I'll pull rank, since I'm now teaching folklore, of all things, to pay the
rent and feed the cats.  It's the fable of the ants and the grasshoppers,
Aesop, I believe.  Recently made into a movie.




At 07:00 PM 4/15/99 -0400, you wrote:
>I think the story referred to was about the little red hen who baked a
cake, but
>I'll leave that for the folklorists to research.  ;)
>
>Geoff Carver wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>
>>         the problem was we had a lecture by a prominent historian the other
>> week, discussing the founding of the city of dresden, something we have
been
>> dealing with in several excavations over the past 100 or so years - and
he's
>> still relying wholly and solely on the written sources, which we've
disproven in
>> our publications, and... it still goes on, and the investors are trying
to get
>> out of having to pay for any excavation whatsoever, and someone else the
other
>> day was explaining about how he really found erich von daniken's books
really
>> fascinating...
>
>Here's a simple, direct solution:  make yourself a pest.  :)  No, really.
Every
>time this sort of thing happens make a point of standing up afterward and
>confronting the speaker with something to the effect of "You may be
interested in
>some 'recent' literature by archaeologists that show [blah blah blah] ...,
and I'd
>be only to happy to provide any intersted parties with citations."  You
may end up
>with a reputation as a 'surly grouch' or a 'trouble-maker,' but you'll be
getting
>your point across.  I believe that *most* scholars will be willing to
explore new
>subjects and literature if it deals with their topic.
>
>There is always the chance that you will meet people who are beyond reach;
who
>simply do not trust data from other disciplines.  In that case, one way to
confront
>entrenched, unyielding views is to make your own point-of-view as well
known, if not
>moreso.  Write books on the archaeology of Dresden for children and lay
adults as
>well as fellow archaeologists; visit grade schools; give free talks at
community
>centers; get on t.v.; or in other words, do whatever you can to get your
message
>'out there.'
>
>In other words, don't preach to the choir.  Preach to the unitiated and
proselytize
>the uncoverted.
>
>
>I think that's about $0.02 worth of advice.  :)
>
>Marty Perdue
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>