the comments. I love this shit - people who know absolutely nothing about archaeology spouting off about it as if they have something constructive to say. I mean first of all, this is an extremely short article, obviously intended to get the public’s attention rather than convey information, so the people actually working on this site can get donations to give it a proper treatment. But what they never seem to take into account is that most of the internet-based public is retarded. Here are some of the best opinions expressed by multiple ‘readers’:
-“This must be a fake, because after 70 years in a rainforest everything would have decayed and there would be nothing left.” Apparently, you read in a magazine once that dampness makes things decay! Wow! That makes you an expert on the preservation of archaeological materials! Actually, constant dampness or constant dryness often work to keep so called perishable materials intact longer. What causes decomposition, in wood, flesh, leather, etc, is the repeated process of getting wet and drying out. That’s what makes decay set in. Keep it in one state and you’ll do a bit better, and of course there are a thousand other factors to consider (air temperature, insect activity, weather patterns, etc etc etc). Oh, but what do I know, I’m just an archaeologist. You left a book out in the rain once and it got ruined. That means wetness destroys things. You’re the expert!
-“There’s no way teenagers from the nearby village wouldn’t have looted this.” Right, except the article says flat out that when they asked the locals about the site, they said they stayed away from that whole area because they believed the spirits of the dead haunted it. Maybe that comment would be vaild in America, but apparently these people don’t realize that *gasp* American culture is a culture like any other?! That other cultures might be different?! That maybe beliefs actually mean something in PNG? That the very concepts of a ‘teenager’ and ‘teenage behavior’ is a cultural construct which might not exist outside the USA?! EGADS!
-“That stuff wouldn’t have stayed in place! The wind would blow it all away!” I’m sure that statement is based on your extensive knowledge of weather patterns in the Pacific Islands. And your extensive knowledge of how materials hold up against wind. In point of fact, the aforementioned dampness of wood and soil would have given the features added elasticity that would allow them to shift, bend, but maybe not break, under the force of the elements. Also, how much wind do you actually think you get in a canopied rain forest? You tell me, since it seems you were there. Thanks for giving us all the benefit of your experience…oh wait, you don’t have any.
And then there were just the fun ones:
-“May all these brave souls find peace! Put crosses up for the Catholics!!” Guess you skipped the part where they said this was a Japanese encampment. Sure, there may have been a few Christians (but probably not Catholics!) sprinkled in there, but the vast majority were likely Shinto or Buddhist if they were anything.
-“Excavating this site is disrespectful to our American dead!” See above.
-“This is promotional material for a new WWII video game!” Yep. You’re right. We killed people, steam-cooked their bodies, and left them out in the rainforest with priceless archaeological artifacts to make you buy Halo XI: The Fellowship of the Pacific Islands. You got us.
You know that phrase ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’? So true. So very true. Especially when it comes to archaeology and anthropology. People read one freaking book and think they’re experts. What no one seems to realize is that virtually everything you read in a beginner archae or anthro text is wrong. That’s what they do when you enter the field, they give you all this background information and say ‘okay, here are the broad generalizations that our forebears came up with in the 60s and 70s to try and explain things,’ and then you spend the next four years learning about why the generalizations are wrong, how the field has advanced, and how to actually approach other cultures, past and present, on their terms instead of yours. Trouble is, most of the general public doesn’t have the attention span for that last bit, and so to get money out of said public the archaeological powers that be put out little blurbs of crap like this article. And then some computer junkie with delusions of intellect reads one and pokes it with all these wrongheaded questions that you can’t even begin to address because they are so blatantly ignorant and irrelevant. And they take that as ‘oh look at me, I stumped the expert, I ask good questions, I must be super-duper smart.’ GAH. Let me see if I can come up with an analogy…it’s as if you were talking about the ecological environment of the ocean and someone came up and asked you what happens when the water all evaporates. Well, the water doesn’t all evaporate. But how do you know that, what if it does, I’m asking a smart question because I read in the second grade that water evaporates! How do you argue with that? You either have to go into a long, detailed explanation of how a huge body of water doesn’t ALL evaporate, because you know this person won’t take ‘it’s too big’ for an answer, or you have to sit them down and make them watch it for as long as you’ve watched it and see for themselves that it doesn’t evaporate. I’m not kidding, I have had questions about archaeology and anthropology that are just as frustrating. But how do you know people didn’t do this? Because they didn’t. But how do you know?! Because the entire ocean does not evaporate overnight, goddamit! If you won’t take my word for it, go get your OWN master’s degree in the subject!!! Just because the focus of the discipline is on human beings doesn’t mean that you are qualified to comment on it just because you’re a human being! You don’t go around asking physicists how do they know the atoms don’t split down the middle, do you? No, you assume that their years of training and study have led them to know what they are talking about. And since you lack the years of training and study, you do not. ARCHAEOLOGY IS A SCIENCE TOO YOU BASTARDS!!!!! *pants and dies*
3. I love how little I care about my job these days. Since I’ve already decided that I don’t want to take a permanent position with this company if they offer one, I’ve been actively searching for employment elsewhere…and that mean I’m just counting the days until I complete this project and get out of here. I know I haven’t been talking about it much lately to anyone except poor Cory, but I’m pretty disappointed in the way this whole gig has worked out. When I was hired, they told me they had 80 sites to excavate, and that was going to be my primary task. Sounds great, yeah? Except that they actually had no idea what was going on, the contract ran out of money, and the government decided to sub-contract out the excavation, oh wait, except now it’s been postponed indefinitely. But I’m already here, so what do they have me do instead? First, they have me organize the in-house reference library. Then, they have me sort a bunch of boxes with old papers that need to be shredded. Finally, they make me do this National Register nomination, which is basically a big research paper on military history. Military history being something that I am not interested in. At all. On the plus side, it’s hot as fuck out there and I’m sitting at a computer reading about Transformers half the day. On the minus side, this is really, really not what I signed up for and not something I’m interested in continuing to do.
In other news, anyone know a good podiatrist in the LA area? Cory thinks my foot is going to explode.... :P