On Tuesday, January 12, 2010; at approximately 4:53 PM EST, a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the Haiti region killing 212,069 people and injuring another 300,517. Just over 1.2 million people, or almost 14% of the population, are residing in sheltered areas. So how does one approach this apocalyptic event, offering humanitarian aid and support to this devastated nation? How does one implement a structure in the face of a devastating natural disaster and the ensuing chaos?

In 2005, the Emergency Relief Coordinator of World Health Organization (WHO) launched an independent humanitarian response review to assess humanitarian response capacities of several key international organizations.

The response review’s recommendation was the use of a “cluster” methodology or approach. The Inter-Agency Standing Committee, or IASC, designated global cluster leads in eleven areas of humanitarian activity assigning purview to several international organizations.

Out of every ten deaths worldwide, six are due to non-communicable conditions; three to communicable, reproductive or nutritional conditions; and one due to injuries. Many developing countries have mortality patterns that reflect high levels of infectious diseases and the risk of death during pregnancy and childbirth, in addition to the cancers, cardiovascular diseases and chronic respiratory diseases that account for most deaths in the developed world (World Health Statistics, 2009).

The World Health Organization, also known as W.H.O., is the authority for health issues within the United Nations system. The W.H.O. is responsible for providing leadership on global health issues, shaping health research, setting standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring/assessing health trends.

It is with Occamistic logic and vision lex parsimoniae that we, as a nation, understand people, places and things. With Aurelian simplicity, we determine cause of a given event sans extraneous factors.

When up to one year ago, leading Economist declared a Recession. The fourth estate’s equivocal lexica suggested everything was either rebounding or dismal depending, of course, on which side of the political fence one sits.

Due to a certain milestone going unreached, a suggestion regarding an economic recessional period seemed overly pessimistic. Those seated across the aisle suggested that, already reaching the real indicator, we were in a recessional state.

“For by art is created that great Leviathan called a Commonwealth, or State (in Latin, Civitas), which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended”.

The above quotation is, in part, an introductory passage from Thomas Hobbes’ magnum opus, The Leviathan or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil. Throughout this work, Hobbes labors to define the relationship between the people and government. Thus, he added significantly to the foundation of Social Contract theory and those proponents who would later follow.

Washington, DC-Following 9/11, President Bush declared, during the 2002 State of the Union address, that Iran is a member of the “Axis of Evil”. Since that time, a case for war has been prepared.

On January 11, 2006, the Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte announced the creation of the “Iran Mission Manager” and subsequent appointment Ms. S. Leslie Ireland to this new position.

“Big Brother” is an Orwellian term taken from the novel 1984. 1984 is a novel, written by British essayist George Orwell, which depicts life in a totalitarian state. Since its publication in 1949, the term “Big Brother” has evolved into a cliché, denoting an overbearing governing body and acts committed therein. For those of the lost generation, the term is in reference to a television reality show [but not in this article].

Governmental legislation such as the PATRIOT Act is, arguably, Big Brother-esque in its conception. “PATRIOT” is not a term referencing injured Minute Men sitting atop Bunker Hill with drum and fife as they fight for the birth of a nation, but an acronym for Public Law 107-56 entitled Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.