Lists

On Friday in AS, we discussed lists. People make lists for many reasons. There's grocery lists, packing lists, shopping lists, bucket lists, goals, etc. Many people in the class said that they make lists all the time which was sort of a shock to me. I never make lists. Lists are too structurial for me and I like the freedom and spontaneity of not having one. I like to do things on my own terms. But that doesn't mean I don't have goals that I choose to set for myself, I just don't write them down. If I accomplish something, then I accomplish and I know I did it, I don't need it written on paper for me to feel proud about it.

However, there is one list I do keep. I have a bucket list. I choose to keep this list because it reminds to me to "live with no regrets" and I find it cool to see things I've done or remind myself of things I want to do. Perhaps this is a little contradictory of what I wrote earlier, but I feel like a bucket list is differnet. It keeps your memories in a way and gives you the freedom to accomplish what you want within your life. I think bucket lists are great because they allow you to focus on things larger than going to school or working or whatever.

Place

On Wednesday, we had American Studies Day, in which American Studies students attend different seminars throughout the day all dedicated to a common theme. This year's theme was place. Place can mean anything. Where you live, where you were born, where you belong within society. But everyone is still very affected by it.

One of the presentations on AS Day was by Maria Finitzo, who showed us a documentary called The Interrupters. Here is a link to the trailer if you would like to see it. The Interrupters is about an organization called CeaseFire is to intervene conflicts before they result in violence. The documentary takes place in Englewood, a lower income community area of Chicago. The filming of this documentary began as Chicago became one of the centers of violence in the United States.

During the presentation, we discussed how different the North Shore, where we live, is to Englewood, which is only on the other side of the city from us. Finitzo said that many of the kids in Englewood believe they are living for today. They don't worry about tomorrow, it's about surviving this moment. But if you look at the North Shore it's completely different. All we think about is tomorrow. Where are we going to college? What do we want to do with the rest our lives? Everything we do is for the future. We do well in school to go to college. We go to college to get a job. We get married and have kids. We have a job to support our families. It's a huge cycle.

I think this really shows the importance of place. I may receive more opportunities than a kid from Englewood just because I am from the North Shore. I don't have to worry about getting shot everyday. I don't have to worry about not being able to go to college or earning enough money to support my family. I look to the future because I can. And it's incredibly sad that not everybody has that opportunity.

The Push for Transparency

My Junior Theme was about why there has been an increase in the number of classified government documents. However, many of the sources I read were talking about a "push for transparency." Transparency is generally when the government acts openly, communicates, and is held accountable for its actions. In other words, instead of keeping so many secrets and sometimes lying to the public, they choose to open information and create better communication with the people.

For my project I read a great book by Micah L. Sifry titled WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency. In the book, Sifry quotes President Obama in a 2009 speech: "I think the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable" (138). This quote strikes me as odd. While I do believe Obama has done many positive things in the direction towards transparency, like creating a National Declassification Center, in the wake of the recent WikiLeaks scandal, it makes you wonder how much he really is doing to make sure information is flowing freely.

There were many things revealed by WikiLeaks about the United States: some good, some bad, and some even embarrassing. And while many were concerned that the disclosures could harm innocent lives, it has been proven that they were more embarrassing than hazardous. So why all the secrecy? Why not get to that transparent government everyone's been talking about?

I think its difficult for a citizen who does not have access or is in the same shoes as Obama to assess what needs to be secret and what can be shown to the public. Most of don't know how certain information could affect the nation if released, but as technology continues to advance, keeping things secret may be harder than ever. The push for transparency will continue and once we can obtain an open government, we can reap its benefits. Then society can become healthier and stronger, working together with the government to generate new ideas and solve issues.

Meta Post Part Three

I would like Mr. Bolos and Mr. O'Connor to assess my "The Power of Television" post. I really enjoyed writing this post because I thought it was extremely interesting. I used something we had discussed in class, television, and went even further with it. It look me a long time to write this post, and I researched it to make sure I was being accurate and sounding completely ignorant. I hope you guys like it!

What a Smallville

So last night I was watching an episode of the show Smallville titled Sacrifice from the show's 9th season. In the episode, Checkmate, a secret government agency, has been hacking and downloading information from the Watchtower in order to find its location. Watchtower is the name of the tower that Chloe Sullivan uses to coordinate superhero missions for Clark Kent and the other members of the soon to be Justice League.

Anyways, in the episode, the agent who runs Checkmate, Amanda Waller, says, "if you don't stand with us, you stand against us. It's time for you to pick a side" to the "red blur" who is Clark Kent as Superman.

Clark Kent from the show Smallville.

As soon as I heard this, I immediately thought of play The Crucible that we had read as a class earlier this year. In the play, Judge Danforth tells John Proctor, "that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it."

In both these examples, they give people an ultimatum of either being on their side or being "against" them. Is dissent allows considered loyalty? I think that in many times it can be, although I'm not sure if that's fair to say. Just because someone doesn't agree with a certain policy or idea, does not mean they are necessarily a threat to national security or anything like that. But rather they are a threat to power because they choose to confront what they believe is wrong.

The Curious Case of Bradley Manning

I have decided that for my junior theme I will be focusing on government secrecy. Part of this obviously includes classified documents and the United States' "war" with WikiLeaks. Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst, was "was arrested...and accused of downloading several hundred thousand diplomatic cables and classified reports...providing them to WikiLeaks" according to the New York Times.

Recently this month, there have been additional charges filed against Manning including "aiding the enemy," and he has been in solitary confinement. There has been a lot of support for Manning with many critiques about how he is being treated in jail.

Top State Department spokesman Philip Crowley stated that Manning's treatment was "ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid." In response to these comments, Obama reassured the public in a news conference that the jail conditions of Manning were "appropriate and meeting our basic standards."

But is it fair for Manning to be incarcerated? Should he be considered an enemy to the state?

I don't know if I'm very convinced that he should be jailed. Although I understand he released classified information to the public regarding the American government, should these have been even classified in the first place?

According to CQ Researcher Online, about 90% of classified information does not need to be classified. Furthermore, even Defense Secretary Gates, said that "the leaks were likely to cause the nation minimal long-term damage." So why does Manning need to take the fall for it?

I think it's because the WikiLeaks documents definitely did embarrass the United States government. It has showed that the government has lied to the people. According to CQ Researcher Online, "months after the leaks were published, nearly 100 government intelligence analysts reported to Congress that the disclosures had done little actual damage to US national interests."

The government is making an example out of Manning and WikiLeaks. They do not want their secrets being shared with the world. There are images to uphold and people to please. After all ignorance is bliss, right? But knowledge, knowledge may just set you free.

The Power of Television

In AS, we have been discussing TV tokenism and the power television has on the way people view different races. Recently, I came across a very interesting article from the New York Times that discussed an experiment conducted by French Researchers linking television and torture.

The article states that, "French documentary producers managed to trick dozens of people — who were told that they were taking part in a pilot for a new game show that, in fact, never existed — into administering what seemed like painful electric shocks to a fellow contestant."

The fellow contestant happened to be an actor, who was not actually shocked like the participants thought, but rather was acting like he was in serious pain.

What's even more "shocking" was that "only 16 of 69 people asked by the host to push levers that delivered a 'dangerous shock' of 460 volts refused."

That's approximately 23% of the participants who refused to deliver the shock to their fellow contestant.

The producer of the documentary who filmed this experiment, Christophe Nick, said in a statement to the Associated Press that "this experience shows that in certain circumstances, a power — the TV in this case — is able to make you [do] something you don’t want to do.”

Nick suggests that people tend to obey authority or the power, the TV in this experiment, over what they believe is morally right or wrong. Furthermore, they believed that the producers of the game show would not ask them to commit something morally wrong as what they appeared to be doing.

So if a TV show can cause people to electrocute others, what else is it capable of? How powerful is television really?

I believe that it has tremendous power to do good and to cause harm. As it says in the article, that "when people are in front of television cameras, somewhere in their minds they may always suspect that what appears to be reality may in fact be some sort of a hoax." People confuse what's right and what's wrong because they would rather receive their 15 minutes of fame. Just look at any reality TV show, like 16 and Pregnant on MTV. It has been reported that some of the girls on the show have gotten pregnant just to be on the show. It's sad what being on TV can do to some people.