Friday Varia and Quick Hits

There is a lot of tension in North Dakotaland these days as the state of North Dakota and the Morton County sheriff’s office have intervened to disrupt the peaceful protestors who have set been blocking the route of the Dakota Access Pipeline. For those new to the situation, the good folks at North Dakota Quarterly have put together a primer on the situation here. Two local media outletshave been covering the recent escalation in their own way. National and international media have chimed in as well: here, here, here, and here. The parallels between photos of the embattled protest camps and the campaign to retake Mosul are haunting. 

On a more positive note, you may have noticed that my little press, The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota, published its fifth book this week. If you haven’t already check out: Erin Walcek Averett, Jody Michael Gordon, and Derek B. Counts, Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future: The Potential of Digital Archaeology. Grand Forks, ND: The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota. I posted some download numbers on Wednesday to celebrate Open Access Week, as of this morning we had almost 900 downloads and just under half of these are downloads of the entire book (rather than a certain article).  We got a nice little story in the UWM Report this morning and a great shout out from Sarah Bond on her Digital Archaeology Digest for Forbes.

 If that isn’t enough to read this week, then I admire your discipline and free time (I’ll be out in the Bakken!), and offer these other tidbits from the week:

• Kostis Kourelis has posted the schedule for an epic panel on the Archaeology of Care at the Society for Historical Archaeology meeting in January. So good!

• National Geographic has published two cool stories: one on a new group of well-preserved shipwrecks in the anaerobic depths of the Black Sea and one on recent work at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

• The Toledo Museum thought it would be a good idea to auction off some of their collection including material from Cyprus.

• Meanwhile, Rice University, the University of Houston – Clearlake, and the Menil Collection held a successful conference on issues of cultural heritage.

• An LRB review of a new book on Steven Ranchman.

• Today is Oxi Day in Greece. 

• A follow up on last week’s Caraheard podcast: The 10 Circles of McMansion Hell.

• Cricket in Rwanda and a Tamim Iqbal century.

• Macs at IBM.

• Back-To-Back wins for rye whiskeys as the best whiskey in the world.

• An awesome explanation of The Process and being a 76ers fan. 

• What I’m reading: Ann Laura Stoler, Imperial Debris: Ruins and Ruination. Duke University Press 2013.

• What I’m listening to: Leonard Cohen, You Want it Darker; The Cramps, Psychedelic Jungle.

Momentary Peace