CSI, Vance, and Anthropology

There's an interesting post down at Ben and Alice about CSI as science fiction and anthropology, which also touches on Jack Vance's story The Moon Moth.

My girlfriend is obsessed with CSI in all of its multifarious incarnations, and enamored with the characters of Grissom and the one played by David Caruso. David Caruso? Oh, come on. The guy looks like he is permanently suffering for some kind of hepatic dysfunction. I don't care how nonchalantly and cocksurely he takes off his sunglasses.

J. G. Ballard wrote about CSI a few years ago. Here is the article.