Anthropology and the Revolving Door Policy in Western Society

Anthropology has taken, what seems to be, an inadvertent back seat to the other social sciences. The “soft” sciences, as they have often been called, began their assent into academia with the burgeoning of the Enlightenment. They ploddingly evolved through the mid 1800's; incorporating the more entrenched scholarly pursuits into their methodology. Literary studies, which at the time included historiographies, were mined and harvested to imbue the social sciences with the impression of both brevity and an established academic legacy. Couple this with philology, etymology and a general level of appreciation for the cultural, political and social histories of Classical Greece or Rome and the social sciences were off to a running start.

Two of the emerging fields of cultural studies were sociology and anthropology. They are often confused as near synonyms of each other, which leads to a misunderstanding of their core pursuits. This confusion has led to the amalgamation of their meanings and has gradually ushered a death knoll of sorts for the prosaic application of anthropological theory on modern society. What do we make of the apparent semantic differences between the two sister disciplines of cultural studies: sociology and anthropology? Moreover, how can we salvage the waning importance of anthropological analysis?

In a broad sense anthropology encompasses a study of all characteristics of human societies, including social relationships and evolutionary origins. The focus of anthropology is generally concerned with small groups in a homogenous historical context. Anthropology delves into the folkways, mores and myths insofar as they influence and shape social and cultural structures. Creation myths and cosmologies are the bread and butter of anthropology. Sociology, on the other hand, focuses on larger macroscopic social relationships which tend to involve economics and psychology. The intertwining of 2 or more social sciences within a sociological paradigm allows for a greater frequency of use among academics and journalists. By default anthropology attempts to clarify and describe the underpinnings of a societal framework. Furthermore, it employs those underpinnings to illustrate how cultural institutions are governed. Sociology enumerates the cultural institutions and their formation but with a narrower foundation.

What follows is an attempt put anthropology back on the roadmap of relevance by applying it's cultural diagnostic tools. This exploration will hopefully peel back the layers of the the revolving door policy underpinnings in modern politics. The revolving door policy is the Godhead of a closed circuit, almost plutocratic system by which professionals meander in and out of public service after intermittent appointments either as lobbyists, think tank policy wonks or as CEO's of banks and multinationals. The Godhead of the revolving door policy is, of course, not limited to the exemplars last mentioned. There are many different permutations of the 3 points on the triangle but one steadfast position is that of government. Fundamentally, the revolving door policy is about gift giving, homage and relationship building. From the seminal theoretical work done by Marcel Mauss in his early 20^th century book “The Gift”, it will become clear how similar the mechanics of the (chief) “Big Man” in primitive-preliterate society and modern day revolving door “Big Men” truly are.

Marcel Mauss was the nephew to one of the pillars of anthropology, the Frenchman Emile Durkheim. Mauss' book, "The Gift", chronicles how human relationships are developed, solidified and sustained through mutual gift-giving. This form of gift-giving, where the recipient and the benefactor gain no material or monetary advantage from the artifacts which are bestowed, is referred to as “mutual reciprocity” in anthropological jargon. Mauss employed in his study a cross-cultural methodology, noting gift-giving practices of Polynesians, Northwest Native Americans and Melanesians.

European feudal society has a striking resemblance to this mutual reciprocity, albeit the Lord wielded a sovereign hegemony over the power structure which was not the case in preliterate egalitarian societies. The analogy is, however, still valid. Through a prism of a somewhat romanticized nostalgia, the feudal state indentured the serfs to toil and harvest the Lords estates. The Lord would excise a tax on a portion of the serfs harvest and in exchange the Lord would pledge to defend the serfs in the event of an attack from interlopers. Harkening back to the French Ancien Regime of the 15^th through the 18th centuries, one can observe a classic example of primitive relationship building. The social sciences deem this type of asymmetrical relationship building clientelism.

Clientelism at its core is an exchange of goods, services or tribute for political or social support. Imbedded in the clientelism is an explicit or implicit mandate of quid-pro-quo. Again, in preliterate societies the egalitarian balance precludes an explicit asymmetry. A term which is often used incorrectly as a synonym for clientelism is cronyism. Cronyism shares the tendency of gift-giving but differs from clientelism in the degree it skews the symmetrical balance of the relationships.

Cronyism is a tendency to promote friends, family and other semi-familial relationships through the ranks of political or governmental office. These people often are appointed to their positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications. As in the Ancien Regime, the French were well aware of the political benefits of cronyism. So much so they coined the term which we most use today when referring to cronyism: nepotism. It is derived from the French word for nephew and should be nothing new to those familiar with Renaissance politics. Machiavelli's magnum opus, “The Prince”, was based on Cesare Borgia of the notorious Borgia family. Cesare's father/uncle, Pope Alexander VI , was the second true patriarch and architect of this politically savvy dynasty. He was the “nephew” to Pope Callixtus III, who launched the dynasty in the 15^th century. Nevertheless, the exploits of Cesare's tutelage under his father are the bedrock of the infamous credo: “the ends justifies the means.” Cronyism is by design an asymmetrical relationship. The patron or the bestower of the “gift” (position) can requisition a heavier loyalty tax from the recipient because the bestower commands greater clout in the particular political system.

Returning to our original premise; what can anthropology bring to light about gift-giving as way of promoting and solidifying relationships within the Godhead of the revolving door policy? The crux of the analysis lies with an incorporation of the two principles of relationship building through gift-giving: clientelism and cronyism. These two are melded into a closed circuit of mutual reciprocity on a small intimate participant scale. In the short term, the bestower gains a small advantage within the quid-pro-quo balance. However, as the players float effortlessly from commercial appointments to governmental positions and back again in that closed loop, the gains and losses are mutually shared. The “gift” is shared through the tributes which are paid to the various institutions either in valuta or in kind. The bestower's prestige or influence is bolstered by the gift and allows him/her to subsequently bolster the prestige or influence of the recipient. In this way gift-giving to a “Big Man” in preliterate societies is not that dissimilar to gift-giving to an “ex-politician” or “ex-banker” in modern Western society.

ENDA: Why LGBT's and Straights Should Care.

A few months ago a U.S. Senate committee passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA. Thursday the Senate voted 64-32 to approve ENDA. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a LGBT grassroots organization and think tank, monitors the progress on range of LGBT issues one of which is the ENDA. On its website the group keeps a running tally of Senators who are “evolving” their viewpoint in favor of EDNA legislation. The bill would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity — protections that are, as yet, not explicitly guaranteed under federal statutes.

It seems as if an American social paradigm shift is accelerating when it comes to issues concerning civil rights and equality. You might think that it's just an academic exercise conducted for and by legal scholars and lawmakers. If that's true, then as evidence you would surely invoke both The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 as landmark pieces of legislation guaranteeing equal treatment as an American citizen under the constitution. The former ensures equal civic rights to all Americans which was spearheaded by fundamental civil rights being granted to African-Americans in the America. The latter endows equal opportunities and anti-discrimination measures to Americans with physical and mental handicaps.

If you thought the premise of anti-discrimination was merely an enforcement question of laws and statutes already on the books, then you would be dead wrong. The inherent nature of intricate legalese prohibits generalizations and “blanket” uniform coverage under the law.

The recent advancements of same sex marriages as well as the dismantling of the Defense of Marriage Act has sent the centrists, leftists and right wingers down a rabbit hole that appears to be bottomless. One of the newest and simultaneously longest running bills which would protect equality in the workplace is gaining notoriety and traction in all three camps. The bill in question is the Employment Nondiscrimination Act: ENDA for short.

What exactly is ENDA; why has it taken almost 30 years to pass and what is its shared pedigree with other landmark civil rights bills? Here is a guided tour through the rabbit hole of civil rights legislation as it pertains to ENDA.

Assuming the momentum continues and it passes Congress, the bill would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. An issue, as yet, not explicitly guaranteed under federal statutes.

Of course, there are numerous labor laws which have been adopted to ensure protection of civil rights which are already on the books. However, Stetson Law School assistant professor, Jason Bent, says ENDA addresses issues other laws don’t.

“...The Civil Rights Act of 1964 only covered certain categorical things. Right, it covers race, national origin, and religion and so other things. But that sort of set the tone. It now, if you want to extend protections to another class; some other defined by some other characteristic. If you want to protect them from private discrimination then you need a separate piece of legislation.”

This appears to say that the hastening zeitgeist of total equality is only impeded by the verbiage of the particular Acts and statutes. Specifically, the LGBT community would receive implicit and explicit protection in the workplace as it pertains to sexual orientation and gender identity. How you express those ideals in a working environment is the crux of the debate and the centerpiece of the legislation.

Alfred Kinsey, the full-time biologist and part-time sexologist, in his seminal research and books on the sexuality of males and females revealed that pigeonholing sexuality is a slippery slope. His bell curve scale detailed the false tenacity of orthodox sex role definitions. The scale he developed had completely homosexual on one end with its polar opposite, completely heterosexual, on the other end. The conclusion he drew is that a small minority of people fall into either extreme. In other words, the majority of us are all a combination of both ends. The scale doesn't address bisexuality or transsexuality as such but the gist of the argument is clear.

This brings up an interesting conundrum. What if sexual discrimination in the workplace isn’t limited to the LGBT community? Felipe Souza-Rodriquez is the co-director of Get Equal, a grassroots advocacy group which provides LGBT communities a forum in which to tell, receive feedback and discuss their stories about job discrimination. He said, as the law stands now, even heterosexuals could fall victim to discrimination on the job based on “perceived” sexual orientation or gender identity.

”Discrimination based on perceived sexual orientation is where people...who are straight, but people think they are gay, bisexual or lesbian and then they often get fired. So, I mean we're talking about the full spectrum of everyone. Even straight people who are discriminated the quote/unquote look gay.”

The current language in the bill allows for some dubious escape clauses and loopholes. Occasionally employers make assumptions regarding workers’ sexual orientation. As stated earlier, this is what some call perceived orientation. Daniel Tilley, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Florida says this concept plainly highlights the shortcomings of the bill.

”...they give a wide berth for employers to discriminate against employees based on sexual orientation or gender identity if they're not just a religious institution but religiously affiliated. So if you're a religiously affiliated hospital you could fire a gay groundskeeper or a trans(exual) doctor. And this is troubling for a number of reasons. One, those obviously have no...those positions have no relation whatsoever to a particular religion. But secondly, those exemptions don't exist in other civil rights laws.”

The transgender community has been brought to the forefront, principally, because of ENDA’s use of the term “gender identity.” Staff attorney of the New York City based Transgender Legal and Education Fund, Noah Lewis, says the uncanny high rate of transgender job discrimination will be addressed if ENDA is enacted.

”transgender people face extraordinarily high rates of discrimination. Nine out of ten transgender people report experiencing harassment or discrimination on the job. Nearly half have been fired or denied promotion or not hired because of being transgender. One out of four transgender individuals have lost a job simply because they're transgender. So this is just a question of basic fairness. No one should be fired simply for being gay or transgender.”

Before the St Pete Pride event this year, Steve Kornell, a St. Pete city council member, commented on a remark by Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s. Rubio had said he would not support ENDA because it would give preferential treatment to a certain group of people. Kornell rejects that statement out of hand. He says minorities can’t be given their rights.

”Gay people and the people covered under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, especially African-Americans, and other minorities don't have to be given their rights. They're entitled their rights by the (US) constitution; which says that all men are created equal. And to me that definition should include all people. And does include all people to me. And certain groups have fought to deny people their rights. So that's all people are asking for. They're not asking for preferential treatment. That's laughable. That's just not true.”

There are numerous other civil rights issues being debated in the public forum, like many of the amendments laid out in the US Bill of Rights. Unlawful search and seizure, freedom of the press and free speech, right to bear arms as well as abortion, euthanasia and dominion over ones body, along with gender identity and sexual orientation are all portions of a redistricting of America's psychosocial map. This psychosocial map is slowly being conjoined through a zeitgeist of inclusion and equality for all Americans. In this way an otherwise worrisome journey down the rabbit hole feels more like a pleasant stroll down an unfamiliar country lane.


Shortly after the Senate voted to approve ENDA, president Obama released a statement commending the Senate and appealed to the House of Representatives to do the same.

“I urge the House Republican leadership to bring this bill to the floor for a vote and send it to my desk so I can sign it into law. On that day, our nation will take another historic step toward fulfilling the founding ideals that define us as Americans.”

The Zeitgeist of Déjà Vu

The German as well as the French language have imbued the English language with some unmistakably descriptive nomenclature. Philologists will concede that some words in certain languages encompass more information than the sum of their parts. The second word in the title of the article, Déjà Vu, is no stranger to native English speakers. Although the components together mean simply, already seen, the implications on a particular topic or situation can be exponential. The same is true for the German word zeitgeist. Disentangled it translates as time spirit. However, the vernacular usage in the English language has evolved to convey a collective episodical psychosocial belief. In more prosaic terms it is used to explain historical prevalences of visceral thoughts and paradigms.

What are the components of a zeitgeist? How do various mechanisms influence it's formation? Of course, these questions are the bedrock of the social sciences: psychology, sociology, anthropology and combinations thereof fused with historiography. This recombination of social sciences, like social history or cultural history, lends more currency to straight forward political histories. For those who shy away from historical writings might associate their ill taste for history because of the way in which history is taught: political history (name, place and date) as the touchstone.

According to French Historian, Fernand Braudel, there are 3 basic tenets by which history is shaped. He is often seen as the forerunner of modern cultural studies in the realm of historiography. Braudel merged the anthropological and sociological paradigms of the French Annales School into a second generation of historical theories.

In his academically most significant book, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Braudel detailed his theory of what motivates history. He outlined the rise to power and affluence of Mediterranean Empires. The first principle is that of geography and the environment. It is this epoch which requires the most amount of time to bring about its sway on a people. The environment is slow and methodic where change is almost indiscernible. The second epoch entails prolonged social, economic, psychological and cultural history. These are the long term social movements and transitions of economies and can last from a single decade to a half a century. Lastly, the final period is that of particular events or histoire événementielle. What characterizes this period of short duration are individuals and sudden events. Presidents, religious leaders, despots, military leaders, crackpots are all part of the fabric which make up this last epoch.

All of these epochs are cyclical. Even if the time frame of change is thousands of years the tides still ebb and flow; lands are formed and destroyed. What Braudel hints at, but doesn't delve into with any conviction, is the interplay between the three in a retrospective manner. For instance, how does an event change or steer a social movement or economical paradigm? In other words, how does the interplay of the three epochs manipulate the zeitgeist?

The world stood still as it remembered 9/11. There have been many “events” which have elicited remembrances from Americans throughout modern history. It appears now as if some Americans want a mandated public remembrance of Benghazi. Here follows a few “remember” themes which certainly redirected and reshaped the American Zeitgeist.

Remember the Alamo 

Mexican dictator/General Antonio López de Santa Anna was attempting to squash a rebellion of Texans who were attempting to form a new nation. American President Andrew Jackson was a keen adherent of American expansionism as typified by his forays into Florida during the Seminole Indian Wars. An almost mythologic cottage industry of “remember the Alamo” emerged which ensured that a Zeitgeist was established. This zeitgeist thwart anyone infringing on American western expansion.

Remember the Maine

Fueled by the need for salt water colonies because contiguous North America was already divvied up; America set forth on acquiring the low hanging fruits of Spain's former colonies. “Yellow journalism” papers like the Hearst print empire and the Pulitzer newspapers, jarred the American Zeitgeist to prepare for war on an encroaching feeble Spanish Empire in the Western Hemisphere. An out of date and in need of decommissioning US battleship was sent to Havana harbor in Cuba. On the evening of 15 February 1898 the ship “unexpectedly” exploded while anchored in the harbor. The yellow journalism press and the US government were quick to lay blame to the Spanish which launched a series of land grabs from Spanish control: Guam, Cuba, Philippines and Puerto Rico.

Remember the Lusitania

The Lusitania was a British ocean cruiser which was torpedoed on 7 May 1915 by German U-boats. The British were keen on stirring the American people to declare war on Germany and subsequently continued with a propaganda campaign until 1917. Remembering the Lusitania came to a head in 1917. That year the Zimmerman Telegram, stating Germany's reinstatement of unrestricted U-boat activity, was the straw that broke the camel's back and pushed the Zeitgeist of the American's to declare war on Germany.

Top, Middle & Bottom Secret

 The Government's Befuddling Nomenclature

The Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden media circus' have unsympathetically shone a floodlight on the clandestine, abstruse and clever ways the US Government denotes relevant intel, the methods it uses to collect the information and who ultimately gets to read it.

It would be difficult to find many people who are bold enough to admit they believe that all information the Government accumulates should be immediately declassified and beholden to public scrutiny. However, there is a vast and palpable number of citizens and civil servants who opine that once the critical period of secrecy has been abated then the information ought to be freely disseminated.

TheWashington Post has reported that more than 800,000 people hold Top-Secret clearances in the United States. That is a monumental total of people who have access to various levels of government gossip and national secrecy. Despite that fact, the US Government had imposed a sliding scale of information gag orders which inhibits a free flow of information to it's citizenry. The opening phrase,“we the people” in the American Constitution, implies that the citizens of the US are the employers of government officials. As employers we are ipso facto entitled to know just what they've been up to. Whether it be digital snooping, Old Skool wiretappings and surveillance or self imposed discretionary memos and communiques; the people of the US have a codified right to “be in” on the secret not to forget a fundamental quid pro quo right: our tax dollars are paying for it.

So what are our rights, by law, to be privy to the secrets? An act of Congress was needed in order to bestow upon US citizens the right to view government secrets.The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was officially signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966 and took effect in 1967. FOIA is a law which mandates the full or partial disclosure of hitherto unreleased information and documents created by the United States government. FOIA is explicit in its wording to only apply to the agencies which fall under the Executive Branch of government. Formally, the agencies are subject to penalties for noncompliance and or obstructing the process after a petition has been filed for release of information.

Nonetheless, high profile subject matter, which is classified at some level of secrecy, is often seen as an overt governmental practice of dalliance.

The amount of reasons which motivate people to demand peeking at declassified documents is almost as vast as the categories of government secrets. Their latent paranoia might be whetted by the recent divulgences of unsavory NSA surveillance. Or maybe it's more prosaic like the apocryphal high level coverups of bigfoot, The Bermuda Triangle, and Area 51. A matrix of secret keeping is a tool any investigator needs to change conspiracy theory to conspiracy fact. Here follows a list of the varied levels of clearance and secrecy of government documentation: Top, Middle and Bottom Secret.

Top Secret (TS):

The highest level of secrecy. A code word is often attached to Top Secret in order to further refine who can view the information. If this secret were to be made public the government makes the assumption that it could lead to "exceptionally grave damage" of national security.

Secret:

This information, according to the government, needs to be kept secret because it might cause "serious damage" to national security.

Confidential:

Information causing "damage" or is thought to be "prejudicial" to national security is confidential secret. It is often referred to as “classified”.

Restricted:

If this information leaked out then "undesirable effects" would befall national security.

Unclassified, Sensitive and Controlled:

These secrets are occasionally privy to eyes without security clearance. This is by far the most dizzying array of quasi-classifications are formulated in this level of secrecy.

Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU):

This is the level of secrecy which connotes information in the United States federal government requiring strict and limited controls over its distribution. It can be applied to For Official Use Only (FOUO), Law Enforcement Sensitive (LES), Sensitive Homeland Security Information, Security Sensitive Information (SSI), Critical Infrastructure Information (CII) ad infinitum. Including in this level are also Internal Revenue Service documents like individual tax records, systems information, and enforcement procedures.

PARD (Protect as restricted data):

These are secrets which are unclassified but sensitive and utilized by the Department of Energy.

Limited Distribution, Proprietary, Originator Controlled, Law Enforcement Sensitive:
The secrets here are all nebulous classifications of secrecy designed by the Pentagon attempted in 2011 to exempt from President Obama's Executive Order 13556. These are still evolving.

List of 5 Patron Saints of the Strange

A world full of gods. That was the interwoven reality in which Christianity of antiquity found itself. The Romans, the Greeks, the Druids, the Persians, the “Barbarians” they all had their respective pantheons. Gods of these pantheons ran the gamut from the mundane house hold variety to the specialty gods of the sacred cults of the oracles. The evolution, export and spread of early Christianity was to be dictated by these parameters. Making a switch to monotheism was going to prove to be a hard sell.

It has been documented that without the clout and persuasion of an aristocratic class among the Roman subjects who had converted to Christianity, the movement might not have succeeded in it's nascent form. These vested noblemen were also outstanding marketeers. They grasped that a synergistic and gradual shift to monotheism would be much easier than a drastic 1-80. Moreover, the Romans were steeped in ancestor worship and had a culture anchor in reliving tales of history. The abandonment of hundreds of years venerating many gods was not a concept in their collective wheelhouse.

So, the Christians of early antiquity kept the many gods but slowly altered their intrinsic meaning. The Saints were not gods but rather a group of more pious Christians than the rest of the believers. They were to become middlemen, sin brokers, and divine mediators. What was the rational? Why employ a Saint as a go between? To answer that we draw on the comparison with polytheism's many gods concept and their significance with the mundane; Jesus, the Ghost and God are just too damn busy. Don't bother the Godhead if you can use a Saint. It's akin to using a 1^st line call center-customer service-help desk instead of getting patched through to the Chief Technical Officer.

Potential Catholic saints were scrutinized on the merits of their wonders before their canonization as a bona fide Saint. If the Pontiff is swayed by the empirically fuzzy proof then the dead person enters an undefined period of beatification. The beatification marks a cooling off period whereby more “proofs” of exceptional earthly divinity are gathered and filed away. Once enough evidence has been amassed the reigning Pope can cast off the beatification and officially canonize the Saint “in waiting”.

Catholic saints are believed to fly about, to have stigmata's, heal the infirm and occasionally imbue their clothing with mystical holy powers. Their place of birth and/or death are transformed by the believers into shrines of devotion. These shrines are the locale where yearly pilgrimages terminate and relics are bought and placed to insure the sanctity of the pilgrim and the shrine. Some are the patron of lost items or travelers or children or good health. The List of 5 Saints of the Strange has a few WTF's in store.

St Monica

Era: Circa 331-387 A.D.

Patron Saint of: Alcoholics

Feast Day: August 27

Reason for patronage: Betrothed to a pagan man of her parents choosing. He proved to be philander and alcoholic until his conversion years later after copious amounts of dedicated prayer by St. Monica.

Fun Fact: Monica of Hippo was the mother of St. Augustine of Hippo.

St Isidore of Seville

Era: Circa 560-636

Patron Saint of: Internet

Feast Day: April 4

Reason for patronage: He was an astute learner and prolific author who published books grammar, astronomy, geography, history, and biography as well as theology. He has the acclaim of orchestrating the conversion the barbarian Visigoths.

Fun Fact: He was born into a saintly dynasty. His two brothers, Leander and Fulgentius, and one of his sisters, Florentina, are venerated saints in Spain.

St Fiacre

Era: Died Circa 670

Patron Saint of: Sexually Transmitted Disease and Hemorrhoids

Feast Day: September 1

Reason for patronage: Little is known about him prior to his trip and establishment of a hospice in France. He carried and yielded a large staff which he used to plow otherwise fallow ground. The same staff was used to poke and prod the infirm back to health at the hospice.

Fun Fact: He was an unabashed misogynist and refuse to aid woman and even forbid them from entering the hospice, hermitage and chapel.

St Lidwin

Era: 1380-1433

Patron Saint of: Ice Skaters

Feast Day: April 14

Reason for patronage: At age 15 while ice skating, she fell and broke her ribs. From that day forward she became progressively more paralyzed. She acquired the divine talent of healing and was known to cure disease in and around her home town of Scheidam, the Netherlands.

Fun Fact: Documents purport that she shed skin, bones and her entrails all of which were kept by her parents in a vase. The vase supposedly emitted a sweet aroma.

St Guy of Anderlecht

Era: Circa 950 - 1012

Patron Saint of: Outhouses

Feast Day: September 12

Reason for patronage: An austere, pious and hardworking unlettered man he invested in maritime trade. The ship sank carrying the good. He saw this as a sign of his sinful avarice. He subsequently gave away his possessions and went on a penance pilgrimage first to Jerusalem then to Rome. Along the return journey to Anderlecht he died.

Fun Fact: He is also invoked as the patron saint against epilepsy, against rabies, and against mad dogs.

Public Health versus the Ship of Fools

Let's jump right into it; shall we? The use of illicit and prescription drugs are not and should not be considered criminal. They should not clog our justice and penal systems. Abuse of both illicit and prescription drugs is a public health problem which demands attention but not detention.  

The drug war is a nebulous and misleading war which finds most of it's pitted battles fought on the premise to send addicts to jail. Mention of pharmaceutical abuse and the billion dollar corporate pharmaceutical empire is wholly omitted. Institutions like the Center for Disease Control (CDC )and the World Health Organization (WHO) have each weighed in on the scourge and attempted to reclassify a succincter and more befitting label to the psychosocial phenomenon drugs. They unanimously conclude that it in the realm of public health and not a criminal problem. Moreover, the overarching theme of their research implies that the resources of our morality and finance are withering on the vine with no hope of even vinegar being made from the rotting grapes. We will all suffer the socioeconomic and psychosocial repercussions of this malaise. The choice we have is simple. We collectively pay either on the front or the back end. But pay we shall.

In the industrialize world we have established a morality code which allows us to disengage our conscience by institutionalizing our shortcomings. It's tantamount to the practice during the middle ages in Europe when the ship of fools was ushered down the waterways. A ship laden with degenerates, reprobates, mentally ill and the devilishly insane meandered the rivers of Europe until they stranded on an unsuspecting hamlet. Then they disembarked and fanned out across the village until they moored up again in a large town or city where they were de facto given a travelers respite because of the size of the municipality they found themselves. Soon the populace would discover their misfortunate tidings and the play of ill fecundity would begin again and the unwanted would be corralled and coerced to gain passage on the next ship of fools. Locking away addicts of socially and legally forbidden substances is like condoning a vacuity of empathy; even psychopathic at its extreme.

Michel Foucault details the emergence of the insane asylum with it's relocation of the unwanted, like rubbish, to the outer edges of society and disposing of them in an institution. He outlines his take on the history of western collective moral philosophy in his book “Madness and Civilization”. Foucault chronicles the transition of societal ethos concerning the mentally infirm. There is a disconnect, as he sees it, through etymological changes in how we define madness and insanity. These aberrations allow for the collective moral “ok” needed to legitimize incarceration. Not unlike the ship of fools.

In the WHO's 'Guidelines for the Psychosocially Assisted Pharmacological Treatment of Opioid Dependence' (2009) the problem of drugs is viewed tangibly as a public health concern which has far reaching effects on the economy by way of things like comorbidity. However, the take-away message is summed up here (author's highlights);

“Substance dependence per se should be regarded as a health problem and not a legal one. Given the multiple medical problems associated with opioid dependence and the nature of pharmacological treatment, provision of pharmacological treatment for opioid dependence should be a health-care priority.”

Perhaps the loss of mysticism in everyday life. The shift from sacred to profane as the blinkers of the Enlightenment narrowed our vision. A profundity gleaned from an increasingly detached and spiritually aloof relationship with the deviations of nature. This was one of the root causes. “We can fix it” became the zeitgeist motto. Not because we need to fix it but because we felt it can be fixed. Breaking down the whole into parts which can be modified meant there was a golden ratio both physically and metaphysically in which everything needed to correspond.

The “village idiot” was no longer seen as a wayward court jester. A character among many who had a polished piece of sagacious insight. He would impulsively regurgitate this insight back into the world; bookending it with his disjointed rants.

This was the sacred; much like epilepsy in the west was perceived and recorded as a divine soothsaying gift as far back as Hippocrates. Both petit and grand mal seizures produce vivid and descriptive hallucinations. Of course, this is not an endorsement of nor an advocation for seizures; that would be morally corrupt and ethically perverted. Yet, if we carefully comb through the tangles of what is being said and begin to erect a broader picture of the what is happening socially, we stumble headlong into a public health epidemic of the sacred and the profane.

Unfortunately, The America National Institute of Health (NIH) still maintains that the spearpoint of their campaign to reduce the negative impact drugs have on society is because they spuriously link drugs to crime. Of course, there are those who are recidivistic and are a palpable burden. Largely these people are also without adequate therapy because drug addiction is viewed as a crime and not a public health problem. Ironically, the NIH doesn't feel it necessary to mention the rampant abuse of pharmaceutical opioids, which each community feels viscerally and any law enforcement agent worth his salt tells you engulfs too many resources and too many man hours.

Clearly, this view misses the mark. By suggesting that a significant amount of those incarcerated have substance abuse problems but neglects to address the millions incarcerated for possession of illicit drugs. It is the same old threadbare empty rhetoric of the “stepping stone” or “gateway” hypothesis. Yes, some people behind bars are substance abusers but not all people behind bars who are substance abusers are criminals. Of course they have committed an act of defiance against a particular law but they are prosecuted for a victimless crime. A crime which does not afflict the “personal property” (e.g. body) of another. The repeal of antiquated and draconian sodomy laws by the Supreme Court should have elucidated that principle. Unfortunately, that has not seeped in to the collective pathos of the United States of America.  

Unraveling the Cloak of Caring

Humane Aid in America

Why does empathy and emotional solidarity only seems to coalesce after major natural disasters and horrific communal trauma?

It seems hypocritical to praise the act of raising money in order aid and help victims in a knee jerk reaction when, in times of relative peace and harmony, the same people can't muster an iota of empathy. They are morally unequipped to benevolently care for the same people prior to them befalling a life altering disaster.

Why are most people, especially our elected political representatives, unable to foresee that assisting someone out of an economics or social quagmire, by passing legislation which supports them with subsidies during peacetime, is also commendable. Have we forgotten the horrendous state of disrepair of the levees and flood surge protection in pre-Katrina Louisiana?

According to US News and World Report;

“the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that one-quarter of the 607,380 bridges across the United States were functionally obsolete or structurally deficient in 2012 – placing the cost of repairs at $76 billion. The sheer weight of the evidence shows that it's just a matter of time before the next bridge failure.”

The explosion in West Texas which claimed the lives of 15 and injured about 200, appears to be rife with institutional negligence, political obfuscation and corporate monetary gluttony. Ramit Plushnick-Masti of the Associated Press, who has investigated and covered the story intensely, said during NPR's Diane Rehm show, that the public grew up around and in proximity of the fertilizer plant over the past 30-50 years. Without even delving into the ISO certifications and the EPA stringencies, this is a classic scenario of zoning.

We don't know when if ever the blame will be laid on which governmental agency's failure but the fact that the zoning was distorted, ignored or rezoned is obvious. It seems to reflect the increasing prevalence of a revolving door system. A system of murky back room horse trading deals which ultimately leads to thinly veiled plutocratic control. The lobbying groups or thinks tanks function as half way houses for aspiring politicians and burgeoning captains of industry.

Recently, the Senators from the tornado ravished state of Oklahoma both voted earlier in the year to deny federal relief funding to the hurricane Sandy victimized areas of the NorthEast. However, when it was reported that some of the schools which were struck by the massive tornados were not equipped with adequate storm protection, they "evolved" their previous ideological dogma significantly.

It seems unfathomably disingenuous to proclaim oneself a magnanimous public official when one showers praise and merits on other public officials who they themselves only register empathy when it effects them directly.

Journalism and Democracy and Getting Information that Matters

Tedx Poynter: The Future of Journalism

(story originally ran in Creative Loafing Tampa)

The future of journalism was the connecting theme of a version of the popular online Ted Talks series last Friday at the Poynter Institute in downtown Saint Petersburg. A crowd of mostly media insiders listened to topics ranging from copyright issues and viral media to fact checking and the role of new media.

The Poynter Institute is borrowing a style of discourse from the successful Ted Talks which focus on disseminating new ideas on three varied subject matters; Technology, Entertainment Design. The TedX formats are independently organized but are conducting within the Ted Talks structure. The Poynter Institute is a non-profit school of journalism, which teaches through traditional class room settings as well as online webinars. Elynn Angelotti is a social media faculty member at the Poynter Institute. She said the blueprint used by Ted Talks is a good fit for Poynter’s third Ted X event.

“What they’ve done is provide us with a framework to create powerful engaging; much briefer talks than we typically do here at Poynter. So, it’s a deferent tempo. It’s a different style. But it’s an engaging platform that helps us invite the Tampa Bay community and the larger journalism community into an event where we can realty learn from innovative thinkers.”

One of the overarching topics discussed during the event by several of the speakers was the role of professional journalism. Since the second dot com boom which was fueled by the near hegemonic emergence of social media, news and scholarly media have experienced a decline in hardcopy circulation. This decline brought with it a steady decline in revenue from advertising. In order to compensate some traditional media outlets have adopted a new business model called “paywall”. A “paywall” is an online business model which restricts access to webpage content without a paid subscription to news or academic publications. Paywalls come in two varieties either “hard” where no or limited viewing is permitted or “soft” where the content is less rigidly controlled.

One staff member who focuses on ethics in the media, Kelly McBride said in an interview after the talk, a well informed citizenry is a cornerstone to democracy. The direction of journalism McBride sees, however, is a move towards unprofessionalism: citizens with a passion, spokes people; marketeers. She says we are still tumbling down the rabbit hole with no clear indication where will it end. According to McBride democracy needs at least a small cadre of journalist in order to function. A la carte journalism works for some models, like Side Boob Reports, but doesn't work for investigative journalism. She said that not many people are willing to pay for investigative stories.

That would seem to be the case with stories like the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists who divulged the path to the center of the money maze that stems from lucrative offshore banking. However, paywalls are beginning to work for the New York Times and other major newspapers, like Gannett Publishing but the future is murky for small town newspapers where it's largely untested whether people will pay at all.

Transmitting and receiving news and information outside the conventional written word is a viable means of ensuring professionalism and reliability. Pat Aufderheide is a professor and director of the Center for Social Media at American University and also a film critic. Aufderheide said documentaries are an important and significant medium for reporting on culture.

”Homes across America through public broadcasting these films are being seen by millions and millions of people; which is at least two or three orders of magnitude larger than anything that will happen to a documentary on theatrical screens. So although they are not necessarily sexy in movie media they are terrifically important in being part of our media mix for a democracy.”

A Ted Talks veteran, Eli Pariser, spoke about the misconceptions of viral media. Pariser’s most recent project is upworthy.com but he cut his internet teeth with the moveon.org website. Pariser said the way information is filtered today is a challenge because we have little control over how it is filtered, what is filtered or the methodology behind the filtering. I order to achieve what he calls a “nourishing diet of information” filters need to be smarter.

“FaceBook for example, could have an important button to go along with the like button and that would actually have a significant effect. Right? Because it’s hard to click like on war in Afghanistan continues for twelfth year. But you would say that’ important; I want people to pay attention to that. So there are ways without being prescriptive about what’s important and what’s not that you could allow people to elevate that kind of content.”

When asked about the emerging trends in social media as it pertains to news and information gathering, Pariser sees an increased fragmentation as the overall trend over the next five years. He said we “...are all increasingly speaking these different informational languages.” Will these internet fragments eventually be integrated? Maybe not Pariser thinks. He doesn't foresee these information Goliaths being slain by any upstart dot com Davids.

Facebook, Twitter and Google as well as Instagram and Tumblr are not only veritable blue chip companies but they are the forums and platforms on which disparate niches of society have come to rely as a primary mode of communication. It's been said that President Obama's social media “gladhanding” was in large part the element which tipped the scales in his favor during the 2012 presidential election much like the role social media played as an instrument in nurturing the Arab Spring into a regional phenomenon.

Other media experts at the Ted X Poynter event also talked about the changing tides of journalism as a result of expanding technology. There aren't any mystic Oracles to consult on the future of journalism but one thing is certain, the medium is becoming the message. It's the duel responsibility of the consumer and the producer to make sure the message remains meaningful despite the medium.

Florida Freegan Lessons from Bill McKibben

The month of May 2013 marked the tipping point when atmospheric measurements of carbon dioxide passed the 400-parts-per-million threshold for the first time since the beginning of human civilization.

Environmentalist and climate activist Bill McKibben has been out front alerting the public that scientists warn that level needs to be cut to 350 in order to avoid long-term climate catastrophe from the greenhouse effect. McKibben has written several books on global warming and alternative energy and is also the founder of the grassroots climate movement 350.org. Scientists, including McKibben, assert that an accelerated greenhouse effect will be the outcome if 350 ppm is exceeded, and that translates directly into bizarre and erratic climate change. 350.org is behind what's considered to be the largest globally coordinated protest, with 5,200 simultaneous demonstrations in 181 countries.

Bill McKibben was the keynote speaker at Eckerd College’s graduating class of 2013 in St. Petersburg. He addressed graduates and their families at the Golden Anniversary of Eckerd College’s commencement ceremony.

Before the speech I sat down with Bill McKibben and began by asking about the name of his organization. We also discussed, among other things, some of the climate issues facing Florida.

            Bill McKibben Interview 1                             
     Bill McKibben Interview 2                      

Further reading and listening pleasure:

http://cltampa.com/dailyloaf/archives/2013/05/21/environmental-activist-bill-mckibben-speaks-at-eckerd-college-graduation#.UaokVXwicnE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=078judOzvh8

US Pre-Columbian Immigration: The Clovis First Paradigm Hoodwink

Last year the theories of prehistoric new world migration and settlement were put under the loop. The findings, published in the journal Science by Dennis Jenkins and his colleagues at the University of Oregon, caused a stir in the archaeological community. The site of the discoveries is at Paisley Caves in Oregon where research has been ongoing since 2002. The new revelations are significant because the researchers uncovered feces (coprolites) containing human DNA which were in situ with various stone tools; namely, spearheads and arrow tips. Furthermore, the carbon dating of more than 100 artifacts securely documents the age of the tools at the site as being up to 13,000 years old.

The coprolite samples which contained mitochondrial DNA have been analyzed and confirm that the peoples who left them there were indeed of Asian origin. This is because of the haplogroup A mitochondrial DNA also found in Native Americans which suggests a progressive lineage. The coprolites were dated at 14,500 year BCE (before the current era) which is even older than the artifacts. The commotion around the article is that the date o 13,000 years ago predated by a 1,000 years the orthodox theory of Clovis First. The team of scientists have termed this stone tool technology as Western Stemmed Tradition. The underlying implication is that two divergent groups migrated from Asia each with its own distinct tool technology. This is an remarkable discovery and a fascinating story but it remains a scientific propaganda campaign.

Clovis First as a theory is an example of the rigidity and tunnel vision which the established scientific community uses to anchor itself. The migration and settlement of the New World is vastly more complex and surprising than a decades old and theoretically bankrupt paradigm. Firstly, one needs to be familiar with the prevailing theory of prehistoric migration from Asia to the Americas to appreciate the disparities. Secondly, to fully grasp the convoluted findings published in the journal Science, an example of an alternative theory of migration is required. How has archaeology portrayed the Asian migration to the New World?

The orthodox theory of land migration posits that thes Paleo-Indians crossed into the New World from Asia via an ice age land bridge. This hypothesis is generally known as the Bering Strait Theory or Beringia Theory. This specific culture of big game hunters (big game is meant to include Mastodons, Mammoths and other “woolly” large mammals) crossed the Bering Strait at the latest 12,000 years ago but as early as 35,000. The evidence thus far doesn't support any migration occurring before 22,000 years ago. The crux of the revisionist argument is that it is illogical and quixotic to assume that a peoples could have migrated southward, eventually reaching the tip of South America by 11,000 years ago, and had sufficient time to socially evolve into a sedentary and highly civilized culture. The recent findings by The University of Oregon are a testament to those shortcomings.

Take for instance, Monte Verde chile which has been archaeologically dated at 14,800 years before the present era, a good 1000 years before the emergence of the Clovis culture. How can it be explained that a hunter-gather society traveled so far and was simultaneously able to develop a tool technology different from Clovis? The clovis pundits maintain that the migration was primarily a coastal migration which would allow for a more rapid expansion towards the southern tip of South America.

However, there are carbon dated in situ finds in the interior of North America and as far flung as Florida. One of these Clovis culture anomalies is the Page-Ladson prehistory site in Northern Florida. At the site which is underwater a pit was discovered containing elephant bones, bone tools and flakes from presumably tool making. Furthermore, some organic material from the pit sets the chronology of the site from 13,000 to 11,700 years. This means that the earliest dates for artifacts found in the site predate the accepted beginning of the Clovis First period by between 1,000 and 1,500 years. More interesting to dispelling the Clovis First hegemony is that some of the bones from a particularly older stratum are radiocarbon dated at 22,000 years BCE and have apparent human manufactured cut marks, most notably on a complete mastodon tusk. The Asian hunter-gather migrating nomads had reached Florida well before the dawn of the Clovis First period.

The Topper archaeological site in South Carolina sheds an even brighter light on the failings of the Clovis First theory. The artifacts recovered from this site seem to predate Clovis Culture by at least 3,000 years. Of the various artifacts found in a stratum dating back 16,000-20,000 years BP, by far he most infamous is the “Topper Chopper”. Animal renderings, possibly a birdlike effigy, on the stone tool is consistent with Native American and European artifacts occurring around the same time in the Paleolithic period. This is intriguing evidence which makes the link to European technologies and potential settlement of the New World by Europeans.

Of course there are many theories which compete with Clovis First as alternative explainations for the glaring discrepancies in migration and settlement of the New World. Perhaps the best known and one which carries the most weight is the Solutrean Hypothesis. Its theoretical foundation is built upon the similarities between stone tool technologies of the Solurean Culture and late Clovis Culture. The Solutrean Culture is thought to be a chiefly European tool technology emanating from the Iberian Peninsula and the interior of France. Imbedded in the theory is the idea that a migration pattern would have followed the aquatic kelp forests along the ice sheet running along Northern Europe to North America. The hypothesis maintains that people would have crafted kayaks or some other vessel and lined its hull with animal skins. A kelp forest is abundant enough in sea life and vegetation to supplement or supplant the diet of the travelers. The Solutrean Hypothesis doesn't negate nor render other theories or hypotheses invalid, like the Clovis First theory does. It merely adds a thread to the fabric of New World migration and settlement theories.

The scientific wrangling won't be cleared up with the University of Oregon's serendipitous find which only bolsters the orthodoxy Clovis First theory. A more objective and fulfilling hypothesis would be that pre-colombian America was discovered and settled by disparate groups of migrating peoples from Eurasia. The Bering Straight land bridge theory coupled with the Clovis First Hypothesis is riddled with statistical anomalies as a paradigm. The struggle for a supreme New World migration theory continues which is, more often than not, the rule in scientific inquiry. When a interdisciplinary approach is finally attempted then the true splendor of New World migrational peoples and their cultures will bear fruit.