Academics, the Military and, yes, People Dying

Whooo-boy.  This is one that we’ve been talking about for the past two days here.  Yesterday on NPR they ran a story about the military using social scientists to help troops deal with the insurgency and forge a tighter bond with locals.

Audio Here

This is all originally from stuff that Noah Schachtman’s been following in Wired’s Danger Room blog.

Most recent post here along with links to earlier posts.

So there are several interesting things here and some very knotty problems.

I’m sociology blog (in)famous

I was going to respond in some detail to the comments but find that I really don’t care enough.  Just two quick points.

1.  I’m not going to approve any comments for the past post.  If you want to talk about it do it elsewhere, preferably on your own blog.  This applies both to the positive comments (heh yes there were some) as well as the negative ones (my my my some of you visitors have as big a potty mouth as me).  Not will I be forwarding any of the messages to my department chair or the captain of the internets or whoever handles such things (yes that’s sarcasm in case you were wondering).

2.  Jeremy.  Honey.  It’s ok to say fuck.  Or shit.  Or any other words in the English language.  I can understand maybe trying to stay on the moral high ground but it’s a little late after you called me out for calling y’all out and nominated me for king of your haters.  I decline the nomination by the way, I apparently need to spend more time worrying about dying people.  Oh and my family.  ‘Natch.