Toluu

Dustin M. Wax - writer, educator, anthropologist, and freelance thinker

New Review of "Don't Be Stupid"October 29

Alexandra Levit has given my e-book for college students, Don't Be Stupid a 5-star review in her column at Get the Job. Levit is the author of several career guides, including Success for Hire, They Don't Teach Corporate in College, and How'd You Score that Gig?. Her blog Water Cooler Wisdom offers all sorts of great career information. It's truly an honor to have been rated so highly by such a formidable figure!

My Advice for Students at Lindsey Pollak's BlogSeptember 29

In honor of my book, Don't Be Stupid, Lindsey Pollak (author of Getting from College to Career: 90 Things to Do Before You Join the Real World) asked me to write a guest post on her blog, listing some of my best tips for students. Take a look at my post and the rest of the great advice at her site -- or pass it on to a deserving student in your life!

New Book Announcement: Don't Be StupidAugust 4

Today I'm releasing my e-book Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College. A paperback version will be available soon.

Don't Be Stupid is everything you need to know to succeed at college. Written by a college professor based on years of experience teaching and advising students just like you, Don't Be Stupid tells you what you need to know to:

1. Write better papers
2. Take better notes
3. Pass almost any test
4. Impress your professors
5. Get and stay organized

And get the MOST out of college! For only $14.00 (Readers of dwax.org get a special discount -- click here to see!)

For more information and to order your copy, check out the Don't Be Stupid page on this site.

If you have a website, be sure to look at the affiliate program -- I'll give 20% of the sale price to anyone who sells a copy of the e-book using their affiliate link.

If You're Ever in NebraskaJuly 19

In Alliance, NE, stands the most strange and wonderful thing you can imagine: Carhenge.

This is what I wrote about Carhenge five years ago:

Carhenge. The product of Jim Reinder's strange and wonderful imagination. Constructed of vintage automobiles sunk into the ground or welded in place, Carhenge was intended as a memorial to Reinder's father and constructed with the help of 35 relatives on the fifth anniversary of the elder Reinder's death. A number of other pieces have sprung up around Carhenge, by Reinders and others, creating the Car Art Preserve, a testimony to both the sacred place the car holds in our American culture and to the strange attraction of "elsewhere" that have drawn people to and through the West since the time of Lewis and Clark. Another sculpture--a mid-70s station wagon with arced ribs welded on reminiscent of the ribs of a Conestoga wagon--drives this point home more forcefully: we Americans, for better and for worse (ask the nearest Indian how s/he feels about the whole thing) are a moving people.

The Meaning of FoodJune 12

Seth Godin wanted to know:

What's the deal with brown rice? How do people become so attached to the social implications of food that they are willing to starve or suffer from malnutrition rather than take a step backward? The price of rice has soared, yet it seems like people are still demanding white rice, instead of the more nutritious (and almost certainly cheaper) brown rice. How high does the price have to go before people make a different choice?

This is what I emailed him, which seemed to do the trick for him:

I can't speak specifically to the brown rice vs. white rice, but I can speak to the larger issue. You seem to be saying that people should make food choices in a rational, best-option sort of way, according to best price, availability, nutritional value, etc --- but that's not how cultures view food at all. Along with sex, food is one of the most meaning-laden parts of any culture. Every culture makes a selection from the potentially edible "stuff" in its environment as to what is and what is not "food", and those foods are further categorized according to factors ranging from class and status to regional and ethnic identity.

Consider this, for example: I live in Las Vegas. We have a lot of hungry people in Las Vegas. A few years ago, there was a locust swarm for several weeks in the summer. Now, locu