Blog Posting #6 (due MONDAY 3/19, 11:59 P.M., Comment by Tuesday): Eating 'Reality'

The guiding proposition, sort of 'anthropological': 

From any 'eating / food event,' closely read, we should be able to infer just about anything about a society / culture.

Why?  because of what Latour calls 'networks' or 'hybrids.'  It's all connected: The food. The channels of economics, technology, commerce and so on by which it gets to us. The vastly complex rules on 'cultural practices' like Kosher or Hallal (obvious, explicit ones), or subtle ones like table manners, dating protocols, etiquette, restaurant practices ('Hi, I'm Pam, and I'd like to tell you about our specials...'.)  Food ads. Systems of distribution, pricing, sourcing, manufacturing, marketing. Representations of eating and food in literature, film, TV, visual art. Food stores: the isles, the racks, the displays, the signs, the free samples, the workers--all of it. And finally: our bodies, shaped by culture to crave some things ('go get sliders, anybody?'), and find others gross and disgusting.  

Case in point: that's a LOT of grease on these burgers.  'Yum'?  or 'Oh, ish!'

Sample Case:  In this piece from Culver's webpage, we can watch a vid of Craig Culver (son of the originator) talking to a classic Swede fisherman about cold-water cod — as he breads and fries a fillet. Craig's a big boy, with a comfortable, Midwest manner. He says he comes from a long line of Wisconsin farmers and cheesemakers, and helped his dad invent the Butter Burger. It really couldn't be more pure Mid-West America, and it couldn't argue louder for great, glorious eating excess as a way to express ourselves. Meat: great greasy piles of it. Feels so good. 

Or not?

Going to Culver's, ordering a 'Bacon Deluxe.' Eating it with your family. Reading about Craig and his family; looking at the picture of Craig in his ballcap with the rancher and feeling good. OR:  making fun of Culver's and driving right by, or following a plant-based diet, or asking for the dressing 'on the side' all constitute 'eating / food events.'  

Such events construct us, consolidate our identities. Make us — literally, bodily.  Pierre Bourdieu says our bodies are a sort of fleshy historical record of where we've been. You can 'read' them. And they shout messages about social class, race, gender, everything. Pollan notes that we're largely corn C4 carbon. I would note that we're also oil (which Koch Refinery makes into ammonium nitrate, which farmers knife into their fields).

••• Read an Eating / Food Event.  Show how it constructs 'food' and the culture that supports it.  And us •••

Like what?  Well, obviously things like food advertising. Food in film. Actual food sources (read the Wedge). 'Food porn' — cookbooks, Gourmet, high-end food-tool stores. Restaurants (and what the natives do in them). Your family at table. Food packaging. Eating-disorder clinics.  But also things that may not have an easy 'object' to post — like how meat production companies (Perdue, Hormel) treat immigrant labor (and how The Donald treats immigration). Or Lorenz Meats (Cannon Falls) 'glass abbatoir' (Pollan pp. 226 & 333). Or some little-known facts about actual agricultural practices or economic systems.

1.  Use your expertise; find something that you know or care about. 

2.  Take a position if you want: if it really pisses you off, or if it's an unshakeable 'guilty pleasure,' or you deeply love it, welcome to explore and share why.

3.  Use some of our work to analyse it.  Latour's idea that 'instruments' of all sorts delimit what we can see and talk about.  Or his idea that economic / political forces are part of all production (not just science).  Or any of the Pollan work on the economic / political history of corn.  Or Goodwin on advertising and the creation of things like need, surplus and value.

Have some fun.  Check out 'Colin the Chicken' (Portlandia) HERE (great satire and cultural analysis). OR the obvious fun Pollan has in exploring and telling.  Like that.

Blog Posting #5 (Due Saturday 3/3 @ 11:59 PM): Field Work — Drug Hybrids

Field work: explore a drug / procedure / treatment / condition, and so on, hybrid

MINI-CASE 1: Here, Vicks is selling their night (Nyquil^®) and daytime (Dayquil^®) cold / URI medications.  But (IMHO) they are also selling a view of mother and fatherhood, working conditions, and appropriate compensation for labor. Go HERE and HERE and HERE for the YouTube links to the actual TV ads. Watch a few.

In Robin's Humble Opinion, neither of these ads could work in Europe, because people there all get sick time, and maternity leave. Works here. Sells drugs. Sells ideology. 'Makes up' our world.

So Vicks is selling cold meds (pharmacology discussed below) at twice the price of the Walgreens  unbranded exact equivalent you'll find next to the Nyquil^® on the shelf.  But are they are also selling a politics of sexual identity (hetero-normative?), fecundity, labor, compensation, how to dance at your daughter's wedding, and a good deal more—like how to decorate a kid's room, and how to talk 'business' as a man or woman ('Hey Amanda, sorry to bother you…')? 

Note the richness of the phrase 'Power through your day.'  

'OK? Got it? OK? OK?' — as The Donald would say. THIS IS A HYBRID — made of all these things, and doing all this 'cultural work.'

THEORY:  On p. 100, Latour gives us a diagram (good one) of 'science's blood flow.'  He argues that 'the facts' / data / laws of science are not the 'real stuff' with everything else just noise, corruption, superstition, bias, background and so on.  Science literally IS its (1) instruments (2) allies (the money) (3) colleagues (fellow scientists) (4) public representation (literally the PR; getting 'the public' to go along), and the web of meaning he calls (5) links and knots (what we used to call 'the facts'). In sum: science (for us 'techno-science) is ALL of the activities in and around science that make it possible.  It flows.  Neil deGrasse Tysen on TV looking cool is doing science, just as he is in front of a radio-telescope or computer screen. Neil negotiating his salary is doing science. Neil telling people of faith they aren't rational is doing science. Neil telling us that facts are facts is doing science.

And Vicks peddling Nyquil^®, motherhood, and crappy working conditions is doing science. Nyquil^® recommending that we spread disease is doing science (remember that many Japanese stay home with colds and wear masks in public.  Losers).  God Bless America. Let's be great again and work through our colds.

What to DO (however you want to structure it):

1.  Get in the field. Go to Walgreens and look at the sexual  — uh — 'stuff'  counter.  The diet pills.  The sleep aids. Go to The Wedge or Whole Foods and scan the vitamins / supplements section. Go to GNC and feast your eyes on the body-building supplements. Note that you can define 'drug' really, really widely—just make your case. Remember that in 2018, 'the field' is also virtual. And this might be a good project to do with a buddy or two, or as a group—share the work; share the fun.

2.   Find a good one (sorry I hogged Nyquil^®), and:

3.    Read the heck out of it, as follows:

·      Get the data (the pharmacology, the ingredients, the prices, the info on who owns what, the visual details of the packaging, marketing and so on. Detail colors, wording, language, mini-dramas ('Dave, I'm sorry to interrupt; I gotta take a sick day…'),. Get online and do some private-investigating or investigative journalism.

·      Theorize it, using all of our work; show us the organization of the hybrid phenomenon you found.  All the links, all the connections.

4.  Show us something new and important. This is your 'new knowledge,' the part where you show us something in our everyday / science lives that is interesting and surprising.

MINI-CASE 2: When I was looking fast for example hybrids for class, I went back to a Daily piece from 2 years ago on the U deciding to allow official 'trans*' names. Naming is so important; it's 'circulating reference'; once the U decides to let us re-name ourselves as we transition, 'trans*' becomes differently (and maybe more) 'real.'

But then I saw this banner ad, seeking  egg donors for pay. OK, 'men,' listen up: while not a dangerous procedure (it's done laproscopically, but it still means a hole in the abdomen, a hole in the ovary, and general anesthesia). Ouch, it hurts.  And that egg is 'half' a 'person,' in some views.  I can't begin to count the issues here, but let me give a list of possibilities:  Heteronormativity (again).  Tissues as commodities. Sex as 'procreative' (a little side piece on something like 'multi-culturalism' with those three cute, differently-colored women). 'Breeding' and 'the future.'  And lots more.

Without understanding ALL the parts of this vast hybrid, we don't really get it.  We don't really 'believe in reality.'

Like this, guys.  Find something cool and read the heck out of it.  

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Extra Stuff: Nyquil^® sucks (pharmacology and marketing)

Well, it doesn't really suck, but ALL 'cold remedies' are made up out of the same 3-5 ingredients, made different and distinct by BRANDING (CF: Economix, p. 167)

Here's Dayquil^®:

Acetaminophen 325 mg	Pain reliever/fever reducer
Dextromethorphan HBr 10 mg	Cough suppressant
Phenylephrine HCl 5 mg	Nasal decongestant, slight antihistamine potential

Here's Nyquil^®:

Acetaminophen 325 mg	Pain reliever/fever reducer
Dextromethorphan HBr 15 mg	Cough suppressant
Doxylamine succinate 6.25 mg	Antihistamine, soporific / hypnotic

Dextromorphan (a bromide salt, here, but used in several salts, all the same) is the universal cough suppressant.  Give it names, it's Robitussin^®, Walitussin (Walgreens, poaching the brandname), or Delsym^®.

Both Doxylamine and Phenylephrine are in the same class ('decongestants' because they speed and dry, antihistamines because they—duh—block histamines. One sedates (Doxy…), one's a little speedy (Phenyl…).

Acetominophen is good ole Tylenol^®, and will take out your liver if you overdose.  So wouldn't it be good to know it's IN there? 

Point: 3-4 cheap, universal ingredients that, recombined and branded, fill a wall at the drugstore. All the same. All marginally helpful. But check out the pretty ads!

Grandma is Addicted to Morphine Again

In one of my recent nursing classes, we were having a discussion about how to care for a patient with cancer. Different interventions were brought up one of them included giving a patient opioids. For those who are living underneath a rock, President Trump has recently declared there to be an opioid crisis. Naturally, one of my classmates asked about opioids and addiction and what we’re supposed to do about this as nurses.

This is what my professor said. From a nursing standpoint, addiction is any psychological dependency on substances, like drugs. You cannot be addicted to medication if you body physically needs it (AKA when you have cancer and in a lot of pain). However, our bodies build up tolerances to drugs after use overtime. People often can mix up tolerances with addiction.

But what does that mean? Because of the misconceptions and taboos regarding addictions (and specifically those with drugs), patients refuse to take pain killers out of fear they’ll develop an addiction to Tylenol or opioids. A lot of these patients are 70-80 year old grandmas you'd commonly find at the hospital. Our society’s poor views on addiction have caused people to refuse a basic right, a right to relieve pain. I think that’s screwed up.

I currently work in a mental health unit at the hospital, and it reminded me about another time we talked about addiction in class. Last time, we watched a TED Talk about addiction and community. Here’s a video of it https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong

For those who don’t want to watch it. This is the summary: in America we do addiction care pretty shitty. Other countries for addiction care highlight the importance of community. Integrating community to addicts has been tremendously important. I am skeptical on the concept, but I do think that their take on addiction and therapy is much better here in America. I think that our mindset on addictions needs to be shifted and change our perspectives and care.

Heroin: The Miracle Drug of 1895

Originally pitched by Bayer Company as a household cough suppressant with less addictive side effects than morphine, heroin (an acetylated derivation of morphine) eventually ended up becoming the addictive, dangerous drug we know today. For almost 30 years, the sale and use of heroin was a legal and commonly used prescription in the United States. During that time, unrestricted use of the drug lead to thousands of people becoming 'addicted' to heroin. Press during that time condemned recreational opiate dens, but the use of opiates in common household products for things such as teething or menstrual cramp analgesics were taking over the market. Miracle drugs with so called 'secret' ingredients flooded the pharmaceutical market and silently caused thousands of people to become dependent on heroin and other opiate derivatives. So when and why did this 'heroic' drug become illegal?

Well without going into too much boring, nitty-gritty detail, laws such as the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act (may have also been racially anti-Chinese motivated), which banned recreational use of the drug, and the Harrison Narcotics Tax Acts, which implemented a tax on the drug, slowly framed the drug into a negative light and limited the ability of doctors to prescribe opiates. It was over the course of these few years that addiction to heroin and other opiates were shifted to be viewed as a falter in moral standing rather than a medical dependancy. This new perspective on opiates propped up the very anti-opiate use that doctors still have today.  It was through the numerous laws such as the Pure Food and Drug act that caused drug use to become a problem of law enforcement rather than public health. More strict, direct laws passed in the 1970's controlling and framing heroin use as a criminal act, not a medical issue was a main contributor in viewing users as deadbeats, junkies, degenerates, criminals, etc. However, by viewing these people in such a negative light and handling them through the scope of law enforcement, little progress is to be made on the front of the 'opiate epidemic'. If we want to 'fix' this medical dependency, then we need to treat this problem as a problem of public health rather than criminal acts.

How opiate use was viewed in the 1900's: Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup for Children Teething with a Mother and children reading in bed. 

Add caption

How Opiate use is viewed today: 

How opiate use is viewed today: Back from the dead: a police officer in Montgomery County, Ohio, administers the emergency anti-opioid medication Narcan to two users found unconscious in their car

I smoked cigarettes and ate them too

I’m a badass.

Well, at least I thought I was when I was a child.

Candy cigarettes were first introduced in the United States in the 1930s. Back then, the packaging for candy cigarettes resembled actual cigarette packaging. (Marlboro vs Marboro) When candy cigarettes were first introduced, parents were not concerned because smoking was not seen as a big issue. Countries did not start banning the manufacture of candy cigarettes until the 1950s, because this was when health reports came out detailing how dangerous smoking is.  

When I was in elementary school, my favorite place to go to was the oriental store. Any chance I got, I would go because my parents always let me pick out one thing, and I always chose candy. (Excuse my next sentence. I wasn’t sure how else to express myself LOL) Dude, y’all don’t understand how lit the candy selection was at the oriental store I went to. My parents would leave my siblings and I in the candy section while they went and grabbed their things (Hmong parent logic – have a lot of kids so they can watch each other). Starburst was my usual go to, but I remember browsing the candy selection one day and I found a pack of candy cigarettes. The word cigarettes did not appear on the packing, instead the word sticks replaced it. My parents purchased the candy sticks for me that day, and I was so excited to go home so I could open my candy. I remember opening the box and holding the candy as if it was a cigarette. I thought I was so cool because I felt like a grown up. After a few minutes of pretending, I took a bite of my candy stick… it was as bland as it looked. I was so disappointed, but I did not throw away the candy. Looking back, I think I kept the box of candy sticks because I wanted to be cool like my older cousins.

Candy cigarettes along with movies and family members that portray smoking as something grown ups do make it acceptable to be addicted. They made smoking look acceptable to a little 10 year old. 

Now, I occasionally smoke a cigarette here and there. I know the consequences of smoking (D.A.R.E and high school health class), but that does not stop me from smoking in a social setting, because I am of age to purchase and smoke cigarettes and we all die eventually so why not live a little? (joking)