The Morning-after Pill, Free Speech and Gender Parity

The Hobby Lobby Case before SCOTUS is premised by the court's earlier ruling on Citizens United. This legislative frankenstein reiterates the SCOTUS decree that corporations are PEOPLE and thusly entitled to 1^st amendment rights of free speech. The crux of the argument now, once the Affordable Care Act has been mandated as federal law, is that corporations want to exercise their free speech rights on the basis of religious or moral convictions. In other words, they are seeking a “conscientious objection” status which will allow them to circumvent the federal law.

Although a stretch, it could be said that these corporations, as PEOPLE, are protesting a law much in the way draft dodgers and draft card burners protested the federal government conscripting them to fight in the Vietnam War. Despite the unique features in this case before SCOTUS the general outline of the case is a moral and civil rights battle that has been fermenting for decades. The battle is about the sovereignty over a womans reproductive rights with sweeping implications for males as well. 

However, a solemn question looms larger than the breadth of the particulars in the Hobby Lobby case which is whether to pay for its female employees health coverage that includes contraceptives. The question is, in Orwellian terms; whose free speech is MORE equal than the others? If since SCOTUS has decided that corporations are PEOPLE, are they then, through the sheer size of the manpower within the corporations, more deserving of free speech than the individual citizen?

Perhaps the fact that, according to statistics compiled by Forbes Magazine, the parity in female CEO's in Fortune 500 companies to male CEO's is alarmingly low at 8.1% as of 2013 might play into the sovereignty question.  That the chief plaintiff of the Hobby Lobby Case is a woman only underscores the disparity. Moreover, Viagra, Cialis and other pde5 inhibitors (erectile dysfunction drugs) are components of health care policies which are conspicuously intended for men. Yet their inclusion in these policies has either never or at best disingenuously been subject to public debate. These male-centric drugs enhance and augment a male's self-determination regarding their reproductive free speech rights.

It is now time that this circular and illogical rhetoric be cast aside or better yet, turned on its head. Imagine if the hypothetical contra-argument was set forth by Hobby Lobby and other corporations afforded a PERSON status. What if corporations required their employees to adopt the morning-after pill as a component of their health coverage based on religious or moral articles of faith. 

These corporation PEOPLE won't want a portion of their work staff hindered by 9 months of pregnancy and intermittent care of a newborn. No, that would negatively effect the female employee's labor efficiency. So what better way to combat a woman's free fall in labor output than to encourage an early pregnancy termination. The fact that a man or a woman's labor output is sovereign personal property and not a profit variable controlled by corporate PEOPLE is a whole other can of worms.

Empty History

The Propaganda Holidays

Words matter. Nomenclature is unassailably essential to the collective ethos and esprit de corps of a people. The concept “people” should be understood to mean a society, nation state, ethnicity grouping or sectarian set of people. A binding ideology is necessary to function in a cohesive fluid manner. This binding ideology manifests itself as a mediator in conflict resolution in time of dispute among the members or the group. Conversely, it manifests itself as a mitigating technique for the group against other groups or individuals outside the group. This is perhaps most evident with religion doctrine where a shared cosmology is the binding ideology. Within this communal cosmology the universal keystone is the creation myth.

A creation myth details the inception of a people as it pertains to their historical and psychosocial uniqueness. Through this perceived uniqueness the group attains a social mandate which permeates its cultural, economic, mystical, political and psychological characteristics and motivations. A strikingly similar conviction is equally valid of with groups of people on a modern geopolitical terrain, namely, nation states or countries. What happens when it turns nefarious?

When meaningless slogans devoid of context are churned out it then this a form of propaganda. This type of sloganeering is embedded in a sense of false nostalgia. Marxist scholars, especially historians, refer to this propaganda as an invention of tradition which is just a thinly veiled subterfuge to a much starker vile reality. America is the worst offender of control by corporate public relations machines which are obfuscations of their sincere role: propaganda machines fueled, manned and funded by think tanks and lobbyists.

Take for instance, the War on Drugs and the War on Terror. These are hollow and vapid tools of rhetoric. They employ heavy handed insipid terminology like “peace, support our troops, democracy and freedom.” They are utterly vague and meaningless without factual (e.g. empirical) context.

Consider that trillions of dollars are funneled into the Industrial Military Complex to the benefit of a corporate 1% which engorges itself to the detriment of the remaining 99%.The calculated hubris of this manufactured pathos is seen in the futile wars waged to overthrow regimes which are deemed either non-democratic or not democratic enough in the eyes of the Nation State of America. More often than not these regimes are supplanted by lesser democracies which prove to be more problematic than their predecessor. The binding ideology of the nation state, the manifestation of their perceived uniqueness, is powder keg which awaits a spark of conflict. A conflict which is manufactured and mythologized.

If the prevailing invented tradition were not subject to the public relations propaganda machines then maybe other more advantageous and meaningful wars would emerge. Where are the trillions of dollars being poured into the ongoing War on Poverty or the War on Malaria? It is a marketing ploy perpetrated by multimillion dollar corporate snake oil salesmen: the public relations/propaganda machines. The origins of this ideological necrosis in America is most pronounced in the celebration of two invented holidays: Columbus Day and Thanksgiving.

Columbus Day is presented as a benign celebration of the discovery of the Americas by European explorers. This is a segment of the total creation myth of the United States of America. However, Columbus Day actually marks a celebration of the subjugation of cultures and peoples with a unfavorable uniqueness. It is a white washing of repugnant greed and inhumanity. The same is true of the wars on sovereign nations which are marketed to the group (nation state) as less democratic than is viewed by the governing elite as acceptable.

Another invented tradition which also represents a portion of the creation myth is Thanksgiving Day. This holiday is buttressed on the propagandized view of the amiable Native Americans aiding the Western European interlopers through a harsh winter of negligible harvest. This invented tradition obscures the unpleasant truth that what is being celebrated on Thanksgiving is genocide and land theft.

Why then are these horrific celebrations honoring the destruction of peoples and civilizations allowed to continue? Why are the foundations of these mythological traditions not more closely scrutinized for accuracy? Is the US so beholden to these confabulations of tradition by the corporate propaganda machines that to dismantle the ethos would mean reconstruction of a new binding ideology?

Finally, I submit a parallel fable of invented tradition. Would we not cringe at the idea of a thanksgiving where African slaves have gathered in their meager harvest and broke bread with plantation owners? Let's assume that following an abysmally poor harvest after a deadly winter that the white plantation owners of European descent have no or scant food to feed themselves. These African slaves have harvested and cooked grub for years; living and surviving off the land. Subsequently, they ceremoniously invite these white plantation owners (the slave owners), to a feast of bounty. This scenario is ridiculous. The African slaves had nothing to be thankful for just like the Native Americans were not thankful on Thanksgiving.

A Short History of Vomit: Part 3

A Short History of Vomit: Part 3

 Part 3

How the Ancient and Classical Civilizations deciphered dreams with vomit motifs will probably remain an enigma. Modern dream interpretation,however, is rife with possible explanations for vomit motifs. For example, if vomit is present in your dreams then this could be an insight into your deepest feelings signaling the subconscious need to get rid of something. However, if in your dream you witness a person vomiting, then this might indicate that a relative or a close friend is actually an enemy. Would that be a wretched frenemy or retching kinfolk?

Dreams have always been closely associated with creation myths and the origins of a people. Birth through vomit as a culture is purged into life is a reoccurring theme of particular societies. These cultural groups have exalted vomit beyond the profane and made it a realm of the gods. In Ancient Greek mythology vomit has the distinction of protecting the existence of the some of the major Gods. The story goes, that when Kronos, the youngest of the Titans, revolted against his father, Ouranos, he became the supreme ruler of the cosmos. After his marriage to Rhea, who begat him several Gods, he summarily ate his children. By eating his children Kronos was attempting to bulwark himself against the same trickery he used to usurp his father. This tactic worked until the birth of his last son, Zeus. Rhea, his mother, rushed to hide the child God away on the island of Crete; out of site from his father Kronos. When Zeus felt he was old and capable enough he stood up to his father and compelled him to puke out his siblings Gods: Hestia, Hades, Demeter, Poseidon and Hera. More often than not, the denouement of vomit tales is not a joyful birth but an ugly death.

Vomit induced asphyxiation (aspiration pneumonia)is reported by the National Institute of Health to be the cause of death in US of 36,997 people annually as noted on death certificates. The pall of vomit has been cast over pop cultural icons throughout the modern era. Most people might assume that asphyxiation by vomit is the comeuppance of a sybarite's foray into the excesses of humanity like alcohol and drugs. Although this scenario has been the downfall of many hedonistic pop music stars, it will be surprising that it even spills over into the realm of innocuous and unthreatening pop icons. No profession within the pop culture world provokes a “saw that coming” response to a self-indulgent life style like that of the musician.

The pop musician's ethos occupies an artistic landscape of calculated aloof observation and poetic contemplation while simultaneously adhering to a bardic filled life of itinerancy. Rock stars like Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham and AC/DC singer Bon Scott were known to be heavy alcohol drinkers. When it was reported that they had vomited in their sleep due to an evening of heavy binging, no one was truly awestruck. Almost a decade earlier, Jimi Hendrix, the legendary rock guitarist, was rushed to hospital after asphyxiating on barbiturate induced vomit. He died shortly after arriving at hospital. As a musician Tommy Dorsey, trombone playing jazz band leader was an atypical vomit victim. According to coroner's records, before retiring for the night, Dorsey had eaten a big meal and then sedated himself with pharmaceutical sleeping pills. His wife recounted that her husband began choking in his sleep, but because of the severe sedating effect of the sleeping pills, she was unable to wake him as he choked to death.

Hopefully it has been made clearer that vomit elicits a duality which is essential to fully appreciating the precariousness of balance within and outside the body.

A Short History of Vomit: Part 2

Part 2

Modern medicine has determined that the physiological action of vomiting (emesis) is a force which can and often should be harnessed. There are over the counter drugs like Benadryl which can stop vomiting or drugs like Syrup of ipecac which can induce vomiting. The prescription drug Navoban halts vomiting while the prescription drug apomorphine hydrochloride triggers a bout of vomiting. Still other people opt to avoid pharmaceuticals all together and self medicate with marijuana to stave off the urge to vomit or opium to coax a vomit response.

Airsickness, which a form of motion sickness, is the bane of any traveler and a logistical nightmare for the onboard service personnel. The end result for those people suffering from airsickness is the urge to vomit. In order to minimize the mess created, facilitate hassle-free desposal and eleviate the gangway congestion the infamous airsickness bag was created. The bag is occasionally and affectionately referred to as a “barf bag”. In 1949 Gilmore Schjeldahl redesigned the airsickness bag for Northwest Orient Airlines. His bag departed from the earlier versions, which were constructed of wax or cardboard paper, by lining the inside of the bag with plastic.

Most psychiatrists and psychologists today, in their peer reviewed journals, refer to a vomiting mental illness as one in which a person induces vomiting. These are deemed either bulimia nervosa or anorexia nervosa. On the other end of the psychological spectrum is Emetophobia; the irrational fear of vomiting.

Vomiting as a method of treatment has long been associated with the lability. Ancient European civilizations held the belief that illnesses were cured when the correct type and amount of fluid could be purged from the body. This callow yet fundamental causality held sway over diagnosis and treatment all the way through to the late middle ages. Vomiting was the mortar which held this principle together. 
The Greek philosopher, physician and founder of western medicine, Hippocrates 460-370 BCE, expounded in his humor theory that a person can be "...rebalanced by bloodletting, blistering, purging by vomiting or anal purgatives, or other potions that would cleanse the body." 

The Roman physician, Galen 131–200 AD, refined the 4 temperaments theory of Hippocrates. Galen envisioned vomit as a diagnostic tool for curing mental illnesses which were seen as fluid imbalances. These four temperaments were classified as choleric, melancholic, sanguine, and phlegmatic and corresponded to the bodily fluids bile, black bile, blood and phlegm respectively. Different ratio combinations of these fluids produced as many unique personalities and personality traits. If a physician, following the four temperaments dictum, judged a aberration in a patients fluid balance, he would then recommend a cure which entailed vomiting. In other words, by the act of vomiting the physician was capable of tweaking the ratios of body fluids and thusly, stave off or cure mental illnesses.

The the Middle Ages saw a continuum in the (re)balancing act of the 4 temperaments as a diagnostic treatment of mental illness. A noteworthy departure in thought was that the physicians of the Middle Ages sought to bring the body into equilibrium as opposed to willfully altering intrinsic personality traits in order to create new ones. A medieval pharmacopoeia was more elaborate than its classical predecessor. It included laxatives, cupping and leeches for bleeding. However, the tool d'force was the emetic. Vomit inducing preparations were as copious as the ingredients in them.

It might be argued that the Classical Civilizations acquired their conceptual knowledge from the older civilizations surrounding them through cultural and technological diffusion. It is held that Ancient Egyptians anthropomorphized the body as a series of waterways and canals. Logic dictates that canals and waterways are prone to become occluded and it wasn't a quantum leap of thought to attribute that to the human body. Egyptian physicians reasoned that inducing vomiting might unblock the canal and cure the illness.

A Short History of Vomit: Part 1

Part 1

Images of vile and repugnant things have been both tactile and ethereal targets of magicians, charlatans, medics, poets, politicians, gods and myths since the dawn of communication. Dualistic philosophy conveys that without a concept of vile things no concept of pleasant things could exist; and so on. Several years ago a minor cause célèbre took the indie-hipster book club circuit by storm; well after its initial French language publication in 1968. The literary work in question is History of Shit. This treatise was penned by Dominique Laporte. Laporte dissected, much like the French philosopher and social scientist before him, Micheal Foucault, the repugnantly profane and molded it into an erudite reflection on western societal norms. Ever since its rerelease, the hipster gangs have exercised their esthetic thuggery on modern culture; giving rise to a whole cottage industry. The sole intent of the hipster's bully-pulpit has been peddling disconnected aspects of pop culture. In A Short History of Vomit, I set out to emulate the esthetic thuggery so brilliantly mapped out by indie-hipsters.

Detailing an comprehensive etymological account of vomit would not be short nor would it address the pervasive fascination with vomit. Another caveat to the reader. This essay will consider primarily the English language as it pertains to vomit. There will be references to other cultures and societies but only in so far as they have influenced the English language or culture. That might seem contradictory since the origin of the verb “vomit” is in direct lineage from the Latin verb (e.g. principle parts) vomeo, vomere, vomitum meaning “to spew forth.” Yet Latin based words compose nearly 50% of the English lexicon.

The Romans appear to be the first Western civilization which elevated vomit out of plebeian vulgarity. To the Romans vomit could be fastened to concepts of envious high culture. As they did, then vomit became reshaped and was able to stand alone as a beacon of sophistication. Ancient Roman public spaces, like amphitheaters and stadiums, were engineered with passages under the seating allowing for an orderly exit from the structure. The noun form of the verb vomit, vomitorium, was kept in reserve to apply to architectural situations involving crowd control. Modern usage of the word is almost exclusively applied to the physiological process of violent excretion called emesis.

The synonyms for vomit are as extensive as they are vivid with particular emphasis on the vernacular. Vomit is often depicted in more prosaic terms which connote the physics of expulsion like throw up, upchuck, heave, spew, hurl and retch. There are also words and phrases which supply a phonetic rhythm to vomiting such as barf, sell the Buick or ralph. In the sometimes confusing British cockney rhyming slang, the cherubic animated characters of Wallace and Gromit are transformed into the “go to” nomenclature for vomit. Don't be fooled into surmising that these euphemisms for vomit are examples of modern day colloquialism found on the website Urban Dictionary. The Elizabethan Era was the period during which the Great Bard, William Shakespeare, bequeathed the English language with one of its most popular synonyms for vomit: puke. In As You Like It, Act II, Scene vii, Jaques says to to Duke Senior:

"They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms."

List of 5 Bright-eyed Franken-Foods

The gravitas of GMO's (genetically modified organisms) stealthily infiltrating the food we consume has become a societal cause de jour. Irrespective of your ethical, moral or gastronomic stance on GMO's they are a ubiquitous topic of the 24 hour news cycle. Members on the cornucopia of social media outlets quibble ad nauseam about GMO's effects and the nefarious ways corporations deliberately mislead the public about the evils of GMO's. Grassroots advocacy groups and even militant eco-facists harangue the content vapid 24hour news organizations with their causality spin on the declining health of the world, which they allege is the handiwork of GMO's.

On the other end of the pundit spectrum are the lobbyists, the naysayers and the pernicious Public Relations machines, who on the GMO' industry's behalf, vehemently deny any causality between the world's declining health and GMO's. These Public Relations firms are the marketing organs of a robust and thriving propaganda body which has been honing its public deception techniques for over 100 years. All of these handmaidens of corporate perception marketing, as well as those groups who oppose the proliferation of GMO's, are equally vociferous.

Some might say that either of these pro or con groups are blinded to the deeper contextual meaning of GMO's. If the definition of GMO's is seen as a continuum from a proto-historical period through to the present, then the feud between the parties could take on vastly different proportions.

In the Pulitzer Price winning book; Guns, Gems and Steel, author and academic Jared Mason Diamond examined the forces behind the rise of civilizations throughout history. He detailed the components which allowed for some civilizations to flourish and evolve into nation states and, conversely, portrayed the shortfalls of those civilizations which remained in arrested development. According to Diamond, a keystone to the continued evolution of civilizations into nation states was the successful manipulation of food stuffs. These food stuffs, or staples, are categorized in the book as being maize, wheat and rice. The manipulation of these food stuffs, in addition to available meat (protein sources) and environmental situations, which occurred over thousands of years, is the linchpin in the development and evolution of these civilizations.

The irony is that the pervasive hate ethos which Monsanto receives can be contrasted to the early modern and proto-historical realities. There are antique GMO's we gleefully and naively still eat today.

Cucumbers
These modified cucumbers were first developed in Dutch greenhouses. Seedless cucumbers were also serendipitously endowed with the nomenclature of being burpless. The low levels of cucurbitacins, compounds which cause the fruit to taste bitter and inhibit digestion, were removed during the process of cultivating the seedless-ness.

Carrots
It is naturally occurring on a color spectrum ranging from off-white to a mat purple. The hue was changed to the adoring florescent orange sometime during the 16th and 17th centuries. Although apocryphal, carrot lore has it t hat the color was changed to honor the Low Countries' King: The King of Orange.

Bananas
Initially bananas were as scarce in the world market as salt and pepper had been in the middle ages. In the early 1800's the 7th Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish, received a shipment of bananas from the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Cavendish was able to cultivate this hardy strain of banana which spawned the commercially viable bananas. These bananas were essentially cloned from one source: the 'Cavendish' cultivar. At the end of the 19^th century a new variety took root in the tropics in order to supply the increasing banana consumption of America and Europe: the Big Mike banana. The Big Mike had a major advantage over the Cavendish Banana in that its peel was significantly thicker which reduced bruising during shipping. The Big Mike was supplanted by the Cavendish in the late 1920's because it proved to be a hardier variety than the Big Mike. A soil disease, known as Panama Disease or “fusarium wilt”, had decimated the Big Mike crops. Panama Disease was less virulent against the Cavendish crops which motivated the banana plantations to return to the first banana Franken- Food.

Sugar Beets
Cane sugar, like it's predecessors salt, Tyrian purple and pepper, was in high demand and limited supply; usually at exorbitantly inflated prices. Fredrick II , the King of Prussia, in the mid-eighteenth century vowed that his kingdom would develop a substitute for cane sugar. This surrogate would be gained by extracting sugar from sugar beets. Fredrick II financed an intensive scientific program devoted to experimentation aimed at developing processes for sugar extraction. The beet which was selected and modified was 'Weiße Schlesische Zuckerrübe', which means white Silesian sugar beet. Due to the fact that France was unable to receive sugar because of British sea blockades during the Napoleonic Wars, the Emperor Napoleon inaugurated schools dedicated to the study of beets and beet sugar. This was the birth of the nascent sugar beet industry which flourished at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

Onions
The bane of nearly anyone who cooks with onions is the uncontrollable sobbing after cutting into the fleshy veggie. In 2007 New Zealand and Japanese researchers came to the 2nd World Onion Congress in The Netherlands with a remarkable breakthrough in onion technology: The Tearless Onion. The science behind the Franken-Onion is a gene-silencing technology known as RNAi. The dubious good new is that no foreign proteins have been fused with the onion which research indicates will allow for a hardier strain. The questionable bad new is that the onion won't be in anyone's kitchen for at least another 5 years.

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.