Anthropology

What is anthropology? I get that question a lot. When I first switched majors and people asked me what I was doing and I said "anthropology" they often repeated my response with a kind of hushed awe, as though I had told them I was majoring in Superheroism. Given that nobody seems to know what it is, I surmise that all those people must have mistaken anthropology for something else. The most common confusions are archaeology (which is technically not incorrect, but I'll explain that more in a moment) or entomology, the study of insects. More often than not, however, people just give me a blank look when I tell them what I study.

Anthropology, as the etymology would suggest, is the study of mankind. In the US anthropology is divided into four main subgroups: Linguistic anthropology, archaeology, physical anthropology and cultural anthropology. Linguistics is the study of language and thus instrumental in the study of humans. The results of linguistic research are absolutely fascinating and make for great conversation at parties. Actually researching and plotting vowel shifts and cognates and charting the increase in bilabial fricatives in Proto-Indo-European (known affectionately as PIE) is the most boring and tedious work possible. Linguistic anthropology seeks to explain how and why languages change, covering everything from whole language groups to the introduction of words and phrases into small groups of people (think: "lock it up", "daydoodah", "the Logo" and the subtle difference between "uh-huh" and "uh huh").

Archaeology is the study of extinct peoples through the analysis of the remains of their culture. If an archaeologist is lucky you'll get an Ankor Wat or Tut's Tomb, stuff that was very meaningful indeed to the culture in question. More often than not you get a piece of pottery or a pile of ashes from a hearth and you have to analyze what it was used for. Did the pot have functional purposes (did it hold wine, water, rice etc.?) or was it ceremonial or decorative? What kind of wood did they use in the fire? Is there evidence of it being used for cooking? And so on. Contrary to popular belief, archaeologists don't particularly care about the sites and artifacts themselves, they want to know about the culture. If they could just ask an ancient Minoan what they used this pot for, or how their society was structured, they would—it's a hell of a lot more efficient (and accurate) than rummaging through people's garbage. The public image of archaeologists is Indiana Jones or Lara Croft, these people are more concerned with treasure or rare artifacts rather than their significance in the greater whole of the site in which they were found. As I mentioned in the previous post, these people are antiquarians, grave robbers, "Tomb Raiders". Removing an artifact from a site is like moving a body or weapon from a crime scene, it destroys the context. Patience, precision and an eye for detail are the traits required for a true archaeologist. Because the very act of excavating a site destroys the context, you have to be sure to record every single detail so that way someone in the future can look on your notes and hopefully discover something that they couldn't have from the now-contaminated site itself.

Physical anthropology is the study of the human body. Its focus ranges from the subtle, such as the Human Genome Project, to the gross, such as forensics. Thanks to CSI and other such shows, this is perhaps the most well known part of anthropology, even if people don't know that's what it is. There's the study of how the body works, the evolution of the human form and how human bodies vary between groups. This guy was one of my professors and gives a pretty good idea of some of the stuff physical anthropology studies. Biological and medical anthropology are also parts of physical anthropology and focus on human variation and how differences among peoples can be applied to medicine, respectively. One example of how this is extremely important would be the distribution of humanitarian aid and food supplies. The US sent powdered milk to starving countries in Africa, failing to realize that most of the world's population is lactose intolerant.

Lastly, there's cultural anthropology, my specialty. Quite simply, it's the study of people and cultures. What do people think? Why do they think that? How do they behave? Basic questions but sometimes they're extremely difficult to answer. When I was little and I heard that anthropology was the study of people I thought that sounded like the most boring job in the world; I imagined somebody just watching people in cubicles, writing down something like "10:13AM, Subject sips from coffee mug." And perhaps cultural anthro would be that boring if not for a wonderful little thing called "participant observation." Participant observation means you go and live with, talk to and personally get to know the people you're studying. More often than not they become your friends, though you should always keep in mind a sense of professionalism in your field work. There are no famous examples of cultural anthropologists known to the general public (Daniel Jackson from Stargate would be a good example if people knew about it), so in order to point them in the right direction I tell them about the guys in the khaki safari outfits who go to some tropical island and study the natives. That's anthropology, but you don't have to go to a tropical island to do it, you can study any culture that's not your own (you take too much for granted in your own culture so you would never ask any really good questions). So I study people, what does that entail in practice, people often ask. Basically, I hang out with interesting people, drinking beer and having them tell me their life story. At that point, as surely as they gave me a blank look when I first mentioned anthropology, there's a change in their expression and stance as they realize that sounds like a really cool job.

But, certain career concerned individuals ask, what good is it? Sure it's intellectually stimulating but it's as careerworthy as a degree in philosophy, right? Well, like so many things, that might be true if you overspecialize. But as a field, the only places where anthropology is inapplicable is somewhere where there are not, nor were there ever, any people. As for cultural anthropology, that will only be rendered obsolete when all people everywhere perfectly understand one another.
Yeah, you worry about your own job security.

Indy

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett with ShiaLaBeouf. I can't say this was a bad movie, and I didn't have any expectations that it would be better than Raiders of the Lost Ark, but there was something off about this movie. We'll start with what I did like: the fact that Harrison Ford kept himself in such good shape that he didn't need any alterations done to his costume and that he could still believably kick ass. The mythos of Soviet psychics. But most importantly, I'm glad that they specifically addressed how in previous films Indiana Jones does not act like any self-respecting archaeologist should. As my archaeology professor pointed out, because he cares nothing for the context of artifacts within an archaeological site, just their prettiness and their value to a museum, he is in fact an antiquarian. This movie had no treasure hunting, per se, and and Indy left valuable relics in their place. I was glad to see that technicality was addressed.
Now for what bugged me: Shia LaBeouf does not make a convincing greaser. Period. More importantly, the movie lacked the same feel as the other movies. Maybe it's the fact that CGI has a very distinct look that the other films didn't have. I suspect its the motivation: in Raiders and The Last Crusade Indy is trying to keep the Nazis from getting the the powerful artifacts for the sake of national and global security. Hell, he nearly blows up the Ark to keep it from being opened. In this one, he seems to forget that hiding the skull (which was Oxley's plan) would probably be a better idea than bringing it back to the temple and leave it there, hoping the Soviets don't find it.
Another thing that didn't sit right with me, and I might be all alone on this one, is that this installment of the series makes the Indiana Jones universe not make sense. The Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail mean that the Bible is true, there is a God, and Moses and Jesus did exist. OK, so Christian myth is all true, and there are also aliens? God's sending down stone tablets, angels and all sorts of holy stuff while he's not only keeping people in the New World ignorant of the One True Faith, but he's letting fucking aliens mess around with the people made in His image? I suppose you could make a similar argument with Temple of Doom and the premise that Hindu mythology is also true, but maybe the unifying theme there is that all the old god myths are all true. There's not just one God, but a whole pantheon of otherwise religiously unrelated, but equally real deities. But again, except in the New World. The Abrahamic God is real, and the Hindu gods are real, but we learn those poor South Americans don't have real gods, just aliens.
And yet, as frustrating as all this is, I don't factor that into my analysis of the film's quality. It's just a pesky sidenote. My final vote is that it's better than Temple of Doom, possibly equal to Last Crusade (though that one bears rewatching) and inferior to Raiders.

Love

No, this isn't going to be an uncomfortably personal diatribe and certainly not a post-modernist aren't-I-so-clever analysis of love. Instead, this will be an overview of the Western concept of romantic love, with many borrowed concepts from the often (but not always) brilliant Culture and Identity by Charles Lindholm. The thing Lindholm wants us to understand is that while there is a concept of romantic love in all cultures, the Western take on it is rather unique and not nearly as widespread as you'd imagine. Love and sex are intimately linked in Western society. Weddings are based on love and consummating a marriage is a consummation of love, hence why sex is called "making love." But many societies do not see that "obvious" connection between sex and love that we do, or of marriage and love for that matter. The ancient Greeks and Romans apparently regarded love as a dangerous thing (not so different from us) that had to be properly vented. So the men would visit prostitutes and fall in love with them. They would make love to these women while they simply made babies with their wives. In many cultures, such as the Bedouins and Medieval Europe, love is chaste and unconsummated, just talking and holding hands, watching the sun rise and all that stuff.
One culture, the Marri Baluch of Pakistan, is highly patriarchal, the women have no rights and are treated as chattel. Marriages are unions between families—alliances and trade agreements. They are seen as a stabilizing force in society while love is considered an inherently divisive thing, antithetical to marriage. In fact, in their culture loving one's wife is considered unnatural and wrong. The wives still do have love affairs behind their husbands' backs, but again these are chaste loves and they are despised not because of any infidelity but because they see them as destructive to society. People from enemy families can and do meet and fall in love. Think of the destruction wrought by Romeo and Juliet, all the collateral damage and political repercussions and you can see why if they think that's what happens when two people fall in love why it would be thought of so dimly.
The Oneida cult, who advocated communal love and actively discouraged monogamous relationships, collapsed shortly after their leader died. It's usually figured that because toward the end many of the cult members had abandoned communal love for monogamous relationships ("special love") that the collapse was due to the separation of sex and love. I suspect that it's because romantic love was forbidden and, unlike the Marri Baluch, the people who were in love could always leave their society for a more accepting one.

The Western version of romantic love generally appears in "open, competitive, individualistic and fluid" societies whereas hierarchical, structured societies do not have such a concept. As such, it's rather unlikely for a love story in a society much different from our own to have actually played out. For example, in 300 Leonidas probably would not have loved his wife, not because he was such a tough soldier, but because the rigidity of society wouldn't have allowed the idea to cross his mind. With this in mind I wonder about the plausibility of the romances played out in various sci-fi/fantasy worlds that are not connected to the real world. Star Wars, Farscape and Battlestar Galactica come to mind where certain societies (not to mention species) are alien to ours yet romantic plotlines involving those characters progress exactly as if they were from a Western society. I'm not complaining, I just think it's funny how much we take it for granted.

And finally, I leave you with this: for all those cynics and post-modernists that say that love is just a neurochemical concoction devised by Nature into tricking us into reproducing, you are dead wrong. If love motivated people to reproduce then the West would have the highest birthrate. Instead, we have the lowest while societies that do not believe love, sex and marriage are the same thing have the highest. So, if anything, love actually serves to moderate population growth.

Couldn't Have Done It Alone

A week has passed since my graduation from the U of A. I'm still stunned by it, or maybe its the enormous vacuum left by the absence of 18 credits for the past year. Either way I now have a BA (with Honors) in Anthropology and that'll keep me pretty smug for the next few months.
I can now look back on the past four years and see how all the pieces fit together. I can say that nearly every class, even the ones I hated, served some useful purpose beyond just giving me credits to graduate. The only exceptions to this might be the Stage Costume Crew I was assigned to the first semester of freshman year. I'm tempted to say my Acting class was also a waste, but in truth its suckiness proved instrumental in pushing me away from Theatre Arts just a "Human Variation in the Modern World" was drawing me to anthropology. I dodged the Math requirement with "Logic and Critical Thinking", but that's about the only thing I got out of that. The only class I really got absolutely nothing out of was this last semester's "Cultural Astronomy", sure it satisfied the credit requirements but there must have been a better class.

All that said, I also can look back and see that the most difficult courses were also the most rewarding. "Historical Linguistics", once the bane of my existence, ultimately provided me with a good friend, a kickass paper I used as a writing sample for grad school applications and a letter of recommendation from a very influential and well known professor. I'm fairly certain this class played a significant part in me getting accepted to UMass. The boring nightmare of my studies in Uppsala, "People, Power and Food" resulted in me being able to put down 2 international video conferences in my CV.

And of course there are all of the great people who contributed to my success. Be it being a study partner for a midterm or final, editing and proofreading my essays or even just being the topic of an essay you all helped. Keith, Jenn, Frank, Steph, Feifei, Victoria, Nora, Matt and James, I thank you.

And of course without the generous funding of my parents my college experience would have been impossible (or at least very very different). Naturally, my parents had a great influence on my upbringing and personality but the key points in my life are directly because of the support and encouragement of my mom and dad. Had my dad not suggested we take up martial arts, not only would I have never gotten years of fun and learning from aikido I also never would have met my good friend Frank or any of his awesome friends and acquaintances. Had my mom decided not to go on a trip to Greece back in 2003 I never would have met Steph. Had my parents not supported my year abroad in Uppsala I never would have had the best year of my life, met so many wonderful people and my life might not have come into focus. Without those three points my life would have been totally different and I am fairly certain pretty crappy.

So thank you to everyone that has helped and encouraged me for the past 22 years, especially these last 4, I love you guys.

Ink

I am beginning to think I'm one of the last people in the world without a tattoo. It's a very unusual thing to the in the minority about, I think. People seem to be obsessed with them and I have no idea why. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't have anything inherently against tattoos and some of the best human beings I know have had ink done. My problem is with the masses of people who get tattoos for what they often claim is some desire for individual expression. Again, if it's really individual, if it's really your thing (I think you know who you are) good for you. But the generic designs people have are by their very nature not individual. The fact that there are enough girls that will get a tattoo on the small of their back negates any individuality. I would think that if you're going to have some design permanently etched into your skin you should put a LOT of thought into whether you actually want it. I've had classmates come in sporting a new tattoo saying they got it because they were out with their friends and got bored. That's insane to me. If I were to get one, I would have to be certain that I agree with whatever statement it made every day for the rest of my life. It would just kill me if I had a tattoo I no longer agreed with.
People give me crap for not having a tattoo. "What? Are you afraid of pain?" or "That's sad that you don't have any real beliefs" or the most recent "Only cool people have tattoos." Addressing these in order: I used to do martial arts, where the possibility of getting punched, kicked, body slammed and other painful things were pretty much expected. Hell, I got over a fear of needles once I realized I've volunteered for more pain than a visit to the doctor. So yeah, afraid of pain? Bite me.
As for a lack of any beliefs strong enough to be worthy of a tattoo, let me first say that only the most general of ideas do I believe in strongly enough to even be considered for a tattoo. Stuff I'd expect everyone to already agree with, (tolerance, self-betterment, open-mindedness, truth etc.) so why bother making a statement? To remind myself in case I forgot? The idea behind the tattoo would have to pretty much always be in my mind anyway, a kind of obsession. A tattoo for me would then be a physical manifestation of that obsession, and that just seems unhealthy in my mind.
Lastly, I'm somewhat proud of not being a "cool person" i.e. the edgy indie kid with an obscure tattoo of a tree or something, or the real badass with the barbed wire tattoo on his bicep. Nuts to that. I'll express myself through actions, words, and to a lesser extent T-shirts.

All that said, if you have a tattoo and you're totally cool with it, that's great. I'm well aware that I think very differently than most people and what makes sense to me might not make sense to you, and vice versa. If it really means that much to you, it's your body and your choice and I won't begrudge you that. But if you're one of those guys with a tattoo of a naked girl on his arm or one of those girls with "princess" written in Chinese on your ankle, I'll still think you're an idiot.

Sweden

For Spring Break I made the unconventional choice to go to Sweden. That's right, while everyone else was in the Mexico or the Caribbean working on their tans I was bundled up in a snowy, Nordic state. It was really, really fun though. It was nice seeing all my old Swedish friends again and being back in the utterly gorgeous city of Uppsala. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a gasque while I was there, actually the day I arrived. For those that don't remember a gasque is a traditional student dinner where people dress up in a suit and tie, drink and sing. This gasque was much different than the previous ones I had been to. This might be because it was a different nation (I was a member of V-Dala, this was at Kalmars) or maybe because it was a specially themed dinner. They were serving a traditional Kalmar dish known as kroppkakor which are basically potato dumplings filled with pork. That's not all that interesting in itself, but it's served with cream, melted butter and lingonberry jam to pour on top. It was an odd combination but I cannot say an unpleasant one; I don't even like lingonberries so that's saying something. I think the thing that set this gasque apart from the others was the quantity of food. At the V-Dala gasques, and from what I gather most other nations' gasques as well, the portions one is given are so meager is common to eat a pizza before going to dinner. But at this gasque the chefs had made so many that they had a contest to see who could eat the most. Everyone could eat their fill, and then some. It was actually Anders, the Swedish gourmet who invited me to the gasque, that won the contest with 18 kroppkakor (would that make him a gourmand, then?)

One of the things I thought was so amazing when you step back and look at it was how incredibly Swedish this whole thing was. Not just the ceremony and the tradition behind the whole thing but on a more fundamental level. Look at what the dinner consisted of: pork and potatoes, butter, cream and milk and the beverages were generous amounts of alcoholic beverages being served. Physically, most human beings could not eat this dinner. 70% of adult humans are lactose intolerant, plus there are plenty of ethnic groups that don't handle alcohol too well. Then there's the pork, that at least culturally restricts Muslims and Jews. That's how unique and special this dinner is, only a select number of people on Earth would be able or willing to eat with us that night. It's exclusive but without being exclusionary. I think that's beautiful.

While I was in Sweden I took the opportunity to purchase some hard to get items as gifts and for my own personal use. First was a massive Swedish-English dictionary set, selected because it had the definition for a sexual term I roughly knew the meaning of but not the exact definition. I also bought some cloudberry liqueur, this time it wasn't the cream kind, so there was no danger of it curdling during the trip back home.
And of course I stopped by the local music store to pick up some Swedish tunes. The clerk actually remarked how every one of the CDs I picked out were from Swedish artists. I got 2 CDs from Kent, the most popular contemporary Swedish rock band in Sweden. One from Säkert, the Swedish language version of Hello Saferide, it's pretty much the same style but a little different sound. Plus when they sing in Swedish you don't get the weird vowel syndrome that seems to be present with every Swedish singer singing in English. Sahara Hotnights seems exempt from this rule for the most part, at first I thought it was because theirs is a different genre than most of the Swedish music I listen to and that requires them to sing differently, but The Sounds are pretty much the same genre and the lead singer still has the weird vowels. Which brings me to Lykke Li, who, aside from having the cutest name ever and being totally adorable, also sings with weird vowels. Somehow she manages to get "B" and "me" to not quite rhyme, but after listening to her CD I realize now she does that on purpose. She has some spoken word poetry that she says with no hint of a weird vowel. This makes her that much cooler since what might otherwise be a charming involuntary quirk is something she chooses to use to express herself better. Learning that made me even more upset that I missed her when she was performing in Uppsala in my nation (the same Rock Gasque where I saw Hello Saferide live 2 years ago) only 2 weeks before my visit!

I spent most of my time in Uppsala, sightseeing and hiking around. It was really strange being a tourist in a place I consider my second home, everything is the same but a little different. It's the same city but it's no longer my Uppsala; most of the people I knew exchange students and Swedes alike all moved away. I didn't expect anything less, it was just strange actually experiencing that. I managed to walk downstream of the Fyris River (it feels weird not saying Fyrisån) a fair ways and ended up in some beautiful lush wooded area. It was cold, but it wasn't an unpleasant, biting cold. Rather it was that crisp, clean cold that a Nordic forest should be—the kind of forest that inspired myths of elves and fairies.

My last couple days I spent in Stockholm, having met up with Kaveh, the Swedish exchange student at the U of A last year. He showed me around the town and told me where to get cheap beer downtown. None of the places were shady, surprisingly enough, one was a karaoke bar. I was surprised how similar the selection of karaoke songs are in the US and Sweden and that the Swedes are just as tone deaf as Americans.

With luck, I'll go on a fieldwork trip to Sweden sometime during grad school and have the opportunity to live there again. I love that country so much. And by then my Swedish, which had improved considerably since the last time I was there, will hopefully be good enough to sustain a real conversation with some snygga brudar...

Poly Ticks

From comments made in some of my classes I'm beginning to suspect that people who are angry with the government aren't really angry at the actual government, but regard "the government" as an abstract thing. They know the government runs everything and is responsible for everything bad in the world, so when they're unhappy it's "the government's" fault. The general feeling I get is that people are so cynical towards politicians, government and society in general that they start making absent-minded statements about how the world works. For instance, the professor asked the class what are some traits American society values or rewards. People listed the usual: honesty, ambition, hard working... Then someone said that based on the people we elect that honesty can't be an American value. The professor used that to point out the Freudian conflicting nature of the American collective mind. I didn't have the opportunity to point out that no one has ever, or likely will ever, run on a platform of being a lying, philandering scumbag because no one wants dishonest politicians. They always play up how honest they are and accuse their opponents of being dishonest. In that respect at least people vote their hopes and not their fears.

The other comment that irked me came today in my favorite class, Cultural Astronomy. The debate was whether or not it was OK to invite a French ship builder who specializes in replicas of ancient Oceanic designs to this event where Polynesian ships would sail to Hawaii to demonstrate how it might have been done in ancient times. The Frenchman was told he was not allowed to participate, despite the fact that he had been invited by a Tahitian cultural representative. The representative, however, did not tell anyone else that he invited him and was not a part of the actual sailing event. The event was allegedly for Polynesians only (though the Hawaiians originally wanted it only for Hawaiians) and that was really the big hangup everyone had during the actual event. The class was more hung up on how the representative, always referred to as "The Politician", could have the audacity to make such a decision. Granted, not telling anyone and not being there when the guy showed up was bad form, but people were asking what right this cultural representative had to make decisions for other people. Evidently I was the only one in the class who thought that it's not only the right of a politician to make decisions for other people but it is in fact their duty. Furthermore they questioned whether they had to honor such an arrangement if they did not agree. Again, not telling anyone complicates the matter, but if an official representative of Tahitian culture invited the guy they should damn well honor it.

I pointed out that the title of representative allows him to speak for the Tahitian people and everyone retorted that politicians never represent the interests of the people. Again, people fail to understand that politicians always represent someone's interests or they would never get elected and certainly not repeatedly reelected. Regardless of whether or not they're representing the people they promised they would look after the votes give them a mandate to make decisions for the masses until their term is up. The only way I can see the criticism of whether or not this guy had the right to invite someone to participate in a giant international cultural/political stunt is if this representative had been appointed and not elected. Criticizing the authority of an appointed official implicitly criticizes tribalism, the old ways and the authority of chiefs. And since the entire point of the sailing stunt was to spur a revival of traditional Polynesian ways, having these people be upset at an official making a decision over their heads essentially says that the old ways are not necessarily worth bringing back.

So I guess the bottom line I was trying to get at is: no one ever elects someone they don't think they can trust (or at least trust more than the other guy) and whether or not you approve of every decision they make, (barring the genuinely corrupt) politicians do have the right to make decisions for others.

Good News

This has been a very good week for me. Tuesday morning I found out that I was accepted to the UMass graduate program. That made me very happy. Like singing and dancing and jumping for joy happy. Then the very next day I got an email saying Phi Beta Kappa is offering me membership. For those that don't know Phi Beta Kappa is the most prestigious honors society in the country and it looks damn good on a resume. I think it significant to point out that Monday night I was driving home and saw a shooting star and wished that I got into grad school. And lo and behold it came true. Now the list had to have been finalized before that moment and one can claim wishing on meteorites is folly, but I think believing you can at least occasionally command cosmic forces to do your bidding is good for your self-esteem, which actually does get you further in life. Regardless of the mystical powers of space rock, knowing I got into grad school has taken a weight of uncertainty off my shoulders. Now when people ask what my plans are after graduation I don't have to preface it with "Hopefully". Plus having certainty in my future plans effectively answers the question I ask regarding my current class load, "What's the point?" I'm now newly motivated and return to my monumental amount of homework with renewed vigor.

P.S. I rock.

Döden!

The Seventh Seal with Max von Sydow and Bengt Eckerot. I can definitely see how this became such a classic. I've never seen a movie quite like it, which is definitely worth something. The guy at the Loft explained that the film became the iconic disturbing art film and whenever you saw movie poster with Death you'd know it wasn't a theater where you'd see a John Wayne film. One thing I noticed in myself while watching it was the fact that I've been so immersed in Hollywood fiction that I had to will myself to accept that a movie in which the protagonists are pursued by Death himself would eventually die by the end. Also, I wonder how much our society's views on death, the afterlife and the need for there to be a God was influenced by the Plague killing two-thirds of Europe.
I'm also rather happy that my Swedish has improved enough to spot the shoddy translations of the subtitles. Then again, it's Swedish from the 50s...

Classes so far

My final semester at the U of A is shaping up to be the most challenging one yet. That's not such a surprise considering that I have to take 18 credits, just like last semester, in order to graduate in May, but this one looks like it will be even more demanding than the last one. Each and every class is reading intensive and a fair amount of writing is heaped in there as well. The tactic among all my professors seems to be to assign a massive amount of reading right at the very beginning of the semester, then reduce it to a more reasonable load. I'm guessing this is to kill off the free loaders right away, but it also makes life a living hell for the people who are committed. The combined number of pages I had assigned at the very beginning of the semester was around 460. And that's not even counting the Swedish book I have to read. It's entertaining translating it for a little while—when the tension starts building every word you don't understand becomes a cliffhanger—but soon you get tired of having to look up every other word. Thankfully things have already smoothed out a lot and I can make it to about every tenth word now without having to look it up.
The classes themselves are, for the most part pretty good. "The History of Modern Britain" is actually rather interesting. It's really just a long tale of military victories, political cunning and exploration, interspersed with insights into their laws and traditions that seem almost alien. My other non-anthropology class is "Love, Decay and Madness in Vienna" and is really, really good. It's cultural history so while there's some dry historical context we have to read through, the meat of the class are poetry, prose and plays. The professor is perhaps the most professorly professor I have ever had. Bespectacled with slightly messy white hair and a goatee, he speaks with a deep resonating voice and a cadence not unlike Donald Sutherland. His use of German pronunciation when talking about authors and concepts belies no trace of conceitedness but speaks to his ability with and comprehension of the German language.
My first anthropology class, "Culture and the Individual" is taught by the same eccentric, enthusiastic professor that taught my very first cultural anthro class. A little more confident than he was three years ago, he teaches how the many ways identity is seen in different culutes and how the modern Western view was shaped through time. He's a fun guy, even though he completely spoiled Memento before I ever had a chance to see it.
My other anthro class, "Cultural Astronomy" is my least favorite in nearly every way. The mounds of readings that are utterly pointless (one reading's hypothesis was essentially "We expect to find only A or only B. But it might be a little of both. Or neither." and whose conclusion was "Further research is required.") which we then have to discuss in class. Since the readings don't really assert any opinions and the only way we could discuss their findings is if we actually had firsthand knowledge of the archaeological sites the discussions mainly involve us silently looking down trying to avoid having to answer the ridiculously specific questions offered by the discussion leader. As if that wasn't bad enough, when we do have a reading that is worthy of discussion the people who chime in give the most stereotypical college drivel. As I recall, very few of the students are anthro majors so I guess they really don't know any better, but I can only excuse them so much.
A typical discussion might go as follows:
A: "It seems to me this culture has a rather Cartesian, mechanistic cosmology. One that emphasizes the scientia over the mythos."
B: "But who are we to say what is or isn't mythology? I mean, all these definitions were all invented by rich white men (an attempt, I suspect, to ingratiate herself with our black, female teacher)"
C: "But if you think about it, isn't not having a definition just a definition in itself?"
It's rare that I get all three of my least favorite things to be said all said in one class. I'd smack each of them in the face if I could.

Well, here's hoping the good classes stay good and the bad one get better. And that my workload will not be the hellish nightmare I foresee it will be.

Språk

Swedish is a fun language. Aside from the fact that I can curse at people in a normal speaking voice and not a soul will understand me, there are all sorts of weird words and phrases that give the language a unique flavor. Take the word for jealousy, avundsjucka, it literally means "envy sick". It seems to suggest that the Swedes regard jealousy/envy (curiously, the Swedes don't seem to make a distinction between the two terms) as a sickness, something which afflicts someone, rather than a personality trait. I rather like that implicit interpretation, just like the symptoms of the common cold are nothing permanent, jealousy is something that infects us but can be cured.
I recently learned from my Swedish class there are two ways to say "will". There's the regular ska, which my tutor says denotes roughly an 80% certainty, and kommer att, which denotes a 90-95% certainty. So for a while when I wanted to say "I will fly to Sweden" I would have said "Jag ska flygga till Sverige" but now that I've bought the tickets, I'd say "Jag kommer flygga att till Sverige". The Swedes apparently can hear a situational difference between the two and it would sound weird to them to use the wrong one.
One of the eternally confusing things about Swedish (and many Germanic languages, for that matter) is their insistence upon combining words together while we would simply have a phrase. There wouldn't be a problem with this except for the fact that a lot of their words are combinations of other words already. So when you come across one of these you can't be sure if it's a phrase or a word and picking apart a word as though it was phrase only makes things more confusing. For example, nymodig means "modern", but if you thought it was a combination of words you'd translate it as ny (new) modighet (courage). This happens to be one of the more charming instances of picking apart Swedish words, it's so fitting that modernity then is "new courageousness". It just sounds so progressive and optimistic. There's also gammalmodig, which means "old-fashioned", and if picked apart you'd get "old brave". I thought that made nymodig even more charming because not only is it brave to embrace the future, but so is holding on to tradition and heritage. Then I found out from my teacher that mod in this case is more akin to "mode" in English and that it's just "new mode" and "old mode". But by God, I still say there's something to it! Swedes should know this better than anyone: there is something to be said about retaining the old while embracing the new. I for one believe in modighet, both ny and gammal!

I got you babe

The very first time I went on a ski trip was two years ago with the V-Dala international club in Uppsala. We went to this ski town called Romme, which incidentally is in the province the Swedish Chef supposedly hails from. My girlfriend at the time was a snowboarder and suggested I try to ski instead since snowboarding is so much harder to learn and much more painful. So I took her advice, rented some skis and was all set to have my girlfriend teach me to ski. Unfortunately, critical pieces of information were left out from her instructions. Most notably, she didn't tell me how to brake until after I crashed into a barricade. After watching me fall a couple more times, she went off to go snowboard with her friends. Her last bits of advice to me before she left me to fend for myself were, as I recall, "Don't worry, just have fun!" and "There's only so much I can teach you, you have to learn it on your own." The next two hours were a Sisyphusian ordeal of walking up a hill, falling down, walking back up and falling down again, making absolutely no progress whatsoever. My day was cut short when my girlfriend injured herself while snowboarding and I kept her company for the duration of the trip.

Flashing forward to last weekend, I went on another ski trip—this time to Pinetop. Given the utter futility of my last attempt I was a little concerned about how well I would do. The slopes we went to didn't really have a practice area for noobs and so my education was a bit of a trial by fire. This ultimately proved to be a very good thing. The ski lifts, which I had never even made it to in Sweden, are a challenge in themselves. It is surprising, though, how natural it feels being on the ski lifts when any other time sitting on a shaky bench suspended fifty feet above a icy, rocky slope would be completely nerve wracking. Maybe it's because you can't really gauge distance as well cuz of the uniform whiteness of the snow, but whatever the reason the only time you feel even the slightest bit of acrophobia is when you pass the supporting towers. Getting on and off the lifts, on the other hand, is far more stressful. Though I only had one incident getting on the lift which resulted in me losing a ski, each time was a little frantic. You have to ski up to a red line, wait for the people ahead of you to get scooped up, then make a mad dash (which is really hard with skis) to the green line they were just standing at, align yourselves with the lift so you don't get picked up sideways, and sit down quickly when it scoops you up.
Disembarking never went well for me. Granted, if you don't know how to ski then it's no surprise that you fall when a machine is pushing you off. (That difficulty is compounded when you only have one ski.) The worst one was when I tried to push off the lift like I was told to do, but my glove got caught where the seat meets the side rail. When I pushed forward my right hand held me back and I fell on my ass. Still attached, I was whipped to the left–in what I can only imagine was a hilarious fashion– when the lift swung back around and took my glove with it. Thankfully, it threw the glove clear and my friend got it for me otherwise it would have been a short trip.
Skiing itself was really rough at first and snow plowing works muscles I was never even aware of. Just like before, I was told to make a wedge go slow down and narrow the wedge to speed up. Unlike before, my friends were skiing as well and not only demonstrated what to do but stayed with me the entire way. My progress was slow and there was still a lot of falling, but by the time I got down the mountain I had all the basics covered and could then actually enjoy skiing.
The next day I was able to jump right into it and while going down the mountain was able to notice some of the more subtle things about skiing and slopes in general. For instance, I quickly learned improved ways to turn and when I discovered this I asked myself, "Why didn't they teach me this? This is so much easier. All they had to do was say..." At that point I realized that, because it consisted of minute shifts and movements, it was something that could not really be explained or taught–you just had to learn it yourself. Thus, that claim as well as "just have fun" are useful things to know, but only after you've learned how to actually ski. If those are the only things someone tells you, no matter what you're trying to learn, then you need a new teacher.

Some assorted bits of wisdom I learned over the trip include:
-Asshole is a terribly vindictive game that, with the aid of alcohol, demonstrates the cruelty of human nature. And yet, it's surprisingly fun.
-Some people were born to play Guitar Hero. I am not one of those people.
-I do, however, have enough coordination to learn DDR.
-Jerks will prefer to snowboard rather than ski. This is demonstrated by the fact that you never see skiers stopped in the middle of the slope just hanging out or waiting for their friends.
-The "Easy Out" slope is so named not for its ease but because suicide is often called "the easy way out". Seriously, how are beginners supposed to successfully make a U-turn in a forest on a slope the width of a car lane?
-Arizona is probably the only place on Earth where one can find both avalanches and sand storms.
-Singing the theme song to "Speed Racer" in your head while skiing will only end badly.

And a word I learned from a 99 year old forestry book in the cabin: mensuration- the branch of geometry that deals with the measurement of length, area, or volume; the act or process of measuring. (I thought geometry was the measurement of length, area and volume)

Yeesh

Aliens Vs. Predator-Requiem with the Predalien, the Predator and a bunch of human fodder. Fuck. I mean good Lord! Well, it was definitely an entertaining movie and they most certainly earned their R rating. I've heard the phrase "pornography of violence" before but never fully understood it's meaning, now I know. Everybody dies. Many in a most gruesome fashion. They pull no punches. Over the top? I'm going to go with perhaps. Had it been a standalone movie I would have gone with yes; the deaths of children, babies and pregnant women is indeed disturbing (had they actually shown the babies getting eaten I'm certain it would have gone from R, right past NC-17 to U: Unsuitable to ever be filmed) but because there already is a rich back story in the AvP universe it's simply expanding on it and the violence is simply the most effective tool to do so. While the other movies show soldiers getting killed you now see exactly what the Aliens do to a civilian population.
If you expect a complex and spellbinding plot, well, then you need to learn the difference between genres. Of course it's predictable, and that's what's good. The 1st AvP tried to have a plot, and that's why it sucked. This one realizes that humans are not the stars of a franchise called "Aliens vs. Predator". A story doesn't need to be totally unpredictable to make it good, otherwise no one would ever buy movies to rewatch them and remakes of classic movies would be a joyous thing. A film, even a gruesome sci-fi horror flick is to be judged not just by what they do but how they do it. And by that I say this movie delivered exactly what it promised, and then some.

Cold War

Charlie Wilson's War with Tom Hanks and Amy Adams. One of the better historical political movies I've seen in a while. It's also rather illuminating in terms of how the Afghanis ended up with all the weapons and aid. Not surprisingly, the movie is not entirely accurate and the truth is a bit more convoluted, but essentially the movie got it right. I also like the fact that they showed the human aspect and reasons for the operation. Popular opinion, from the people I've talked to anyway, was that the US was so eager to help the Afghanis and they only did it to stop the Soviets. While that is definitely a big part of it, the movie shows their desire to help the people fight back against an army that slaughters women and children. It also demonstrates that it took effort to get support for the operation and that there was an attempt to give humanitarian aid after the war, but it was stymied.
Aside from the history of it, the acting was superb and it was quite lighthearted and funny. That, in combination with its poignance, definitely made the movie worthwhile.

Razor

Battlestar Galactica: Razor with Stephanie Jacobsen, Jamie Bamber and Katee Sackhoff. A nice little expanded universe piece with a lot of exposition and back story added. Overall nicely done as usual. The Pegasus flashbacks were pretty much everything I wanted answered and it seems the first Cylon War flashbacks were actually miniepisodes they aired on TV. The guy they got to play the young Bill Adama did a really good job of getting all the mannerisms and speech patterns of the regular character. Another positive note on the series in general is their writing of very powerful female characters, which is a rarity I think in many shows. I mean, sure you might have had a couple here and there in different series (and they tend to be annoying and bitchy anyway) but to have so many in one show is pretty unconventional. I'm going to assume no one who hasn't already seen it who reads this blog intends to watch, but SPOILERS:
I thought it was an interesting move to make Admiral Cain a lesbian and I'm not sure what to make of it. In one sense it's good because there's been this lingering question of how homosexuality is viewed in the BSG universe and if one of the characters in the series would come out. I think deliberately addressing that and making a big deal about it would detract from the plot they already have. And trying to guess if someone's secret is that they're gay or a Cylon would be too distracting, so just getting that out of the way in Razor was a good move. On the other hand, I think it's a bit of a cop out that she's a lesbian. It plays back to the female combatants thing where women are seen as more cold blooded in combat than men even when both are committing the same deeds. It's because women are supposed to be sympathetic, kind and nurturing and to find that they are capable of the same atrocities as men is very disturbing. But if Cain is a bull dyke then obviously she's not a real woman and therefore it's no surprise she could do all those terrible (male) deeds. That said, since one of the things that supposedly pushed her over the edge was the realization that her love has been manipulating her and exploiting her trust in order to destroy the ship, it would have been difficult for any of the male Cylons to have made a convincing partner for Cain.
Another thing I wonder is if Cain was really like that the whole time. The writers are good about letting you decide for yourself how a lot of things should be interpreted rather than tell you how it is and make people that don't see it feel dumb. They make it seem like she is a bit austere but basically a nice enough person and her hardness was really just an act. But after watching Dexter (the show about the serial killer who hunts serial killers) I wonder if all of her emotions were just faked. She didn't care about casualties or murdering civilians or other officers, her single focus was hurting the Cylons back. It didn't matter if the tactical value of the target was minimal, she wanted blood. She clearly never thought in the long term, like how the human race would continue with just the dwindling crew of the Pegasus as the gene pool. She could never let her true colors show previously because a sociopathic admiral would be drummed out fairly quickly, but with absolute power she didn't need to answer to anyone. Additionally, she was betrayed by the one person she actually did care for and the only one who might have tempered her monstrous tendencies. As Bill Adama pointed out the only thing that kept him from doing some terrible decisions was the fact that he'd have to look his son in the eye and explain himself.

Anthrapology

It occurred to me the other day, now that I have my finals done (and kicked each of their asses) this was a very depressing semester in terms of classes. I don't know how anthropologists can be so optimistic when what we learn is so disheartening. In fact I'd say the one class that had a positive message was my Honors thesis and I wrote the damn thing. Never mind the fact that my adviser sent it back with the first four pages in red. Aside from the knowledge and understanding one gains from a class, I think there's a message or moral that accompanies each class as well. Like the GenEd psychology class I took last year definitely had the message "Don't believe everything you think" or maybe "Don't blindly go along with the crowd". My Exobiology course made us walk away with the message "There are almost definitely aliens and they probably don't want to kill us". Not as inspirational as one would like but for something we know nothing about it's pretty optimistic. This semester the messages seem to be: "Basic impulses of human nature are genetic and people are genetically predisposed to not like 'others'." "Poor people will live miserable lives and only the rich people (who don't care about the poor anyway) have the power to change that." "If you try to help people in developing countries you'll end up inadvertently helping wife-beaters and warlords and give people you're trying to help a new means of committing suicide." "Utopian experiments always fail because of human nature." "There will always be people to take advantage of the kindness of others."
I mean, fuck, where do you go from there? The only option seems to be to rewire human genetics to get rid of selfish, spiteful tendencies, but I'm not a fan of tinkering with human instincts. I don't agree with this negative assessment and I'm kind of hoping it's just a fluke that I took all downer classes and that the opinion of the anthro department is not so dim. The way I see it, humanity has slowly but surely been improving itself for the past 10,000 years. I mean sure we gave up being egalitarian (we think) nomads to become a hierarchical society with a horrible diet that created disease wherever we went. And yes, we've only relatively recently increased human life expectancy to higher than what it was before we invented agriculture, but look where it's gotten us: we can finally explore the unknown possibilities of existence and search for answers to how and why the Universe is the way it is instead of just saying "God did it." I'd say the amount of cruelty in the world has reduced since the past. The quality of life for many people has increased and the means to help people is greater than it has ever been. The only trick is to raise people in such a way that our advancements actually mean something. Don't be cruel, don't be selfish, don't be stupid. How that's accomplished globally I have no idea. I will say, though, if anthropologists can see all those negative things about the human condition and still be optimistic that they can change the world then they're the best people for the job.

I know it might be wrong, but I'm in love with Grendel's mom

Beowulf with Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins and John Malkovich. I appear to be in the minority, but I actually enjoyed the movie. It's not some wonderful, eternally quotable movie for the ages (not that the original Beowulf is quotable either), but I was entertained. It's enough of a departure from the original that it gets in trouble with the purists, though I think it's better than the original story. There's always a critic, I suppose: people who claim there was no plot or that the acting was poor on one side and the people who wanted it to be more like the original story with one dimensional characters killing monsters over and over. Beowulf was a more likable character in this than the original, where he just seemed like he was nothing but a braggart. I didn't see what the curse they kept referring to was, though. I mean right up until Grendel's mom cancels their little deal, Beowulf had it pretty sweet. He gets to be rich, powerful and remembered for all time (nice little meta-reference there) and all he has to do is have sex with Angelina Jolie. Aside from perhaps some feelings of sleeping with the enemy I didn't see where the catch was. The Old English was fun to hear and the fans of the original were even more excited about it. I was also excited to learn afterwards that some of the characters in Beowulf are buried in Gamla Uppsala in the big funeral mounds. It's been a long time since I've watched a 3D movie, so seeing the movie in 3D was a rare treat, as well.

Beardy McBearderson

After three months with facial hair I've come to note some odd things. First off, it's easier to get used to seeing yourself with a beard when you're actually growing it than getting used to seeing yourself when you shave it off. Secondly, there's a weird dichotomy in people's opinions on facial hair. For example men will praise and sometimes admit to jealousy of my facial hair but afterwards say they think the clean-shaven look is better. This might just be polite praise to any change they notice, though there's always the occasional partygoer who notes, "You shaved. That was a mistake." Women are divided on the facial hair issue more consistently, they either like it or they don't. There doesn't seem to be equally approving of beardedness and nonbeardedness. I was rather surprised by the number of women that did like it, though; girls sometimes asked if they could touch it. There were even some women who were opposed to facial hair and actually liked it when they saw it. The vast majority seem to prefer clean-shaven, though. Personally I don't get it, real women like masculine traits like height, muscles, etc. and a beard is nothing if not manly. The only concern which I will accept as legitimate is having their face rubbed raw by making out with a bearded man and only one woman noted that as a reason for not liking beards. Otherwise she, in fact, approved of the look.
I did learn some interesting things about having a beard, both about myself and people:
-Long sideburns do not work on me, not that they work on most people, but there are some that can make it work.
-There is a weird camaraderie among bearded men, my example is when I was explaining the reason for switching from a full beard to a goatee (technically a Van Dyke) was due to a shaving accident and two guys chimed in with "I hate it when that happens!" The guys who didn't have facial hair were then left with nothing to add to the new conversation.
-I may need a new hairstyle now that I'm clean-shaven. The glasses, parted hair and full beard made me look nerdy, but in a professional, very anthropological way. Same with the goatee, but to a lesser extent. Clean-shaven I just look like a nerd and I think now strangers take me for a pushover.
-I was surprised by how much maintenance goes into facial hair, you have to keep it trimmed and neat looking or it'll grow over your mouth. And not that you'd notice so much in the summer, but now that it's getting colder, a beard keeps your face warm. It's like a built-in scarf. -Since the oils that your skin produces to keep your hair healthy-looking are actually going into the beard instead of sitting on your skin, acne is reduced tremendously. With a full beard I had like one zit a month.

Depending on what my future whims might be, I might grow beard out again. Especially if I'm going to grad school back East, cuz I hear those winters are pretty damn cold.

Your move!

Robocop with Peter Weller. I of course have seen this movie many times before this post but because it is such a good movie I am compelled to review it. Why is it so good? Because it's gritty, darkly satirical and just plain awesome. There's no dichotomy of good and evil; the creator of Robocop is a ruthless entrepreneur who celebrates his success with hookers and cocaine. Incidentally, his death scene, which I had completely taken out of context as a child, likely shaped my attitude on drugs: the man snorting cocaine out a a prostitute's cleavage gets shot in the legs and blown up with a grenade. More effective message than anything DARE ever taught. Robocop fights all forms of crime: robbery, rape, murder, drug trafficking, corporate crimes, he does it all. What's more, you're made to hate each villain well before they're oh so gruesomely killed. There's never any ambiguity in his reasons for killing them. He only uses enough force to complete his mission and he always waits for the bad guys to initiate hostilities, "Your move, creep." Though his tactics are extreme you can never say anyone was a victim of police brutality at the hands of Robocop. Then again, he never misses. I think it's also interesting that while some people would had to have claimed police brutality against him, because he's not human he cannot be personally tried for it. And if that technicality were ignored he wouldn't be protected by city lawyers but by OCP. Their expert legal team would defeat any case filed against him. So the instrument of good is protected from the litigious by an evil corporation. That's just cool. Which brings me to the reason why this movie is unique: the bad guys hardly ever come close to winning. They didn't follow the formula of the powerful protagonist being indestructible at first and only later in the film do the bad guys discover his weakness. Robocop has no weakness, except Directive 4. Even when pitted against the superior strength and firepower of ED-209 he's barely scratched. It takes a whole precinct of cops armed with armor piercing rounds to just slow him down. And even then that's the good guys turned against him that do the most damage. That's why, among other reasons the sequels weren't very good. The unique thing about Robocop as a superhero was that he actually was so powerful he couldn't be defeated.
I watched this movie because I was in a pissy mood, and as always it cheered me up. You wouldn't think it a feel-good flick, but it made me feel good.
Finally, out of curiosity, I checked out how the Spanish and French dubbed ED-209 sounded and to my amazement the French one actually sounded scarier than the Spanish one. Which is saying something considering he just sounds like an angry power droid.

Bastards

So we got burglarized on Monday. They took my laptop, the backup hard drive, my camera and pretty much every single electronic device they could get there worthless hands on. By pure chance I had taken my mini flash drive to school with me and because my adviser wanted sample writing all of my college documents were on it. Had I lost that, I would have lost everything. My resume, grad school data, all my data on my thesis, I would have been irrevocably fucked. Also, by pure chance, there was a drive image backup of my laptop at my parents' house from late January. So instead of losing every song, game and photograph I ever owned in the past three years I only lost about 10 months worth. Now, I was considerably more emotional on Monday than I am today but some of my attitudes are still the same. I am not absolutely ruined as I had initially thought, so things are looking up, somewhat.
Also, while I was and still am thoroughly pissed about losing all my stuff, I regard the loss of the GameCube, all its games, my MP3 player etc. as inconveniences. I've never been particularly attached to material things, I suspect that's why I'm difficult to shop for. But the loss of my laptop and camera are much more than material things. I could not email, print nor even type up a paper due the next day. I lost all the photographs I had taken since the last drive image. As a student my life depends on access to a computer. Photography is my hobby, and without a camera or place to store my photos I'm deprived of something that brings me joy. They also took the tape recorder I was using to get interview for my final project in one of my anthro classes. More than material things, these were tools and storehouses of knowledge. They made off with about three grand worth of my stuff, you'd think they'd at least have the goddamn common courtesy to leave me my backup hard drive.
Which leads me to my next point. While I generally agree with the Swedes on economics and some social and legal points, I feel they're too forgiving. Granted, no system works in every environment and the Swedish system works pretty well for them, but rehabilitation does not work in the US. It can work in Sweden because they're culturally and economically more or less homogeneous and any aberrant behavior is just that, aberrant. It's uncharacteristic and as such can be trained out of them. In the US, there's such socioeconomic diversity and differences between subcultures that rehabilitation is impossible with anything short of brainwashing. You are the person you're going to be for the rest of your life by the time you're 18. After that, you can't correct a learned culture and outlook on life. Case in point is in Philippe Bourgois' book In Search of Respect where in one section he documents the attempts of crack dealers who grew up in East Harlem to enter the legal job market. Despite their best efforts they are incapable of adjusting to this different culture and occasionally in frustration steal from the company to get back at them. Bourgois notes that they were often victims of discrimination but most of the time it was their own damn fault that they couldn't keep a job.
What's my point? You can take the lion out of the jungle but you can't take the jungle out of the lion. You cannot rehabilitate a culture that happens to be incompatible with our own. (Then again, it's not like American prisons even try to rehabilitate prisoners so I may not be 100% correct.) So what's the solution? On Monday I would have said kill them. If you believe society functions like an organism then individuals who wish to maximize their success at the expense of others are essentially cancer cells. The body is full of single cells that all used to be individuals but all banded together for mutual benefit. Still, they used to be individuals and every so often they'll behave like individuals and act only in their own self interest. This happens all the time and its your body's job as a whole to destroy these cancerous elements, so it's not unlike a government trying to stamp out crime. But eventually the body cannot do this as well as it used to and cancer develops, hence why it's not normally a disease of the young. You could make a similar case with planned utopian communities that are seamless for a few years or even decades, but eventually the individualistic traits of the members emerge and the society decays.
Still, we're not cells and killing people for having a different culture, even if it is injurious to everyone and can never be unlearned, is inhumane. So my solution is this, send these prisoners overseas to developing nations. Make them dig trenches, harvest sugarcane, and other awful jobs people have to do over there. Give them good, nutritious meals, of course, I'm no Stalinist. The profits of their labor of course go to the locals who would have had to toil themselves for a meager wage. We won't have them do all the work for the locals, that would foster dependency, but give them a break. Let them regain their strength, accumulate wealth and live for more than work. Once you have a society which is healthy, wealthy and has time to spare, they can prosper. And there is little chance for survival for the prisoners should they escape; without medicine they'll succumb to malaria or other diseases, they can't blend into the society if they can't speak the language, if the locals have a hard time getting food, they'll have an even worse time. And these cultures are much less forgiving of murderous, thieving outsiders should they get caught...
So there you have my social plan to help developing nations, fix our overcrowded prison system in the US and make use of drains on society. And hell, maybe it'll rehabilitate the scumbags after all.