Inception

Tonight I lit a candle. Turning off the overhead lights, I let it burn for hours until my room swirled in scents of lavender and vanilla, so reminiscent of the woods I run through at home, I didn’t want to blow it out. As the wax dripped down, collecting into a pool at the top, I would simply stare at it.  All of the sudden, the flame had a personality. Flippant, indecisive, wistful, daring.

It was the person everyone wanted to make posters for at a game. The person you parade around when you want a night to remember. The character in a book you wish was real. Personified in every draft of air pulsing through the room, it was the gateway to the surreal. A modern day Kandinsky painting, where colors had sounds and tones had shades and no neuroenhancing drugs were necessary to enter.

I’m really not sure why I couldn’t stop staring at it, but I felt entranced. And all that was running through my head as I gazed into the hypnotic pool of wax was that ridiculous iceberg metaphor of Freud’s that I learned in AP Psychology with Professor Barlow my junior year of high school. (It also happens to be a quote from “Hitch,” seemingly irrelevant at the moment.)

The majority of an iceberg’s weight is under the surface. We are a people of the unconscious. Cave dwellers. Bottom feeders. Submerged in a world that moves slower in our heads than it does in real time.

My body is still except for the typing, but these thoughts are getting away from me and I’m reminded of a day this summer. While in Florida with my godfather’s family to watch their kids full time, they always gave me break each day to go for a run. This one day was no different than the two before or the four after, but it stuck with me. I think about it often and I’m honestly not sure why, but I’m thinking about it now.

I still had on my mismatched turquoise bikini and my hair was sticky and damp, filled with chlorine from that morning with Julia Rose, but I didn’t care. Tying my hair in a bumpy ponytail, I threw on my old lacrosse jersey, and went to the beach. I biked the whole way there barefoot because shoes at that moment felt like baggage. The pedals bit at my feet, but I didn’t feel it because by the time I set foot on the sand, my body went numb. I submerged my entire self into the underwater abyss of my head, temporarily separating myself from the world and I began to run. Run like the wax skidding down the wick into a viscous pool into another dimension.

As I left the threshold of thoughts and wants and sound entirely, all I knew was touch. The sand gave way to my foot, leaving my size seven print in its wake. It was three o’clock and I was running into the sun. Every inch of my skin was encapsulated in its warmth, making itself tangible in a glaze of sweat.

At one point, I started to play a game with myself to beat the waves with my feet. The water and foam drew broad arches along the shore like an artist on his second coat of paint. I would zigzag around the terrain, not letting it touch me or wipe away the sand. I would tease the ocean’s spray, but it always caught me no matter how fast I ran through the dunes. The cool water would wash over my toes only for them to be buried an instant later in a dusting of white sand, mashed up stones from eons ago that now are as miniscule as a flake of flour.

I picked a blue house in the distance as my turning point, but then I ran past it. On this side of the beach, there were only a few fishermen’s poles, spread far apart as if this was their farm and the fish were their cattle. Space seemed endless, governed simply by daylight. My only obstacle became the invisible wires of the fishing line. I had convinced myself I’d run into one and make a fool of myself, but luckily this didn’t happen.

I’m not quite sure how far I ran. In fact, I felt like I had left reality entirely, consciously unconscious of anything but touch. Exhaustion was but an idea and being was now a noun.

Eventually, I turned around and when I couldn’t see my starting landmark anymore, I decided to jump in the fresh footsteps I had just made, yet again challenging the water to remove them before I got there. When I finally returned to my landmark, I could feel every muscle pulsing. Slowly, my senses began coming back. The brightness. The humidity. The colored towels and dotted umbrellas. The scent of sunscreen. The fatigue.

Throwing off my jersey and taking out my hair tie and bobby pins holding my long bangs hostage, I waded into the water until I was up to my waist and then I just dove, arched into the water, letting my arms take the lead and my head follow. I knew the moment I went under that I’d have to come back up. I knew that when I started my run and I know it looking at that burning candle. You must always return to the reality you started in, but somehow we deceive ourselves into crafting an alternate world to escape to if only for a few seconds or maybe even a few miles.

They say the mind and body are connected, but sometimes I’m not sure. I once read this article about a woman whose left and right brain were separated and from that moment on, she had two minds. Sometimes she could process sight, but no sound and other times her left hand would do what her right hand should be doing. Her life was inverted and she lived in a world underwater that no one else understood, but everyone wanted to.

She was a specimen, a source of sympathy, but I think oddly a source of wonder and curiosity. Everyone who studies her secretly wants to be her for a few seconds to feel what she feels, think what she thinks, and change perspective. Then they all want to come back and impress people with their revelations.

Part of me thinks maybe that’s the point. We want to achieve this fifth dimension if only for a second just to prove that we can. We want other people to know that we can and that almost makes us guilty for sharing the intimacy. Almost. We don’t want to be stuck there, per say, but at that instant, you want it all and none of it simultaneously. You’re miserable with both, but that doesn’t stop you from wanting it.

Eventually, however, for most people, the flame burns out. The wax hardens and it is as if it was never liquid. Serenity bleeds into darkness and you return to the world where you thought you’d left only to realize you can’t actually stop time, just your head can. Books had been read, reasoning had been used, snacks had been had. You were thankful for the break, but now you’re more thankful for the return.

Contentment, therefore, is but a moment whose actual length is incalculable, but whose memory gives it an oxymoronic temporary permanence. We create our own worlds, gliding in and out like an ice cube melting in a puddle of its own creation. Until the next time. Recycle.

Algorithm Autocracy

Throughout history, there has always been an uneasy relationship between the citizen and the state on the subject of privacy and intimacy. The state is the gas, while the citizens are the brakes when it comes to personal encounters as we try to make life more calculable and predictable. Algorithms now can be used to predict every whim of society from personal apparel choices to music tastes.

There are arguments about the origin of these privacy debates. However, historian, Paul Fussell, believes WWII was a defining moment for these debates because it was during WWII that American solders were given camouflage underwear as part of their uniform. Fussell emphasized this fact because it highlights his point that the most private part of our clothing had become militarized; it was the property of the state. His fears of regimentation and a loss of individuality are not unfounded. In fact, I argue that not only are these fears still playing out today, but also that this tug-of-war is even more influential with algorithms guiding some of the most intimate details of decision making processes, often going unnoticed.

According to The New York Times, there is now an algorithm for bra sizing. Michelle Lam founded the company, True&Co, because she wanted to take the hassle out of professional bra fitting.  Rather than spending hours trying on different sizes, customers take a 15-question quiz, which is then inputted into True&Co’s algorithm. The algorithm works for 2,000 body types and gives customers five choices of varying styles and sizes. Although most people denounce this company as “ridiculous,” these types of algorithms for understanding social decisions are not uncommon. Physical features are now distilled into a series of numbers and calculations.

In the entertainment industry, algorithms are the primary way to determine if a song or show will be popular. For example, Netflix knew “House of Cards” would be a hit before it even came out. It is now the most streamed piece of content on Netflix. The company used a Venn diagram to find intersections of interests, which convinced them to buy the series. Essentially, Netflix took the risk out of business ventures, targeting for mass appeal and accessibility, which begs questions of homogenization and its potential side effects.

The music industry has been doing this for years.  According to The Wall Street Journal, a company called Music Xray, “uses algorithms to rate new songs based on their “hit-appeal” by isolating their patterns of melody, beat, tempo, and fullness of sound and comparing those with earlier hits.” It takes the guesswork out of producing music. No longer are there big shot music producers like Brian Wilson making all of the decisions; technology can do that for us. While there are some songs that shock the industry, in general the greatest complaint with the Top Songs on iTunes is their monotony. When you’ve heard one, you’ve heard them all, which this is a direct result of the algorithms that perpetuate the cycle.

Even Google is jumping on the bandwagon. According to Circa News, Google correctly predicted 4 out of 6 of the 2013 Oscar races for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. Google’s predictions matches that of statistical analyst, Nate Silver, who is celebrated for his accuracy. That is how much information Google has collected and can use to understand the trends and future of society. Although the possession of so much information comes with a degree of fear, it is also incredibly telling for the future of target advertising.

Ultimately, the hope of every major company in America is to capitalize upon this type of target advertising, finding the best combination of efficiency and accuracy. According to an Interactive Advertising Bureau report released in October 2012, online advertising reached a record-breaking, $17 billion in revenue in just the first half of 2012. Any company that can get even a slice of that $17 billion and growing advertising pie can rest easily at night even if sequestration does send the economy in a downward spiral.

In “The Power of Habit,” Charles Duhigg detailed the large investment Target has made in statistical analysis. Target asked its senior statistician to find an algorithm that can predict which women are pregnant. Target knew that pregnant women were the most susceptible part of the commercial market because they change their purchasing habits most dramatically during those nine months and the store they use during their pregnancy has the potential to become a visiting habit that they continue turning to throughout their child’s development. This amounts to millions of dollars of potential revenue.

The algorithm Target developed was so effective that it was able to predict which women were pregnant based on their lotion purchases made on their customer cards. In fact, in one example Duhigg noted, a father angrily stormed into Target, furious that Target would send his daughter coupons for cribs, diapers, and prenatal vitamins. Little did this father know, his daughter was pregnant and Target knew it.

As corporations and the state gather more and more information about our buying habits and lifestyle choices, the potential for greater precision and efficiency skyrockets. The most intimate details of our lives are accessible and can be manipulated to personalize our experiences, which many may say feels dehumanizing. Personally, I look forward to a future sans annoying bra fittings that only exacerbate my indecisive tendencies, but I also hope my dad doesn’t find out I’m pregnant via Target. The evolving quest for understanding spontaneous human decisions is one that cannot be ignored and for this reason, I argue that algorithms will be an influential part of our future, affecting policy decisions, self-perception, and impacting every part of daily life. Now we have to decide where we want to draw the line.

Affirmative Action

The Supreme Court is currently weighing a case, Fisher vs. University of Texas, in which a white 23-year old female, Abigail Fisher, hopes to overthrow affirmative action. She insists that anti-reverse racism gave her spot at the University of Texas to an undeserving minority student. Moreover, she believes that affirmative action is an elitist system, categorizing people by their nationality, and cherry picking from those sub-categories of humanity. Since race is something we are born into, she argues that it is no different than separating people by shoe size or eye color. We wouldn’t accept or deny people access to schools based on their shoes, would we? While this defense seems logical, it is misunderstanding the actual purpose of affirmative action.

Her train of thought is not uncommon. In fact, The Cavalier Daily recently ran an opinions article arguing for anti-affirmative action on the grounds that society has achieved a color-blind, post-racialist society. The article and Abigail Fisher eschew the notion that we still need rules and quotas to ensure what we assume are now innate. However, this assumption that race is no longer a factor is a weak attempt to brush history under the rug.

Affirmative action can be traced back to the G.I. Bill passed in 1944, which gave generous sets of benefits to returning WWII veterans. Veterans were given hiring preferences in order to make the adjustment to post-war life easier. President John F. Kennedy issued an Executive Order 10925 promoting non-discrimination, which was followed by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Executive Order 11246 declaring hiring practices disregard race, religion, and national origin.

I must admit that when I was applying to colleges, I wondered why we needed affirmative action. Dangerously, I let myself fall into Fisher’s line of thought because I wondered: what does race have to do with merit? Flippantly, we would often joke during my senior year of high school, predicting who would get into which schools. It seemed inevitable that our Persian Salutatorian would go to Stanford and that our Ethiopian AP student would go to William and Mary. It’s not that they were undeserving, because in fact they were some of the brightest and most insightful people I’ve ever met, but from our wayward perspective, their race gave them an edge over other equally bright and insightful applicants.

We assumed affirmative action would make it easier for those with Native American ancestry to go to a prestigious college or university than it would be for a Caucasian whose ancestors have lived in the dominant class of society for centuries. Even today, we assume that only the Puerto Rican acapella group member will live on the Lawn at the University of Virginia. However, these assumptions are completely misguided because it misunderstands the entire point of affirmative action. It’s not about merit because at the point admission decisions are made, all remaining applicants are equally qualified. It’s about socialization.

Affirmative action does not depend on census numbers and does not care about your family tree. It has no regard for re-living past injustices or rehashing old grudges. Rather, it is meant to make the university a microcosm of “the world out there.” College is meant to prepare you for the mysterious, daunting, and complex “world out there.” It attempts to soften the blow of entering into a world of bills, taxes, and responsibilities. And “the world out there” is increasingly diverse, complex, and tolerant of any and all ideas and life choices, so colleges want you to explore and encounter opinions that aren’t your own. They want to challenge you and these challenges do not always show up in the form of scan trons and papers.

The part about college that we always forget is that it teaches us how to communicate and interact with our peers. It is generally acknowledged that networking and personal connections can increase your odds of getting a foot in the door in the business world. Therefore it is paramount that we learn to navigate these contacts with ease and confidence. Only experience teaches those life skills of communication and college gives you this experience. In fact, I would argue that the socialization part of college is possibly more important than the formulas and theories we postulate and debate in discussions.

Along with opening our eyes to different cultures, bursting our often self-centered bubbles, we become more tolerant and reach a point of indifference that I think is the goal of affirmative action. The moment when we are unaffected by people who seem different to us, is the moment when we will have actually reached the post-racialist society we all strive for and desire.

Therefore, our universities should be as diverse as the worlds we will encounter post graduation. It is not a way to divide society; it is a way to make coming together more natural. It is hoping to raise a generation that doesn’t forget the enlightened principles our nation was founded on including equality and freedom of speech.

In sum, while I am sure Abigail Fisher feels just like the United Kingdom who calls affirmative action, positive discrimination, she must realize that admission can no longer be black and white anymore. Race is part of who we are and who we will be so as the American literary critic Henry Louis Gates praised for his study of black culture, would say, we must be socialized in a world that is neither colorless nor blind to color.

Heart’s Hidden Treasures

“The human heart has hidden treasures, In secret kept, in silence sealed; The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, Whose charms were broken if revealed.” – Charlotte Bronte

 Reaching for the glass bottle, a rush of memories tackle me, burying me with its force and tugging at a string I had long since buried.  Uncorking the cap, the contents are redolent of lavender, just as they were nearly eight years ago.  The ribbon hasn’t lost its shape and it still sits beside the bookworm bookmark she gave me.  Instantly the muscles in my stomach contract and I involuntarily hold my breath.

My curved, dimple-ridden smile soon turns into a single rolling tear, cascading down my cheek as I think back to time forgotten.  Flashes of images cross the motion picture playing in my head.

Jumping out of my seat, I lean over the monopoly board, praying to land on Park Place.  Hopping the fence, the backyard isn’t a patch of grass.  Rather we’ve turned it into a jungle.  Playing the silent game, its duration is no more than thirty seconds as our insides erupt like a volcano in laughter.  Making cupcakes for our picnic, there are never too many sprinkles and we each get a spoon to lick the batter.

Melanie was my best friend: my wingman, my partner in crime, my other half.  Jokingly, we sometimes referred to ourselves as Top Gun characters, trading off between Maverick and Goose.  The day she said goodbye, I was afraid.  I was afraid to show her how much she would be missed.  As I walked her to the end of the street corner for the last time, we met each other’s eyes, but my tongue failed me as no words came out.

Imitating the parting handshake from The Parent Trap that we’d rehearsed a million times before, we yet again burst into a fit of laughter before bidding adieu in every language we could recall.  When there was finally no more time to kill, no more traditions to execute, we each turned on the balls of our feet, heading in a direction that seemed so unnatural after years of falling into step.

It wasn’t until that night when her familiar voice wasn’t singing karaoke to the Backstreet Boys in our family room, when we weren’t exploring all of my mom’s makeup, and when we weren’t begging my dad to pitch the softball because it wasn’t that dark outside, that I began to fill her absence with tears.

The loss of something or someone you love makes you love it all the more.  When Melanie and I were within the same radius, there was no trepidation.  Curiosities were explored and treasures were unlocked.  Our hearts scrutinized every wish and hope and dream.  Life was a mysterious euphoria full of possibilities and charms.

After that day at the corner, I never saw Melanie again.  The friendship soon dissipated.  I bounced back, but her memory still evokes a secret longing to relive some of those moments.  Once that scent of lavender swishes throughout my room, though, I see Melanie and I as we were: joyous and insouciant.  I will never use the lavender perfume she gave so many years ago.  And at the same time, I don’t think I’ll ever fill the gap she left.

Our world is growing farther away from these connections, whether by war, religion, or historical prejudice.  Blood spouts from a red heart that we don’t take the time to understand.  “The heart has hidden treasures,” and each one deserves the opportunity to find their wingman, their Goose.

Oh, Congress. Why We Had a Government Shutdown

Oh Congress. Where the jokes stay the same and the stories sound made up. The best and worst part is that the jokes are always upheld and the stories are always true, as is the case with the most recent demonstration of democratic governance. On Tuesday October 1, the government partially shut down for the first time in 17 years.

While no official estimates have been released, J. David Cox, president of the American Federation of Government Employees estimates between 800,000 and 1 million federal employees or approximately 40% of all non-defense government employees will be furloughed. This means that most national parks, museums, presidential libraries, NASA, the National Zoo’s panda cam, and the IRS will all be turned off/closed. However, some emergency agencies including the CDC, EPA, FDA, and disaster response organizations will “keep the lights on,” according to The Washington Post.

The last and longest government shutdown was in 1995, which lasted for 21 days according to USA Today. Unfortunately, Congressional leaders only have until October 17 to get their act together because that is the date when the government will reach its borrowing limit. Do not call Guinness because we are not trying to break a record here. If Congress does not raise the debt ceiling, it will mark the first time in history that the United States has defaulted on its debt.

While this may seem abrupt, this crisis has been looming essentially since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, signed into law in 2010. ObamaCare is the largest upheaval of health care since Medicaid. It is a permanent entitlement program that is not subject to Congressional funding. Despite the fact that it is not tied to Congressional approval anymore, nonetheless it appears to be at the heart of this latest congressional impasse – an assumption I plan to shred by the end of this. But first, a brief summary…

The October 1^st deadline was no coincidence. While the government’s fiscal year is September 30 to October 1, October 1 2013 is also the day ObamaCare rolled out its online exchange program, which is essentially online shopping for health care plans. Ironically, despite the government shutdown and the perception that the funding bill standstill was about the Affordable Care Act, the exchange program began as planned.

Most Republican representatives, including 2008 Presidential nominee, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) won re-election on the platform that they would repeal the Affordable Care Act known as ObamaCare. “I campaigned in 2012 all over this country for months: ‘Repeal and replace Obamacare.’ That was not the mandate of the voters,” McCain told The Washington Post. “If they wanted to repeal Obamacare, the 2012 election would have been probably significantly different.”

Threats began circulating this summer among GOP leaders that October 1 would be a showdown and their opportunity to live up to their campaign promises. However, the threat seemed empty until last week when Texas Senator, Ted Cruz (R-TX) went up to podium Wednesday September 25.

Cruz used the now commonplace filibuster technique hoping to delay a Senate vote on a House bill to fund the government until mid-December and avoid this whole debacle. Hoping to combat or at least delay the Democrat-run Senate, Cruz spoke for 21 hours. During which time, he read Dr. Seuss’s “Green Eggs and Ham,” told Congress that everyone in Washington had a bad haircut, and called other Republicans Nazi appeasers, according to Slate.

Despite this little hiccup, on Friday September 27, the Senate, including Cruz, still approved the House funding bill making sure to edit out the portion about defunding ObamaCare. And so the volley began.

The next day, Saturday September 28, the House returned the bill to the Senate including a one-year delay on implementing ObamaCare and the repeal of the medical device’s tax, according to NPR.

As expected, the Senate rejected the House bill, 54-46 on Monday September 30. With less than 24 hours until the October 1^st deadline, by 8PM, House Speaker, John Boehner (R-OH), said the Republican-run House won’t pass a bill without including some Republican ideas about fixing America’s spending habit.

Anxious and frustrated at the legislative branch’s failures with the clock ticking, father figure, Obama angrily confronted his unruly children on Monday with a feisty quip to the press saying “keeping the People’s government open is not a concession to me,” according to The New York Times hoping the censure would promote compromise (which obviously it did not because the government is shutdown, thereby making President Obama look like a weak leader and giving GOP leaders some satisfaction).

On a side note, Putin, I know, would have none of this democratic disobedience, but as Winston Churchill famously and affectionately said, “democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.” So it continued.

By 9PM, the House passed yet another bill including delaying ObamaCare, which only took the Senate half an hour to reject and send back again at 9:30PM. By 11PM, only one hour before doomsday, House officials called it a night, saying no more funding votes would occur for the night. At midnight, the government defaulted and by 12:01AM, Americans realized that they actually weren’t that surprised.

Now to my main point. Since ObamaCare was implemented despite the shutout, one might ask: Is this really about healthcare? To which, I respond, Not at all. Just like the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, this isn’t about healthcare. It’s about animosity, which is a far bigger crack to caulk.

This embodies every grudge held throughout the Obama Administration. It is not unlike family holidays when one person storms out because they are sitting at the kid’s table, which actually means they’re still mad about every sweater, record, and boyfriend borrowed throughout their life. It’s subtext. An avalanche, not a snowflake.

The only way to not make a mistake is to do nothing. It’s a byzantine federal system not unlike the beltway these representatives use to get to their jobs – congested, stagnant, and dull with only sensational news keeping you awake. So no, this isn’t really about ObamaCare. ObamaCare is just a cover story and an easy target to express America’s general anxiety about the state of our government and our institutions.

What happened this week with the government shutdown is a public display of disapproval. We say our representatives are out of touch and don’t understand their constituents, but that’s not true at all. They understand completely and that is why the government has failed. It is simply reflecting the view Americans already have. We have lost the sense of unity that links us. It’s as if we have grown so disillusioned with the state of our economy and political gridlock that we need and practically hope for crisis if only to remind us of our shared experiences.

And the numbers don’t lie. A recent Washington Post-Miller Center national poll found that the majority of Americans, particularly young people question the basic precept of the American Dream. While the dream has not been extinguished, it has diminished. Just to pause for a second and reflect on that statement: one of the founding philosophies and ideas about what it means to be American – the pursuit of the American Dream – has lost its luster. That alone is significant and alarming.

According to the poll, 58 percent say they earn less than they deserve. Two-thirds of respondents say it is difficult to meet ends meet. Most striking is the fact that less than 39 percent believe their children will have a better life than them. In sum, this basic idea that America is the land of opportunity is losing its claim to validity and not knowing who or what to blame, we blame our institutions.

Therefore, when we say the government has shutdown, Congress has missed yet another deadline, and all hell is breaking lose, we are hinting at this larger question that is secretly haunting all of us: what do we believe in anymore? We have lost faith in government’s ability to do what it was crafted to do. The American Dream has lost its Horatio Alger romanticism under the weight of economic hardship. Religion is no longer a social glue unifying society. So I ask, what do we have left?

Lie Strong

On Thursday, January 17, Lance Armstrong confronted the elephant in the room when he admitted what we already knew; it was all “one big lie,” Armstrong said. After 13 years of vehemently denying the doping charges that fueled his seven Tour de France victories, he simply said he made it all up.

However, before I get into this article, I feel obligated to note that I do not intend this to be yet another slandering and scathing denunciation of Armstrong’s character. I shall save those parodies and libelous commentaries for YouTube, SNL, and the late night faces of Jimmy Kimmel, Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Jimmy Fallon. However, Armstrong did not exactly do himself any favors when he spoke with Oprah.

Therefore, I hope to explain, with only the slightest hint of sarcasm, Armstrong’s troubling past and the immense pressures he must have been under, which forced him to lie for an impressive thirteen years. Besides, in Armstrong’s defense, it’s not as if this were the first steroid scandal (i.e. Baseball players, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds and fellow cyclist Floyd Landis) and it will certainly not be the last. With that said, here we go.

During Lance Armstrong’s cycling career from 1999-2005, he has been depicted as a “legend,” “champion,” and my personal favorite, “hero.” He overcame testicular cancer after being diagnosed in 1996. Founding the Lance Armstrong Foundation and LiveStrong Foundation to empower fellow cancer survivors, Armstrong made those yellow wristbands, which everyone used to wear, seem cool; that beautiful shade of yellow appeared everywhere in 2004 from The Office to The Colbert Report to the wrist of Oprah, which makes Armstrong’s recent interview with Oprah especially ironic and entertaining. All of this made him not only a cycling legend, but also a style icon.

Adding to the excitement, Armstrong became the comeback kid in cycling. Not only could he overcome testicular cancer, but also he could return to cycling, coming in third in the 2009 Tour de France, which might as well be called a victory because it was clearly no easy feat, especially with the aid of extracurricular, what shall we call them, body enhancers.

And as with most superheroes, what would Lance Armstrong be without a secret identity?  Armstrong must know that in order to be a real hero, you have to pick a super color (yellow, check) and hide your true self until your nemesis, whether that be The Joker (Batman), Lex Luther (Superman), the Green Goblin (Spiderman), or in this case, Oprah and/or The United States Anti-Doping Agency force it out of you. Additionally, as with every superhero, there must be a fatal flaw somewhere, otherwise the comic strip would end all to soon.

The picture he tried to paint of himself, as a hero gets even better once estrogen jumps into the mix. As with every other good hero, women make life complicated, dramatic, and raise the stakes.

When asked if he did indeed call Betsy Andreu, the wife of a former teammate a “fat, crazy bitch,” he told Oprah, “I did call her crazy ad I did call her a bitch, but I did not call her fat.”

According to Armstrong, on the insult scale, calling a woman fat is the insult to top all insults. In 2005, Andreu testified in a federal investigation about the names Armstrong had called her. In that investigation, Armstrong still failed to apologize to Andreu, so needless to say, Betsy and Armstrong have severed ties.

However, Armstrong does not completely repel every woman in America. In fact, his ex-girlfriend, Sheryl Crow, has come to his defense. Crow, who dated Armstrong from 2003 to 2006 during which time Armstrong won his final two Tour de France races, told The LA Times after watching clips of his interview with Oprah, “I felt bad. I felt bad for him, I felt bad for his family, and I kinda felt like the rest of America. He is a hero that we watched and looked up to and admire.”

Their relationship must have been like a shot of helium to Armstrong’s already over-inflated head because throughout the interview with Oprah, he seemed to still be overcoming the shock that he was actually caught.

“I didn’t think I would get caught,” Armstrong told Oprah. “In 1999, there was no testing. So you know you’re not gonna get caught, ya know, cause you’re clean at the races.”

Armstrong also admitted that his doping had begun long before his diagnosis of cancer in 1997.

“My cocktail was EPO, [blood] transfusions and testosterone,” Armstrong said.

Based on this admission, Armstrong clearly throws unconventional parties and has a small penis. However, he hides it all very well with a sense of pride and arrogance for his lofty career. Just as Ironman required a battery to power his day job, Armstrong’s doping was essential for maintaining his fairly large ego as well as to remain competitive in the intense cycling world.

However, in the interview, Armstrong presented himself with an uneasy mixture of cocky and self-deprecating as if he was almost proud of his flaws.

He called himself an “arrogant prick” and a “bully.” He also insinuated that his position as team leader may have been influential in making other teammates begin doping.

“I was the top rider,” Armstrong said. “I was the leader of the team. There was never a direct order that I gave to people on the team to dope. So I guess I could have fired a teammate who didn’t dope, but that never happened.”

Despite Armstrong’s exaggerated self-opinion and overwhelming hubris, he is not completely devoid of emotion. When speaking with Oprah, as with any good interview, he shed a few tears when asked about his son. He admitted that when he had to tell his oldest son, Luke, who is 13 years old, that the doping allegations he had been fighting for his son’s entire life were indeed true, he felt an immense sense of guilt.

“I saw my son defending me and saying, ‘That’s not true. What you’re saying about my dad is not true,’” Armstrong said. “That’s when I knew I had to tell him.”

So why did Armstrong admit what everyone already knew? Was it meant to set an example for his son that one must always admit their mistakes? Was it a desperate attempt to repair his painfully smeared reputation? For his ego? So he could compete again after being banned from all competitions and having his Tour de France titles taken away?

According to The New York Times, “He wants to get what he wants and control every outcome.” This analysis seems like a natural response after seeing what should have been a sincere apology from a man plagued with regret, but turned out to be a defiant and cold confession, which only makes it even harder for fans to feel sympathy for him.

So perhaps Armstrong’s motives were more of an attempt to beat everyone else to the punch. Unfortunately for Armstrong and for his poor PR manager, whoever has such an unfortunate occupation, that punch was delivered to Armstrong a long time ago. Nonetheless, the effort was admirable, if not abominable.

Unluckily for Armstrong, the general consensus on his interview with Oprah is that he dug his own grave, for a second time. Not only did Armstrong fall short of the heroic benchmark he had set for himself, but he also lost any shred of validity and trust fans had endowed to him.

Oprah, on the other hand, still believes Armstrong can be a hero again, according to USA Today. “If he is willing to do the work…he can be a real hero,” Winfrey said. “Everybody has the ability within them to rise again. What really matters in the world is what kind of human being he chooses to be.”

For now, though, Armstrong remains a disappointment, failing to live up to the insanely high and superhuman expectations he set for himself.

However, luckily for everyone else, The Onion has graciously kept the yellow wristband alive and they are still available inscribed with the words, “Cheat to Win” or if you’re feeling more thrifty, you can simply cross out the “V” in your current “Live Strong” bracelets to say “Lie Strong.” Regardless, though, as with most heroes, Armstrong will surely be remembered, for better or worse.

Libyan Embassy Attacks and the Anti-Islam Video

As with most things in history, the spark that lights the fire is rarely meriting protest. For example, the 30 Years War in Europe (1618-1648) started with the Defenestration of Prague in which a few Protestant noblemen went to the Bohemian King’s palace in Prague and threw their advisors out the window. The advisors survived because they landed on a pile of manure, but nonetheless, it started the biggest and most damaging war in Europe until WWI and WWII.

Several centuries later, the Spanish American war began during the age of Yellow Journalism when William Henry Hearst’s paper, The New York Journal, reported that the destruction of the Battleship Maine in Havana was a Spanish plot. In retrospect, it is agreed that the sinking of the Maine was actually from natural causes.

Another century later, the United States entered WWI after intercepting the Zimmerman Telegram, which was supposedly from the German foreign secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, asking Mexico to join their alliance. Many Americans suspect the telegram was illegitimate intended to incite America to go to war.

Naturally, there are many other examples of false grounds for revolt, declaration of war, and protest. Therefore, it isn’t a complete shock that an amateur film on YouTube depicting the prophet Mohammad as a womanizer, child molester, and fraudulent religious figure should spark riots in the Middle East, which resulted in four deaths at the Libyan embassy, including United States ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, and an Associated Press estimate of 30 people in 8 countries. The shocking part of the equation is that the attacks occurred on the anniversary of September 11 in what President Obama deemed an “act of terror” suspected to be an al-Qaeda plot.

The movie supposedly responsible for nearly thirty deaths is called, “The Innocence of Islam.” It is thirteen and a half minutes, likely made with a camera that probably runs on AA batteries. The script sounds like it was written by a ten year old. The background is fake sand, which very clearly doesn’t move when they move and makes the actors appear like they are walking on air. As well, the voices are dubbed over and I’m nearly certain my British roommate could do a better Middle Eastern accent.

The actors and actresses in the film say they didn’t know the script had any anti-Muslim content and they weren’t shown several pages of the script. One actress, Cindy Lee Garcia, is suing both YouTube and the Producer for fraud and slander. According to The Huffington Post, the man behind the film has been in hiding since the attacks. As well, YouTube has refused requests to remove the film on the grounds of freedom of speech. Google, on the other hand, has blocked the video from being viewed in Saudi Arabia, Libra, and Egypt in order to mitigate any further violence.

The video, which is reminiscent of the Holy Grail with a dash of Borat, managed to amass over 13.5 million views. There were over 100,000 dislikes. This number, more than any other number shocked me, because quite frankly, it should be higher. Anyone who has ever seen a movie should dislike this video. Content aside, it was the worst combination of all things film.  It’s also important to point out that there were approximately 43,000 likes, which means that 43,000 people did not watch the same video as the rest of the world.

Nonetheless, protesters cite this amateur video, which was not rated by MPAA nor was it accredited by any American film company or otherwise, as an example of American hatred of the Islam religion. Despite the fact that religious tolerance is ingrained in United States history and is clearly stated in our First Amendment of the Constitution, the video is attributed as an example of American bigotry.

“The United States government had nothing to do with this video,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a Press Conference. “To us and to me personally, this video is disgusting and reprehensible.”

Not only is the content deplorable and the cinematography abominable, but also the attack itself was well planned and organized, which shatters any potential theories that the attack was not premeditated.

According to CNN, “Officials said he was one of perhaps 25 or 30 people inside the U.S. consulate compound and its annex at 10 p.m. local time (4 p.m. Washington time), when unidentified gunmen began firing from outside.”

Within fifteen minutes, the gunmen entered and set the building on fire. The attack also involved firing a rocket-propelled grenade, prompting questions of premeditation.  Moreover, the attack came after an al-Qaeda call to avenge the death of a senior Libyan member of the terrorist network, according to officials.

Since it is fairly clear that the protests, which have since spread to Pakistan, Bangladesh, Lebanon, and Malaysia, what did spark the attacks? In the grand scheme of history, it was motivated by a broader spectrum of religious, political, and diplomatic issues. To me, the attack is both a plea for attention and a cry for help. It symbolizes the growing tension that doesn’t appear to be dissipating regardless of new diplomacy or new tactics. No one wants to go to war and everyone knows this so the threat of war has lost its value. Therefore, I wonder, if a horrible amateur film can incite a rebellion, what won’t?

The Crisis of the Internet

Last Wednesday, January 30, 2013, The New York Times announced that after nearly four months of target attacks, Chinese hackers succeeded in acquiring passwords and usernames of every Times employee and nearly 53 percent of personal computers, according to The Daily Beast.

The official newspaper of China’s Communist Party denies any and all claims of hacking U.S. Media Outlets, but according to The New York Times, the attacks were triggered by an investigation into the source of Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao’s immense wealth.

“Even those with little understanding of the Internet know that hacking attacks are transnational and concealable,” the front page of The People’s Daily, a Chinese Language newspaper said, according to an AFP (Agence France-Presse), which is a global news agency.

Just to play devil’s advocate for a moment, let’s assume some type of breach may have occurred. If so, how? How is it possible to bypass the security of one of the largest media outlets in America? Although hacking has become more prominent and advanced in recent years, it follows a basic process of installing malware, crippling the network, and collecting as much information as possible.

In this case, according to The New York Times, Chinese hackers first attempted to veil the attacks as coming from within the United States itself by infiltrating computers at universities and then proceeded to attack their targets. Then, they installed malicious software to bypass The Time’s network. According to experts, Chinese hackers have used these tactics in the past to attack United States military contractors. The intrusion probably started with an email to a Times employee with a link to a hostile site.  Employee clicks on the site and a malicious payload is downloaded to that PC.  This is called phishing.  Once inside, the hacker can then move laterally through the Times network.

“The attacks appear to be part of a broader computer espionage campaign against American news media companies that have reported on Chinese leaders and corporations,” The New York Times reported.

The overarching theme of this attack gets at the root of the many problems with the Internet. The Internet, as we conceive of it, is free. It is a network of networks with no central point of power, which is supposed to equalize access and even out hierarchies. In essence, anyone with a mouse and a server can become an Internet sensation, any video can be uploaded, and every news story has the added benefit of multiple perspectives.

However, this ideal is not a reality. It is marred by the guiding principle in every physics class that an object is only as strong as its weakest point. The Internet’s unparalleled openness and lack of central authority is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. It means both that there is a potential for a cooperative, free, and transparent medium and also that there is no one set of protocols or ideals that govern how the Internet can work and to what extent, so competing interests will fight to control it. This fight for control and ownership is exactly what this recent hacking scandal and every scandal that has come before it – from Twitter hacking to the hacking of Bank of America – has brought to the surface.

While the United States and other Western nations see an Internet plagued with home videos, soft news, and bloggers run amuck, the Internet in China looks very different from the Internet in the western world. In order to run a server in China, the Chinese government must grant permission and give you a license to practice. Although there is technically no centralized power, the Chinese government can block any content it wants by finding choke points.

Additionally, not all companies have the same starting line and those that the government does not favor can have significantly slower servers. However, China is not the only nation who places restrictions on its Internet. India, Cuba, Burma, and Saudi Arabia all have similar boundaries. While the United States may have implicit boundaries such as advertisement, ratings, and management, those other countries make the implicit, explicit. Essentially, neither picture illustrates a free Internet; this idea does not exist, at least not yet. Similarly, the Chinese armed forces have one of the largest cyber war armies in the world.  Their motives are different from the standard hackers whose motive is theft for profit.

The differences between our two systems of Internet “regulation” center around the opposing ideals about control of the Internet, which are epitomized in the recent New York Times hacking because it exposes the anxieties surrounding freedom of speech and freedom, in general.

Cyberstrikes are becoming the new form of warfare, which although less brutal and violent, have greater potential to cripple a nation. The evolution of warfare as it changes tact means the United States must decide how to confront the attacks, working both on the defensive and the offensive.

Just after the news broke about The New York Times hacking, a legal review concluded that President Obama may use cyberstrikes on the Iranian nuclear facilities if there is credible evidence that portends a digital attack, which begs the question: would the New York Times hacking be considered enough credible evidence to allow the United States to begin cyberattacks on China? With this legal review, cyberattacks can now be issued in almost the same vain as an executive order. With this announcement, the Internet has been solidified into national security plans, which was both unprecedented and inevitable.

All of this, of course, is not news. Cyberwarfare is not new. In fact, the first mainframe computer, ENIAC, created in 1946 was funded by the War Department after World War II. By this admission, the first computer was intended as a protector of national security. From the beginning, the computer and the Internet and World Wide Web, which would come after it, was framed as a defensive strategy, outlining the aggressors and the victims pre-emptively.

Moreover, dilemmas over freedom of speech are not new. To the contrary, these dilemmas are as old as time itself, expressed everywhere from the anxieties that major news organizations only represent the interests of the hegemonic, dominant class all the way to the pervasive fears of communism and anarchy during the Cold War.

We live in perpetual fear that our words will be limited. We express these fears in copyright laws, analysis, and re-analysis of our founding documents as we painstakingly wonder what our Founding Father’s true intentions were when they drafted the Bill of Rights. The ambiguity of it all is frustrating, but necessary if it is to remain a timeless symbol of democracy.

However, what is new is the realization that the notion of having secrets has disappeared. The fear of regimentation and loss of identity are as pervasive today as they were when everyone was given an arbitrary number called a Social Security number during the New Deal. I’d argue, these fears are even more pronounced in the digital age and exacerbated by news of hacking.

Just as Julian Assange pioneered a campaign for complete governmental transparency with WikiLeaks, there is always a struggle between radical anarchy and government control. What we must learn from the recent hacking of The New York Times, though, is that those two forms of governance are not oppositional to each other. They are merely the ebb and flow of a fluid wave chart, which is constantly oscillating.  Therefore, the best solution I can conceive from this analogy is a flat line, a happy medium of constant cooperation and agreement, but if I’m honest with myself, where’s the fun in that?

NHL Lockout

“That look like hockey to you? To me, it looks like two monkeys trying to hump a football,” Head Hockey Coach Herb Brooks (played by Kurt Russell) yelled in his memorable, raspy growl to his U.S. Hockey team in one of the most quoted Hockey movies, Miracle. This statement pretty much sums up the situation with the NHL lockout, which thus far has resembled a childish sibling rivalry over how to fairly divide $3.3 billion made last year.

As of Saturday, September 16, 2012, the labor pact between the NHL and the Players Union expired, which sparked a lockout that has cancelled all preseason games and the first two weeks of regular season games with no end in sight. The decision to cancel the first two weeks of scheduled games from October 11-24 affected 82 games and is evoking memories of the last lockout in 2004-2005, which wiped out the entire season.

So far, “negotiations” have taken place in New York and Toronto. I imagine negotiations tend to go like this…

11AM: Snooze button.

11:15AM: Kick out last night’s girl.

11:30AM: Gel up the flow.

11:45AM: Exchange hand shakes for the cameras (fb prof pic!).

12:00PM: Lunch break.

1:30PM “No really, guys, I think we should get started.”

2:00PM “Any one have any new ideas?”

2:01PM “No one? Alright, well, better luck next time.”

2:05PM Meeting adjourned.

2:30PM Press Conference telling everyone that they tried their best and will resume in a few weeks receiving exuberant applause from European Hockey leagues who may finally have a chance to upstage the NHL.

With this productivity, I’m surprised the NHL hasn’t accomplished anything. In all seriousness, though, fans do have reason to fear. The players have already missed their first paycheck. The next paycheck is scheduled for October 30, 2012, but at this rate, there is a greater likelihood that the lockout will continue and more games will be cancelled. However, the missed paychecks may provide hope for more effective negotiations because how many paychecks does a player have to miss before they concede?

The other saving grace is HBO 24/7’s coverage of the Winter Classic, which is between the Detroit Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs this year. The deal between HBO and the NHL follows the two teams, who are set to compete January 1, 2013 on an outdoor rink, in a documentary style, behind-the-scenes look at the team’s preparation. It builds the tension and is one of the best publicity events for hockey other than the Stanley Cup. The only problem with this form of persuasion is that it only affects two teams. Nonetheless, cancelling this tradition would further weaken the NHL’s reputation and lost revenue, which neither side wants.

According to the Associated Press, Wayne Gretzky, who is considered the Tiger Woods of hockey, thinks the lockout will end before the Winter Classic in order to save the league from millions of dollars in lost revenue and protect its image. The event is scheduled to take place in Detroit at Michigan Stadium with a crowd of 115,000 and millions of television viewers. If the event were cancelled, it would also violate the league’s television contract with NBC who airs the game. If it were cancelled, it would cost Detroit nearly $60 million in revenues and devastate their economy, according to a CBC analysis.

The last contract, which expired this past September, gave 57% total revenue to the players. The NHL’s new proposal is to give the players 46% of the total revenue, which is a compromise from their initial proposal of only 43% of total. The players association did not receive this three percent increase fondly.

Essentially, talks of collective bargaining are at a standstill with neither side looking to concede. However, pressure not to repeat another lost season is making negotiations somewhat more effective than the last lockout in 2004-2005. Seven years ago when there was a conflict between the NHL and Players Association, they were willing to abandon the entire season to make a point. This time, though, they realize the economic impact of cancelling an entire season and it is more of a numbers game over salaries than a reorganization of the league.

“I think that in 2004 we were changing the whole landscape,” Gretzky told The Associated Press. “Ownership wanted to have some sort of revenue sharing, and once we came to the revenue sharing, the hard part — from my point of view — seems to be out of the way.”

NHL Commission, Gary Bettman is very clear about the fact that 57% of the revenue is too high. In the wake of the NFL and the NBA making similar pay cuts to players (and referees for that matter…poor Packers fans) there is no doubt that players will be forced to concede to pay cuts if there is any hope of playing this season. For now, though, the player’s resolve seems strong.

“I think we’re willing to make a deal,” Pittsburg Penguin captain, Sidney Crosby told The Washington Post. “[But] I don’t think there’s a deal to be made right now. There’s their deal and then there’s our deal and they want their deal.”

According to ESPN, “the players are willing to give up a portion of future revenue growth for a period of three years, then Year 4 of the CBA would go back to 57 percent for the players. The salary cap under the NHLPA’s proposal would start at $69 million for the 2012-13 season.”

The main conflict between the two plans is that the players are willing to make cuts over a timeline, but the NHL wants immediate cuts. This gap in ideology will be hard to overcome.

In addition to pay cuts, the NHL proposed amendments to raise free-agent requirements, in which players would need 10 years of NHL service, not 7 years or 27 years of age as it stands now. Although this is a secondary issue, it shows how much of a domino effect the re-negotiations have on the entire structure of the National Hockey League, which hopefully will dissolve as soon as an agreement of revenue sharing is reached. Anything aside from the big issue of revenue is simply semantics.

Deputy Commissioner, Bill Daly, told the Associated Press that so far, the NHL Lockout has cost almost $250 million.  Meanwhile, European leagues are ecstatic. The last time the NHL entered a lockout, 388 NHL players went to European leagues including Russia, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Finland, and Switzerland.

Some players, hearing rumors that this is all part of an NHL ploy to get attention because word on the street is that they have a predetermined date when they will start the season again, are staying in shape on their own time. They’re casually meeting at the rink to run a few drills, hoping to maintain their stamina.

“If there’s a point where I think that I’m not going to be ready to start the season unless I go and play somewhere else (I might),” Crosby said. “But we’re not to that point yet.”

Regardless, most players including Washington Capitals goalie, Braden Holtby, said he’s thankful he can play at all during the NHL lockdown. A backup goalie who was given the limelight in the playoff season last spring due to injuries, this would have been his first full NHL campaign with a high chance of starting. As a result of the lockdown, though, he joined the AFL Hershey Bears in the interim.

Three other Capitals players, including Alex Ovechkin (KHL’s Moscow Dynamo), Michael Neuvirth (Czech Extraliga’s Sparta Praha), and Brooks Laich (National League A’s Koten Flyers) signed to play with European teams. Basically, the NHL lockout is forcing Washington, D.C. to root solely for the Redskins, which is reason enough for this glacial paced negotiation to move along.

Until negotiations prove more fruitful, fans are stuck tracking a few of their players who decided to play for other teams this year and stream the games online in order to get their hockey fix.

On the bright side, though, UVA Men’s Club Hockey plays Elon at Home on the Downtown Mall Ice Rink this Saturday, October 20 at 9PM. See you there.

NSA: Escaping the Shadows of 9/11

On August 6, 2001, a memo was placed on President Bush’s desk entitled, “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.” Frustratingly vague and citing evidence that was three or four years old, the memo was pushed aside as an empty threat. No formal date was set for a meeting and it was all but forgotten until a month later on a date that lives in infamy, September 11, 2001. Today, we function under 9/11’s shadow of smoke and falling debris, shackling our vision like a deadweight. As President Bush said that day, do “whatever it takes.” And so we did and we do.

In the name of national security, the catchall loophole veiling any moral uncertainty, we created the NSA. In recent months this agency has been at the center of an international spying scandal, which all began when an American computer scientist disclosed classified details of mass surveillance programs to the press. Whether we praise Edward Snowden as a whistleblower and truth seeker or we denounce him as a modern-day Benedict Arnold, deceitful and unpatriotic, the media frenzy that began this summer was a long-time coming, fitting into our larger narrative of America doing “whatever it takes” to prevent another attack on American soil. No cost is too high and no question unasked.

The story of the Snowden/NSA saga comes out of our seeming belief that more is better. After 9/11, we began to think of information like a blanket, but we didn’t realize this analogy had two sides. Although it seems comforting when goose bumps dot your arms and legs, the blanket can also be suffocating, wrapping itself around you more like a rattlesnake choking its prey than a mother cradling her child. And as more and more world leaders realized that they too fit into this narrative, the second vision started gaining traction, which brings us to the most recent Snowden revelations.

On October 24, the White House acknowledged reports that it had monitored the communications of 35 world leaders, confirming the frenzy of headlines worldwide in yet another batch of Snowden information. With this France, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, and a few others added to America’s growing list of frustrated nations.

In France, Le Monde disclosed what it called “mass surveillance of French citizens” and spying on French diplomats. According to The New York Times, 70 million digital communications had been collected on French citizens from December 10, 2012 to January 8, 2013.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel angrily demanded assurances from President Obama that her personal cell phone was not a target of American intelligence. Calling it a “breach of trust” and demanding that such practices “cease immediately,” Merkel asked the question on everyone’s mind, what did President Obama know and when did he know it? To which question, the White House has tirelessly tried to downplay, but this likely won’t last.

Similarly in Brazil, President Dilma Rousseff postponed a state visit to the United States upon hearing media reports based on material from Mr. Greenwald that the NSA had intercepted Rousseff’s messages. Brazil and Germany are tied for the who is more furious.

In response to the most recent backlash, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters: “The [NSA] revelations have clearly caused tension in our relationships with some countries, and we are dealing with that through diplomatic channels.”

The same story unfolded in Mexico after the German news outlet, Der Spiegel reported that the United States gained access to communications. Same with Italy and Spain.

To these countries, I sympathize. Being watched is awkward.

It’s unsettling driving in Maryland with all of the speed cameras ready to take a picture of your license plate without you knowing it. Mostly because you can’t negotiate a ticket with a machine. No one likes it when people read your texts over your shoulder even if your conversation is just a series of emoticons. Similarly, when your bra is twisted and a simple shoulder twitch just won’t fix it, it’d be nice to know that some creep isn’t watching you re-adjust. Sometimes, you just like to do something and not have to explain yourself.

So yes, I get it, this spying stuff is all very intrusive and weird and creepy, but the reality is that the NSA spying not about figuring out which world leader hates the other. It’s a way of coping with a tragedy that is all too familiar and recent in our memories.

When Snowden published what he called “A Manifesto for the Truth,” in Der Spiegel on November 3, defending his leaks as good for stirring debate and helping promote change, I think he revealed that even he doesn’t get why he felt compelled to release this information.

It’s not about truth because he was honestly just confirming what we already expected. We’ve all read George Orwell, we all know Big Brother, and we’ve all seen that infamous Superbowl Apple commercial appealing to our fear of losing control. There has and always will be this uneasy balance between freedom and security. So, no, Snowden wasn’t in the pursuit of truth. He was in the pursuit of progress.

Snowden wants to leave the shadows of 9/11 behind. He wants transparency, yes, and all those lofty goals we dream about, but more importantly, I think what Snowden actually wants is a shift from an America acting because it fears repeating past security failures to an America acting on principle. It’s a call for America to re-define our purpose and re-establish our role.

Where does our border stop and to what extent are we an international watchdog are not easy questions, but making decisions on the backdrop of 9/11 doesn’t necessarily mean we’re doing a better job at protecting our borders or defending our vision. While it’s up for debate whether Snowden actually got this message across or if he simply complicated the conversation, I think nonetheless it’s now clear that “whatever it takes” has limits and we have yet to find them.