Dr Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler: Intellectualizing happiness and the antebellum critique

It is a leap to compare the nature of catching a cold with the phenomena of obesity. But an article by Alice Park in the 12/22/08; Time Magazine based on a work by Dr. Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler published in the British Medical Journal does exactly that.

Analysis and critical thought or the dialectical method has always recognized the dynamic of the detail and for lack of or it's presence has in one form or the other been a cornucopia or bane of the human condition and it's Political-Economy.

Dr. Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler premise the supposition that if infectious pathogens are a social virial then human emotion, lets say happiness should not also be infectious but it is infectious.

This puts me in the mind of the antebellum critique' where carpet beggar Northerners were blamed for Southern Black militancy. As if the oppressed needed paternalism to objectify the condition.

Historically idealism's knock has simply been, it's intellectualism for it's sake. This labor by the aforementioned authors is victim of intellectualism's at the expense of the dialectical truth that there really is an object and subject.


By Apropos

Howard Dean and "The Scream" has been Vindicated

Any talk about corporate media circumscribing political narrative has to include "The Scream". Who can forget Howard Dean's exuberance in Iowa, "The Scream" and how it was used against him by his enemies and their columns to derail Deanism.

Still Howard Dean had one last hurrah, the 2008 Presidential election and it's historical conclusion.

Barack Obama has "The Scream" to thank.

Democrats have "The Scream" to thank for the 2006 mid-term gains to Barack Obama's triumph.

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Lynn Swann Republican, Collaborator and Organic-Empiricism

On 10/22/08; Lynn Swann, the former Football player and one time Republican candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania, was trotted out on the Lou Dobbs show for the specific purpose of dismissing Colin Powell's criticism of the Republican party, John McCain and Sarah Palin during Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama.

It wasn't surprising to see Lynn Swann play that historical role of collaborator, that easy way out of embracing the status quo narrative at the expense of annihilating the suppositions of reaction.

Colin Powell's analysis and critique of Republican political practice as exemplified by the Palin-idiocy of God, Guns, Family and the backwardness of Urban, Rural antagonism's was positive. Instead of Lynn Swan invoking and resurrecting positive Republican analysis, the party of Fredrick Douglas. He perpetuated the very zeitgeist that kept him from triumph in 2006.

Is it any wonder contemporary Republican politics runs counter to the organic-empiricism of American-Political Economy?

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Bernard Madoff, The Ponzi Spin and Money Laundering

The naive are buying this Ponzi scheme spin on the Bernard Madoff swindle.

Isn't money laundering a more credible explanation? The public is being asked to accept that Bernard Madoff ran a decades long Ponzi-Pyramid scheme analog type scam which has resulted in the $50 Billion swindle of all sorts of investors.

It is just incredibly far fetched that the short term scope of the Ponzi type scheme could sustain the long lasting structure necessary to swindle $50 Billion from investors with varied imperatives.

What is realistic is Bernard Madoff was operating a money laundering scheme, rehabilitating capital and enabling its viability at a certain strata of society.

This Bernard Madoff Ponzi spin is a diversion.

By Apropos

Bob Corker's Delusions, Bob Corker's detour of Political-Economy

Bob Corker's grandstanding on the question of bail out for the big 3 auto makers is down right pathetic.

Republican U.S. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, a former mayor of Chattanooga and construction company owner has been the rabid personification of anti-United Auto Workers Union.

The State of Tennessee has one million people receiving food stamps. The city of Chattanooga has a high unemployment rate. Both state and city exhibit the full antagonistic range of Bob Corker's delusions.

It is annoying that at this stage of the human condition and development. Polemics has to digress in combating the Bob Corker detour of Political-Economy distortions.

Southern Republican Senators Richard Shelby, Bob Corker to name a few are being counted upon to once and for all reveal and expose the naive and reactionary nature of their Political-Economy suppositions...Ha...Ha...Ha.

By Apropos

The 400 Count Indictment of David Scrafano

David Scrafano, a child molester of Smith County, Virginia was sentenced to 2 years in jail, 10 years probation and a $5,000 fine, on 12/4/08.

What is unique and disturbing about the Scrafano case and indictment is David Scrafano was initially charged with 400 counts of child molestation!! But he was convicted on one count!!

So why would the Commonwealth Attorney for Smith County charge David Scrafano with 400 counts of child sex violations but convict him on only one?

By Apropos

190,000 Veterans are Homeless in America

It has been reported that over 190,000 Veterans are homeless in America. Besides the hypocrisy of those whose demagoguery is "support our troops" and "country First" and their failure to respond to this blight on social polity.

Apropos, The Blog of Political-Economy and the Human Condition ask all readers to virialize this idea: turn military bases that are on the to be closed list into temporary housing for veterans who need housing.

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Clayton County, Georgia, A Slave Cemetary and Moral Revision

Notwithstanding the controversial decision by Clayton County, Georgia public officials to remove remains of Black Slaves from the present cemetery to another one, clearing way for a land-fill.

There is a primary question of responsibility to heritage. The present slave cemetery point of the Clayton County controversy has not been cared for. It is overgrown with weeds, brush and trash strewn. Headstones are weathered and uncared for. It is an extreme feat and moral revision to make the contradictory and hypocritical argument, that corrupt, corporate lackeys in Clayton County's government in the pay of the landfill company have denied the humanness of Black Slaves buried on the grounds of a proposed landfill by ruling in it's favor. When Black Heritage in Clayton County hasn't seen fit to care for and protect the slave cemetery.

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The Catholic Church, Catholicism, Abortion and Barack Obama

Besides railing against abortion, despite it being a legitimate but criticized social fact. What exactly has the Catholic Church and Catholicism actually done in advancing the human condition scientifically?

Lately reactionary comments harking to attitudes and fraudulent certainties of the infamous Spanish Inquisition has been the recourse of certain elements within the Catholic church in response to Barack Obama winning the U.S. Presidency.

Certain Catholic elements, A Cardinal, Bishop and Priests have called the election of President-Elect Barack Obama an "Apocalyptic event", "Evil" and parishioners who voted for Barack Obama must confess it as a sin because of Obama's view that abortion is a parents choice and a legal question.

I think it is a good idea that the Catholic Church is jumping into the Political-Economy arena with it's thinly veiled theocratic presumptions over the abortion question. This now allows Catholicism to experience ideological struggle specifically as progress of objective facts without the obfuscation of the theological faith basis.

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Plaxico Burress Deviance and the Status Quo Narrative

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg opening the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomburg has jumped in head first into The Plaxico Burress Shooting incident. With his sanctimonious pronouncements of the full weight of the law coming down on Plaxico Burress, the New York Giants wide receiver who during the Thanksgiving weekend allegedly shot himself in the leg.

There is this amnesiac streak of the status quo narrative in American society when it concerns Black behavior and the Burress incident again exposes it's racist underbelly.

I have one response: It is time every single American life, from post puberty is subjected to microscopic scrutiny and the full weight of Bloomburgian "law" brought to bear. Because this hypocrisy of selective ire and persecution of social deviance by Black citizens at the audacious expense of white collar and corporate crime, the deviance by American Political-Economy elities and it's consequential travesty of "Governmental Bail-Outs", requires a materialist narrative.

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Oprah Winfrey interviews the Obama Quid Pro Quo

60 Minutes, Barbara Walters and Meet The Press, might have interviewed Barack Obama in his role as the First Black President-Elect of the United States.

But the plum and the coup de grace has been saved and reserved for Oprah Winfrey.

It is believed Oprah Winfrey will be the first to formerly interview the Obama's in the White House as the first Black President takes on his duties in the Spring of 2009.

Certain Republicans are critical of the Oprah interview as a contradiction of Barack Obama's anti Quid Pro Quo rhetoric. Because of Oprah Winfrey's critical help to the Obama's during the Democratic Party's primary process.

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Al Zawahiri, Barack Obama's Sister Souljah: The Al Qaeda Gambit

Much has been made of Al Zawahiri's, Al Qaeda's purported number two, recent "House Negro" snide at Barack Obama. Corporate media's take is Al Qaeda is discrediting Barack Obama as being that classic collaborator. The bane of Black resistance, a House Negro.
The fact of the matter is Al Qaeda's alleged snide at Barack Obama on the contrary, enables Obama to defacto continue the status quo narrative against Al Qaeda.
Al Zawahiri's Obama criticism, just as criticism from certain Black nationalist during candidate Barack Obama's campaign allowed Obama to have his Sister Souljah moment---serves one and only one purpose. It allows non-revolutionary politics to use revolutionary narrative at it's expense.

By Apropos