Southwestern Archaeology, Inc. (SWA) " Got CALICHE ? " Newsletter Archaeology, Anthropology, and History of the Greater Southwest! Tuesday August 10, 2004 ***************************************** GREATER SOUTHWEST Editor's Note: This edition is the final edition of the GC newsletter for August 2004 (the next edition of this newsletter will be delivered in early September). http://www.cnn.com/2004/WEATHER/08/09/weather.markets.elnino.dc.reut/index.html http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/threats2/enso/elnino/index.html#States El Nino conditions are expected to develop during the the next 3-6 months. A 'Kelvin' wave pushing warm waters eastward has been observed, contributing to an increase in the subsurface temperature anomalies in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (Ocean). It means a drier-than-normal summer monsoon season in the Southwest. During El Nino winters, the jet stream is kept further south and made more intense. This directs storms away from the northwest and aims them more towards the Southwestern USA, bringing more precipitation on average. El Niņo episodes occur about every four-to-five years and can last up to 12-to-18 months. TEXAS http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/local/9349727.htm?1c Some accuse Historic Fort Worth and the Historic and Cultural Landmarks Commission of turning preservation into obstruction. Preservation groups say that they aren't obstructionists, that preservation is undervalued as a contributor to the economy, that it is considered too late on projects, and that it is too easy to blame when deals go south. The city is on its third historic-preservation officer in a year. People on both sides agree that the city must start addressing historic preservation on the front end to prevent frequent blowups. http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/borderland/20040809-153353.shtml Resler wants to construct 183 homes, but the Coronado neighborhood association contends the city's master plan protects arroyos from development. "It's unique. It's a gem. And there's a 4,000-year-old archaeological site in the end of that canyon that needs to be excavated." NEW MEXICO http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=I2K1PZWOQHYEKCRBAE0CFEY?type=ourWorldNews&storyID=5912351 Smokey Bear turns 60 this week. Smokey, a husky brown bear in a tan forest ranger hat and dark blue jeans, first appeared in 1944. In 1950, a living symbol for Smokey was found in the form of a tiny bear cub that was rescued from a tree after a human-caused fire in New Mexico burned 17,000 acres. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0809-02.htm Overriding the opposition of the U.S. Forest Service and New Mexico state officials, a White House energy task force has interceded on behalf of Houston-based El Paso Corp. in its two-year effort to explore for natural gas in a remote part of a national forest next door to America's largest Boy Scout camp. Disputes are increasingly commonplace in Rocky Mountain states as critics accuse the White House of repeatedly targeting some of the most cherished wild places for development. http://www.daily-times.com/artman/publish/article_13197.shtml The roof of a storage building at Salmon Ruins Museum has been raised, and the facility has been updated and reorganized to house its collection of 1.5 million artifacts. For the past three decades, the artifacts from the Chacoan Pueblo ruins near Bloomfield have been housed in plastic sacks and stored in mix-matched boxes that were crowded into a building just down the hill from the museum. It was essentially a curation disaster. In 2002, the museum was awarded a $175,000 Save America's Treasures grant from the National Park Service and the National Endowment for the Arts. Today, the roof of the storage facility has been raised by four feet, increasing the storage capacity by 40 percent. ARIZONA http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/08-09-2004/0002228 035&EDATE= ASU, UA and ABOR will establish a Phoenix Biomedical Campus in Metro Phoenix. Numerous current ASU research skills (including Anthropology) will contribute to the Phoenix Biomedical Campus. NEW JOB OPPORTUNITY (AZ) http://www.swanet.org/zarchives/jobs/jobs2004/wlr080904.pdf http://www.swanet.org/jobs.html Current Opportunities Editor's Note: Send your volunteer positions and job announcements for posting! For-profit firms and not-for-profit organizations may post paid and volunteer position announcements at http://www.swanet.org/jobs.html UTAH http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2391065 More than 200 sites have been documented so far, and there probably are thousands waiting to be found. Everything was behind locked gates. That's the only reason anything is left at all. After devoting so many years to preserving Range Creek, Wilcox said, he has second thoughts about the sale and wonders whether the state will be able to protect the land. "I still wish I had it back," he said, "but I couldn't take care of it if I did." TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY http://www.adn.com/alaska/story/5406397p-5342181c.html Indian loop tree deformities represent a window, if a small one, into the past. Exactly how loop trees were made, what they were used for, and how many survive persist as mysteries. Trees were twisted into racks for hanging fish nets, marking trails, pinpointing hunting spots, storing food or maybe hanging baskets that contained the cremated remains of the deceased... but nobody knows for sure... http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/commcentre/pressreleases/2004/Ref925.html A new ISO standard offers -- for those occasions when the customer is dissatisfied with a product or service -- guidelines for handling complaints in a manner that gives optimal results for both the organization and unhappy customer. The standard gives complete guidance for 97 Swiss francs... Editor's Note: I must write to complain that the product which costs 97 Swiss francs delivers only 200 Polish zlotys worth of advice... ANTHROPOLOGISTS http://www.sfaa.net/newsletter/aug04nl.pdf SFAA newsletter August 2004 http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/9354247.htm?1c Thanks to anthropologists, kitchen-in-a-box kit and a hamper with laundry instructions are marketed to the back-to-school crowds at Target. This is part of a growing trend in which anthropologists, long perceived as notebook-toting academics who study isolated cultures, are woven into the fabric of corporate America. The task of corporate anthropologists is to discover consumers' latent needs and desires. The work of anthropologists fills the gap left by focus groups and other market research. http://www.cultureby.com/trilogy/index.html Things change. And we change with them. We're a proverbial cat on a hot tin roof. We must be economic actors who practice commitment and release. We must give up the old and embrace the new. It is a double, contradicted, rationality. On the one hand, we must commit well and thoroughly. We must commit with perfect "loyalty." We must then release and "exit." Economic actors in a dynamic society must "lock on" and "lock off" continually. Editor's Note: The SWA 'Got CALICHE?' newsletter is a bit like catch-release fishing -- you snag it every morning in your in-box, then let it go. Don't decry the lack of catch-release fishing in mid-August, for we also offer commit-release adventure venues! A pod of Pecos whales has been spotted heading toward Bluff Utah this week. I understand that pod members breach and spout, and most are readily identifiable by their flukes... ;> ***************************************** Post letter mail and other media to: Southwestern Archaeology, Inc. P.O. Box 61203 Phoenix AZ, USA 85082-1203 602.697.5754 (cellular) Go ahead! Pick up the phone and call us! 602.372.8539 (digital fax) 603.457.7957 (digital fax) http://www.swanet.org (url) http://www.swanet.org/images/license.pdf SWA invites you to redistribute SWA's "Got CALICHE?" Newsletter. We also request your timely news articles, organizational activities and events, technical and scientific writings, and opinion pieces, to be shared with our digital community. SWA's daily newsletter deals with quotidian issues of anthropology and archaeology -- cultural survival, time and space, material culture, social organization, and commerce, to name just a few. Our electronic potlatch and digital totemic increase rites focus and multiply historic preservation activities in the Greater Southwest. SWA's newsletters are "txt" format only, contain no attachments, and are virus free. Newsletter archives and free subscription http://www.swanet.org/news.html For information archived on SWA's server, visit http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=5116511 Thanks for reading today's edition! Southwestern Archaeology, Inc. (SWA) - A 501(c)(3) customer-centric corporation dedicated to the ethnographic study of the scientific practices of the American Southwest and the Mexican Northwest. Our goal is to create and promote diverse micro-environments and open systems in which archaeologists can develop their talents and take the risks from which innovation and productivity arise.