The Big Stunt

I refrained from joining in the enthusiasm for Felix Baumgartner’s 128,000 foot parachute jump. It was a spectacular act of bravery, but it was also little more than a colossal stunt and a $10 million advertising gimmick for Red Bull. I just didn’t see the point — there was nothing learned from this event — and it seemed spectacularly crass, with a lot of truly stupid hype surrounding the story.

Now a historian puts the Stratos stunt in context. That makes it a little better, but it’s still a big commercial that put a man’s life at risk.

Hasn’t changed a bit in half a millennium

Archaeologists are digging up a Tuscan convent and have found some skeletons that might include the remains of Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, also known as Mona Lisa. She’s still lovely after all this time.

One investigator has been going through the bones, trying to identify the dead woman, so they can apply forensic reconstruction to her skull.

Wait…why?

I mean, we already know what she looked like. I can understand general historical research on Renaissance remains, but pawing through the graveyard to find one famous person simply to reconstruct a face we’re already familiar with seems peculiarly ghoulish — nothing but a sensationalistic game. What question does this answer, what do we learn from this pointless exercise?

Fortunately, I’m not the only one who wonders about that.

But not all experts are convinced by the claims of Dr Vinceti and his team. Dr Kristina Killgrove, an anthropologist at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the US, said on her blog: "Although the excavation is being carried out in a professional manner, Vinceti’s quest to dig up the ‘real’ Mona Lisa is not grounded in scientific research methodology." She added: "The news media’s breathless coverage of it threatens to signal to the public that archaeologists are frivolous with their time, energy, and research money."

Maybe, once they identify the skull, they can send it off to the Louvre and mount it on the wall next to the painting. <sarcasm>That’ll be informative.</sarcasm>

Election day will be…interesting

Sarah Silverman explains how to get around Republican voter suppression tactics: register to get a gun! (NSFW. But of course, all you workers are working at work, so you’re not going to see this anyway.)

I wonder if the media will pay any attention to the outraged minorities and students who discover they are disenfranchised on election day? I know Fox News won’t, but there’s a possibility the other networks…nah, who am I kidding?

I just realized how the Republicans can win me over

I saw this clip from Stephen Colbert about how the Republicans rely on the cranky old white man vote, and I had an epiphany. Why, that’s me! But then, as this clip goes on, it’s all about how the Republicans are straining to embrace a new demographic and capture the Hispanic vote.

That’ll never work. Hispanics aren’t going to see him as a friend no matter how much spray-on tan he puts on.

But then I had a thought. What the Republicans need to do is increase the supply of cranky old white men. How can they do that? Longevity research! Pour more money into the NIH for work that keeps old people alive for longer…especially that favorite subject of biomedical research, the white male. It’s a win:win! More money for science, more cranky old white men voting longer, more cranky old white men feeling obligated to the Republican party, more medical benefits that assist me as I get older.

I don’t see why they aren’t rushing to adopt this strategy. It’s their only hope.

Mazinaatesijigan Gekinoo’amaadiwin

Free movies on the UMM campus, open to all!

Watch out for the woo, but you’ve got to appreciate the fact that oppressed peoples are expressing themselves in their own words about their lives and the destruction that has been wreaked on them.

Mazinaatesijigan Gekinoo’amaadiwin Film Series (Films with Knowledge)
For much of the 20th century, American Indian identities were shaped, at least in popular culture and public imaginations, by advertising imagery, photographs, and wild west shows. In the past few decades, American Indian artists and filmmakers have extracted their own image from these external forces, challenging the established codes of representation. The goal of the Mazinaatesijigan Gekinoo’amaadiwin Film Series is to challenge participants to examine and discuss how film impacts Indigenous culture, identity, politics, and stereotypes.

Dakota 38 (2011, 78 min., Smooth Feather Productions)
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
7:00 p.m., 109 Imholte Hall
In the spring of 2005, Jim Miller, a Native spiritual leader and Vietnam veteran, found himself in a dream riding on horseback across the great plains of South Dakota. Just before he awoke, he arrived at a riverbank in Minnesota and saw 38 of his Dakota ancestors hanged.

Finding Our Talk (2009, 72 min., Mushkeg Media)
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
7:00 p.m., 109 Imholte Hall
Every fourteen days a language dies. By the year 2100 more than half of the world’s languages will
disappear. This film examines three indigenous communities struggling to preserve their languages: The Rapid Lake Anishinaabe from Quebec, the Wahpeton Dakota Nation from Saskatchewan, and the
Guovdageaidnu Sami from Norway.

Star Dreamers, Part One: The Indian System, Featuring Filmmaker Sheldon Wolfchild (2012, 72 min., 38 Plus 2 Productions)
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
7:00 p.m., 109 Imholte Hall
By 1862, the system had brought the Dakota living on reservations in Minnesota to the brink of starvation, offering them little option other than dying of hunger in war. The system made war inevitable. his is the first of a three-part documentary series on the origins of the Dakota War.

Independent Indigenous Film & Media Shorts Featuring Filmmaker Missy Whiteman
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
7:00 p.m., 109 Imholte Hall
A compilation of short films :
Coyote Way (2012, 5 min.)
Nawa Giizhigong (2012, 7 min.)
Indigenous Holocaust (2008, 5 min.)
Neinoo (Mother) (2007, 3 min.)
Walk in Shadows (2004, 7 min.)