Bill Fairbanks, a retired anthropology professor from Los Osos, CA, has spent the last three summers walking along roads “to find out more about America’s inhabitants and what drives them.” I needed a challenge. So, I figured I would just walk across the country and study it as I go,” he explains. Read more at the Effingham Daily News:

Walking to Learn
Retired anthropologist turns open road into personal classroom
Cathy Thoele

Effingham Daily News

Louise Krasniewicz, an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke to CNN’s Only On the Blog about Arnold schwarzenegger:

Arnold’s importance has never been about his acting or his bodybuilding or his great wealth and power.Arnold was, and probably still is, important because he has been one of the few concrete examples we have of the American Dream being a real possibility. Arnold’s was the perfect story of a poor, uncouth, underclass, and uneducated immigrant making it big in America by understanding that the American Dream means you are not stuck with the story you are born with but that you can make and remake yourself.

What he may not have learned was that along the way you will be tempted severely to stray from the good path, to write your story in a way that is arrogant or based in hubris and deceit.

You can’t do that and still be a good American icon. The rules still have to apply to you at some point.

…Why would people go to an Arnold movie today? To see him fail in his comeback, to stare in awe at how he has changed, to shake their heads in disbelief?

We don’t go to movies just because we like the actors or think something will merely entertain us. We go to the movies because they are part of our cultural conversation. They are one tool we use to help us make sense of a stupid, chaotic, and meaningless world.

I think, then, people could make great use of any Arnold movie as they talk about the ideas and issues his behavior has brought to the foreground. I don’t think personal reputation has ever been his concern.

Click here to read the rest

Kirk French from Pen State department of Anthropology and Jason De Leon, from the university of Michigan star in a Discovery Channel 10-episode series. In a interview to centerdaily.com we learn that “’Artifact or Fiction’ was the original name of the show, but just weeks before the show’s air date, The Discovery Channel changed it to ‘American Treasures,’ much to the dismay of French and De Leon…’It’s very offensive in the archaeology world to refer to artifacts as treasure. We hope our colleagues understand the name change and realize that we fought against it,’ French said.”

The show’s website invites us to

take a historical road trip across the country with AMERICAN TREASURES every Tuesday at 10 p.m. E/P” and informs us that “Archaeology professors, Dr. Jason De León and Dr. Kirk French often receive inquiries from everyday Americans who think they possess items that may have historical significance. Jason and Kirk, friends who met during grad school, hit the road during their school break to investigate and examine these unique artifacts for AMERICAN TREASURES.

French and De León travel across the country in their trusty pickup truck to conduct hands-on research into each item, consulting with experts and historians to learn more about not only the item itself, but its historical and cultural context: what it is, where it came from, who made it, and why. On occasion, they also meet up with fellow archaeologists to learn more about important scientific research going on across America.

Artifacts investigated for AMERICAN TREASURES include a Colt revolver claimed to have belonged to famed outlaw John Wesley Hardin, a steam whistle claimed to have been salvaged from Pearl Harbor, a brass trumpet thought to be Louis Armstrong’s, and a safe thought to hold business papers of Al Capone… Explains De León, “As a professor, I constantly remind my students that ‘culture’ isn’t just something that you read about in textbooks or have to travel to distant lands to find. AMERICAN TREASURES is about exploring and understanding different aspects of American culture through people, their stories, and through artifacts.”

“A common misconception the public has of archaeologists is that we look for treasure; that someday, if we’re lucky, we’ll strike it rich,” says French. “Archaeologists do not look for treasure and we do not place monetary value on artifacts. AMERICAN TREASURES gives us the opportunity to set the record straight and to say, ‘No one owns history, it belongs to all of us; it’s our American past.”

Trailers can be watched here

House in the Middle:

Duck and Cover:

Related to the the infamous ‘Duck and Cover’ video, click here for a great website detailing it’s production history

Download pdf Do-it-yourself shelter instructions and more here

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) website

Titan Missile Museum

National Security Archive Nuclear Project

Joseph Masco’s webpage at the University of Chicago – for interested readers, be sure to look here for PDFs of select works by Professor Masco