Quote Originally Posted by Stan View Post
I'm certainly not going to argue with Malinowski, but I've known people that devoted their lifetime to going local, but yet, had no idea what they were talking about.

One of the things I immediately recognized was the pathetic use of interpreters. Locals like their own spin on things and that never translated into something our Embassy folks could comprehend.
You know, Malinowski had the Slavic soul so he was working at an advantage. It’s true, though, just being there doesn’t mean you get it. And every field linguist I’ve known has a clue about local life in the places they have worked even if they hadn’t had the bit of formal training in socio-cultural theory per se. (On a tangent, I took a couple of courses from a linguist who is a Kinyarwanda speaker. He seems to think I’m pretty much a moron, not without reason. )

Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
[Sweats] are the wave of the present and future - the ultimate general purpose uniform even for those doing ethnography and ethnology.
Personally, I think Supplex is gold for the hot and muggy stuff. But I won’t argue with my elders.

All in all, cross-cultural comparison using textual and non-textual artifacts of various kinds sounds like a less stressful pursuit for aged gummers.
Ça dépend. I’d take a day in Bali over a day with a crusty old archivist 99 times out of a 100. And that’s being generous!

Quote Originally Posted by marct View Post
True.... then again, I know a lot of people who just don't have the mindset for using the HRAF files.
It’s true, I sometimes forget that I’m a gentleman of the old school.

Anyway, it looks like the HTS is into a market expansion phase not only trying to sell the system to other countries but, also, getting into the phase 0 action .
That’s… surprising. My admittedly limited understanding of HTS is that it hasn’t borne much fruit. Or maybe it’s not surprising given the tendency of bureaucracy to spawn zombie programs (braindead but relentlessly expanding and hard to put in the ground).

LOL - they are nice, aren't they! I'd probably keep them for myself given how much snow we have been getting up here. Not as much as some years, but a few heavy days.
It’s a neat idea to use metal to construct a more traditional frame form and to use lacing rather than Hypalon for the flotation. But that’s a separate paper, as you put it earlier.

It’s so brown and bland down this way it might as well be the Midwest. I had to make a day trip all the way to central Vermont last weekend to get into any of the white stuff. I did get to pass some of the time by listening to the Canadiens/Caps game in the vernacular, at least!