Alexander Cockburn on the Yanomami scandal: “Will Tierney’s book provoke the uproar that Turner and Sponsel predict? Will anthropology be

placed in the dock? I doubt it. For years native groups across the world have recounted their

stories of the depredations of anthropologists, and have been eager to tell them to anyone

interested. If Tierney’s claims are true, Chagnon may end up in some judicial venue, facing

charges of crimes against humanity. But I doubt that, too. The can of worms is way too full.” NY Press [via Robot Wisdom]

Review of Antonio Damasio’s The Feeling of What Happens by Aldo Mosca. An accessible summary of an important neurobiologist’s thinking on how emotions and feelings rooted in the body contribute to consciousness. Psyche 6(8)

The only “post-game analysis” of the The First Presidential Debate that makes any sense, by Washington Post columnist Joel Achenbach. Was Dubya the winner merely because he didn’t mangle the English language too badly this time or claim that Poland is in Africa? Is Gore’s fallback position, if not elected, to demonstrate his readiness to be Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget?

Did Gore invent the Internet? Deceptive title there, Salon: not really about whether he invented it, but about whether he ever said he did. In other words, not really about Gore’s lies, but those of his detractors. Points us to Phil Agre’s excellent dissection of this “most successful of flat-out lies” by Gore-bashers.