Indian Rorschach
The diners knew little about policies, and asked me how tribes can exist as nations within nations.
The answer is sovereignty—a pretty hard concept to wrap your head around.
A tribe can exist independently within a country while exercising some degree of agency over its laws, practices and customs—but not complete agency. Continue reading
Rembrandt’s Child in a Tantrum
Martha would throw herself on the floor, pound her fists and wail like a banshee.
Timing seemed to make no difference: we could be at home, at the beach or out for a meal.
My mother would ignore my sister. Continue reading
Boston Tea Party
In grade school I heard North America was largely unpopulated until settlers arrived: a story quite different than the ones my relatives told.
Reading about Indian-settler relations during the colonial period, I wondered why patriots dressed as indigenous folks when they dumped 324 chests of tea into Boston Harbor in December, 1773. Continue reading
Rendering by Leonardo Da Vinci
I asked readers in the last blog to think about the mind rather than the brain because Samuel Morton’s skull measurements in the 1860s asserted that American Indians have smaller skulls, hence smaller brains.
In other words, American Indian brains were inferior.
Today some folks think that bigger brains mean smarter people. Not true, say neuroscientists.
But average folks—like you and me—cling to beliefs dismissed by scientists.
For example, most neuroscientists reject the notion that we use only 10% of our brain.
A 2002 study reported that 6% of the scientists agree we use only a fraction of our brain, compared to about 59% of college graduates who think we use just 10% of our brain.
And folks who read newspapers were even more likely to accept the myth: 67% of newspaper readers said we use 10% of our brain.
We tend to think of the brain as a computer: 80% of lay publics said the brain “works like a computer.”
But only 47% of scientists likened the brain to a computer.
Still, scientists consider the mind to be a reflection of the brain: 91% agree. And only 3% said the spirit or soul is involved.
Lay folk think of the mind quite differently: at least one-third think the spirit or soul is involved in the mind.
So: do you separate mind from brain? How?
[See Houzel, 2002, Do you know your brain, Neuroscientist, (8; 98)]
In the Wild West soldiers could earn a dollar for every American Indian skull they collected.
Skulls were then shipped back east so scientists could study them.
One of the collectors, Samuel G. Morton, used skulls to extrapolate on personality and intelligence. By one account Morton had about 1000 skulls in his bone cellar. Continue reading
Memory Enhancements
That’s the discussion around our dinner table: should doctors prescribe drugs that could improve cognitive skills? Continue reading
Prof. Charles Xavier
A relative pointed out journalists are fond of saying, for example, Lady Gaga is “confined to a wheelchair,” as reported recently in the Huffington Post (UK).
But a wheelchair is far from confining for most folks with disabilities.
We need a prod about how our everyday talk reveals underlying prejudices. Continue reading
Maria Tallchief
Maria Tallchief.
We learned this week that Tallchief passed on.
She and her sister Marjorie came from a prominent Osage family, whose name can be found on local memorials and in Oklahoma museums. Continue reading
The Sweet Smell of Success
You’re a cookie full of arsenic.
That’s just one of the unforgettable quotes from the movie, The Sweet Smell of Success my students viewed this week.
Set in 1950s against the backdrop of Times Square, the film dives into the relationships of newsmen, public relations flacks, politicians, cops and dames.
The story—brilliantly filmed in shades of gray evoking film noir–centers on press agent Sydney Falco, who stops at nothing—bribery, graft, lies and pimping—to get his clients press coverage. Continue reading
We now know if you’re reading the book.
At least if it’s an e-book. Continue reading
Cynthia (Ištá Tȟó Tȟó) Coleman Emery's Blog 