Prosecuted to Death

On January 11, 2013, Aaron Schwartz, a co-founder of Reddit.com, committed suicide after he was prosecuted for trying to release articles from the database JSTOR. However, a Tumblr by a friend of Schwartz says that while JSTOR dropped the charges, a different "prosecutor had the excuse he needed to continue his war against the “criminal." Instead of dropping the charges like the others, MIT's prosecutor pursued Schwartz as though he committed a much worse crime. I don't think this treatment was fair at all, especially when it drives the defendant to suicide. 

I believe that if the charges had not been so harsh, that Aaron might not have killed himself. I think that the punishment he faced did not fit the "crime" at all. What do you think? Were the charges just? What do you think the prosecutors should have done to better handle the case? Post you  thoughts in the comments below.

Reflecting on the Past

One World Trade Center, left, and nearby buildings are reflected in the glass of the glass façade of the National September 11 Museum in New York, in this file photo.”


This picture, featuring the new One World Trade Center, is an important artifact to recent American history because it depicts America’s resilience. Even though the original towers fell years ago, there is a new building slowing taking their place. Rebuilding in the wake of the tragedy that was 9/11 coincides with the narrative arc that Kurt Vonnegut spoke about “Man in a Hole.” Said plainly, the story goes like this: “somebody gets into trouble, gets out again” (349). This common story theme could be used to describe America after 9/11. We suffered the tragedy of the attack, fell into the proverbial hole, and now we are climbing back up the other side of that hole. We aren’t completely out yet, but we are getting there, as seen from the partially built One World Trade Center. In the drawing Vonnegut made of the “Man in Hole” story arc, the line doesn’t just go back to its original height. In the presentation, Kurt addresses this, saying, “It is not accidental that the line ends up higher than where it began” (349). After 9/11, we aren’t going to be where we were before, but we will be better. Not only are we rebuilding the World Trade Center, but we are building a newer, presumably better building. The new tower in the picture suggests that we can end up higher that before.


Years after the attack, another tower is rising up in the place of the twin towers. I think this shows how life goes on after 9/11. For a while the only thing at the site of Ground Zero was a pit of rubble. But we couldn’t just let it stay like that. We still needed a World Trade Center despite the old one falling. We went on working, and now we have a new one. However, it didn’t take this long for life to start going again. Even during the attack, life went on. An example would be the picture we discussed in class. In that picture, there is a delivery man walking with a package while the towers burn in the background. This man didn’t continue to work because he didn’t care about the tragedy, but because he had to. He had a job, and that needed to be done. America also followed a similar path: We were attacked, but we kept going. We kept working, and life went back to normal for many people.


Just because life went back to normal doesn’t mean that what happened didn’t matter. The museum serves as a reminder of the tragedy that happened that day. However, Foner tells us that 9/11 “drew new attention to essential American elements of the history of American freedom” (1069). Despite the fact that many people died, Foner finds another meaning to the attack, that it emphasized our freedom. Did we lose our freedom because of this attack? No. We lost a few civil liberties, but that’s an entirely different discussion. We kept going, we built another tower. We remained free after the attack. Our freedom showed that the attack didn’t change much in the long run. Foner goes on the say that “freedom is essential to American’s sense of themselves and as a nation” (1069). We didn’t lose our freedom, which is what identifies us as a nation. Fighting back physically against the people who perpetrated the attack may have been hard, but keeping our nation free may have been the best thing we could have done. We lost 3,000 people on 9/11, but despite the loss, we rebuilt the towers, stayed free, and will probably come out on top, above where we were before. The picture of the new tower represents all these things, and for that, is an important artifact in recent American history.

Grounded

This past week, two Boeing 787 planes in Boston experienced problems. Battery fires, fuel leaks, and other problems kept several aircraft on the ground. However, more problems happened in other 787's in other places around the world. More on these incidences can be found in this article. 

While some flaws and defects in a new airplane are expected, these recent events are a bit worrying. The 787 has been out for over a year, and almost 50 have been delivered to airlines.  I know Boeing is doing what it can and will fix whatever caused the failures, but multiple cases like this is disconcerting. 

What do you think? Do you think these problems could have been avoided? Should Boeing have done more to prevent it? Post your thoughts below. 

Paying Off Debt

After Congress gets done dealing with the fiscal cliff, another problem arises: the debt ceiling. But instead of better spending, people are talking about minting a trillion dollar coin to fix the crisis. 

I don't see how this would work at all. Essentially, I see this as printing money to pay off debts. Even the economist in the video said that it wouldn't work in the long run. Congress needs to find a better solution to the debt ceiling than this. Given their previous track record, I don't have high expectations for Congress, and I only hope that they don't go with this ridiculous plan. Even if this plan did manage to work, there would still be $15 trillion more to pay off. I think this plan that it is incredible anyone thinks this would work, and I think Congress needs to work harder on serious issues like these. 

What are your thoughts? Do you think that are better alternatives to the coin? What are they? Why do you think so many are giving this idea credit? Post you thoughts below.

UNInvolved in the Internet

This past week, the UN met to discuss a potential treaty. This treaty would give the governments and the International Telecom Union more control over the internet. However, as explained in this article, the treaty failed to be signed by numerous governments. The  US refused, saying that "The internet has given the world unimaginable economic and social benefit during these past 24 years. All without UN regulation." The US delegates argued that the UN intervention was unnecessary. Governmental control of the Internet would also be harmful. The internet, as it stands now, is free and uncontrolled by any authority. Laws still apply to those who use the internet, but other aspects, such as speech are unabated. Handing over this freedom to the government would  go against the very freedom the US is built upon. 

On top of this, most of these meetings were held "behind closed doors." This means that the meetings were closed off to the public or anyone else who would have anything to say about the treaty. This undemocratic way of going about the treaty seems to  indicate that the UN would try to regulate the Internet in a similar fashion.

What are your thoughts? Do you think that the government should have any control over the Internet? Is there any way for governments to regulate the Internet without overstepping their bounds? Post your thoughts in the comments. 

Ad Infinitum

During a visit to the Internet, I came across a photo album depicting Chinese factory workers and the toys they make. Jakey Witz also made a post about some of the photos. As I was looking through the album, I found one picture that I thought encompassed the conditions in the factories quite well. 

The thing about this particular photo that struck me was the repetition. Almost every worked is dressed the same: they all wear the same hats and shirt. The only difference is the colors of two of the workers. The items they are working on are also mostly the same. I counted eight bins filled with identical toys. It seems like the entire factory looks like this. The line of tables goes far  into the distance, seemingly forever. Or at least to the back wall. On the left and right, you can see other long tables, with more workers in the same uniform, all probably working on similar toys. 
These workers probably sit there almost all day, performing the same action on the same toy for however long it is in production. And that length of production depends on us. As long as we keep buying the toys, they keep making them. This cycle will continue infinitely until we change something. How do you think we can bring that change? Do you have any other thoughts about these factories? Post your comments below. 

Justification

After the class discussions,  I decided to look into the Downing Street Memo. While reading through it, I came across a line that seemed to fit the narrative of the Iraq war quite well. The original text from the memo can be found here.  
The line that caught my attention went as such: "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran." Hold on, Saddam wasn't threatening people? But this ins't what the government told us. They said that he could use them on us (and other), and they're admitting that this isn't the case? Furthermore, Iraq's weapons capabilities were less than North Korea's? I don't know what North Korea had at the time, but I remember their failed nuclear test back in April. Given their current position, I don't see any way that North Korea could have WMDs years before that. If Iraq had less capability than North Korea, I don't see any problem. 
I don't think that the narrative the government gave us was fair. The whole conflict turned up no WMDs, yet we were told that there were. What do you think about this? And what do you think could be done to stop this in the future? Post your thoughts below.