Let's face it. For all of the intense moralizing and half-baked political commentary that now passes for anthropological "theory," when it comes to political action anthropologists suck.

Why aren't we outraged? Why aren't we....? We see these questions online every bloody day. Have they made any difference? The evidence is thin, likely non-existent, and that's not surprising.

Outrage is an industry. There is so much of it online that another ranting voice is unlikely to be…

I have just begun a new translation/writing project that may be of particular interest to people with an interest in Japan or Japanese advertising. It involves translating a little red book by one of Japan's most distinguished copywriters. Should you be interested, you can find the project here. 

An important thought, attributed to one of my favorite philosophers, Stanley Cavell.

Language, to Cavell, is ambiguous not because it is imperfect, awaiting precise definition, but because we do not all see in the same way; it is a reflection of our basic predicament as distinct human beings. Thus, we must dare to mean what we say, take responsibility for all the meanings our words might be taken to have—even if those meanings go beyond what we understand as our…