Iran and the Blogosphere

Nico Pitney of the Huffington Post interviews Juan Cole about the recent events in Iran and Cole's new book, Engaging the Muslim World.

Cole believes that the election was stolen by Ahmadenijad but doubts that Mousavi has the backbone to take power. A similar and even better developed discussion by Asbed Kotichikian was just posted today at Whirled View.

I cannot pretend to have nearly the expertise on Iran and the Middle East exhibited by these scholars. Based purely on many years of following elections at home and overseas, I do not view the Iranian electoral process as particularly aberrant in its corruption. We have situations much closer to home which produce voter dissatisfaction and maintain corrupt governments.

I do strongly support the right of all people to assemble and petition their government to hold free and fair elections among other grievances.

Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman draw Mel out on his experience being deposed by the Honduran military. Zelaya thanks President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for their strong support for his restoration to power. Zelaya declines to favor sanctions against his country or repudiate Yankee wingnuts who associate him with Chavez and the Bolivarians. Los malos siempre se une!

Vuvuzela at 2010 World Cup?

The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be held in South Africa. Fans in South Africa make a lot of noise, and they make noise using something which may or may not be a "musical" instrument - the Vuvuzela.

Mid-Term Election in Mexico

The party which lost the last presidential election, Partido Revolucionario Institucional, made a strong stand in Sunday's mid-term elections. Five of the six governorships contested went to PRI candidates. In congress, the PRI now holds at least 233 seats and will have over 50 percent for its coalition with Mexico's Green Party, the PVEM.

Among bloggers and Western journalists, the consensus seems to be that this was a referendum on the achievements of president Felipe Calderon and the PAN. The unpopularity of the ongoing "war on drugs" being waged in many states of northern and central Mexico is emphasized by Nancy Davies of Narco News and is also mentioned by AP reporter Mark Stevenson.

In Oaxaca and other southern states, the PRI has remained firmly entrenched in power. The swing toward privatization and militarism championed by Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon has never garnered the support of the rural poor. Southern campesinos continue to vote for PRI candidates who claim to support their interests and carry on the historical mission of the Mexican revolution. Many have expressed disapproval, however, of the inept current governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz (pictured above). Ruiz has remained in power in spite of violent teachers' strikes and accusations of a rigged election back in 2004.

Sunday's results from Oaxaca conform to the general pattern of PRI resurgence. The extremely low voter turnout, however, does suggest some dissatisfaction with local PRI governance. Only 40.75% of registered voters even bothered to vote, according to Davies. We all have hopes that a better candidate than Ruiz will appear to take the reins of state in 2010.

WHO MOVED MY SOAP?

The Swiss do green jobs right!

Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia

We presented our research on the geoarcheology of stratified alluvium of the Susquehanna River on Saturday in Atlanta. The spot where we put the poster up was a bit dark, but we did have quite a lot of visitors. My colleagues standing to the right are Michael Aiuvalasit and Joseph Schuldenrein of Geoarcheology Research Associates. We had a fourth co-author, Suanna Selby-Crowley, who wrote a dissertation based upon the archaeological sites which we investigated.

Art and Science

Nori Jung is shown above standing in front of a map which I made with one of my students here at Valdosta State University. Nori created her own artwork on her popular television program, Norivision, using our map as inspiration. The map combines a LIDAR raster image based upon measurements using a laser taken from an airplane with our field measurements. The points on the map are our field measurements and the contour lines were drawn using the raw elevations and differences between the LIDAR pixel values.

My call to Nori Jung on her show, "Norivision." The show airs Friday nights at 8:30 PM on the Manhattan Neighborhood Network.

King David

Above is my scowling mug dressed up in tux for the King David performance here on Saturday night. Bad weather resulted in small crowds for both performances, but I thought that they went very well. We were all particularly impressed by our soprano soloist, Angel Blue.

King David

I am singing tonight (2/28) and tomorrow afternoon (2/29) with the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra Chorus in a performance of King David by Arthur Honegger. The conductor, Paul Andrew Neal, is shown at left and on a Picasa Web Album for the VSU Department of Music. The department blog written by Dr. James Shrader also mentions the concert. Dr. Shrader is the narrator for the performance.

The Monteverdi choir sings Rudolf Mauersberger's setting of the song of Jeremiah, which he composed after the bombing of Dresden on February 13-15, 1945. The Dresden boys' choir premiered this August 4, 1945 in the ruin of the Kreuzkirche, but it is still rarely performed or heard outside of east Germany.