Health & Interventions

Health is the ability of a biological system to acquire, convert, allocate, distribute, and utilize energy with maximum efficiency. The World Health Organization (WHO) defined human health in a broader sense in its 1948 constitution as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." This definition has been subject to controversy, in particular as lacking operational value, the ambiguity in developing cohesive health strategies and because of the problem created by use of the word "complete", which makes it practically impossible to achieve. Other definitions have been proposed, among which a recent definition that correlates health and personal satisfaction.

Interventions is a book by Noam Chomsky, an American linguist, MIT professor, and political activist. Published in May 2007, Interventions is a collection of 44 op-ed articles, post-9/11, from September 2002, through March 2007. The book's subjects span from 9/11 and the Iraq war to social security and intelligent design, South America and Asia, the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the election of Hamas, Hurricane Katrina, and the US concept of "just war". The Pentagon banned the book from its Guantanamo Bay prison because it might negatively “impact... good order and discipline.” Chomsky replied that, “This happens sometimes in totalitarian regimes.”