WTF, world

Let's Talk About Wikileaks. Part I.

2011-01-03T10:53:00.003-05:00

It was a snowy night in Boston in late December, 2010. Four old friends got together around a kitchen table in a North End apartment to have fun, catch up, and play “Let’s Talk About Wikileaks, Baby,” a drinking game/debate.

These four friends, D, A, P and S, whose names are being withheld for professional reasons, have all followed the Wikileaks saga from the beginning. D is on one side of the debate, as he wants to eventually go into the diplomatic service. A is on the far other side and wants to be an international investigative journalist. P has worked in public policy and polling. S is in health care policy, both international and domestic. A and P have worked in advertising and social media.

All have backgrounds in debate, public speaking and position paper writing.

Two are male and two are female. Three are from New England. One is from California.

All have American passports and all have studied abroad (some more than once), one in the Middle East, one in Central America, three in Europe.

All have graduated with Bachelor’s degrees. Two are currently in masters programs.

All voted for President Obama, although one of the four is a registered Libertarian who only votes Democrat because of a crippling fear of Sarah Palin.

The rules of the debate were as follows:

- There were three talking points for that night’s salon:

1. Was it responsible to leak the documents? Is Wikileaks right or wrong?

2. Is Wikileaks a journalistic endeavor? Is Julian Assange a journalist?

3. What is rape? Is Julian Assange a rapist?

- Because debate sometimes gets out of hand, if fun to mix it with drinking:

1. If you vehemently disagree with something, you must knock on the table twice and drink.

2. If you agree, you knock and say, “rabble rabble,” like in the John Adams HBO miniseries, and the person speaking drinks.

3. If you’d like to make a point of order or ask a question, you must raise one hand and hold the other one on your head, such as in the English parliament where they would practice holding their wigs on – and then drink.

(Other drinking games by this group include “Everything I Know, I Learned From West Wing, You Paranoid Shiksa Feminista” and “Wookie Noise, Take a Shot”)

The transcript that follows is that night’s discussion.

FIRST POINT: Was Right or Wrong to Leak the Documents?

A: Alright, we’re recording. First off, leaking docs. You start.

D: I want to start by saying that I think that Wikileaks would still be covered by the First Amendment. Straight out, I’m not talking about the legality of reporting documents. If a thief gives you documents, the First Amendment still covers you. It might not be wise to cover that, it might not be good for the country, and as someone who’s trying to enter the State Department, I have this national interest consideration going on. But, I don’t think that if Julian Assange were completely independent of Bradley Manning, like if he just received these documents, I don’t think that he should not be covered by the First Amendment. We could discuss whether Julian Assange was linked to Bradley Manning. I know they had conversations at least four months before the leaking of the documents.

P: I don’t want to get into too much speculation.

A: Yeah… I don’t know.

D: No, there is a conversation of Bradley Manning speaking to Lamo that says, “oh, you don’t contact him, he contacts you,” through encrypted chat. [Pauses]. No, fuck this, Julian Assange is a tool and I don’t like him. [Laughter]

A: No, focus on the docs. Was is responsible to leak not only Collateral Murder, but the Iraq War Logs, the Afghanistan War Logs, the State Department Cables? Those are the American ones. On top of the Kenyan election documents, the Icelandic banking documents, and all other things that have been released?

D: OK, clearly, I’m not going to argue that the United States government does everything right all the time. There is certainly wrong-doing. But I will say that in every single profession, every single one, there is an idea of privacy, that is essential for the job to get done. There’s a level of privacy necessary. This is true for doctors, lawyers, and even for journalists. Julian Assange himself talks about how it’s necessary to keep sources anonymous and he doesn’t even want to know who his sources are. Although he was in contact with Bradley…

A: That’s beside the point.

D: Alright. The point is that for diplomats, I mean, I know a couple of very honorable diplomats who say, this is necessary. You need to have frank conversations – and I’m talking mostly about the diplomatic cables here – with your diplomatic counterparts in other countries because if you don’t, you can’t express your national interest, you can’t negotiate, you can’t do things that need to be done. That being said, these leaks expose instances of our government doing wrong-doing. I do know somewhat about Afghanistan. But I feel weird talking about this because it gets into the whole, was it news? Was it not news? We already knew civilians were getting killed in Afghanistan; civilians get killed in every war. Is that the deal? Or is the deal that Assange doesn’t believe in Secret classification? His philosophy is that there are governments that are oppressive that use the Secret classification in order to perpetuate their corrupt and wrong-doing ways and that the most cost-effective way to deal with these issues is to leak documents, leak sensitive material, showing off the wrong-doing. I would have less of a problem with Assange if he exposed specific instances of government wrong-doing. Like the cases where we failed to report how many civilians we killed in Afghanistan. Like the instances where the State Department is tracking credit card information, as opposed to intelligence organizations. All this other shit. I would have less of a problem with Assange if he was like, I’m out to expose specific wrong-doing by the government and he goes and releases X government cables and X documents showing off these problems. But instead, he says, no, the Secret classification shouldn’t exist [two bangs in disagreement, laughter] he says the only way to deal with this is transparency. And I don’t know… I think it’s wrong.

P: There are two things you make me think of. First is, we’re not talking about making the diplomatic process transparent. We’re not talking about a law that says we have to have it open all the time. There were instances of communication that were then revealed. So I think there are some instances of secrecy, of privacy, I think you point was very well taken, that that privacy was important. But this is a one-time thing. While there was a lot in those documents that was perhaps superfluous and didn’t really matter and was just plain embarrassing, I think the point you made about the transparency, that’s his deal. He’s not going to say, I have all these documents, I’m only going to release this one and this one because it seems the most pertinent. Then he would be contradicting himself. Once he has the leaked documents, he has to release all of them, based on his own belief system. Because no one can judge who gets what information. So if he has all that information, he’s going to leak all of it. We can argue about if that was right, but since his whole deal is transparency, I think that’s why he leaked it. It wasn’t to be vindictive, it was to be like, I can’t decide who gets to know what, so I’m just going to leak all of it and let the cards fall where they may. And this is the last point I’ll make: I do believe that if there was something in there that jumped out at him, in saying, this I absolutely cannot release, he probably would not. He’s not into having people die, he’s not into having the names and identities of secret agents and specific locations… and in the letter from him, he says that no one has died and that the Pentagon has actually publicly stated that no one has died and no operations have been significantly hindered based on any information that has come out. You can say that those diplomatic negotiations, possibly, but what’s more important is a lot of the illegal stuff that those cables revealed that’s what’s not being talked about in the media that much.

A: Yeah. I would like to piggy-back on that and just agree with your [P] statement that in Assange publishing the secret cables, I think we can all agree, a lot of them were straight-up ridiculous. They were silly, petty gossip and attacks on individuals and served nothing in anyone’s national interest, be it the United States, the French, the Russians, the Iraqis –

D: You’re talking about the Sarkoszy…

A: Yeah, the whatever, those kinds of things, yes, you have to release those if you’re going to release everything else. However, in declassifying those documents with their release, he went through… and not just him, Wikileaks as an organization, went through and redacted information, marked it out, because of what they had learned in the case of the Afghanistan War Logs, where they did publish peoples’ names and had a severe backlash, even though no one was hurt. This is a new organization and they are learning. And they took caution and care to redact names and information that they knew should be kept secret in the interest of saving lives and allowing diplomats to do their jobs.

S: The one thing to add about transparency, though, is that it equals the whole truth. If you want transparency, if that is your mission, you can’t be specific, you have to let out the whole truth. The one question that I would ask Assange if I could, and ask his supporters, if I may, is, what or where is the end game? What’s the purpose? What’s the goal? You have a mission statement and a system of values you’re trying to do and I’m all for releasing information and understanding government transparency and giving out as much information to the American public as you can, but like you [A] said, there’s absolutely no national interest, at all, to any country, so I don’t understand where he’s trying to go. What is he trying to accomplish by doing this?

D: I went onto Wikileaks , which is now like numbers 10427… whatever….

A: Or Wikileaks dot D-E. It’s up in Germany.

D: Right. Well, I looked onto their main page and I couldn’t find a mission statement. They do have a “we are a website, we are a not-for-profit journalism organization stating we are here to facilitate leaks. We don’t know who our sources are and we don’t want to know.” I mean, we’re talking about leaking docs. Transparency is the mission – that’s the goal.

P: He’s for total transparency.

A: No, he’s not.

P: Well, that’s what he stands for.

D: Well, what’s the mission, then? He’s not showing off specific cases of wrong-doing, it’s the whole spectrum, even subjections of the whole spectrum, the documents he got from Bradley Manning. Bradley Manning I respect more than Julian Assange. I did want to mention one thing: redaction. Yes, they do do redaction, in the most recent ones, they learned from Afghanistan, where names of specific informants got revealed, which is harmful. They’ve had to move around, informants have had to go underground; they’ve stopped supplying information. So, they have tried redaction in the State Department logs, but it usually includes, “XXXX who worked for this person, in this year,” and….

This is where the Flip Cam ran out of room. The conversation continued for a few minutes, and then A grabbed a digital voice recorder. The rest was recorded on that device.

D: The only position anyone in the government has taken is one) Eric Holder has said that they’re looking into an investigation, and two) A brought this up earlier, that a staffer to Joe Lieberman, who is on the Armed Services and American Security commission called Amazon.com and then Amazon said…

P: And pressure has been applied to Verizon and Comcast.

D: Right, but pressure… The government is allowed to apply pressure. They’re allowed to make statements saying, we believe that this guy is doing the wrong thing. And it’s not a government instruction, it’s not a demand of any sort. Wikileaks has been shut down because people, through corporations, have said, this guy is shady and we think it could be associated to [disagreement bangs on the table]… And my point is, the government has taken no action, and thus far, has made no action, no law has been passed, no one has said Wikileaks needs to be shut down. It’s entirely on behalf of private corporations, and no one should say it should be shut down.

P: Alright, I have a follow-up question. You do acknowledge that a system needs to be in place so that if an extreme does occur, it is able to be revealed? Would you agree with that?

D: What do you define as an extreme?

A: Would you define Guantanamo Bay water-boarding and the breaking of the Geneva Conventions to be extreme?

P: Sure, absolutely.

D: And I’m saying, that needs to be revealed. I’m saying, the “Secret” classification does need to exist and it shouldn’t be the Australian-born founder of Wikileaks who makes the distinction of what it is. But of all those “Secret” classifications, none of them deserved to be Classified.

P: I’m for preserving that ability. That’s what I’m for. So that makes me have to be an absolutist, if I’m going that way, because I have to be ok with information that I shouldn’t know getting out, because the real information, down the line, that really matters, still needs to be able to come out. We have to be able to keep the government from having the power to stop that at all costs.

D: So I’d say, your philosophy has been reflected in the government’s action. Because so far, no challenge to the First Amendment has been made.

P: I know. You need to be loud about it now, though, to keep it that way.

S: But the one thing that your whole argument has been predicated on, something that really bothers me, beyond Wikileaks and everything else, is that the four of us here, and our peers, are in the minority. And I think what you’re talking about, P, is that if there was sort of a Bradley Manning or Julian Assange before Iraq and Afghanistan, who would leak this information, I think the ability of that information to save lives is predicated on having an informed electorate. And unfortunately, in this country, we don’t. And here’s my thing: I would argue, and I don’t have anything to back this up, so anyone can refute, but I would argue that we are in the minority of the country, having actually gone to the Wikileaks site and read the Iraq War Documents, or the Afghanistan Logs, or seen these videos. So a lot of the ideas about the good that can come from Wikileaks are based on having people that care about government accountability. Unfortunately, gravely unfortunately [rabble, rabble, bangs of agreement, laughter] in this country, the vast majority of our population could give two rats shits about what our government does.

A: Let me jump on that.

S: But you understand what I’m saying – that this information could be invaluable, could have been invaluable before Iraq and Afghanistan, if there were people who were aware of it.

A: We, the four of us, as the minority in the U.S. electorate –

D: - who care about problems –

A: Right, we’re talking about how these documents, had they come out earlier, could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Well, they came out. Who’s to say what could have happened had they not?

S: Hindsight is 20/20.

A: Right. We’re now in a place where we’re having this conversation, and we’re obviously passionate about getting to the bottom of these issues. And one day, we’re going to be the people in the room. We’re representative of the different forms of government, places in government that we’ve seen ourselves working in, working with. Now, I’m saying that when we get there, we’ll have the knowledge of these leaks, they happened, and it really made us think about what the government does, what they should be allowed to do, and that they should inform the public about what they’re doing. Regardless of whether the guy in his armchair with the beer belly in Kansas watching Katie Couric is saying, “what the fuck is Wikileaks and who is Julian Assange and what does it mean,” who hasn’t read the documents, we have read the documents. We know what they say, and why they’re important.

D: I think too much of the debate about Julian Assange is about the symbolism of Julian Assange.

A: Can we stop referring to Julian Assange, when we’re talking about the organization?

D: The leaks, then, the symbolism of Wikileaks -

P: I think the symbolism is valid, because it’s symbolizing the future.

D: Right, but symbolism simplifies, when the reality is that in order to make real decisions… That’s the problem with politics today. Partisanship is simplified down to symbolism. People say, yes, small government is the best kind of government, or you go the other way, for a liberal perspective. But the reality is what’s the best way is complicated. And Julian Assange…

P: Rabble, rabble, I agree. We live in a complicated world, it’s complex.

D: So, the core of Wikileaks is transparency, and I’m all for transparency, but the thing is, if you take transparency too far, if you bring it to an extreme, it doesn’t work.

S: Well, here’s my argument, then: If you want transparency, if that’s your endgame, why is it not ok? Why is it not applicable for government officials to say, “here’s what I know, here’s what I think you should know, and over here is some sensitive information that you don’t know.” Why can’t they come out and honestly tell people, say, “I’m going to tell you this portion, I’m going to tell you as much and be as informative as I feel is appropriate for your safety, and I’m also going to tell you that there are certain things that I’m not saying?”

P: The problem with that, though, is that they do bad things, and you can never actually trust them to be giving you [the information you need].

D: At the State Department, though, every single one of those leaks, every single one of those diplomatic cables is released in a document called “Foreign Service of the United States.” It’s a book that’s released year by year, eighteen years after each publication… no, not eighteen years, it’s actually closer to thirty. But every one of these is going to come out. Every single one of them is going to be published by the United States government. Also, every single of these documents is available, if you prove a case, under the Freedom of Information Act. You can apply, as an American citizen, to receive these documents.

S: But you cannot apply to receive information that is classified or confidential…

D: Confidential is the lowest level of security. Top Secret is high.

S: I’m sorry, that’s what I meant. If it has been deemed Top Secret, the Freedom of Information Act will not give you access.

A: Nothing that was declassified by Wikileaks was Top Secret. Not one thing. They did not release Top Secret documents. Despite what the press says, there are documents that were classified as “Secret,” that detailed Muammar Gaddafi’s four blonde and busty Ukrainian nurses. Why was that labeled Secret? No one will know. But at the end of the day….

D: It’s political gossip. It’s ridiculous.

A: Exactly. Of course it’s ridiculous. But your argument is, these documents were going to be released anyway, eighteen years from now. If these documents are going to be released in the future, they’re not going to do any good then. The point is, had documents been released ten years ago about the Vietnam war, had the Pentagon Papers been released ten years ago, what good would that have done? You know? Who cares is they’re released twenty years late? Right now is when they’re relevant and right now is when they can do the most good.

D: Right. And that’s the transparency that I’m not against. I feel like we can wrap this up right now.

A: Ok.

D: Ok, A, you are the present pro-Wikileaks, pro-Assange personality. Do you think there’s a case to be made for saying it’s more defensible to have a Wikileaks that exposes wrong-doing by the government instead of exposing everything by the government?

A: Absolutely. Except for the fact that in exposing the lower-level classifications of documents, you’re going to have a lot of silly bullshit that comes out too. And if you’re…

D: But those aren’t necessarily about wrong-doing.

P: Do you think he should have just released the five or six that –

S: But here’s a question: If you’re going to take “transparency” and you’re going to change it, honestly change it, from transparency to specific issues, then you’re putting a whole ton of trust into Julian Assange to understand and to choose what he feels, a single individual feels is important.

A: Yes, but this is up to a thousand volunteers who are looking through, legitimizing, and fact checking these documents before they get sent to the New York Times and before the American public even sees them. This is an organization that cannot be classified as “This is Julian Assange.” It’s not. It’s a lot of people. Like the guy, Daniel, who has a last name that’s about eighteen syllables long and German, which I can’t pronounce.

P: Ok, there’s one last thing that maybe doesn’t tie into the was-it-right/was-it-wrong debate that I just want to get your guys’ thoughts on: I think that the American consciousness right now is in a very strange place. And I think that a lot of the reaction [rabble, rabble, bangs of agreement, laughter] to these documents, even among the totally uninformed people we were talking about earlier, there is a sense that America is in decline and it can be felt and there can be all different kinds of opinion on that. Is it decline in that it’s actually going down the crapper? Or is it decline in that we are no longer in a uni-polar system and that we’re moving back to a multi-polar system? That alone makes some people uneasy. They like that America was this regional hegemony that understood, was organizing the world, and was making it better. I think some people have reacted to the Wikileaks documents in the way that they just don’t like the idea that American influence can be hurt. They actually don’t care that America was doing bad things because, I don’t know how to say this, they’re like, well, you gotta crack a few eggs to make a cake, or something like that… [laughter]

S: I think it’s about an omelet. [Laughter]

P: Right, well, they’re saying to themselves, at the end of the day, I believe that America is the greatest, best country in the world, or they believe that America is just or that the U.S. government has our best interests in mind. A lot of people think that. And I find myself disagreeing sometimes, especially in terms of history, when we see that the U.S. government did not have our best interests in mind. But I think that’s an interesting way to look at it. A lot of people just have no problem with anything that was revealed and that’s why they’re mad and that’s why they’ll never support Wikileaks, because all they care about, ultimately, are American interests.

D: I think that’s a good note to end on for number one.

A: I think so too.

S: I think there’s a solid corollary, the one thing I find myself coming back to time and time again, in examining Wikileaks and this investigation, is going back to McCarthyism and that you’re targeting individuals that you suspect of wrong-doing, but have absolutely no proof. That was such a horrifying time in American history, that we would target our own citizens for being unethical and betraying, and if we get back to that point, I think it’s only going to lead to a further deprecation of what we believe in as an American, idealized system. And I think P’s completely right, that the majority of us feel or understand that we are not what we were in the early 90’s and we’re not going to be there again. The problem is, we don’t know where we’re going to end up. And that’s a really, really scary idea. To have this uncertain future. So what we try to do as an American public is to try to find as many scapegoats as possible. And I’m gonna blame you and you and you. So for us, it was, I’m going to blame Iraq, and then Afghanistan, and Iran, and North Korea and then I’m going to go back to individuals and I’m going to blame George Bush and Julian Assange. And I’m going to force this blame on anyone who has anything to do with what’s going on in American society. It’s not my fault. It’s everyone else’s fault.

A: Right.

P: What I’m most interested in is once I do come to a conclusion about how I feel about Assange, it’s how do we persuade people? Well, you have to figure out where they’re coming from, which is why I’m…

Parts II and III coming shortly.

i was on NPR!

2010-11-30T13:09:00.003-05:00

We were talking about WikiLeaks! I recorded it!

I come in at about 7:30.

Enjoy.

Sanity and Fear and a Sleepless Trek to the Nations Capitol

2010-11-23T14:32:00.004-05:00

[Note: This is long. But you should read it anyway. The traditional news media wrote sterile and boring coverage of the Rally, if they covered it at all. This is the real story.]

It's 2 p.m. Halloween. I'm driving through the Bronx – brick buildings, iron bridges – and I'm not wearing any underwear.

My last Adderall slid down my throat about ten minutes ago, and I haven't had a decent night's sleep since Wednesday. I've been sleeping on various peoples' couches since Friday. Today is Sunday.

A rented Hyundai Elantra has been my mode of transportation for the weekend, and I'm on my way home to Boston from Washington D.C., where I stayed for about 24 hours to witness the spectacle that was the Rally for Sanity and/or Fear before heading out to continue what was meant to be a one-day trip and accidentally turned into a three-day one.

I went down there, to D.C., to the Rally, for a couple of reasons:

First, the #Rally4Sanity is something I had been planning on attending for months. Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Reddit, activism and the Internet in general, are things I am strongly in favor of. Second, I wanted to protest the mass (or mainstream, whichever word you prefer) American media. The silent majority of this country, this rally's support base, is fed up with the lackluster performance and despicable display of sensationalism by the so-called Fourth Estate, so are Stewart and Colbert, and so am I. It is unreasonable and unacceptable.

It's been, for lack of a better term, a helluva weekend – and I have a story to tell you, if you want to read it.

Over 1,200 satellite rallies were held in 80-plus countries, many of which had their own websites, Facebook event pages and Twitter handles. Reddit.com's idea for Stephen Colbert to hold a “Rally for Truthiness” finally came to fruition. And even notorious cyber activists Anonymous had an event to wear their slightly creepy masks to.

The "comedian/pundit/talker guys" I watched from my vantage point (the roof of a porta-potty, which I shared with three lovely strangers) brought over 250,000 people to the National Mall to explain that the country is "living now in hard times, not end times" and that the "24-hour political pundit, perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems. But it’s existence makes solving them that much harder...If we amplify everything, we hear nothing," as Stewart said.

The People

This was not just a rally I witnessed. It was the beginnings of a movement. Or 40.

We converged on D.C. as what was certainly the most diverse crowd I've ever been a part of, personally. Lefties, Greens, Gays, Atheists, Blacks, Hippies, Whites, Righties, Babies, People Dressed as Babies, People Dressed as Christine O'Donnell, Pro-Immigration Reform, Pro-Choice, Pro-Weed, Peaceniks, Beatniks, Freakniks. Old, young, whatever. But we were all there for the same reason – there's safety in numbers and when there are so many people around, Anne Coulter and the other crazies can't hurt your pride and sense of reason anymore. We're fighting! We're passionate! We're laughing! We're hungry. (Is there food here? No? Just special brownies? Ok, that works. Thanks NORML.) Basically, this was a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

It's true that some people came to the Rally with a purpose; to campaign for something. Those people have probably been to rallies before, or maybe even go to them regularly, they're old hat at discussing policy and they may have even read the ObamaCare bill.

Like the group of "pissed off" anarchists who staged a black bloc they called the Million Molotov March because "calling for a Million Moderate March in the midst of the biggest economic collapse since before talkies killed silent film and two wars that no one likes... does nothing more than reinforce a violent status quo. Now’s the time to get unhinged, cut loose, embrace the asbsurd, and party on the ashes of a world on fire," according to their Wordpress site.

But most attendees didn't fit that mold – not that they necessarily fit any mold, which was the point. I was protesting the media. Others were there to talk about politics, or the president, or the war, or education, or race relations, or the assault on grammar, or they just wanted to smoke a joint, have a beer, watch some funny comedians and a couple of decent musicians, and feel like they were a part of something. And that's ok, too. In fact, it's cool.

Kyle, 28, from North Carolina, shared a porta-potty roof with me across from the National Gallery of Art. He said he's "not really that politically active, but, you know, I vote..." and that he had driven up with two friends to support his favorite comedians/news anchors and have some fun.

Everyone present had something to say or some reason to be there. The signs were brilliant, for the most part, and I thought, actually, that the best part of being there was when I stood on the corner of Madison Dr. and 7th street and just watched the people weave around me on their way into the Mall, their witty signs held high.

The Rally

The Roots, John Legend, Vampire Weekend, and Green Day all played before Stewart and Colbert came on stage to start it off, and during this time, people began climbing into the trees to get a better view. By the end, every tree on the Mall had at least three people in it.

Colbert, who appeared from his "fear bunker" under the stage, wore a ridiculous Evel Knievel costume and ran around screaming wildly, before Sam Waterston (dun dun) appeared to read a poem.

Ozzy fucking Osbourne and Yusef Islam (né Cat Stevens) played a dueling duet of train-themed songs ("Crazy Train" and "Peace Train"), which was awesome, and other notable personalities took to the stage and jumbotron before the parts of real substance got underway.

Colbert demanded to be “empodiumed” after "best selling author, television personality and supporting actor in the 1998 sci-fi/horror classic, The Faculty," Stewart, was re-introduced as key note speaker. Then ensued a mock-debate about reason vs. fear - because “every point [Stewart was making] must have a counter-point,” according to Colbert.

They were in their third or fourth costumes at this point, having more changes to their wardrobes than Lady Gaga, and Stewart attempted to convince Colbert’s wild, conservative character that “we have nothing to fear, but fear itself."

But not everything Americans fear is made up, insisted Colbert. "What about Muslims? They attacked us!"

Stewart's rebuttal: KAREEM ABDUL JABBAR, who is a Muslim, was brought on stage. (Lawyered!) Who doesn't love that guy? He's an American hero.

"But what about robots?" asked Colbert. They’re still scary! Fearsome. All robots.

No, said Stewart! What about R2D2?

"ARRRRTOOOOOO!!" they yelled, as the little droid rolled out to scold Colbert, in apparently harsh language, about his unfounded fear of all droids and the danger of generalizations.

But Colbert did explain why he’s so scared: the media – political punditry and sensationalist news gathering, specifically, which was illustrated by two video montages. The first of the clips were from Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, and other political news operations, which showed really well how insane all these people sound. The second showed clips from mostly local news channels reporting on killer bees, the danger of flip flop sandals, benign things that can kill children and other such nonsense.

End of Part I. Read Part II on TNGG

Photos by Alex Pearlman

We met online. LOL.

2010-07-22T11:29:00.003-04:00

I notice this guy. He’s really cute – blonde hair, blue eyes, a general dreamboat. He says he’s a lobbyist. I like that. It means he’s intelligent and can interact with all different kinds of people in both social and professional settings. He’s slightly older than I am. But that’s ok. He gives me his number and says he wants to take me to lunch some day – we work near each other. So I meet him for a burrito later that week and we hit it off. So we make another date.

This sounds familiar. It’s a pretty normal, everyday situation.

Yeah, I met him on OkCupid.com.

Online dating sites like OkCupid and Plenty of Fish that cater specifically to Millennials have soared in popularity in the past few years, and the trend shows no signs of abating. Even more traditional sites like Match and EHarmony have harnessed this demographic. It’s pretty simple. Gen Y loves online dating.

According to website audience profiler Quantcast, 18-34-year-olds make up a significant amount of users (between 30 and 45 percent) on those sites. And OkCupid even takes it up a notch to compete for Gen Y attention with an accessible user interface, fun quizzes and questions, and an official blog that explains the data that OkCupid compiles as advice for how to get noticed on the site of 1.2 million users.

The site has also gotten decent press from NPR, CNN and others, and it’s no wonder: Gen Y has broken the stigma of meeting people via the Internet.

The online creeper persona has (mostly) dissipated. I have a lot of friends – normal ones – who have found great, long-term relationships online, and those that have dated around, as well those who have the occasional one-night fling. But I don’t know anyone personally that has had an overwhelmingly negative experience with online dating in general. (Although, I have heard some horror stories – people do still lie on the Internet. It’s an imperfect world.)

Everything in our lives is online now, so it was only a matter of time before the Internet became a veritable virtual singles bar.

The major difference being, of course, is that when you’re out in the real world, it can be totally hit or miss. It’s difficult to meet people that you even have anything in common with, let alone the entire package.

But the dating websites take the guesswork out of it – without totally removing the fun, exciting, mystery part of honestly getting to know someone.

With matching by percent of things you’re looking for in another person, combined with your own personality traits, it’s easy to find what you’re looking for. And it becomes an all-you-can-eat buffet of choices. Do you pick the sensitive, bad-boy musician? Or the preppy law student? What about the slam poet?

But besides making it easier to meet people, online dating has become so popular because real world dating has changed drastically, even since the early aughts.

A stereotypical dinner-and-a-movie first date can cost upwards of $100 these days. Who has that kind of money to spend on someone they may end up not wanting to see again? Not I, that’s for sure.

Purdue University’s student newspaper recently published an article about college students using online dating sites. The consensus there was that if you live in a college town, surrounded by peers, there’s no reason to be online looking for a date.

Amy Listermann, a senior, said, “I feel like in this environment and at this time, there’re so many available people, that I don’t need to branch out onto the online area.”

But what about those who don’t live in small college towns, or who have graduated and aren’t surrounded by datable people?

“A few years ago I thought that online dating was only for people who were either desperate or just old, but I was wrong,” wrote Jenny LaVelle, one of the authors of The Mad Grad blog. “None of my friends that had tried it out developed a relationship from the experience, but they did get out and meet a lot of interesting people.”

It works. At least it has for me.

Photo by rachel_titiriga

This post originally appeared on The Next Great Generation.com

want a condom? you got it.

2010-07-14T15:41:00.003-04:00

The on-going national debate about condoms in public schools just got a lot more interesting.

The Provincetown, Mass. school district announced this week that condoms would be available to any and all who wanted them – in the entire district. This includes the likes of first and second-graders.

Now, I’m all for safe sex education. Condoms should be mandatory in high schools. We should explain to children how to use protection and that condoms are necessary for maintaining a safe and healthy lifestyle.

But what kind of message does this program send to the younger kids? Shouldn’t condoms come into schools after some years of sex education? Will this encourage experimentation in an age group that is absolutely not mature enough yet to deal with the emotional and mental strains of sex?

Apparently, that doesn’t matter.

“We know that sexual experimentation is not limited to an age, so how does one put an age on it?” said Superintendent Beth Singer, who wrote the policy unanimously passed two weeks ago by the Cape Cod town’s School Committee, as quoted in the Boston Globe.

So, while the eight-year-olds likely won’t ask for any prophylactics, upper middle-schoolers might. The idea of free condoms, without classes explaining how to use them, being available to curious and mid-pubescent tweens kinda freaks me out, despite promises of counseling by school nurses for those children who request condoms.

And, hey! What about the parents? I mean, if I, at 23-years-old and childless, am uncomfortable with this, I can understand why the Momosphere has gone crazy.

“My little guy just finished the first grade and he can barely aim his penis to pee without making a mess, much less do anything else with it… I can’t imagine our school nurse distributing condoms. That is just too shocking to even think about. She’s too busy taking care of kids throwing up and knocking teeth out on the playground,” says Momania.

“I am sickened at the thought of an elementary school passing out condoms to children. Babies…If Charlotte came home with a condom, I would be putting her in private girls education in 2.3 seconds, right after storming up to the school board with a piece of my bloggy mind,” says MomDot.

But, there is an argument to be made that getting to kids early isn’t necessarily a negative.

“If we are okay with teaching first graders to say no to drugs, why not teach them about safe sex?” said TNGG writer Jen Schmidt. “Early and often is the key!”

And she has a point.

It’s great that schools are promoting safe sex over unrealistic jibber-jabber like abstinence-only education. And for those children who might make use of programs like these, it may just be a life-saver.

A recent CDC survey found that in 2009, 34% of currently sexually active high school students did not use a condom during their last sexual intercourse and that pregnancy rates of 15-19-year-olds has risen for the first time since the 1990’s.

We need to focus our energy on bringing those statistics down again, and, hey, if passing out condoms for anyone who asks for one is the way to do it, then I guess I’m all for that.

This post was originally published on The Next Great Generation.

Gadgets and Gang Rape

2010-06-22T16:00:00.006-04:00

Your connection with the war

By Leah Garvin

The sale of cell phones reached more than 1 billion in 2007. One year later, the United Nations declared the Democratic Republic of Congo the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman or a girl.

In the next 24 hours, we need to ask Congress to support critical language requiring conflict minerals accountability to be part of the financial reform legislation.

What does "conflict minerals accountability" mean for you?

It means that your cell phone, your laptop, and your gaming system currently connect you to the deadliest conflict since WWII – the war over minerals in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

A few months ago, NYTimes op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof ran a series of editorials about the devastation in the region. Post-Haiti earthquake, as millions of dollars and countless hours of coverage dominated our “care radar,” Kristof asked us why we don’t care about a humanitarian conflict that has killed 30 times as many as the quake did.

“Sometimes I wish eastern Congo could suffer an earthquake or a tsunami, so that it might finally get the attention it needs,” Kristof remarked.

By the end of his article, I was crying for the children who were forced to witness the gang rape of their mother, the gruesome murder of their father, and suffer unrelenting pain from sexual violence and abandonment.

What I learned next inspired me to advocate for conflict-free minerals.

The Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the most mineral-rich regions in the world. Armed groups trade an estimated $200 million a year of the 3T’s+Gold – tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold. Our electronics would not function without these minerals. Tantalum stores electricity; tungsten makes your phone vibrate; tin is used as solder for the circuit board, and gold coats the wiring.

You do not have to be a doctor, a scientist or a millionaire to help end this war. As consumers of electronics, we have a direct influence on the circulation of conflict minerals.

John Prendergast, the founder of the Enough Project, points out, “there are few other conflicts in the world where the link between our consumer appetites and mass human suffering is so direct.”

The Enough Project is a nonprofit initiative working to prevent genocide and violence against humanity and is the leader of the conflict free minerals campaign Raise Hope for Congo.

There are dozens of rebel militias from the Congo, including the national police force, and from neighboring Brundi, and Hutu’s from Rwanda that have chosen rape as a military tactic to assert control over natural resources. Generose, a Congolese rape survivor recalls the militias’ grotesque violence against her family (video):

We had six children at home so the [militia] cut my leg into six pieces to give to the children to eat. But my son said, "I can't eat a part of my mother." So they killed my child. He was eight years old.

An unmonitored supply chain connects you to millions like Generose.

Armed groups profit millions of dollars every year from smuggling the minerals out of the country into neighboring Rwanda, Brundi, Uganda and eventually to the coast. One million dollars worth of tantalum (coltan) is exported from Brundi everyday – that is $365 million that should be energizing the DRC’s economy every year.

The minerals change hands from middlemen, to Asian distributors, to smelting factories. Then they are used to make components that make our cell phones, laptops, iPods, and gaming systems operate.

These same electronics that connect you to these Congolese can be your tools for change.

Gen Y is the number-one consumer of electronics. Transparency in the consumer electronics supply chain is the most effective way to ensure conflict free gadgets and the end of funding violence in the DRC. As a consumer, and a constituent, you can demand conflict free electronics. Write and Facebook your representatives to tell them that Gen Y supports conflict free resolutions. Yes, they listen.

Take action today on Facebook. Within the next 24 hours, Congress will vote on critical language requiring conflict minerals accountability to be part of the financial reform legislation. Despite bi-partisan support of the language and backing by tech companies, manufacturing and retail industry groups are lobbying to have it removed.

Please take five minutes to Facebook two key members of Congress, Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), to ask them to please ensure that conflict minerals language stays in the legislation. Click herefor more information and a sample script of what to say.

Talk about it. Your friends care about your opinion. A Harvard study found people are most influenced by their friends and family, above celebrities and advertisements. Find your talking point.

Live it. Pledge your commitment to purchase conflict free cell phones and laptops.

This post originally appeared on The Next Great Generation.

Millennials: Walking contradictions

2010-06-01T09:31:00.004-04:00

This post was originally published on The Next Great Generation.

With the economy in a downward spiral and three (and counting) graduating classes now on the job hunt, Gen Y kids’ personalities are becoming the focal point of discussion and analysis. We’re stock full of both anxiety and self-confidence, but how do we balance those two opposite and overwhelming feelings to parlay them into success?

Harvard’s Institute of Politics recently released the 2009 edition of their annual Survey of Young Americans, which began in 2000.

The statistics are alarming.

“Sixty-percent of Millennials are concerned about their ability to meet their current bills and financial obligations and 59 percent are worried about being able to afford a place to live. Almost half of those who are currently in the workplace are afraid that they’ll lose their job, and this fear is echoed in college students’ anxiety about their future after graduation – 84 percent indicated that finding a job will be ‘very difficult.’ Students are also worried about their ability to keep paying for college, with 45 percent of four-year college students and 64 percent of community colleges expressing concern about staying in school.”

What this means is that we’re constantly racked with anxiety about what we’re doing, how we’re doing, and when the other shoe will drop.

It’s true. I am often anxious, worried about not having something done on time, or feeling that really, really bad feeling in my stomach that leads me to believe that I have forgotten something. And I know I’m not alone.

Oddly, however, one of the most consistent qualities that are associated with Millennials is self-confidence.

Also known by some as the Trophy Kids because we grew up in an age when everyone in Little League won a trophy for participating, we feel like we can do anything well and we’ll be rewarded for it.

We were told that we could do whatever we wanted to do and be whatever we wanted to be and we still feel that way. We are multifaceted experts, living in a world where an accountant can have a successful YouTube show or a cubicle-dweller can make more money from a blog about anime than making Excel spreadsheets. And we’re positive that we too will arrive some day.

But if it’s true that Millennials have unprecedented confidence in themselves and the world around them, why has the rate of college students being diagnosed with depression increased 56 percent in the last six years? What are we so upset about, if we have so much confidence in our abilities?

A recent New York Times Magazine article about this gross over-confidence, saying that the gross over-confidence exhibited by Millennials was “a result, as some longtime observers of this generation have suggested, of growing up in an era of almost unremitting ambient anxiety: school years spent in the shadow of Columbine, 9/11 and, lately, widespread parental job losses. Maybe chronic unease has simply raised this generation’s tolerance level for stress, leaving it uniquely well equipped to deal with uncertainty.”

Truly, it doesn’t matter why we’re stressed, uncertain, and weirdly sure of ourselves all at the same time.

We are a generation of multi-taskers. We can talk, type, text and watch all at once and it’s about time our emotions kept up.

It is possible for me to be completely confident in my beliefs, as I wage a verbal war at Fox News, yelling at the TV at the same time that I feel very, very anxious about my job, how I’m going feed myself this week, or if my parents think I’m doing a good job.

What we need to focus on is making sure that the crippling anxiety and the over-confidence are balanced and equal – just to the point that while we’re sure we can finish that project and get an A, or do well on an assignment, we have a healthy dose of fear to push us into honestly doing our best work.

That way, when we do get rewarded for doing well, we know we earned it.

what is a philosopher?

2010-05-17T08:59:00.004-04:00

This morning, as I was reading the Interweb, I came across two seemingly unrelated articles, one from Al Jazeera, the other a column in the Times.

However, upon closer examination, the two articles are perfectly linked.

The first article is about Dr. Noam Chomsky not being allowed to cross into the West Bank from Jordan to give a lecture at Birzeit University. Israeli officials held the noted academic and his daughter at the border and while the Interior Ministry is now pleading that the incident was a misunderstanding, it is clear to anyone who has read Chomsky exactly what happened.

An outspoken critic of Israeli policy, and Jewish, Chomsky is one of the most noted philosophers of our time, on par with the likes of his good friend, my personal favorite, the late Howard Zinn. Chomsky, who teaches at MIT, is now better known as a rabble rouser and anarchist, but to anyone with half a brain, these things don't matter when it comes to intellectual thought, curiosity, and a penchant for questioning the status quo.

The second article I read today was the first installment of the New York Times' new column, The Stone (which, of course, refers to the legendary Philosopher's Stone), and it promises to be all about modern-day philosophy, which just doesn't get the super star treatment it used to. I mean, no matter what I think, Chomsky will never have the name recognition that Aristotle does.

Anyway, I found an interesting link between these two articles that reminded me why I enjoy philosophy in the first place.

"Philosophy should come with the kind of health warning one finds on packs of European cigarettes: PHILOSOPHY KILLS," writes the author, Simon Critchley, referring to Socrates. He continues, "Philosophy has repeatedly and persistently been identified with blasphemy against the gods, whichever gods they might be. Nothing is more common in the history of philosophy than the accusation of impiety. Because of their laughable otherworldliness and lack of respect [for] social convention, rank and privilege, philosophers refuse to honor the old gods and this makes them politically suspicious, even dangerous. Might such dismal things still happen in our happily enlightened age?"

Well, clearly, as the incident with Chomsky proves, yes.

Philosophers are still enemies of the state and religion. And that is the one thing I hope will change in my lifetime - that the masses will being being interested in and listening to philosophy.

But, alas, I'm aware that this is a pipe dream... which is why I am a philosopher.

no child allowed ahead

2010-05-05T14:14:00.003-04:00

In the late 1980s, the first President Bush implemented standards-based education, through which all students in the United States were required to achieve a set bunch of standards in order to make sure that all students who graduated from high school were competent enough for the work force they were entering.

Throughout the 90s, these standards became more and more pronounced in public education, and Congress agreed on standards for basic reading, writing and math, which would be proven through standardized tests in key grades like fifth and eighth and a high school exit exam.

The problem with this, though, and the subsequent program, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), is that it is simply ludicrous to assume that all children throughout the United States are able to learn the same information at the same level at the same time and in the same way and not turn into cyborgs. Plus, the fact that financial incentives and punishments were doled out by the government in direct relation to test scores made sure that teachers everywhere would be not only sanctioned, but actually encouraged, to only teach what was going to be on the tests. So-called “teaching to the test” was making sure that all students scored highly enough to guarantee another year of extra funding for the school district, no matter what important information was being left out of the curriculum because there wasn’t time to teach it while focusing on what was really important: filling in bubbles with number two pencils.

Because NCLB allows for states to create their own tests, a number of states, like Missouri in 2008, admitted to lowering the standards of the tests to achieve higher scores and receive more money in reward. Meanwhile, students are only taught that as long as they understand the content on the test, they’ll be fine. This is, however, putting not only those students, but their generation and their country at a huge disadvantage. They aren’t taught to dig deeper, ask questions, and cultivate knowledge and understanding beyond a superficial level.

It’s only realistic to assume that the end result of such programs – those that push every single student to be the same as every other student – would be that the intellectual and educational level of every student in the country, an entire generation of students, is the same. And not only the same, but unthinkably low.

Our generation has been raised to only aim as low as standardized tests. Obviously, I’m generalizing. But that’s the thing about generalizations: they’re based in truths. And the truth here is that unless we were really, truly pushed to learn by a great teacher or parent, there’s absolutely no reason to do better than average. We will be rewarded for our mediocrity.

We now have an entire generation of people who are entering into politics, business and the media who have a fraction of the education than previous generations did. With the focus of NCLB mainly on reading, writing and math, students didn’t receive the broad and far-reaching education that even older siblings or cousins did.

We weren’t taught critical thinking or ethics in high school. We didn’t attend discussion-based classes that encouraged outside reading and research at public high schools, and now as we get herded into college, merged with students from all over the country, and possibly from states with even easier tests, there is a certain lethargy permeating higher education that I’ve witnessed for the past four years at my mid-level, private university. I’ve been in classes with people (who graduated high school and were accepted to university) who honestly believed that Hungary was in Africa and who had never read any of the romantic poets. How does that happen? These are things that perhaps aren’t on standardized tests, but are necessary in life nonetheless.

One of my biggest complaints with NCLB is that funding is not set aside for gifted and talented education. Students who are intellectually superior to the status quo are not cultivated the way they used to be – which was directly responsible for the United States being a leader in intellectual, entrepreneurial and technological innovation for so long. And now we wonder why everyone else thinks we’re stupid? Newsflash: we are.

Because they aren’t encouraged, motivated or challenged to go above and beyond the standardized requirements, gifted students are allowed to laze around, boring themselves to death. We have an epidemic on our hands of possible overachievers underachieving.

Still, the true test of whether the No Child Left Behind Act has left the entirety of Gen Y behind is if we realize it. Only time will tell.

This post was originally part of The Next Great Generation's Education Week

wikileaked

2010-04-07T16:01:00.002-04:00

Words cannot describe the absolute horror I felt after watching the video that was released on WikiLeaks yesterday.

If you don’t know what I’m referring to, get yourself to a computer, pronto.

The video, which shows a helicopter filled with U.S. servicemen opening fire on a group of people on a public street in Baghdad, has been confirmed as being authentic and the Internet has been abuzz ever since.

I don’t know what to write. I’m speechless. Thankfully, other journalists aren’t so dumbfounded by these disgusting murders of Reuters employees, civilians and children.

Columnist James Fallows at The Atlantic said this: “…at face value it is the most damaging documentation of abuse since the Abu Ghraib prison-torture photos. As you watch, imagine the reaction in the US if the people on the ground had been Americans and the people on the machine guns had been Iraqi, Russian, Chinese, or any other nationality. As with Abu Ghraib, and again assuming this is what it seems to be, the temptation will be to blame the operations-level people who were, in this case, chuckling as they mowed people down. That’s not where the real responsibility lies.”

Raffi Khatchadourian at The New Yorker wrote about the possible legal ramifications: “A longstanding feature of the Law of Armed Conflict, which has been incorporated into the Army’s Rules of Engagement, is the concept of proportionality: all military action must be necessary and proportional to a given threat… According to the Rules of Engagement, this means that there must be a “reasonable certainty” that the person is displaying hostile intent, or is behaving in a hostile manner, before soldiers may attack…The authority to use lethal force might rest with a person who is not at the scene of the battle, and so communication up and down the chain of command often plays a vital role in determining when soldiers can fire. On several occasions, the soldiers in the Apache seem to regard the conditions on the ground in the most threatening terms, even when there is limited evidence that this is so. ‘Have five to six individuals with AK-47s,’ they tell the on-scene commander, after identifying only one or two armed people on the street. When the Apache is flying over Saeed Chmargh, while he is wounded and struggling on the pavement, the crew expresses hope that he’ll find a weapon so that they can kill him legally under the Rules of Engagement. The video raises a number of interesting questions about the treatment of casualties during an ongoing military operation. On several occasions, the Apache gunner appears to fire rounds into people after there is evidence that they have either died or are suffering from debilitating wounds. The Rules of Engagement and the Law of Armed Combat do not permit combatants to shoot at people who are surrendering or who no longer pose a threat because of their injuries. What about the people in the van who had come to assist the struggling man on the ground? The Geneva Conventions state that protections must be afforded to people who ‘collect and care for the wounded, whether friend or foe.’”

An Economist blog, Democracy in America, said, “For me, there are two essential points here. The first is that we have this video because two of the people who were killed were Reuters employees. How many other civilians were killed in similar circumstances whose names we will never know, because they had no powerful Western employers to publicise their deaths and file FOIA requests?

The second essential point is the moment at 15:29 of the Wikileaks video, when someone, a pilot, gunner, or controller, says, ‘Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.’ Another voice answers, ‘That’s right.’ No. Nothing could be more wrong. When you see children being evacuated from a van you’ve just destroyed, the thought running through your mind should be: What did I just shoot at? Who was in that van? Acknowledging the possibility that you have just killed a party of civilians for no good reason is, of course, terrifying. That is why the soldiers leap to find an excuse to evade the guilt, to blame the parents for their children’s deaths. And the military is more than happy to help them find an excuse. (In the after-action interviews, one soldier mentions a report, corroborated nowhere else, that a dark van had been dropping off militants in the area. The military interviewer replies: ‘That’s good information.’ Good for what? Good for exonerating the military, of course.) Because, if soldiers were to accept the guilt for catastrophes like this one, they might be unable to continue to perform the mission at all.”

As someone who hopes to one day be the kind of journalist who goes into places like Iraq and Bosnia and Vietnam to report on exactly these kinds of situations, the WikiLeaks video both scares the hell out of me and makes me totally sure that this is the job I want to be doing.

The Reuters photographer who was shot was killed because he was attempting to take pictures of the helicopter and the illegal actions taking place therein. Journalists are heroes. They see things that change the course of history, of wars, and of peace. They report the truth.

And the truth here is that the U.S. army committed atrocities, most likely war crimes, and by killing a photographer, allowed their sins to go unnoticed and unreported for years. We need more gutsy and heroic journalists to go out an report these stories because the truth is that 139 journalists have been murdered in Iraq since the American invasion. When will it end?

the problem with pakistan

2010-03-10T15:58:00.003-05:00

One of the major obstacles the Obama administration faces in bringing stability to Afghanistan with the launch of Operation Moshtarak last month is the complete instability of neighboring Pakistan and the deadly Pakistani Taliban.

There have been 17 strikes by drones to hit Pakistan so far this year, according to the Long War Journal, many of which were targeted at South Waziristan, a Taliban stronghold, where the Pakistani military has also begun their own battle against the Taliban, much to the surprise of the U.S. and NATO.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has been accused of being a puppet tyrant left over from the Bush era, has been predictably apathetic to the situation, while Pakistan has stepped up their game with their own military offensive, a growing relationship between CIA operations and those of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, and the arrest of a top Taliban official, second only to commander Mullah Omar, the spiritual head of the network.

However, the trouble is far from over.

Now, the biggest problem is how to deal with the fact that the much-publicized action in Marjah has pushed some high-level Taliban into hiding underground across the border – because guys with drones and remote controls can only do so much.

Pakistan’s help and support was an unexpected plus for McChrystal’s big push into the Helmand province, but it may be more trouble than it’s worth.

The biggest fear emanating from across the border is that “when the Americans go, [Pakistan’s] neighbors – especially India, Pakistan’s hated rival – will be influential” in Afghanistan, and all the help from Pakistan may be because they’re “making a case to be given a seat in eventual peace negotiations,” according to Time’s March 8 article, “Taking it to the Taliban.”

While at this moment, the aims of the U.S. and Pakistan may be the same, it will likely not stay that way for long. “Pakistani officials… view the Taliban as strategic assets and believe they should have a role in Afghanistan after the NATO withdrawal. They point out that many Afghans still regard [Mullah] Omar as a legitimate figure – more so, in fact, than Karzai, who is seen as an American puppet.”

So where does it leave the two countries once a peace deal is brokered?

The U.S. will not stand for a figure like Mullah Omar, who has been a consistent thorn in their side, taking over Afghanistan. However, another well-liked Afghan, Dr. Abdulla, Afghanistan’s Obama-like figure (who dropped out of the presidential elections last year after it became abundantly clear that Karzai would win reelection through wide-spread fraud and corruption) would be a good compromise.

Also, Pakistan is facing an incredibly serious refugee problem. With the huge number of Afghans who have fled their homes since the original U.S. invasion are still packing the refugee camps, as well as hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis who are refugees in their own country, attempting to escape the Taliban.

“The refugees started fleeing the tribal areas where there was fighting,” said Shanan Mufti, GlobalPost’s Pakistan correspondent in an interview last year. “Pakistan has a long history of hosting refugees, external refugees. I think that the scale of this is something the United Nations has called one of the biggest internal migrations in history, so it’s obviously on a huge scale.”

What needs to happen next is the U.S. not be ungracious for the help Pakistan is giving them and be sympathetic to the internal, existential problems the country is facing by scratching the back that is scratching theirs.
If Pakistan swings back the other way, the so-far, so-good Operation Moshtarak may end up being the biggest exercise in futility the U.S. military has seen in years.

This article is continued from “Why Operation Moshtarak is a responsible way to fight the war,” published in the Suffolk Journal

governments in a box

2010-03-03T12:19:00.003-05:00

“You have to understand that if you don’t do what you say, we’ll all be killed.” These are ominous words to anyone, but to General Stanley McChrystal, it’s nothing more than the truth. One of 450 tribal elders and scholars from the Helmand Province who gathered in Kabul earlier this month, readying the U.S., British, NATO and Afghan forces against the Taliban, said those words to McChrystal, who then passed the message along to President Obama, who responded, “Do not clear and hold what you are not willing to build and transfer.”

Time Magazine this week recounted this story in their feature “Taking it to the Taliban,” which details the plans for the allied offensive against the insurgency in the southern-central Helmand Province city of Marjah.

The Obama Administration has for months insisted that they are not fighting President Bush’s war. Now, it finally seems like they’re telling the truth.

According to Time, the tribal elders of the region “signed off on the plan” General McChrystal laid out, specifically, hitting the province, hitting it hard, but minimizing civilian casualties and unveiling what McChrystal refers to as “Government in a Box.”

These boxed governments are made up of current and former Afghan officials who have been training with the military for months, waiting for Operation Moshtarak. They will essentially be dropped into hostile territory and will be responsible for governing the civilians. They will “enforce law and order, provide basic facilitates, build schools, create jobs, and persuade local farmers to give up the poppy crop.”

The new mayor of the city of Marjah, Haji Zahir, has returned to his native Afghanistan after spending the last 15 years in Germany.

McChrystal ultimately wants to “help Afghans build and take responsibility for their country, rather than depending solely on Western forces to thump the Taliban.”

Besides plopping stable governments into an area that hasn’t seen one for decades, McChrystal is right to include tribal elders in his decisions and ask them for their opinions and advice on how to proceed to win the war.

Because of a deeply ingrained culture of clans and tribes, it has always been silly of U.S. forces to assume that the Afghan people will trust that the guys with guns and tanks are there to help.

Many of the clan leaders are also ex- and moderate members of the Taliban who feel disenfranchised by the way their tribal lands and members have been decimated by a Taliban that refused to sit down to talk, which they see as a step in the right direction – or at least a way to better understand the differences between themselves and the U.S. commanders and what the military’s ultimate goals are.

Last summer, GlobalPost executive editor Charles Sennott sat down with two of these moderate members, Abdul Hakim Muhajid and Arsalla Rahmani, who are involved with alleged secret talks between the Taliban, the Afghan government and U.S. representatives.

Bringing these moderate Taliban members into negotiations was one of the first things President Obama called for and even General Petraeus, who was the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, called these moderate members “reconcilables” because of how important their input and help will be in maintaining a functioning Afghan government when the U.S. pulls out.

Muhajid was the pre-9/11 U.N. representative for the now-deposed Taliban government and has years of experience with U.S negotiations.

“[The Obama administration declares] mutual respect and mutual understanding. This is very important to the U.S. and Islamic countries,” he said to GlobalPost. He added that Obama “will achieve many more advantages and many more objectives in the dialogue than if they were fighting with the opposition.”

Besides allowing trained and able Afghans to run their own local governments in areas besieged by fighting and bringing tribal leaders into the fold of negotiations and idea-sharing, the Obama administration is also using one other hugely important tactic, opposite of Bush’s policy: there have been no over-the-top proclamations of victory and the words “Mission Accomplished” are nowhere to be found.

Cautious optimism is the name of the game these days. While Gen. McChrystal admits that the operation is going well, there is a sense of restraint and quiet hopefulness that reflects Obama’s own.

It seems clear now, even for all the naysayers and non-believers that Obama’s diplomatic touch is exactly what the battle for Afghanistan needed to start looking up.

Part 1 of 2. Check back next week! This article was printed in the March 3 issue of The Suffolk Journal.

stifled orations

2010-02-19T16:30:00.005-05:00

College students have the unique privilege and ability to make their voices heard louder than the average citizen. Student protests have been known to have a conceivable impact on changing the way things are run, from the Czech Republic to Kent State. The students at the University of California Irvine have the same right to free speech and peaceful protest as we do – if only they’d wield that power properly.

Earlier this month, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren attempted to give a lecture at UC Irvine, only to be rudely and consistently interrupted by protesters yelling “killer!” and “death to Zionists!” during his speech.

The perpetrators of this ridiculous showing were a number of Muslim students belonging to the UCI Muslim Student Union, and a number of non-affiliated individuals, all of whom seem to completely misunderstand the meaning of the term “free speech.”

Regardless of who is speaking and what opinions they are propagating, interrupting and screaming unintelligibly just because you are of a differing opinion is prohibitive. By not allowing Oren to express his views, the protestors were limiting his speech, limiting his right to address an otherwise captive audience, and acting in a way that is unconstitutional in this country – and 12 of them were rightly arrested.

In this situation, it doesn’t matter if Israel committed war crimes or if Hamas is a terrorist organization or not. It doesn’t matter whose side you’re on in this most complicated of messes. What matters is that we should all be on the same side as far as liberty is concerned. Michael Oren deserved a chance to speak and the people who came to hear him deserved to be able to listen. And just the same, anyone who disagreed had the right to protest his presence on campus, which the Muslim Student Union said they “strongly condemned,” but that protest should have been held peacefully outside and not in a manner that infringed on anyone else’s right to speech.

If the students from the Muslim Student Union had acted in a way that was in accordance with accepted methods of protest, perhaps Michael Oren could have gone back to Washington with a positive, better-informed view of how many students on that campus (and innumerable others) view Israel’s policy in Gaza and the U.S.’s policy toward Israel. Maybe a real dialogue could have been started by students who want to be heard and whose views are valid.

Instead, all we hear are the sounds of insult and injury.

This post was published as the Suffolk Journal's Staff Editorial in the Feb. 17 issue.

To take a lover

2010-02-17T17:18:00.003-05:00

When you can’t even find time between classes, the internship that pads your resume and the waitressing gig that pads your wallet to take a 20-minute power-nap, how can you be expected to keep up with a normal, 24-7, all-inclusive and ever-stressful romantic relationship?

We’ve moved on from the idea that a significant other is a must to be a complete and functioning adult. After our parents’ divorces and one failed, bullshit relationship after another, Gen Y kids know better. Through inhabiting the world we do, we know that our careers are more important to our livelihoods now than romance is. None of us is looking to get married or find a life partner until we’re settled, career-wise.

But where does that leave us? Friends with benefits agreements? Open relationships? We know better than that too. The only logical thing left to do, since we’re all human and we all crave that most basic of human cravings (no, not food or water), is to take a lover.

A lover is not a boyfriend. A lover is not a friend with benefits. A lover is a person you meet who you maybe go out with once or twice, but, let’s face it, you don’t have time to devote yourself to. A lover is more than a booty call, and although they do serve a similar purpose, a lover is more than just sex.

The best kinds of lovers are the ones who have respect for each other, genuinely like each other, but don’t feel pressured to be together all the time or introduce each other to parents or friends. The best kinds of lovers are the ones you only see every week or so. Or maybe less than that – when you have time to chill out with someone after writing papers, having drinks with your friends, and showing your bosses that you really are the most brilliant intern they’ve ever seen.

A lover is a necessary 21^st century accessory, like a MacBook or iPhone, but a lover also serves a much more important function, one that’s even more important than Facebook mobile: relaxation.

We live in such a high-stress, fast-paced world now that it really is impossible to juggle everything happily without being on serious mood-enhancing drugs or ADHD pills. A lover is that one person in your life that isn’t stressful. A lover is stress-relief. There’s nothing more relaxing than a good screw followed by a glass of wine, a movie in bed with someone you can laugh with, and a slow walk home with a smile on your face and Coldplay pumping through your headphones.

The trick, though, is how to alter the romantic relationship values system we were brought up with: either you’re a monogamist or you’re a whore. You’re dating to find someone to date or you’re dating to get laid. But these aren’t the only two choices available now. Some people simply aren’t able to commit themselves in a way that is positive to another person while they’re still trying to work out their own lives – and such lives we have now. How can we expect ourselves to be happy in such a limited sphere of acceptable relationship rules?

Taking a lover is not the same as sleeping or dating around – sex with one person is complicated enough, there’s no need to add drama to an already hectic lifestyle. But it does necessitate a certain amount of maturity. The only way to be comfortable in a sexual relationship is to be comfortable with every aspect of that relationship, and if it isn’t right, it isn’t right.

We are such scattered individuals, with so many broad and far-reaching interests, activities, hobbies and ideas that make up our daily lives that for Gen Y, its close to absurd to assume that we will find one person to be all the interpersonal relationship we need. Thus, with friends to confide in, classmates and colleagues to talk to and debate with and roommates (because who can afford to live alone in 2010) to hang out with on weeknights, all we need to add to our Rolodex of people we have relationships with is a lover to support us sexually and intimately – whenever we feel like it.

This article is part of the TNGG Sex Week series on Gen Y and sex.

Holden’s last hurrah

2010-02-12T14:53:00.002-05:00

The teenager in me mourns the late, great J.D. Salinger

The critic Arthur Mizener once called J.D. Salinger “the most avidly read author of any serious pretensions in his generation.” That is a true statement. But Mizener, when he wrote that in 1959, didn’t account for the fact that Salinger would be the most avidly read author of any generation since.

I have read Catcher in the Rye, conservatively, about 40 times. The book, which was at the same time the most banned and the most frequently taught book in U.S. public schools in 1970s, is, to me, a classic of epic proportions.

As I dove into it headfirst the first time, I knew right away that it would be my favorite book, but I didn’t know the first time I read it that it would lead me through trauma after drama, through public school, through boarding school, through best friends and boyfriends, through college and through everything in between.

Every time I read the book, it says something different to me. Holden is one of the loneliest, cynical, heartwarming, innocent and rebellious characters in American literature. And Salinger himself wasn’t far from that description.

He was an impressionable person, jumping from idea to idea, never quite settling on anything. He was a Zen Buddhist, a Scientologist, a Hindu, and a disaffected recluse. Some might even say that he was so obsessed with his work – being a writer – that it was what eventually drove him to the madness so many now associate with him.

Before he was the mysterious character I grew up hoping to meet one day and have a cup of tea (spiked with something) with, Salinger was writing stories instead of paying attention in class.

His first publishing was a story called “The Young Folks,” which was published in 1940. After Salinger returned from World War II, “A Perfect Day for a Bananafish” was published in The New Yorker. It was the first story about Salinger’s imaginary family of former vaudevillians, the Glasses, and their seven wild children, all of whom were featured in other various stories, including another best-seller, Franny and Zooey.

After Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951 and Salinger became a cultural icon, he was approached with movie deals that eventually fell through and was the subject of newspaper stories that painted him in a light that he didn’t approve of. He wrote a number of other short stories and poems, but became increasingly reclusive until he vanished completely in the late 1980s.

On the dust jacket of Franny and Zooey, he wrote, “It is my rather subversive opinion that a writer’s feelings of anonymity-obscurity are the second most valuable property on loan to him.”

Salinger continued to write while stowed away in the New Hampshire woods, but many of his stories have never seen the light of day. He had expressed that he had no interest in publishing them, but recent reports say that there may be as many as 15 unpublished manuscripts.

In the end, Salinger died an enigma. He was a fantastic writer who captured the essence of adolescence in a way that many have attempted to replicate, but none have ever been able to. It’s for this reason that every time I open my copy of the book (its formerly white exterior now a well-loved shade of yellow) I drop into Holden’s mind and the words, Salinger’s and Holden’s, are always the same. They’re always there to offer some advice or criticism.

Salinger was a master wordsmith, one of the best in American history, whose views on our teenage lifestyle and culture were flawless and true – no one else’s will ever compare.

Hemmingway once described Salinger as having “a helluva talent” and a number of other writers have credited Salinger as their biggest influence, including John Updike and Philip Roth. I know he’s been mine. His death was the last gasp of teenage angst heard round the world. He will be missed.

who needs an adam...

2010-02-04T20:26:00.004-05:00

... when you've got Eve! Here's my new favorite monologue, from Ensler's new book I Am an Emotional Creature (Random House, 2010). Best to listen to her read it on NPR

YOU TELL ME HOW TO BE A GIRL IN 2010

Questions, doubt, ambiguity, and dissent/have somehow become very unmasculine./ Authoritarian maniacs are/premiers, czars, and presidents./Each one is more righteous than the next./ Each town they bomb/ each human they kill/ is done for “humanitarian” purposes./ People don’t own the water in their own village/ and they certainly don’t own the diamonds and gold./ Millions are forced to make dinner out of garbage and dust/ while Russian businessmen and movie stars/ are buying 500-million-euro villas on Côte Sud./ Bees have stopped making honey./ People are drilling in all the wrong places./ The U.S., Russia, Canada, Denmark, and Norway all claim the Arctic/ but none of them seem to care that the polar bears are drowning./ They are fingerprinting, photographing our licenses and teeth./ Big Brother is now in our phones, our pods, our PCs./ Not one of us feels even a little safer./ New Age mental health providers turn/ out to be former war torturers with beards./ And the pope in a dress showing off his/ ermine trim and cuffs/ is telling everyone that/ people kissing people they love is the greatest evil./ A woman running for U.S. vice president/ believes in creationism/ but not global warming./ Why is everyone so much more afraid of sex/ than SCUD missiles?/ And who decided God wasn’t into pleasure?/ And if the hetero nuclear family is so great/ how come everyone is fleeing it/ or paying their life savings just/ to sit in a room with a stranger and cry about it?/ The Iraq war cost nearly $3 trillion./ I can’t even count that high/ but I know/ that money could have/ would have/ ended poverty in general/ which would have canceled terrorism./ How come we have money to kill/ but no money to feed or heal?/ How come we have money to destroy/ but no money for art and schools?/ The fundamentalists now have / billion-dollar private armies./ The Taliban is back/ but never went away./ Women are burned, raped, bludgeoned, sold,/ starved, and buried alive/ and still don’t know they are the majority./ Water is clearly nearly running out/ but even in the desert where there’s serious drought/ the golf courses are green and lush/ and the swimming pools are full of water/ for the twelve rich people who might decide to come./ Special people adopt hand-picked babies in faraway lands./ Their flights there cost more/ than the babies’ parents made/ this year./ Why don’t they just give it to them?/ Slavery is back/ but never went away./ Just ask anyone who’s been whipped/ how deep the legacy./ Six million dead in the Congo/ and they never made the news,/ and don’t tell me it doesn’t have/ to do with color/ and minerals. / Poor folks are dying first/ From hurricanes/ Shame/ Tsunamis/ Radiation/ Pollution/ Floods/ And neglect./ Rich folks/ just put up fancier super-electrified gates/ on their private perfect cities./ Everyone’s having “benefits”/ and throwing fancy parties/ with lots of swag/ so the rich people feel good about giving/away the tiny little bit of the whole lot they have./ But no one really wants to change anything./ If you really want it/ you have to give something up/ like everything/ and then those that have, wouldn’t,/ and then who would they be?/ And that’s too complicated/ so they write checks/ and keep doing the same old things./ Selling change./ Making revolution profitable./ Corporations own everything anyway/ even our hippie jeans, memory cells, and rain./ Why do so many women leaders look like Margaret Thatcher/ and act even meaner?/ Why doesn’t anyone remember anything?/ And how come rich bad people/ get paid lots of money to give speeches/ and poor bad people are tortured/ and in prisons?/ Is there anyone in charge?/ Or is this whole thing spinning out until it explodes/ or dissolves?/ And if there is something we can do/ why aren’t we doing it?/ What happened to fury?/ What happened to accuracy/ or accountability?/ What happened to not showing off your wealth?/ What happened to kindness?/ What happened to teenagers rebelling/ instead of buying and selling?/ What happened to teenagers kissing/ instead of blogging and dissing?/ What happened to teenagers marching/ and refusing/ instead of exploiting and using?/ I want to touch you in real time/ not find you on YouTube,/ I want to walk next to you in the mountains/ not friend you on Facebook./ Give me one thing I can believe in/ that isn’t a brand name./ I’m lonely./ I’m scared./ Girls younger than me are giving blowjobs/ in homeroom/ and they don’t even know it’s sex./ They just want to be popular/ and get some respect./ Most girls my age are taking pills
or not getting out of bed/ or eating or starving/ or getting nose jobs or implants/ or getting cut
or twittering away/ or covering themselves/ or desperate for a way/ to be awake without faking/ to be alive without freaking/ to be serious/ to be true/ to even think of loving someone
when we’re already doomed./ You tell me how to be a girl in 2010/ I say let’s go for it/ if it’s all coming down./ I say let’s speak it/ let’s fight it/ let’s right it/ there’s nothing to hold on to/ if it’s already gone./ They left it to us./ It sucks but it’s true./ It’s you and me baby.

Three-dimensional dejection

2010-01-11T22:08:00.010-05:00

The moon Pandora, in a distant solar system, approximately four and a half light years away, is so hauntingly beautiful to some of the viewers of James Cameron's Avatar, which takes place on the distant world, many are experiencing the post-Avatar "blues."

According to the article, many fans, obsessed with the visual beauty of the film, as well as the underlying tone of human (and American)(and corporate) evil, are reporting depression and thoughts of suicide on message boards all over the world.

Even the Twitter tag #Avatar has people buzzing (35 new tweets just as I wrote this) about the revelation that people actually felt bad about their lives after seeing the movie.

And the storyline was one we've seen before.

So why the deep emotional response? Isn't it just a movie, after all?

Well, yes. But there is one thing to be said in favor of these feelings after seeing the film: the distressed movie watchers are sad because "they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora."And "compared with life on Earth, Pandora is a beautiful, glowing utopia."

No argument there.

I never quite realized just how ugly downtown Boston is.

ICC initiative redux?

2010-01-06T15:29:00.007-05:00

Finally, a voice of reason emanating from Jerusalem! Former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak announced that he thought Israel should stop it's avoidance of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, even if it means IDF generals and officers face charges of war crimes and/or crimes against humanity for last year's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

"Israel is part of the international community, and it must conduct itself in accordance with the interpretation that is common in international law."

Although Israel was one of the original group of nations that created the ICC, it has never ratified the treaty that it helped write, fearing political ramifications. But the time for self-serving nonsense is over.

Israel continuously asserts that the IDF is the most moral army in the world (which causes fits of incredulous giggles in most circles), and if they want to stand behind that, they need to join the rest of civilized countries and submit themselves to possible legal charges. The writer of the Haaretz editorial said it best: "A country that believes in the morality of its actions and those of its soldiers should not behave like a permanent suspect and boycott institutions of international law."

Hopefully this breath of fresh logic will be followed by a freeze on building settlements in the West Bank and ugly apartments in East Jerusalem. And then maybe the thing we've been keeping our fingers crossed for will happen: two states.

Here's to stupid optimism.

minaret madness

2009-11-29T12:57:00.010-05:00

The Swiss have passed a ban on building minarets on mosques with 58 percent of the vote and only four canton out of 26. Laughably, immediately afterwards, the government issued a statement that said, that a ban on minarets was not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture."

The UN has said that banning minarets is a violation of international law.

Hopefully someone realizes soon that it is also a violation of natural laws, such as personal freedom and freedom of religion.

After Kristnallnacht, one of the first things that Germans banned was kosher butchering. This most recent ban, as well as an earlier ban on adhan, the five-times-daily call to prayer, is comparable to the bans on Jewish lifestyle in the 1930s.

Minarets, while not absolutely necessary to building a mosque, serve as a marker to a location of a mosque for Muslims and the place from where the sweet sound of adhan emanates to remind Muslims that its time to pray. But who cares, right? It's not like that's allowed anyway.

Going back centuries, minarets have been architecturally beautiful additions to cities the world over, from Turkey to the US to China, and banning them because of the growing racial and religious intolerance against Muslims in Europe is horribly disturbing.

There's a bad situation brewing there... and the world is watching silently.

wait.... what?

2009-11-26T12:24:00.006-05:00

No one knows (or if they do, they aren't telling) how two uninvited guests got into a White House state dinner, hung out with the likes of Joe Biden and Rahm Emanuel, and didn't get shot in the process of trying to do so.

Where is the security here? You'd think that in times like these that while India's Prime Minister is in the building, not to mention most of the people who run the US federal government, the whole situation would be secured by the Secret Service like JFK Airport after a bomb threat.

But no... A couple of reality TV hopefuls can get their faces in the press not by sending their child up in a space-age balloon (that's so last month), but by crashing the President's party.

There are two very scary things to think about here: one being the lack of security at the White House, the second being that some people will really stop at nothing to be on TV... why do we allow this culture to continue to ferment our minds and those of our countrymen!?

Pot in Portland

2009-11-15T15:29:00.004-05:00

In a space that is no stranger to controversy, having previously housed a speak-easy and an erotic dance club, the first-ever American cannabis cafe opened last week, according to Reuters.

NORML, the nation-wide advocacy group, has said that cafe "represents personal freedom," the most important and most ignored argument in favor of legalization.

While still technically illegal, medical marijuana is currently sitting in a legal grey area after President Obama told federal prosecutors to ignore medical marijuana users and the states of California, Massachusetts, Maine, Oregon, and others continue to push (and achieve) state-wide legalization or decriminalization.

This is a great day for not only pot smokers, but for libertarians everywhere, as well as people who actually benefit from marijuana use (Alzheimer's patients being a top constituency). Yay, America! Let's keep this ball rolling!

the world according to americans

2009-11-08T18:08:00.002-05:00

Hart: United, not divided, on climate change

2009-11-07T12:19:00.003-05:00

BOSTON — A box for energy. A box for foreign policy. A box for economics.

"Those boxes can’t be separated anymore," said former U.S. Sen. Gary Hart in an interview with GlobalPost last week. "Everything fits together now."

Hart said the United States needs to link those boxes, or issues together to create a substantial platform for 21st century solutions to climate change.

"All of that relates to our economy. I defy anyone to say, 'Well, let’s talk about the economy and forget about energy right now,' or 'Let’s talk about energy and forget about our military.'

"Can’t do it. "

Hart, long involved in the environment and energy debate, sees an opportunity for the United States to be a key player in the negotiations and take on a leadership position in December’s Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. An early proponent of solar energy who served on the Senate’s Environment and Public Works committee, Hart says that the U.S. needs to take a stand at Copenhagen.

“The world is waiting for the United States. We all need to be concerned about this and involved in it.”

The most important result of Copenhagen is for the United States and China to negotiate a treaty upon which all parties can agree and that will regulate emissions, promote cleaner energy technologies in all countries, and provide assistance to countries that cannot afford to enact change themselves.

Multiple drafts of global warming and climate change treaties are circulating, but two are competing: one backed by the United States and the other championed by China.

The latter document — essentially an update to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol agreement, which the U.S. did not ratify — would require industrialized countries to severely decrease carbon emissions, while transitioning countries like China and India, two of the biggest polluters, would be held to milder standards.

“India, China, the developing nations and economies are going to take their cue from us,” said Hart, who believes that the United States can resolve the debate.

“If we don’t go and take a very strong position, they won’t follow. It all depends on what position the United States takes and whether it provides a leadership position. We don’t yet know what the Obama administration’s policy is, in terms of what we’re doing here, domestically, but also what proposals we will put on the table in Copenhagen.”

In addition to the document that spawns from Copenhagen regarding carbon emissions, the former senator is concerned about global warming.

The objective “is to prevent the global climate from exceeding two more degrees,” he explained. “About 1.4 degrees of that is not changeable, and we have to achieve the objective of reducing those emissions in 30 or 40 years to prevent a tipping point that can’t be reversed.”

He said he remains optimistic.

This report comes from a journalist in our Student Correspondent Corps, a GlobalPost project training the next generation of foreign correspondents.

From www.globalpost.com

divorce u x 3

2009-04-10T15:13:00.005-04:00

Wow, terrorists really are assholes! I mean, there's always this argument that they're freedom fighters when seen from a different paradigm and all that crap, but really, they're just assholes.

Further proof:

A Saudi man who was in Iraq for a "jihad" divorced his wife in Jeddah through... wait for it...

TEXT MESSAGE.

Really. Now, I shouldn't be surprised, this is Saudi Arabia, after all, a country where women can't drive, can't be anywhere in the company of a man who isn't a close relative and who can be divorced by a husband saying, "I divorce you" three times.

But this guy couldn't even be as nice as to say to his wife's face (whom he's supposed to love, even in Saudi Arabia) that he wants a divorce. Nope, text message. Amazing.

Italy has bad gas

2009-04-06T21:22:00.007-04:00

Early this morning in the central Italian town of L'Aquila, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake left an estimated 50,000 people homeless. The Prime Minister declared a state of emergency, at least 150 are dead, more are missing, and one really good seismologist is demanding a well-deserved public apology.

Giampaolo Guiliani predicted weeks ago that a major earthquake would soon shake the region by measuring the earth's radon gas emission and was reported to the police for "spreading panic" and was forced to remove his video warning to the people of Italy from YouTube.

Now, after a major earthquake ripped through a number of medieval towns and villages, that man is demanding an apology for ignoring his warnings... well... hell yes!

Since when did it become okay to ignore serious scientists when they're predicting natural disasters? We never ignore anyone when they predict hurricanes or tsunamis... why earthquakes, which can be just as devastating to a community, if not worse?

And on that note, when did it become okay to ignore scientists in general? In what other profession can you be wrong more often than you are right, but when you're right it changes the world?

Maybe its just because of my California upbringing, but I really think ignoring the tell-tale clues that the earth leaves us of impending doom is so amazingly stupid. I think the guy deserves at least an apology, if not a raise.

Literature! The Old Testament! Facebook!

2009-04-05T20:36:00.004-04:00

Seriously, this and this are probably some of the funniest bits of satire I've ever seen - at least in the past week or so... You know what I mean.

Anyway, both stories are told through Facebook updates, pokes, quizzes, etc.

If you haven't seen these check them out.

Ahmedinejad converts to Judaism

2009-04-01T12:36:00.003-04:00

Iran's devoutly anti-Semitic President, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who has called for the destruction of Israel and denies the Holocaust ever happened, shocked the world when he announced last Thursday that he was converting to Judaism and no longer desires to "push the Jews into the sea." Instead, Ahmadinejad would now rather celebrate a "happy and healthy Passover with his friends in Jerusalem."

"I can't believe my ears," said Shimon Peres, Israel's President.

"Now we can bomb Iran without fear of retribution!" said newly instated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has invited Ahmadinejad to his famiy's illegal West Bank settlement farm for Passover Seder on Wednesday.

The news that Ahmadinejad was converting was orginally told to French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the United Nations, where a emgerncy meeting of the Security Council was taking place.

Later, the governments of Lebanon and Syria sent emails and cards that read, "Mazel Tov!" to the new convert.

Ahmadinejad's press office has also annouced the President's plan for Bar Mitzvah, which will take place as soon as possible so as to finish up the process of converting quickly.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a White Hosue briefing yesterday that President Obama's Nowruz message to the people of Iran must have had some effect on President Ahmadinejad, who has been generally opposed to peace and cooperation in all forms ever since he was elected. "We're all very excited that the United States will be able to move forward with our relationship with Iran," said Gibbs.

Ahmadinejad, however, responded to the White House by making it clear that his religious beliefs had nothing to do with his foreign policy. "We will still not speak to or negotiate with the United States until everything is apologized for. Also, personal friendships with the leaders of Israel do not have anything to do with policy. My beliefs are spiritual and I believe that I have now found the way."

mass murder = fun for the whole family

2009-03-29T09:12:00.005-04:00

In what seems to me to be one of the most bizarre things I've ever heard about Australia - and I've heard a lot - the New York Times is reporting an organized genocide in the northeast region. Of toads.

Now, cane toads are quite a nuisance, apparently, to the farmers and inhabitants of northern Queensland, being poisonous, chomping on all other wildlife, spreading salmonella, and being generally annoying, but gathering hundreds of people, children as well, together for a mass hunting of toads as entertainment is just plain weird.

Today's article quotes a city councilman as saying, "To see the look on the faces of the kids as we were handling and weighing the toads and then euthanizing them was just..." As he breathes a sigh of contentment.

The neighbors in five communities got together with picnic lunches for the event, called Toad Day Out, and in the dead of night, collected the toads, "which the rules stated must be captured alive and unharmed -- [and ] were brought to collection points and examined... The creatures were then killed, either by freezing or by being placed in plastic bags filled with carbon dioxide."

I understand that toads can be annoying, but here's the worst part: "The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has applauded the effort."

Could this be any more ridiculous? This is a fifth of a country, nay, a CONTINENT, waging war on... not terrorists, (no Al-Qaeda in Australia), not banks or investment firms (apparently their economy is fine), not even drug lords (no borders to smuggle heroin across)... No, Australia is at war with TOADS.

And its not the army waging this war, oh no. It's the kids! Yes, lets get all the children together and teach them a hands-on lesson about life and death. They shall hunt the toads together and then watch us kill them and then celebrate by getting drunk. Yay! Fun!

WTF.

Curtain closes on Eastern Europe

2009-03-25T22:18:00.006-04:00

After a long, hard struggle against a bitter economy, the governments of Eastern Europe have finally figured out how to beat the downturn of their countries' wee economic systems and come out on top: Quit.

In Latvia, Hungary, and now the Czech Republic, Presidents and Prime Ministers alike have thrown up their hands and said, "Screw it. Someone else give it a try."

Earlier this week, the Czech Prime Minister, Mirek Topolanek, lost a vote of no-confidence in Parliament and then announced on Thursday that he had officially resigned. While the crumbling of the Czech government has never really mattered to anyone before, Topolanek is currently the President of the European Union, a post that he was supposed to hold until his six-month term was up in June. There hasn't really been any official talk of whether or not Topolanek will maintain the Presidency or if someone else will take over, shortening the Czech Republic's turn at the wheel.

In Hungary, a similar situation occurred last week when Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany also announced that he would be stepping down after securing a 25 billion euro rescue from the IMF to keep the country from collapsing completely. Now, the Socialists and the Free Democrats (who are also socialists) will convene to pick a new leader, who, hopefully won't run off with that $25 billion like the past couple governments... Hungarians are fabulous embezzlers.

Latvia, whose government collapsed after Prime Minister Godmanis resigned amid riots and protests last month, has also received a hefty amount of aid from the IMF, the first of the Eastern European countries to do so, followed closely by Hungary and now Romania, which also received 20 billion euros from the IMF.

What I don't understand is why all of these guys can't just sit and do their jobs... Eastern European countries are not the only ones suffering in this ridiculous economic depression - and you don't see Brown or Sarkozy quitting either. Does it surprise these PMs that their countries may be slightly worse-off than their western counterparts? Seriously, Hungarians can't even let go of Communism for six months without electing socialists or communists back into office because they don't trust democracy and even before the depression, the inflation in Hungary was worse than its been in almost twenty years. So why would these guys resign? Isn't this what they signed up for?

When you become the PM of a former Soviet satellite state, you sign up for trouble. There's always something with these countries and its going to be at least another twenty years before they're caught up with the rest of the western world in terms of economics and politics... we already knew this. They already knew this. So why quit? Come on guys! Get back on the horse! You've seen worse!

Economy, shmonomy. At least there aren't Soviet tanks in Heroes Square anymore, right? Right. So, a message to the remaining PMs of the Eastern Block: stick it out and stop being such scaredy cats - you've been through worse.

Chavez: shut up.

2009-03-23T20:12:00.005-04:00

President Obama is many things, but a "poor ignoramus"? I seriously doubt it. Unfortunately, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez thinks so, having said, "He [Obama] goes and accuses me of exporting terrorism: the least I can say is that he's a poor ignoramus; he should read and study a little to understand reality," yesterday on his weekly TV address.

This is just the latest in ridiculous things that Chavez has said about US Presidents, but somehow it never gets old. Yes, Chavez has become a socialist dictator, having abolished term limits for the presidency, stolen acres upon acres of land from his citizens, and forced state-ownership of homes with more than five rooms. However, you really have to admire this guy's spunk.

Chavez hates the American "Empire," we get it... but Obama an ignoramus? I don't even know where to go with this. Perhaps if Chavez wants to be taken seriously, he should just stop talking all together.

t-shirt bullshit

2009-03-21T12:51:00.005-04:00

Seriously, wtf? Ok, I know that Israelis are pissed off. I am too, don't get me wrong. 6,000 years of oppression is a lot to deal with, I get it. But Israel has consistently put out the message that just because everyone around them are anti-Semitic and want to push them into the sea by suicide bombing, Jewish people shouldn't sink to that level.

Well, I ask you: who's level is this?? If you can't see the shirt in the picture, it reads, "1 shot, 2 kills" and the illustration is of a pregnant woman in a veil... obviously a Muslim Palestinian.

The article at Haaretz that accompanies this image tells of IDF soldiers who visit a t-shirt shop in Tel Aviv that does personalized clothing. Many soldiers get the names and numbers of their battalions to symbolize the end of their tours of duty, which is innocent enough. But a number of others have come in to print t-shirts with blatantly racist and thoroughly disturbing images like the one above.

To me, this hits home. Really hard. These asshole soldiers are making it really, really difficult for me to have any respect at all for the IDF. I know that not every soldier out there is like this. I know that the media sometimes blows these kinds of things out of proportion... but this? I mean, if even just ten soldiers are wearing t-shirts like that around Tel Aviv, there's a problem.

I was raised to love Israel. I was raised to think that it was the home of my fathers, the land of milk and honey, and that we should do anything we could do defend it. But I always just assumed that in defending Israel, we were also defending Judaism... and this is so not Jewish. Thou shalt not kill. Or, for all those really hard core interpreters, thou shalt not murder. Either way, what is shooting a pregnant woman? It is murder. It is cold-blooded, evil, unforgiving murder.

With this most recent upset in Israel, the IDF may have won the battle of Gaza, but with that half-step forward of completely disproportionate response, the state of Israel and all Jewish people who have supported this campaign have taken ten huge steps back. Who can blame Palestinians these days for not wanting to have peace talks? Who can blame them for digging their heels in?

I wouldn't want to negotiate with people who want to murder my pregnant mother/sister/daughter either.

It didn't use to be this bad... or maybe I wasn't paying attention. I don't know. But either way, Israel needs to get back on track. Back to living up to Judaism, back to the name "chosen people," and they need to start being peaceful and apologetic. Just because a lot of Palestinians want death to Jews, it doesn't mean that Jewish people need to say the same. We shouldn't be like that. There's never going to be peace if someone doesn't stand for peace... And I was taught that Judaism stood for peace.

Shame on these soldiers, they should not be able to call themselves Jewish.

poop on the pope

2009-03-21T12:36:00.003-04:00

From YouTube's "Amazing Athiest."

This is kind of offensive at the beginning... but he has a point. Thanks Jason.

news round-up + a healthy dose of sarcasm

2009-03-20T13:43:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, President Obama released a video message to the people of Iran asking for a renewed conversation between the US and Iran and calling for "practical steps," not just empty words. Obama said that his administration wants to work toward "a future with renewed exchanges among our people and greater opportunities for partnership and commerce." The video can be viewed here, on The White House Blog. Next step: hookahs in the WH.

Haaretz released more accounts from IDF soldiers involved in Operation Cast Lead. Israel maintains that their army operates under the highest of ethical codes. Gaza still rebuilding.

The African Union, France and the US have all condemned Madagascar's shift in power, which is now being seen as a military coup around the world. French President Sarkozy said that the situation was "not positive" and the US cut call non-humanitarian aid. Countries in southern Africa have said that they will not recognize new President Rajoelina who is set to be inaugurated tomorrow. Duh... the whole thing was ridiculous in the first place.

In Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Taliban continues to target police, civilians and NATO by blowing shit up. NATO has said that 4,000 more troops are needed to secure the presidential elections in Afghanistan, which most people are sure will be rigged. It probably will be - but by NATO, not Afghan citizens.

Austrian rapist and murderer, Josef Fritzl, who kept his daughter prisoner in a basement and fathered her seven children, killing one of them, pled guilty this week and received a life sentence, causing Austrians to rejoice. I think this is one of the most compelling reasons for having a death penalty, which I'm actually against, but not for this guy.

Also, as if the world wasn't weird enough, pink elephants actually exist now.

angry?? you're damn straight

2009-03-19T21:19:00.006-04:00

This week, GlobalPost guest writer Susan E. Reed wrote a piece about the lack of civil unrest in the US despite the bad economy, a president who seemingly hasn't delivered, and job loss in the hundred thousands. Well, while the uproar is just getting started in France, Russia and the UK, where unionized workers are demanding restitution from their governments, here in America, I think we're at a loss about what to do.

The thing is, in the States, we were so excited to see the change that Obama promised us during the campaign that now, as things are only getting steadily worse, not only are our hopes that a fresh breeze was about to sweep through Washington dashed, but also our (make no mistake, its there) boiling anger doesn't have an outlet.

It seems unfair for us to blame Obama, after all he's only been in office a couple months... and with so many other places to lay down furious anger (AIG, Countrywide, Madoff, Congress, G.W. Bush, whatever else), Americans simply can't point just one finger and take to the streets. In fact, I don't think that humans possess enough fingers to point at the problems in this country that have contributed to the mess we're in now.

Reed makes a good point, though. Banding together to unite against a common "enemy" for the benefit of the greater good is a lesson that goes well beyond history and even into lore (see 300)(kidding). Seriously, though, that idea has been known to work - and well.

But I think that while in Ireland, which is a much smaller country, lets not forget this, where "100,000 people ... marched through Dublin to protest proposed wage cuts," there aren't 100,000 people in the same place with the same problems here. While wage cuts may be the most important thing to one person, losing a house might be the biggest for another.

According to Reuters columnist Bernd Debusmann, "in February alone, an average of 23,000 people a day lost their jobs" and there are apparently "tent cities" popping up all over the country, filled with refugees of the mortgage war.

I know that personally, job loss and houses aren't on the top of the list for college kids, the best known protesters this country has besides the original Revolutionaries, its the exorbitant amount of loans coming our way in a couple of years. And then we look at our contemporaries in Europe who get scholarships and go to college practically for free for better educations. Why? Why is education so expensive if everyone goes to college now?

So what do we choose? What is it that we should band together to protest? I have no idea.

I don't think other Americans do either.

IDF Gets Probed

2009-03-19T14:40:00.006-04:00

Haaretz published an expose today in which IDF soldiers from the Yitzak Rabin course for military training spoke out against Israel's most recent war in Gaza, saying that they were told to target civilians and "intentionally destroyed their property."

Stories from the soldiers about sharpshooters mistakenly killing women and children and another from a squad leader regarding the murder of an elderly woman who was walking down a street have prompted the IDF to order a probe into the soldiers' allegations.

After a few months of reports from Gaza through blogs, pictures, articles and international outrage, this is really exactly what Israel needs to do to maintain any respect the world has left for them. Everyone, except the IDF, apparently, knew exactly what was going on in Gaza and thank god someone finally stood up and said to Israel, "this was wrong."

According to the reports, the IDF brigades in Gaza would "write 'death to the Arabs' on the walls, ... take family pictures and spit on them, just because [they] can," as well as complaining about changed orders by saying things like, "we should kill everyone there [in the center of Gaza]. Everyone there is a terrorist."

Actually, not everyone in Gaza is a terrorist. During the IDF's foray into the territory, over a million civilians were stuck right in the middle of the fighting, were pushed out of their homes, watched as their families were murdered, and starved for food, water and medical supplies that Israel wouldn't allow across the border.

So, the situation now, seems like its moving in the right direction, yeah? People are standing up, telling it how it is, and now there's going to be an investigation that will most likely unearth some pretty serious crimes against humanity. However, the powers that be are insistent that nothing at all like what the soldiers are saying happened in Gaza. Officers said that they "had not encountered evidence of incidents of the type the soldiers described." And Ehud Barak, Israeli Defense Minister and former Prime Minister said to Israel Radio, "We have the most moral army in the world... I say to you that from the chief of staff down to the last soldier, the most moral army in the world stands to take orders from the government of Israel."

Right. Because the most moral army in the world kills 400 children in under a month.

vatican't

2009-03-18T17:00:00.007-04:00

The Catholic Church doesn't like sex. Never has, never will, whatever. Still, the Church does proclaim that it likes to, you know, save lives, do good deeds, and help people. Good for them.

Well, the Pope, in his second really bad move in as many months, has now come out with a new nugget of God's love and is insisting that condoms don't do anything to stop the spread of AIDS and HIV... in fact, they "increase the problem."

In an article today, Reuters quoted Pope B as saying so yesterday while in... you guessed it! AFRICA. Like the people of Africa need the Pope telling them that condoms don't do anything just after all the ruckus in South Africa where a public official said essentially the same thing.

There have been so many studies that show that condoms don't increase sexual activity and that they do, in fact, do a lot to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and other STDs that its basic, common knowledge at this point - kind of like the Earth being round. Or gravity.

The worst thing, though, is that in a society where prostitution, polygamy, and rape are all just as common as AIDS, I can't understand why anyone, even the Pope, would tell people not to wear condoms! Even if AIDS wasn't the issue, simple gonorrhea is still a pain in the ass and people are going to have extramarital sex anyway, so why not just throw condoms at them?!

These little rubber lifesavers (that come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and flavors - something for everyone!) aren't going to increase sexual activity in a place where its already a rampant problem and they aren't going to hurt people who already have HIV/AIDS by keeping them from spreading their virus throughout a continent, that according to Reuters, has two-thirds of the world's HIV/AIDS infections already.

Come on, you're the POPE for christsake. Do something good for humanity and tell people to WEAR A CONDOM.

MAD-agascar

2009-03-18T16:09:00.008-04:00

In what is to most people an extremely bizarre turn of events, the President of Madagascar, the wee island off the Eastern coast of Africa, succumbed to the Mayor of Antananarivo (try saying that ten times really fast) who a couple months ago announced that he was the head of a new government in the country, held a rally with only a couple hundred people in attendance, and essentially began an extremely random coup d'etat... considering the country is democratic.

According to the New York Times, the Mayor (now President) Andry Rajoelina, is a former DJ and is actually too young to be the president in terms of constitutionality.

Now, really... this is a guy who became the mayor of the capital city in this country two years ago, decided he didn't like the democratically elected president, who actually was elected twice (in 2001 and 2006), called him a dictator and jabbed at him enough times that the president actually stepped down and let some dude take over.

Can you imagine the possibilities?? What if I got a tank and rolled into the City Hall parking lot right now and announced that I was the new... whatever. I would be taken to a mental hospital, most likely. But, this is America, of course, no coups allowed. But what about in more unstable countries like those in Eastern Europe and South America.

What if this became a world-wide trend and people all over the place started overthrowing their governments simply because they weren't perfect?

On one hand, you know, cool. Why shouldn't people demand everything they want from their governments? And certainly the only way to change things is to get involved yourself, right? It sounds like a decent plan. But, on the other hand, wtf? What Rajoelina did was essentially an act of anarchy, not democracy. Personally, I think the whole thing was an incredible over-reaction because of a personal vendetta against the sitting president. I mean, come on! Rajoelina was the black horse mayoral candidate when he was elected, so why not just run in the next presidential election? And by all means, organize rallies and ride on tanks if you think that's going to make your point, but isn't just announcing that you're the new president kind of out of whack?

It is. It's crazy. And somewhat amazing, considering he got away with it.

Honestly, I guess this former President Ravalomanana (again, try to say that ten times) sort of deserved what he got, though. He must've been a pussy anyway to step down and hand his country over to a guy with a megaphone.