NSA Scandal, Good or Bad?

The "Liberal View" on the NSA scandal.
Title: The liberal case for high-tech NSA surveillance
Author: Bill Scher June 12th 2013
 http://theweek.com/article/index/245464/the-liberal-case-for-high-tech-nsa-surveillance

The "Conservative View" on the NSA scandal. 
Title: NSA Surveillance Angers Our Allies!
Author: Not posted
 http://www.conservative-daily.com/2013/10/24/nsa-surveillance-angers-our-allies/

NY Times point of view, lightly leaning left, just how I like it. 
Title:  N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens
Author: James Risen & Laura Poitras 
 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/nsa-examines-social-networks-of-us-citizens.html?_r=0

I am neither liberal nor conservative. I am neither libertarian nor socialist. However, I do lean left. This means when i read the article from Conservative Daily i was far out of my comfort zone. When i read the article on the recent NSA spying scandal entitled "NSA Surveillance Angers Our Allies!", i was expecting a bashing on our current president and his health care reform. What i got instead, to my genuine surprise, was a well thought out concise argument about why the NSA privacy breaches hurts our government.
Throughout the article, the author (who is unknown) continually reiterates his or her point that the spying will only hurt our government and its relationships with other countries. He /she mentions that "The NSA already has some 70 million French phone conversations on record!" and that when the German Chancellor found out that she was being wire tapped called it a "serious breach of trust...". The spying violates international law, as well as anger our allies. Before long, the author calls to arms all the readers, stating that the violations continue in "YOUR BACKYARD".

Bank of America? Or Bank of Lies?

We all know what happens at the High School level of education. Kids cheat. They are growing and testing the boundaries of what they can get away with. Some of them do not get away with it; others never get caught. It is those who never get caught who are the ones to worry about.
Sometimes these cheaters climb to the very top, and since they lack a hierarchy of moral values, continue to do the sin they have learned to do so well. One of my personal favorite examples of dishonesty in the top tiers of our society is the Bank of America sandal of 2008-2009. As I am sure you all know and have experienced, there was a massive foreclosing of homes in the 2008 financial crisis. One of the driving factors of this crisis was the dishonesty in the Bank of America employees and staff.
The Bank of America would encourage their employees to foreclose homes. Often times, the employees were given a quota to foreclose per month. If they did not meet this quota, they were disciplined, sometimes even fired for their actions. If they met or exceeded their quota, they were given rewards, such as cash bonuses or gift cards. These sort of incentives lead to employees "never receiving paper work" or "not receiving your check" to cause homeowners to fall behind on their mortgage and eventually foreclose (good for the employee, bad for the family).
I define cheating as dishonesty, at the academic, emotional, or economic level. What the Bank of America staff did was cheating. They cheated their customers out of money, and out of their homes. A majority of the time, cheating is only at the expense of the one who commits it. They cheat on a test, don't learn the material, and fail when it comes to be finals. The sort of cheating caused by B of A is much worse. Their cheating is at others expense, and to an extent, at the expense of the nation.
Now that we have caught them red handed, what is there to do? Unfortunately, you can not call the principle and get them expelled. If you were to do away with B of A you would leave some 40 million Americans without a bank. You would also stop the massive cash flow from B of A that helps stimulate the economy.
The government decided to regulate. In 2009, the government passed the Home Affordable Modification Act, which helped homeowners renegotiate their mortgages and protect them from harm. However, there have already been 18,000 complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, another organization created by the government to regulate banks.
If regulation does not work, what is there to do next?

My Father and Initiative

When i was the age of six, my father and I took a trip to New York. I do not remember why, but the reason was more an excuse to go to the Big Apple. My father grew up in New York, or more correctly, just outrside of it. A short train ride and he could be in downtown. He lived either in or around the city for the first forty years of his life.
On the first day of our trip, we got stuck in traffic. The traffic was caused by no one in particular, but there were certainly those who were not helping the situation. My father, being the New Yorker that he is, threw a couple of bird flips in thier direction and uttered (not so discreetly) a few rude phrases. I did not understand, nor did i wish to partake.
I asked my father later that night what a few of those choice phrases meant, not mention why he had done it in the first place. He gave me a very long and serious talk about tradition. He could tell quite quickly i did not buy it. I took the imitative and laid out my arguments. Moral, ethical, and emotional. Before long, I had him vowing to never do it again. That was the day i learned to stand up for what i believe in, and that one day i am going to become a politician.

Politicians Lie? Duh!!!

Ask someone walking down the street if their congressman lies. Go ahead, I dare you. You know what they will say? "Of course he does". Why is this? Well we could go back in history and blame Regan and Watergate, but we wont get into that now. What we will get into however, is how that mistrust affects you and me.
Ever since the dawn of the Cold War, Americans have been paranoid. Who is looking at my Facebook? What about my Instagram? Or worse, the conspiracy theorists.
So what does this mistrust do for us? To be honest, I would rather have an America that is mistrustful than one that is overly trustful. Here is my reasoning: an America that cannot be molded by a single person is a healthy America. In a world where the Nuclear Threat is a real one, I would rather not have a crazy dictator come to power through a democratic system. Of course, many will dismiss this as a crackpot over-dramatization, but i urge you to think about it. It could happen.
Okay, okay. It IS a little far fetched. But let us think about the opposite. Let us say there is no trust, like today. Everything is questioned, everything is out in the open. Isn't that an Aristotle quote? Hmm, must be. While this mistrust slows down the democratic system, it molds it, and prefects it. With out mistrust, there would be no self editing problems, or questions like , "what is really going on?"
P.S. This is the best i could do with how i am feeling, i may come back to this later to add more, but chow for now.

The "Big Lie"

Everybody lies. You, your mother, your father, your best friend, even your significant other. Without lies, the world would cease to function. Famine, disease, and war would reign supreme. Yet, while lying may save us from the worst pain of truth, it has, in the past, lead us to somewhere worse than hell.

I am, of course, referring to the "Big Lie". The "Big Lie" is the lie Adolf Hitler told the German people; Jews are the enemy.

Sickening. Yes. Ingenious. Yes. This one man got an entire nation, an entire people to believe that their neighbors were the bringing of their pain. The baker down the street, the dressmaker that made your daughter's dress for her prom, now enemies of the state.

But how did he do it? How did he convince a people of their superiority and their "duty" to squash those "below" them? This is where the true genius lies.

I wager, there are three reasons. The first is circumstances. Next, timing. And  finally, all it takes is a little social skills.

In the nineteen twenties and thirties Germany was a ruin. Many ails plagued them. First, they were recovering from a staggering defeat in World War 1. Economically, it was the worst inflation in economic history.  Nearly half of their male population was gone. Dead. They were a people in ruin. When a man with a stunningly powerful voice, parades, and power comes and tell these people (when they are at their most vulnerable) that they are great, and better than those around them, of course they are going to believe him. Why would they not? It is too painful not too.

Nest is timing. Hitler struck when the German people were at their weakest. They were destroyed. But that is not all that timing is. At first, he told them that they should be proud of who they are. Then, to embrace Germany. Then, they are better than these people. Then, they are better than these people. Then, they are better than the Jews. Then, the Jews are the enemy. He built up to his power, building idea upon idea. If he had come out saying "kill the Jews!!" it would not have worked out would it? Timing.

Finally, Hitler was one of the best public speakers of all time. Simply put, he could captivate an audience with his stare. If you have never listened to one of his speeches, i implore you to. They are nuts, to say the least, but captivating nonetheless.  He crescendos his voice throughout. He begins at a whisper and ends at one. Yet, by the center of his speech, he is yelling at the top of his lungs. All it takes is a nut job who can get people to follow him, and the lies spread.

DANGER! MEN ARE WORKING!!!!

It's quite simple really, men do the work, and women stay at home. That it what my father was taught when he was growing up.That is what my mother was taught when she was growing up. 

When I was growing up, my mother and father taught me differently. They taught me anyone can do anything, men do not have to grill on Sundays, watch football, or drive a truck. Women do not have to stay at home, go to book clubs, or drive their daughter to her soccer game in a mini van. 

And yet, even today, signs like this one exist. Signs that say men work and women stay at home. 

This sign communicates to the entire population, both men and women, that men are the ones to do manual labor. This sign teaches all who see it that men are more fit to do work, women are weak, and that there is no place for women at a construction site. Except perhaps to bring her man a brown paper bag lunch. 

The part of this image that stood out to me was the correction made by a random pedestrian. "People working above". Once this sign has been changed,the meaning behind it changes. Suddenly, its a pinnacle of equality. 

Of course  there probably will not be a woman working "above" anytime soon. This is because even though the sign has changed, the teachings have not. Children, in many parts of the most 'liberal and developed" place in the world are still being taught that it is not a woman's place to work in construction. But how to stop this? Unfortunately, it is an uphill battle. Those of us who are "forward thinking"  are battling hundreds of thousands of years of traditional. Wrong tradition, but tradition nonetheless. It is going to be a long fight, but I am confident that one day women will have the same rights as men and be seen as equals. 

Hell Sucks

Hell sucks. Or at least that is what we have been taught from a young age. Multiple facets of our society scare the general population into submission by monopolizing on "what happens next?"
But that is the question, what happens next?

To forgo the game of having you guess my religious affiliation, I am Catholic. That is, I was baptized Catholic at a young age.  My personal opinion differs from the Church a great deal. I am agnostic. No, that is not a cream for canker sores. I believe in a higher power, however I believe to try and understand that power is pointless.
I have always wanted to have good thoughts about the after life. Seeing all those that were lost to me, unlimited happiness, eternal glory; however, to be honest, what I am afraid of most is that there is nothing. I am afraid that this is it. There is nothing more. The life we live on Earth is all we get.
This scares me because for every regret I have, every mistake I make, every moment I spend unhappy is time wasted. It is like I am on a ticking clock.
Now let us say there is a Hell and a Heaven. My version of Heaven is probably similar to yours. However, my Hell may be a bit different. To me, Hell is a type of Purgatory. I often laugh when physical punishments are used in Hell, as the physical can only do so much. Hell for me is always being on the verge, but never getting something. Surrounded by unlimited knowledge, but never being able to open a book. Watching the woman you love fall for another man. Having words to say but not being able to speak. For me, having these dangling in front of me, but never being able to grab them would be the most cruel kind of Hell.
Let us say now that there is not a Hell and a Heaven. Then what?
I have grappled with this question before, many times, and like many of those who have done the same, I cannot come to a definitive answer. Is it some type of reincarnation? Are we born to a greater life if we "did well" in the previous? That seems a little far fetched. Well, where does the soul go? Into the cosmos? If we are all made of atoms, it would make sense that when our specific make up is destroyed, we would be come a part of everything else. We would become a part of everything.
I think I will leave it there.

Damn Internet You Scary

Under what umbrella am I writing this post on? What are you reading this from? The Internet. While "What, Me Care? Young Are Less Empathetic" makes some very good points about the severe drop in empathy in American culture, there is one facet they completely leave out.

On the Internet, I can type, blog, and vlog anything I want. I might get a raft of (insert naughty word here) for it, but I can say it none the less. In the 1980's, in which the studies mentioned were taken, the internet was not live. People had to say things face to face. Which means, if you had something to say that lacked empathy, you would have to say it to another person....five feet away. This would cause backlash, social or physical. 

Now, as I already stated, I can say whatever I want on here. And so can the American people. Now, if you have something to say that lacks empathy, you can post it right on here. No backlash, social or physical. 

My point here is that the "surprising" lack of empathy exerted by this generation is not so "surprising". This lack of empathy has always been there, it just has not been out spoken.Now that there is an outlet, it has shown itself to the world, in all its ugliness.

My opinion is not alone, the issue of the Internet's role as a drainage pipe for people's angry thoughts has been talked about to no end. The "American Thinker" sums up the moral decline of our nation, and attributes it to the Internet. The United States is not alone, Ima Wowser writes of Australia's youth going through a similar experience in this article.

In short, the Internet is a dark, scary place, that had proceeded to suck the empathy out of our current generation.

Fear or Compassion? Which will drive a reader more?

First of all let me preface this by saying that it is a Tuesday night. It's late, and there is a lot to do. On top of that, I'm writng this on my IPhone 4. Which, unfortunately sounds like a "First World Problem" (and it is), it is still tough. However, even though this is an assignment, there is so much to each of these essays (Barbara Ascher's "On Compassion" and Jonathan Kotzol's "Human Cost Of an Illiterate Society") that I am obliged to discuss them.
 In Ascher's example based essay, the subject of empathy and compassion, as well as how they are intertwined is discussed. Ascher uses examples to emotionally move the reader to the emotions she discusses. Kotzol uses a similar tactic to move his reader, but instead to scare them. This begs the question, is this use of emotional examples the best method?
It is. Examples are used to provide concrete evidence to further clarify an idea or point. When these examples invoke emotion, the point sticks. Furthermore, when these examples are emotional, they had a larger chance of being relatable to the reader. When a reader relates to an example, they go "ah! I know that feeling!" Creating a metaphysical path that similar ideas can be wrought upon.
Well, now that it has been established that emotion based examples are effective, what emotion causes the most response? Kotzol uses fear; he uses the fear of not being ale to read. Ascher uses compassion to get across her idea.
I argue that fear is more effective. Fear has been used not just in essays, but in politics as well. Fear is a powerful motivator, and it is simple strategy to force a reader  to understand the  point. My argument here is that while compassion is heart warming and fuzzy, and may insight a small amount emotional connection, it is no fear. Fear is universal, every one has felt it. It is entirely possible that some may not have felt true compassion, but every one has felt fear.
There are, however, draw backs to this method. Negative reinforcement against  positive. Compassion spurts something more than fear. The drive caused by compassion is stronger than fear. Those who experience compassion on either end have a higher ceiling to feel and to provide more compassion to the world. While compassion is stronger, fear is more direct.
Emotion based examples that have a root in fear. Kotzol uses examples to their full potential.

My Brother; Who Is In The Army

Less than one percent of the United States population, in their life time, gives a part of their life to the armed services. When I was fifteen, my brother took up arms to defend his country. He was eight years my senior.
I would like to say that having a military man in our family changed me somehow, changed my family in some way. If I were to say that, I would be telling the truth.
My brother was not the golden child of our family. On the contrary, he was the problem child. We would blame it on his ADHD, or his learning disability, or his place as the middle child in our family. All of these things were true, yet none of them explained the true feelings he had. Simply, my brother was not happy. He was not athletic, nor academic. He had problems with initiative, as well as laziness. You can imagine why the army was a perfect fit.

It was a huge change for him. Up to his training in bootcamp he had  never lived beyond the safety of our home. He had never been to college. He had only held menial jobs that my parents or other siblings set up for him. He was not ready in the slightest. 

However, this is not a story of failure. After three of the hardest months of his life, along with another two of ASOT (Advanced Special Operations Training), he became a Specialist in the United States Army. During his time of training he learned not only the basics of becoming a soldier, but also everything a soldier needs to know about military generators. During an operation, such as the one in Afghanistan, it is his job to make sure front line generators are running at full capacity. It is also a two way street in that during an invasion, it is his job to disable or commandeer an enemy's generators. 

Needless to say, when I saw him in his formal military attire, I was very proud. I would wager to say it was the first time that I had ever felt like this man was my older brother. The role model, the cool guy, and the one every little brother looks up to. He is my brother, and he is in the Army. 

The King of Costco

The air in the Costco had grown visibly colder. We were not sure what month it was, or even what day. We often expressed the joy of a certain holiday whenever we felt like it. 
By my account, we had been inside for 13 months, 3 days, and 15 hours. It was a Thursday. For me, however, whenever I was having a bad day, I blamed it on the fact it was a Thursday. Unfortunately, I had experienced multiple Thursdays in a row. 

You would think that Costco would have enough food to last a lifetime, and at first, it sure looked that way. But between five hungry teenagers, it goes quickly. 
The perishable food was gone in a week. We tried to put it in the massive two-story freezer that was conveniently next to the majority of it, but a bunch of lazy teenagers would not get to it. There was simply too much. 
By the end of the first month, most of the soda, candy, and Cheetos were gone. Most of us spent our time like we were on some sort of sick vacation. We had shopping cart races, basketball tournaments, and Nerf wars. It did not occur to us that maybe nobody was coming. 
The end of the third month came around, and cabin fever set in. Usually this only occurs when the victim is in small, enclosed places, but when you spend ninety-odd days in a twenty thousand square foot warehouse, there is only some much to see. Tempers flared, a few fights broke out. 
Six months in, we started to get serious. Conditions by then had become so disgusting that it was hard not to. I rounded up the two others boys of the group and sent them to work cleaning "the dump" (the isle we had designated to be our trash can. At that point it was filled with everything. Everything.). The girls set about building a living quarters on the canopy of the massive orange shelves. Up to that point we had been sleeping wherever we wanted, depending on our mood with the others. I had become the king of Costco.

We could have left. We tried, multiple times. The thing is, Costco has a lot of expensive things. The type of things looters love to go after. This lead to some genius engineer with a degree from MIT to design a system that kept looters out in the case of a natural disaster. Sure, it kept them out, but it also kept us in.
The truth was we were scared to go outside. I those early weeks, we had so much fun that going back to school was firmly planted in the back of our minds. But no cell phone reception, no internet, and no power left us wondering what had happened. No one had tried to come in. No one has. Where was everyone?
The night everything stopped (the power, internet, etc.), the five of us had been playing around together after school. "Hanging out" it was called. One of the other boys thought it would be cool to spend a night at Costco. 
"How cool would that be! Dude! We could, like, sleep on top of the shelves! Man, that would be so awesome!". 
And so we did. We broke into a Costco. No exactly the type of thing most teenagers do, but it was easier than you think. All it took was a little rope, disabling the alarm system on one of the many skylights, and rappel down. My own genius. 
We had just gotten into the candy when the gates fell. The solid steel gates. The emergency exits locked. With bolts. Every door leading out was six inches thick. We were stuck.
By the ninth month, we were living like some sort of survivor colony you see in those drama TV shows. Everything was planned. Hour by hour, everyone had something to do. Food was still not a problem.
The food ran out last week. We are searching through the dump looking for food we may have thrown away. There are whispers of leaving. I do not know what will happen to my kingdom. But I will not lose my population. I am the king of Costco.

My First Block Period With Mrs. G

Unlike many schools across the nation, my school sports the use of block periods. Without fail, Thursdays are filled with odd numbered two hour periods, and Fridays filled with even numbered two hour periods. (The periods are more around the one hour and forty minute mark, but let's face it, they sure as hell feel like two hours) But my first period on Thursday was different, it was my first experience with Mrs. G and the AP Comp class for a full two hours. To my genuine surprise, i actually enjoyed myself. Perhaps it was the raunchy jokes, or maybe the hilarious digressions. But if i had to guess, it would be the material we discussed and anlyzed that day. 
We read two essays, "The Essayification of Everything" by Christy Wampole , and "Blogs vs. Term Papers"  by Matt Richtel. The titles are quite self-explanatory, but i urge you to take the time to read each essay thoroughly.  "Blogs vs. Term Papers" struck a particular cord with me. As an aspiring high school student hoping to one day go strait to a four year college, the horror story's of the twenty page term paper on that book no one read still scare me from time to time. Richtel makes the point that term papers are falling out of favor, citing sources who believe it is due to lack of reading. I do not agree. Long essays and research papers are disappearing due to the slowly dieing rigorousness of our curriculum. Every year new legislation is passed lowering the standards expected of each student. This problem goes much deeper and could take up thousands upon thousands of words, yet i shall leave it at: the amount of reading expected is not the problem, it is the frailness of our educational code. Conn Carrol of the Washington Examiner puts it into undeniable numbers. 
Back to the essay, in a quote we discussed in class, William H. Fitzhugh states that "Writing is being murdered." While i agree with Fitzhugh on his message, there is a key word missing. "Traditional" writing is being murdered. The old style tedious writing is disappearing as the new generation moves in, which as many of us have seen, is all about availability and speed. The ideas expressed in this post could be stretched to a ten page report, but who has time to read that amount these days? Not many people do. Another point is simple attraction. Let a student use his laptop in school to write about issues he is genuinely interested in rather than a dusty topic that has been written about so much that it causes the professor to fall asleep reading the same ideas, more students will be motivated to write. Overall, traditional writing is being murdered, and writing as a whole is being revitalized.
Playing on the idea that the oncoming generation has very little time to stop and think, Christy Wampole in "The Essayification of Everything" states the essays written today lack the dogmatism of the past. They are empty. This problem is not due to the number of essays, but the writers themselves. They are devoid of thought. Playing the devil's advocate, i have to disagree. I believe the essays Wampole is looking for are out there, buried under thousands of "attempts". As more and more people begin to write, as world literacy increases, and as technology spreads, essays are written more frequently. For argument's sake, lets say less than one percent are the type of essays that Wampole is looking for are created everyday. Again, theoretically, in the past only one hundred essays were written a day, making that one essay stick out above the rest. When a million are written, that thousand is hard to find. Do not stop looking for greatness, you will find it in the place you least expect it.

Across The Seas Of The Internet, There Is Only Us

We will start this simple. My name is WK. That is all you really need to know. However, like you, I have a family, friends, and opinions. To you, I am text on a screen, but I urge you to look past that, and recognize I am another person, just like you.
To bridge the gap between text and human, here are a few things about myself. I was born in the beautiful Napa Valley, in which I have spent my entire life. It is where I've been schooled and raised. The Napa Valley will never cease to be without me, however a part of me will cease when I am without the Napa Valley. I currently attend Napa High School, where I have just entered my senior year. In other words, I have roughly 230 days until I am done. Thrown into the world brutally. This of course is a dramatization.
I run Varsity Cross Country in the fall, and Varsity Track & Field in the spring. Neither of which I am particularly great at, but both of which have taught me a large amount about heath, and more importantly, myself.When I was younger, until the eight grade, I was an avid basketball player. However, when playing a skirmish with another team, I went up for a rebound along with another player. We clashed, and I fell on top oh him. I displaced three spinal disks and herniated two. I can no longer play contact sports. 
Since my freshman year, I have been a part of the Napa High Choir program. I have worked my way through the various levels of choir, and this year I was fortunate enough to make it into the Napa High Chamber Choir. I love to sing. 
Academically I've always been a good student, nothing over the top, but consistent enough to get myself into a good college. This year I am taking three Advanced Placement courses, AP Government, AP Environmental science, and of course, AP Composition. Due to the freshness of this year, I have yet to determine the difficulty of these classes, but let me say this; this post is the most work I have had to do yet. 
According to a quiz I took in AP government I am a "Solid Liberal". I slightly disagree with this, as I consider myself "Independent lean Democrat". Politics is a center part of my life, as both of my parents have been politically active, and Political Science is a major I hope to study in college.
"College, the final frontier", is a quote that has stuck with me through my years of high school. It is the last academic institution to conquer, the last hurdle to adult hood. My college top college picks are UCSD (San Diego), UC Irvine, and Manhattan College in New York. 
I consider myself a family man, as I was raised with two older brothers and three older sisters. I was the youngest. Life growing up was a madhouse, and as each of my siblings went out into the world, life settled a small amount.
My copious number of siblings has landed me with a nephew and three nieces, all of whom I try to spend as much time with as I can. One could say they were the little brothers and sisters I never had. 
Hopefully I have persuaded you to see me in a different light, a light that isn't a fluorescent white. I am just like you. The only thing that separates us is the vast expanse of the Internet.