Hopefully my sinuses might be clearing up.  I have a lot of work to do this weekend (that I’d like to have been doing for the last two days) and I’m going to join some folks for a matinee of “The Dark Knight” tomorrow.  The ability to sit upright without pain would be nice.  I am doing better than I was for the last few days, though.

When I saw that the high for today was supposed to be in the upper 90s, I decided to just stay home and work from here (the blessings of an all-online course load this summer.)  Unfortunately by about 4 pm most of my house is in the upper 80s on days like this, even with the AC running.  There is this little bubble around the AC that is comfortable, but that is it.  Then we had a bunch of early evening thunderstorms that just sort of developed and then faded without really moving at all.

My roof needs work.  I’m not looking forward to spending the money, but I am looking forward to not worrying about whether it is raining or not outside.  In other household news, I finally got the deck fixed.  I was thinking about moving for awhile, but given how things are it just makes sense to me to fix what I have rather than going farther into debt.  We’ll see where things are in a couple years.

Hopefully this summertime funk will start to clear from my brain and I’ll have more interesting things to say later.

I’ve probably gotten a plagiarized paper once per semester - and usually more than once - ever since I started teaching.  Still, each time I feel exactly the same sense of surprise, disappointment, betrayal, and anger.  The disappointment comes from the ongoing realization that many of my students share this culture’s lack of concern about honesty, let alone honor.  The betrayal comes from the realization that something I think is important just isn’t to most of them.  The anger comes from the evidence that these kids think I’m a fucking idiot.  I actually do know what it means when I see dozens of embedded hyperlinks to Encarta or Wikipedia articles in a supposedly “original” essay.  I’m even likely to notice when a student who has shown at best mediocre language skills is suddenly using words like “zeitgeist”.

It is the surprise I don’t understand.  This is not new.  I’ve gotten plagiarized work more times than I can count and I seem to get more per semester with each passing year.  I know it is coming, yet somehow I’m always surprised - and then disappointed, betrayed, and angry.

I just got back from seeing “Mongol.”  This is a historical epic by a Mongolian film maker (with support from, among others, the Kazakhstan Ministry of Information and Culture - Insert Borat joke here) about Temujin, or “Genghis Khan”.  The film is big and sprawling and feature beautiful shots of the Asian steppes.  The performances were good and the film didn’t raise any immediate flags for me on the accuracy front (not that I’m an expert).

Still, it fell a bit flat for me.

The film strongly emphasized the love story between Temujin and his first wife Borte.  The film really opens with their betrothal as children then follows his trials as a youngster, then their marriage.  After this we see them separated - she gets kidnapped and he rescues her, then he gets captured and she rescues him.  “Nothing will keep him from her.”  After she rescues him we see kindly loving Temujin playing with the kids and then announcing he has to leave to go unite the Mongol people.  Cut to him with a huge army fighting an old friend with an even bigger army.  That victory leads to a final narration about how his career was just beginning.

Here is my problem; nowhere do we really get any sense of WHY he developed this mission of uniting the Mongols save a vague reference to how they are fighting too much.  We also never get a sense of what it was about this man that would make him into a true world conqueror - good or bad.  We get no sense of vision from him in the story, we get no sense of driving ambition, we don’t even get a good sense of him as a superior tactician.

I suppose this movie is decent fur costume drama, but it doesn’t give any insight into what made Temujin who he was.  I’m not sorry I saw the film, but I can’t say I thought it did a good job as either biography or history.

I spent the bulk of the day at work in a series of interviews.  I’ve been serving on a hiring committee for the last few weeks.  The interviews went fine, the only problem was that we had three of them in a row.  Each was ninety minutes, so I was at this with the others from 9 am to 1:30.  Luckily, I think we found a good candidate.

My geeky triumph came this evening.  I finally won a game of Civilization IV.  All together this game took 19 hours (the game keep track of that, but doesn’t tell you until you are done.)  I was also somewhat gratified that this was a “cultural” victory.  That means I had built my civilization’s art and literature to a point that was overwhelming others.

This weekend looks to be fun.  I’m planning to go to my favorite used book store to do some trading.  I’m going to visit friends tomorrow, and Sunday I’m hoping to go see “Mongol.”

Then next week I’ve got to pick a contractor to fix my roof.

Archaeology had an article a couple of months ago about China’s project to build a replica of one of Zheng He’s treasure ships.  This is being constructed in Nanjing using the materials mentioned in the written sources and using hand tools.  This ship is then going to re-trace the voyages of Zheng He’s fleet - sailing all over the Indian Ocean and hitting all the major ports.

The Chinese government is doing this to demonstrate China’s new role in the world.  They are writing history to suit their ambitions (no surprise there - who doesn’t?)  They are using this story as a way to draw a distinction between China and the West.  The story is that Westerners sailed all over the place bringing disease and violence and planted colonies.  The Chinese brought gifts and trade and then went home.

The problem with this is that the vast fleet Zheng He commanded included thousands of soldiers.  One of the leading non-Chinese experts on the Ming dynasty made the point in the article that these voyages were about showing power and projecting it even in the absence of invasion or the creation of colonies.

My reaction was one of familiarity.  A dominant technological and economic power sails advanced ships around the world.  It doesn’t create colonies, but establishes unequal diplomatic and economic relations with less powerful and wealthy countries.  It overawes with its culture and wealth, but also uses the veiled threat of force to establish itself.  Through this all, it is guided by an unshakable sense of its own superiority.

Isn’t this neocolonialism?

Once again, China proves how it has already invented almost everything the West later came up with.  Just as Europeans began their first forays into imperialism, the Chinese were already transcending imperialism by moving on to the more subtle oppressions of neocolonialism.  Now the Chinese are using their wealth and technology all over Africa and Asia.  Even as the former colonial world celebrates its independence from the dominance of the West, it is finding its way into the system being created by the once and future champs at world domination.

I got quiet over the weekend because I was out through much of it.

Some of you might remember my posting from a year ago about a Memorial Day cookout and my traumatized dog.  The same friends hosted a July 4 bash this year.  I left the dog home this time, and a good thing too.  Lest me just say that you haven’t witnessed a private fireworks display until you’ve seen one put together by two little boys and their father, who commands an artillery battalion of the National Guard.  Grilled hot dogs, deafening fireworks, and Battlestar Galactica - that is what America is all about!

I went out again on Saturday to see my old college friends who I get together with on a regular basis.  They are currently fostering a small pug-and-other-stuff aptly named “Ming” (because he is merciless).  Neither my current dog nor my last one have been into standard canine pastimes like fetch or tug-of-war.  Not so Ming.  I worked up a real sweat playing both games with this hyper-active mutt.  It was fun.  If I had space or resources for a second dog I’d want to adopt this guy, but no can do.  Luckily he has found a home of appreciative folks with enough income to keep in in imperial splendor.

I had to go in to the office for two meetings yesterday and the first was at 8 am.  Those amongst my readers who have experienced being around me in the morning will probably agree that it isn’t my best time.  In any case, I was asked to serve on a search committee for a new admin post at the college, someone who will coordinate the various teacher education things we do (Early Child care, lateral entry, accreditation, etc…).  I also went to a meeting of a committee examining our attendance policy and related issues.  Both were productive.  Both also featured our newly hired VP, who I am very favorably impressed with so far.

In any case, having had a busy day of unpaid service to the college (I’m on a nine-month contract and I’m paid like an adjunct for my summer courses), I decided to take today off.  Also, I’m in the midst of one of my perennial summer bouts of insomnia and so I didn’t get to sleep until almost 3 am.

Various thoughts:

I’ve always respected John McCain, but this manufactured offense concerning Clark’s comments is reprehensible.  Besides, I’m sorry, but the fact he was a POW does not make him any more of a foreign policy expert than anyone else.

My good friend Steve over at Semeiotikos wrote a personal eulogy for George Carlin.  I’ve been thinking about Carlin too.  On Saturday, HBO showed Carlin’s 1977 concert special - which I remember watching back when HBO was new.  I hadn’t realized until watching that how Carlin’s humor fit into my own developing interest in language and rhetoric.  In recent years I’ve looked back to realize that my interest in rhetoric didn’t begin in Iowa, but crystallized there.  It’s root go all the way back to my childhood and my father’s love of wordplay.  Carlin’s humor - so linguistic in its themes - was another step on the road.  Later that night I saw some stand-ups on Comedy Central doing shock humor (”tee hee, he said “cum”").  The contrast with Carlin was strong.  He used those “seven words” to discuss American morality and hypocrisy.  These later folks are frequently foul-mouthed just for its own sake - and that is the very definition of “vulgar”.

Don Davis died.  If you ever watched science fiction on TV, you’ve probably seen Davis.  He was a regular for most of the run of Stargate SG-1, he played a supporting character on Twin Peaks, he played Agent Scully’s father in the X-Files episode “Beyond the Sea” (one of the best ever), and a lot more.  Frankly, if it was shot in Vancouver in the last 20 or so years, he was probably on it.  I thought he was one of those actors like Gene Hackman.  Not everything he was in was good, but he was always good in everything I saw him do.  I don’t care for the whole celebrity thing.  I have no personal connection to this man or knowledge of him as a human being.  I wouldn’t presume to mourn him, but I will miss his work.

My department chair is supposed to have her baby tomorrow.  She and her husband are in my thoughts a bit.  Everything has gone fine and should tomorrow.  I suggested waiting for Friday.  My thought was that it can’t do a kid’s self-esteem any damage to have parades and fireworks on their birthday.  You don’t have to tell them it isn’t all for them.

If I don’t post before then, let me wish you all an enjoyable Change-of-Ruling-Elites Day!

I’ve just finshed a a very interesting article about agriculture in the Amazon (”Amazonian Harvest” by Mara Hvistendahl, Archaeology, July/August 2008.  You can see some of it here.)  Over the last few years I’ve become fascinated by what archaeologists have been finding in the Amazon rain forest.  Starting in the 1950s a group of anthropologists and archaeologists started to challenge a prevailing idea that the Amazon was an impossible area for dense human settlement without slash-and-burn agriculture and the resulting deforestation.  There are extensive earthworks and pottery remnants as well as documentary evidence going back to the 17th century that indicates there was once extensive settlement in the region.  Research has started to suggest that the people there found ways to manage water and the forest that allowed for a dense population without the destruction that became common with the Spanish strategy of “Cut it, fell it, burn it, and farm it.”

This article discusses some work in the Bolivian Amazon as well as the way it is being used to promote the idea of a more sustainable model of agriculture for the region.  This is part of a tradition of “action archaeology” meant to use discoveries of the past to create positive change.  This idea dates back to the 1950s as well where it was first used in areas of the Near East.  Archaeologists discovered methods dating from the Byzantine Empire that had been used to farm areas that were considered unfarmable desert at that time.  Agricultural experts and local farmers were able to adapt the historical methods to grow food and commercial crops in the region.  Local farmers and activists are promoting a similar model in the Amazon.

As a student of history, I’m as intrigued by the question of why as I am by the question of how these people farmed the way they did.  One thing that jumped out at me while reading this was that slash-and-burn methods weren’t used in this part of the Americas until the Spanish came with iron and steel.  The introduction of iron also transformed African agriculture.  Some theories suggest that several cereal crops grown in sub-Saharan Africa couldn’t be grown until iron hoes and knives were available.  What interests me in the Amazonian case is the idea that perhaps the very lack of “advanced” metallurgy might have been the thing that led local people to develop superior farming methods for that environment.  My theory would be that these methods were then lost when the region was formally subdued and organized under the mission system.  This led - as always - to a huge demographic disaster.  As the Amazonian Indians were dying off from newly introduced diseases, they were also forced to adopt European farming methods.  The result was the loss of the earlier methods and a legacy of unsustainable agriculture that were part and parcel of the story of imperialism in the region.  All of the stuff in this paragraph is just my take, but I think it makes sense.

I drank a cold glass of home-brewed beer with a good friend.

I wrote my new rubric for grading essays and used it to get my student’s assignments back in a timely manner.

I didn’t go into the office before noon even once (I am NOT a morning person).

I turned off the tube when there wasn’t anything on I really wanted to see and read and listened to music (I was raised with a constant TV presence and have been battling that addiction ever since).

I had a dinner with good friends then went to see a surprisingly entertaining movie.

When one of those friends got into what I felt was an unnecessary confrontation over disruptive behavior in the theater, I didn’t have to get into a fight to back him up even though I had decided to do so.

I went to a fun lunch with the members of my department to celebrate some one’s birthday (we haven’t all gotten together in awhile).

Not bad.