It’s time for a break: I planned to announce this at the end of May, when my sabbatical begins, a sabbatical in which I have committed myself to an astounding amount of work (I blame it on a workaholic binge that caused blood poisoning). Instead, it seems right to extend the break a bit further, starting from now.  I would have posted this on Friday, April 1st, but I feared no one would take me seriously, and then I would relent and say “just joking!” Maintaining and writing for this site can be extremely intensive and time consuming, and I feel the call to devote myself–for a while–to less electronic, less interactive, less online forms of engagement, study, and leisure. I will be around, more as a spectator, but not as a writer or site administrator, which effectively brings this site to a halt…until September of 2012. After eight straight years of an absolutely punishing pace of work, on top of this, I am quite anxious for a breath of fresh air and some distance, and by some…I mean vast.

Commenting on this site has been closed. If you need to reach me, please email me at maxDOTforte[AT]openanthropologyDOTorg. However, as I will also be taking a break from email, please do not expect a fast response. Any announcements, such as for the next edition of The New Imperialism, will be posted on the Facebook and Twitter extensions of ZA. Brief commentaries–if any at all–will appear in Facebook alone. I am sure that I will also have the pleasure of meeting some of you at the upcoming AAA conference in Montreal where, if the sessions are approved, I will be on two panels.

Even while not posting here, new posts, updates, documents, and videos will appear on ZA’s pages on Facebook, Twitter, Box.net, and ZATV. You can also follow Anthropologists for Justice and Peace, where the majority of new articles will appear for the next 18 months and which will be the focus of online efforts in that period.

In addition, here are some alternative sites that I warmly recommend, in alphabetical order, and they will point you to other newspapers, magazines, journals, etc.:

• Anti-war.com
• The Angry Arab News Service
• CLOSER (Martijn de Koning)
• The Cynical Arab
• Empire Strikes Black
• Investigating the New Imperialism
• Jewbonics
• Lenin’s Tomb
• Molly’s Blog
• Monthly Review
• P U L S E
• Quotha (Adrienne Pine)
• Tom Dispatch
• Truthout
• Wikileaks (WL) Central
• World Socialist Website (WSWS)

Finally, not even if the following were to happen will this site be reactivated before SEPTEMBER 2012:

1. Montgomery McFate takes the presidency of the AAA in a rigged election, imposes lifetime censure on everyone who signed the petition against the uses of anthropology in counterinsurgency, and convenes a commission to investigate the work of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists as not a legitimate exercise in professional anthropology.
2. The war in Libya ends up being such a failure, that NATO itself is dissolved in the immediate aftermath.
3. That the war in Libya is such a success for NATO, that “humanitarian” invasions and occupations are launched against Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, and Syria.
4. Obama is pushed out by his own party, and is replaced by Dennis Kucinich.
5. Canada has 10 more elections, each one with the same result: the Conservatives win a minority government.

If I were to continue in this line, I would need a longer break.

Those who might be interested in writing for ZA once it revives, please contact me at the email address above. In the meantime, many thanks to everyone, until soon.