Archive for the 'Media' Category

Classical acoustics

March 25, 2007

My friend Tim thought that I didn’t spend enough time reading online news sources/blogs/etc, and pointed me in the direction of an archaeology news page. Today one of the articles is a online Nature article about the acoustics of the amphitheatre at Epidaurus.

“gambling”

January 30, 2007

Does anyone know an anthropologist/sociologist/economist who is looking into modern exchange networks in remote Aboriginal communities? Someone seriously needs to look at gambling as wealth redistribution and how it forms part of the local economy. I say this because of comments like the one from federal Indigenous Affairs minister Mal Brough recently (the context is [...]

Fining for language use

January 24, 2007

Brazoria (just south of Houston) is thinking about fining people $500 for using the N-word in a derogatory way. This is a twist on Geoff Pullum’s discussion of bans about a month ago, since they are not banning the use of the word outright. Rather, it’s linked to “using the word “in an offensive or [...]

Great visuals of native plants

January 21, 2007

Ten Canoes has shown up on Netflix (release date Jan 30, although Netflix doesn’t seem to know that). It has one review, which I’m quoting in full:
Nice touches of “guy humor” about genitals, lots of male bonding, hard to tell how authentic to the aboriginal and/or human condition this is, and how much is a [...]

Bunuba in Melbourne

October 11, 2006

A round of applause for Patsy Bedford and June Oscar, who will be teaching Bunuba at Wesley College in Melbourne (Australian article here). What a fantastic opportunity for the kids! Patsy is the lynchpin of the Fitzroy Crossing annexe of the Kimberley Language Resource Centre, and June is the Chair of the KLRC.
This article is [...]

Eskimo snowclones with pronouns

September 28, 2006

The Sydney Morning Herald has a review of the film about the making of Ten Canoes. Here’s what the director de Heer said about Yolŋu Matha/Ganalbiŋu (which, by the way, he doesn’t name):
“To try to translate something that’s been said into English is extraordinarily difficult because we see things differently. There are effectively no pronouns [...]

Hindsight show on Jarlmadangah

August 24, 2006

Stop whatever you’re doing and go and listen to Hindsight on outstations. The link goes to the mp3 of the program. The program was based largely around Jarlmadangah (a Nyikina outstation in the Kimberley region, on Mt Anderson station) and provided an excellent set of resons whythe outstation movement is important and why homelands are [...]