Shaming American Values

The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee recently uncovered the hidden horrors of what the C.I.A has been doing overseas: brutally torturing terrorism suspects during interrogations through practices including water boarding and prolonged sleep deprivation. The C.I.A committed immoral and inhumane crimes that disregarded American values, and polluted the image of the United States.

According to a New York Times article by Mark Mazzetti, the Senate looked at a series of reports from a C.I.A facility in Thailand. The reports say that "the [torture] sessions became so extreme that some officers were 'to the point of tears and choking up,' and several said they would elect to be transferred out of the facility if the the brutal interrogations continued". The C.I.A did not give in to the humane requests of its officers and "rejected [their] questions" regarding the "utility" and "legality" of the torture practices. I found this particularly shocking. I would not guess that this was the U.S. government based off of these actions.

However, what is arguably more concerning than the C.I.A brutalizing its detainees is that the C.I.A deceived the U.S. government and hid from the American people what it was truly doing. This deception was not limited to the interrogations, "The report also said that the C.I.A's leadership for years gave false information about the total number of prisoners held by the C.I.A., saying that there had been 98 prisoners when the C.I.A records show that 119 men had been held" (New York Times). The report also concluded that at least 26 of these men were wrongfully held. This sounds almost like part of the U.S. government has gone rogue.

Apart from the fact that the C.I.A's victims were not on U.S. soil, they were still treated in ways which the U. S. Constitution explicitly forbids. And all Americans should believe that everyone is deserving of the basic human rights that Americans receive everyday. Nobody should face excessively cruel punishment or be unrightfully held captive. The US must monitor what it is doing over seas more closely to avoid creating this image for itself, one that makes the country appear weak by showing that it cannot stick to a strict set of values.

What should be done to punish/correct the CIA? What can be done to prevent the U.S. from committing crimes in foreign territory in the future?

The Murders That Are Ignored

I know as much about the gang violence in Chicago as anyone who pays any attention to the evening news. I know that Chicago does have a gun control problem and more murders than any other city in the United States. However, as one of my older relatives recently brought to my attention, Chicago is not even in the top ten U.S. cities in terms of highest murder rate when adjusted for population. This statistic got me thinking that maybe the city is relatively not so violent. Maybe the city has been misjudged, and is merely typical for a city in a country that loves to give citizens firearms. Then, on Facebook this past week, I came across a startling thirteen minute documentary about violence in Chicago, specifically the city's South Side. The video quickly ended the debate in my mind over whether people have the right idea about Chicago's violence issue. (I would highly recommend watching at least a few minutes of it).

According to the video, in 2012 alone, more than 440 school age children were shot. The narrator explains that "this can be attributed to the city's one-hundred thousand gang members" who are constantly battling- literally fighting- for control of different "territories". The narrator then proceeds to interview and follow around some gang members. Those interviewed explained how shockingly easy it is to acquire handguns, and then, after some persuading, reveal that they are in fact armed while walking around their neighborhood. They have grown up in an area where one needs to be prepared to fight for their life at a moments notice.

The narrator also explains that the gun issue does not originate in the city itself, which does actually have very strict gun laws. The real problem come from the suburbs, he explains, where guns can easily be legitimately purchased before being sold on the streets illegally. The superintendent of the Chicago police supports this (at 7:00) saying that guns are what puts Chicago ahead of other cities in terms of violence. He then shows a collection of 125 firearms, ranging from pistols to assault rifles, all of which were taken off the street in one given week. Regardless of whether Chicago ranks first or fiftieth in terms of murders, hundreds of children are shot each year because of the accessibility of these lethal weapons.

The narrator opens with the line, "Chicago is in bad shape", generalizing that the whole city is a bad place based off of particular areas, the ones explored in the documentary. The opening line reveals something particularly problematic with how "we", as a society, deal with issues, in this case gun violence. The very fact that the narrator opens with such a line indicates that he feels a need to convince his audience that there is a problem in their city that demands attention. The assumption there is that it would otherwise be ignored for the most part. This made me realize how typical it is in our society to wait for tragic events (e.g. Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin) to work towards change. Does Chicago need it own version of a Michael Brown tragedy (one involving simply a gun issue, not a police issue) to spark a change, to inspire people to react to the 440 school children who were shot in 2012, to help the citizens fearing the war zone they must call their neighborhood? Or will people finally choose to be proactive, correcting the gun problem before it is too late?

Millenial Entertainment

The Complexity of College Admissions

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A recent New York times article entitled, "Is Harvard Unfair to Asian Americans?", accused Harvard University of being just that. The article explains the surprising truth that Asian American students require "SAT scores that are about 140 points higher than those of their white peers, and that the university is supposedly "balancing" the number of Asian American undergraduates admitted due to their race. The article further evidences this trend by showing that the percentage of Asian American undergraduates "has been flat for two decades", despite the fact that Asians are "the fastest growing racial group
in America".

Harvard's alleged defense to this injustice: Asian-American applicants often lack intangible qualities such as "leadership" and "originality". This sounds unfair, even racist. I thought at first that these qualities were too subjective to be heavily weighted in admissions. However, if Harvard were to base admissions entirely on academic (test scores, class difficulty, GPAs) merit, as the NYT article proposes, would that truly fix the problem? Would all races receive equal treatment from admissions officers?

The clear-cut, concrete evaluations of a prospective student, such as SAT and ACT scores- though they may appear perfectly fair- actually tend to differ between various socioeconomic statuses. And consequently, because of the correlation between socioeconomic status and race in America, standardized test scores differ based on race. Therefore, Harvard giving Asian American test scores more attention wouldn't just increase Asian American rates of admission. It would also also decrease the rate of admission for African Americans and Latin Americans.

Harvard does not want to be forced into such a situation. Denying students of lower income families admission because they cannot afford to achieve higher test scores is exactly what the increasingly liberal school is trying to move away from. Whichever way the school decides to weight standardized testing in admissions, somebody is going to be negatively affected. And Harvard has chosen to de-emphasize traditional tests scores, intending to diversify its student body and put applicants on a more level playing field. 

If anyone is truly to blame for the inequality in elite education at this moment in time, it should be the system through which high-achieving students are created. There is no reason to single one school out. That will not solve the bigger issue of unequal education in the United States. 

Is there a way for Harvard, and all highly selective colleges for that matter, to make everyone happy? Is it truly possible for the U.S. to become a place of equal opportunity in terms of education?

The Bigger Issue Behind Protest in Ferguson

After the grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri decided not to indict Michael Brown's killer, Officer Darren Wilson, one thing that grabbed my attention- apart from the massive, even destructive, protesting- was the flood of stories* I saw of police killing unarmed white people. People were posting with intent to show that the tragedy in Ferguson was not an issue of race and also not uncommon as one may think, revealed to me what I believe to be the bigger issue behind the Michael Brown killing: gun control.

The truth is that there are a similar proportion (accounting for population differences) of whites killed by police to blacks killed by police: 326 whites to 123 blacks in 2012 (The O'Reilly Factor, 2:20). This means that race is not what is causing police to kill people. Everyone is being similarly harmed. The most effective way to protect people from police violence in the future would be to take away their guns, like in countries such as Britain and New Zealand.

However, of course, that would be impossible because of the insanely high number of regular citizens that carry guns. Unarmed police would be in greater danger themselves, and, in some situations, useless in protecting others from violence. Therefore, gun control must be significantly increased for everyone, in order to begin the process towards a less violent nation. Ideally, we will live in a nation where police can assume citizens are unarmed, and citizens would never have to think of an officer using his firearm during an interaction.

Unfortunately, the main defense of guns is the fairly strong: the second amendment right, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms". Guns have been engrained in our nation from the beginning. Luckily, our constitution also says that it was designed to be changed with time, both in the elastic clause and the fifth article, in order to best serve our ever-evolving country. It is called an amendment. And never has one been more called for than when guns- something legal for civilians to carry on their person- are responsible for facilitating thousands and thousands of homicides each year, over 11,000 in 2013.

By gradually decreasing the prevalence of firearms, whether it be through a strict amendment or decreasing their accessibility, hopefully police will once again be viewed as those sworn to protect, and young men such as Michael Brown will not be "legally" killed by their sidearms.




*Many stories of those who have been killed by police violence are documented on the website: www.innocentdown.org

America's Sleeping Tortoise

Courtesy of The Economist

In this week's edition of The Economist, the US capitol building was depicted as an old, sleeping tortoise with American citizens waiting while it lay motionless. It represented the extreme unproductiveness of Congress recently, that they have been pretty much doing nothing
but arguing.  The Economist article,
"Powering Down", attributes this mainly to the unprecedented (except for following the Civil War) difference between the views of the Republican and Democratic parties. And also the fact that, "over the past 20 years, the share of Americans who express consistently liberal or consistently conservative opinions has doubled, according to a study by the Pew Research Centre" (26). This combination basically means that it is harder than ever for the government to compromise (which is unfortunately essential to a functioning democracy). And subsequently, "trust in Congress has tumbled to seven percent".

However, after this recent election there is hope: Republicans have gained majority control in both the senate and the house. With greater numbers, Republicans should have an easier time passing their bills. Ideally, this should promise greater progress. But similarly to how Republicans worked against Democratic bills in the past, some rules may allow the stalemate between parties to continue, this time with the Democrats impeding things.

Republicans claiming the majority in both chambers might not be so significant due to flaws in the distribution of power within Congress. One flaw that may impede progression is a result of a "filibuster rule" in the Senate, which requires any bill to gain a 60-vote majority. This enables a group of 41 senators to "halt almost any piece of legislation". This may not seem that bad, however, the true flaw is that those senators may represent as little as eleven percent of Americans because of the equal representation that even the smallest states receive. 

Because of this, one of America's greatest treasures, its fairness, may be holding it back. When the government tries to focus on meeting everyone's views, no one's views can truly be met. Therefore, a better representation of the state of Congress may be two pick-up trucks tied together by a length of chain, constantly spinning their wheels and burning fuel in attempt to pull the other to their side. The Republican side may have appeared to gain the edge however the absurdity of this gas-guzzling tug of war may continue.

America's Obsession with the End of the World

During its season five opener, AMC's The Walking Dead attracted 17.3 million viewers, 2.5 million more than all of Sunday night football did. It is, and has been, the most popular show on cable television- yes, even more popular than Breaking Bad. It even has its very own talk show, The Talking Dead (somewhat like post-game for a football game), which immediately follows every episode. As a recent viewer, I know The Walking Dead, in addition to its popularity, is also one of the darkest, most violent shows ever.  Character are constantly dying gruesome and heart-breaking deaths, either at the bloody hands of another survivor, or a horde of the undead. Only four original characters of the total thirty something characters have lasted all five seasons without being "killed off". There appears to be little hope for the survivors as they slowly descend farther and farther from their own humanity, both physically and psychologically. So why is it America's favorite show?

According to an article in Time magazine, this newfound obsession may be a result of the media constantly feeding frightening news to people everyday, and causing people "to envision how we and our own would thrive if everything went to hell and we lost all societal supports". It suggests that Americans enjoy having a glimpse into the world that is constantly being placed in their mind by the media, with its alarming stories of anything from financial crisis to global warming, Ebola to the collapse of the U.S. power grid. Perhaps there is a sort of appeal, whether it be a comfort or an excitement, that accompanies experiencing a story of survival in a world ravaged by something far worse than viewer could ever imagine for the real world. The story of the people battling the worst of all hardship is what draws in the most, loyal fans.

If The Walking Dead is so popular truly because of the thrill of experiencing this post-apocalyptic scenario, why is it that Americans are interested in such tragedy, even considering it a form of entertainment? After all, as any viewer can tell you, the show focused on extremely unpleasant content. Is the show's popularity truly a temporary trend due to current world conflicts? Is it bound to go away as easily as trends change? Or, is this extreme type of television one to stay and evolve into the cultural norm?

"What's Dating, Grandpa?"

According to this past week's issue of Forbes magazine, Tinder is the world's hottest new app. This time, it is a dating app, and, as the name may suggest, it serves as a means through which singles can meet, and talk, flirt or even start a relationship. The basis of the app is browsing pictures of possible partners within the app users' areas and either swiping displayed profiles right for a, "yes, I'm interested" or left for a "no". When two people individually happen upon each other and both swipe right, a match is made and a chat is set up.

Tinder is the latest revolution in the transition to a socially digital world. It presents us with what may be the beginning of the digital dating explosion. According to Forbes, the app has been downloaded "40 million times" since it "relaunched in 2012". Also, "the 30 million people who have registered collectively check out 1.2 billion prospective partners daily- that's 14,000 per second". That is a lot of people looking to technology as their means of romance. But with the more than one third of all marriages starting on some form of dating website already, it is not surprising that this app so quickly rose in popularity. What is concerning is how this app may increase that figure in the future.
         
The revolutionary part of this app is that it is "digitizing how humans physically court"and making it "stunningly simple to do so via a smartphone". Tinder is not an alternative option to dating for those who have tried and failed to find their perfect match- as a dating site would be- but something openly available to everyone, everywhere, all of the time. And it is the first of its kind to offer this digitized dating experience and reach such popularity.

It has the potential to change the how singles interact with one another. Social environments may no longer be a game of men trying to impress or "pick-up" women. "Plays" and "wingmen" may be things of the past. This is possibly the begining of another technological change in human interaction. Why face the pressure of rejection or even put forth the effort to dress up when you can swipe through Tinder?

Justice for Sale

In last week's edition of The New Yorker, Rachel Aviv told the story of Sam Kellner, a jew living in Brooklyn's Hasidic neighborhood, Borough Park. The article was entitled, "The Outcast", which became an fitting descriptor of Kellner soon after he decided to take legal action against Baruch Lebovits, the man who molested his son. After he was condemned to a thirty-two year jail sentence for eight counts of sexual abuse (for several victims), the Lebovits family, a wealthy and revered rabbinic dynasty, decided to do everything in their power to get Baruch out of prison, and Kellner in prison for extortion. As a result, in the words of a Hasidic business man (who chose to remain anonymous), "Kellner [became] the prime example of 'how devastated you will be if you go against the rabbis'" (Aviv). Kelllner also experienced first hand the advantages that a more powerful individual has in America's supposedly equal justice system. 

The power of the Lebovitz family allowed them to overwhelm Kellner in court with their ability to acquire evidence and manipulate witnesses. The family hired private investigators and worked with law enforcement to find evidence against Kellner; they bugged his car, wired conversations, interrogated witnesses, and negotiated with other victims of Baruch. They had every advantage. Eventually, "Lebovits was released, after thirteen months in prison" (of his 32 year sentence) and "[Kellner] was handcuffed and escorted to Kings County Supreme Court". Kellner never spent more than two days in jail, and has not yet been convicted of any alleged extortion crimes. However, Lebovits never received the punished he deserved either.

By allowing this outcome, the justice system failed to provide Kellner with equal protection before the law. The abruptness with which the wealthier, more influential man, Lebovits was able to turn the tables on Kellner caused him to say, "'The D.A. turned against me. And no one stood up for me. . . Basically, the D.A. destroyed me.'"

What was America's Favorite Pastime

Florida Marlins' Sun Life Field During Game

When I asked my classmates at lunch today if they knew who won the World Series, none of them could even name both of the teams playing in it. Nobody had even watched a single inning. I could not be one to judge however. I wasn't sure myself. Having played baseball for ten years myself, I used to have such passion for the game that I could recite my favorite teams' batting orders from memory. What happened? I couldn't help but wonder why none of us high school athletes knew anything current about the baseball league that was once unquestionably the center of the American sports culture. The answer that I, and almost everyone else, comes up with is that, baseball simply cannot compete with sports such as basketball and football, the current reigning king of the sports industry. Americans' affinity for violent, fast-paced action puts baseball in an entirely different ball game. Football crushes baseball in television's Nielsen rating and even the NBA nearly doubles that of baseball.

Baseball is naturally at a disadvantage to football. In his New York Times article, "Is the Game Over?",  Jonathan Mahler, argues that football is simply "louder, faster and more violent", and therefore more "in tune with our cultural moment". According to Daniel Okrent, the founder of fantasy baseball, "we are a shouting culture now, shouting connotes and engenders excitement. Baseball is quiet and slow.” So baseball no longer fits into our culture. Being a sport placing a lot of value in tradition, maybe baseball has failed to evolve with our  culture. Or maybe, as Mahler implies, this is only a moment in our culture, a trend where football, the action based sport, outperforms baseball. 

I wonder what events or changes are actually causing this cultural shift towards a predominantly football loving society. What has changed since baseball's so called golden era, the 50's and 60's, until now that has caused baseball to decline in popularity relatives to other sports? 

Could Body Cameras Change Police?

A San Diego Officer wearing Camera

Police can be many different things, all depending on the situation. They can be heroes when protecting people from criminals or saving people in danger. Or they can be criminals themselves, harassing, assaulting, or even murdering the people they are sworn by oath to protect. In order to try to ensure that police officers maintain their roles as protectors and heros in society, and not anything less, it should be required that officers wear, and use, body cameras when interacting with civilians.

Following a Ferguson police officer shooting and killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager in August, Ferguson police are now required to wear such cameras. These cameras could potentially provide evidence in police brutality cases such as Brown's that would normally not even exist. Because of such evidence, use of force during heated encounters between police and civilians would be decreased dramatically. According to research from the Community Oriented Policing Services website, in a study in Rialto, California, there was a 60 percent reduction in officers using force during interactions with a camera involved. Also, there was an 88 percent reduction in citizen complaints towards officers following the implementation of the cameras.

As with any new technology, the body cameras are not without their drawbacks. According to an article by Ben Kesling featured in The Wall Street Journal, the cameras cannot remain switched on all of the time due to their high battery consumption and limited memory storage. Therefore, officers must turn on the camera manually, when anticipating contact with civilians. Officers will require proper training on how to use and when to use to the cameras.

These issues with the cameras may hinder their effectiveness for the time being. However, as rules regarding camera use become more clear, and technology improves, I believe the cameras will become a key component of police activity, displayed on officers' chests across the country. They represent a necessary step forward in finding the truth in court cases, protecting the innocent and condemning the guilty alike. The cameras maybe the step forward that will bring some good from the tragic loss of Michael Brown, ensuring that in the future people will be safe from the brutality he suffered.

Failure to Protect and Serve an 11-year-old

Raashanai Coley on Halloween
PC: The Sun Times

On September 5th, 11-year-old Raashanai Coley died from a blow to her stomach. Her mother, Nicholette Lawrence, killed her and is now facing charges for her murder in the first degree. According to Christy Gutowski's article in the Chicago Tribune about the tragic death, it wasn't until authorities responded to the Waukegan home that, "details of the 11-year-old's tortured life began to emerge".

In 2011, after police arrested Raashanai's stepfather for child abuse, Raashanai explained, "swollen-faced and timid" to a Waukegan officer, that the stepfather hit her "almost daily for no reason" (Gutowski). The police department followed up with The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, or DCFS, says Gutowski, and the agency investigated the incident but did not take Raashanai into protective custody.
They left her in the hands of the woman who would later murder her.

A few months prior to her death, the Waukegan police responded to an anonymous complaint about Raashanai's suspected living conditions. The officers responding left promptly though, claiming they saw no evidence of a problem. However, Gutowski states in her article, "Interviews and records show they never saw Raashanai, wrote a report or followed up, despite earlier domestic disturbances, evictions and child abuse complaints involving the family".  Though the officers claim that they didn't find anything noteworthy when responding to the home, they did not even see or speak to the allegedly abused in this case, Raashanai.

Nicholette Lawrence after Confession
PC: The Sun Times

While the police had to respect the constitutional rights of the accused (i.e. not break into the house and look for the allegedly abused girl), the police's lack of authority in such a situation resulted in forcing Raashanai to continue to live with her abusive mother. The young girl was eventually murdered. It could have been avoided had the police been able to further investigate the all of the child abuse complaints, for which they had ample evidence when considering the family's past domestic disturbances and complaints.


In instances such as these, I believe that there should be laws permitting exceptions to the constitution.  Students do lose their freedoms of privacy in schools for their own safety. Also, citizens lose their freedom of speech if the speech includes shouting, "bomb" in an airport, or, "fire" in a crowded area. Other offenses not protected by the bill of rights include producing child pornography and threatening others. All of these exceptions are intended to ensure peoples' safety. Another exception must be made in order to prevent the death of children like Raashanai from abuse. If police have good reason to believe a child is being harmed, as in Raashanai's case, they should not just be permitted, but required, to investigate further and confirm the child's well being without restriction.

Innocent Until Forced Guilty

Overcrowded Los Angeles Prison

The court room of America is no longer a place where the prosecution and defense are on an even playing field. According to an article featured in The Economist last week, titled "The Kings of the Courtroom", prosecutors are dominating the entire criminal justice system. 

In the modern court room, the prosecutors, especially U.S. attorneys, have an arsenal of tricks designed to sway the evidence in their favor. One of the most powerful is plea bargaining, which allows U.S. attorneys to deal out shorter sentences in exchange for guilty pleas. Because of this policy, "more than 95% of cases end in such deals" and are never even brought to trial. However, it is very unlikely that 95% of defendants are in fact guilty. The article explains that many defendants choose to give in to such deals because "harsh, mandatory minimum sentencing rules can make such a choice rational. Rather than risk a trial and a thirty year sentence, some cop a plea and accept a much shorter one". Therefore, the government is strengthening its grip both with its appointed attorneys and with its laws. 

While forcing the innocent into pleading their guilt does sound corrupt, the alternative has the potential for causing far greater issues. As I discussed in my blog last week, (please see blog post titled, "Is the Constitution Dead?") the overcrowding of the criminal courts has caused over seventy-four percent of felony in New York City's Bronx to stretch longer than six months. With this being the case, and Kalief Browder, a teenager from brooklyn, spending over three years of his adolescence in jail awaiting trial because of it, I fear what the abolition of excessive plea bargaining might result in. After all it supposedly removes 95% of felony cases from the waiting line. Without it, the justice system may "buckle under the weight" of all the extra trials (The Economist). 

United States voters should not be forced to decide between waiting in jail for a trial, or giving into the prosecution's manipulative bargaining. Both end in perpetuating a justice system which has put a higher percentage of its population in jail than any other nation in the world. The justice system shouldn't compromise on what it believes is the lesser of two evils, but rather should create a solution that ends in freedom and fairness for its people.

Is the Constitution Dead?

In 2010, a sixteen year old boy from Brooklyn, Kalief Browder, was accused of grand larceny and thrown in prison for it. He was entirely innocent. He remained in jail, awaiting his speedy trial, until after his twentieth birthday. Jennifer Gonnerman, in her article entitled "Before the Law", which was featured in The New Yorker last week, tells Kalief''s story, revealing the cruel realities of America's so called "justice" system. 

The Bronx criminal courts refused Kalief his constitutional right to a speedy trial. New York's law that a "speedy trial" must occur within six months is similar to most other states. However, according to Gonnerman, New York's time limit works differently because "the clock stops for many reasons- for example, when attorneys submit motions before trial- so that the amount of time that is officially held to have elapsed can be wildly different from the amound of time that really has". This might be no problem for the attorneys handling a case. No more than simply pushing around a schedule.  But, for the accused, this "technicality" means weeks more in jail, all the while, completely detached from regular life. This problem is compounded because "the Bronx courts are so clogged that when a lawyer asks for a one-week adjournment the next court date usually doesn't happen for six weeks or more". This happened to Kalief time after time again.

With New York giving the lawyers the ability to so easily delay trials, it is possible that there was another, more sinister, reason for the prosecuting attorneys' unpreparedness. Gonnerman explains the opinion of Kalief's lawyer, "Prestia . . . alleges 'mailicious prosecution'", suspecting that "'they were seeking undue adjournments of these cases to procure a guilty plea from plaintiff.'" In other words, the prosecuting attorneys were forcing Kalief to suffer in jail in the hopes of him eventually cracking, and pleaing guilty. It is likely that Kalief is not the only one suffering from this gross abuse of the law either. Gonnerman says, "In 2011, seventy-four percent of felony cases in the Bronx were older than sixth months". 

I believe that this issue demands attention of both the Supreme Court and lawmakers in Congress. Kalief deserves reparations for his suffering, and a solution must be proposed for the additional seventy-four percent of cases that are also dragged out past sixth months. The criminal courts are not just infringing upon constitutional rights with unfair stipulations, but also jeopardizing America's values. New York's laws are pemitting the court system to shift from one designed to defend innocent Americans, to one which heavily favors the prosecutors. This system, supposedly intended to protect Americans, is responsible for imprisoning more than a quarter of the world's total jail population, and has led Kalief to say, "I feel like I was robbed of my happiness". 

Aiding a Community One Stroke at a Time

Rowing is a sport that most people do not know a whole lot about. For most people, the first thing that comes to mind when they picture rowing is the Olympics, or Ivy League schools competing. One woman that I talked about rowing with last year said, "I thought rowing was only for rich English guys". It is very rare that rowing is ever associated with underpriveleged communities. However, last Saturday,  I competed against a rowing team here in Chicago, composed almost entirely of high schoolers from underpriveleged areas on the south and west sides of the city. This racing was entirely different than what I was used to.

Last spring, I was lucky enough to compete at Scholastic Nationals, held in Princeton, NJ, where the parking lots were filled with both german luxury sedans, coach buses, and competitors unloading $40,000 racing shells off of trailers. On Saturday on the other hand, my team and I pulled up to a canal on the south side of Chicago about fifteen minutes from Midway Airport. As we walked through the rusty fence topped with barbed wire, we saw that the home team had a high percentage of black and hispanic members, something that was unusual for rowing.

As I learned throughout the day of competition (I was there from 6am to 1:30 pm), this Chicago rowing program, know as the Chicago Training Center, or CTC, was tremendously helping it members with not just the sport itself but also academics, post-high school plans, and growing as young adults. As my coach explained to my team, the CTC program has given its members an entirely free team sport where no cuts are made. The program, founded and coached by former Oxford oarsmen, Montana Busch, also provides some students with occasional free tutoring, with the help of Loyola University of Chicago (Chicago Training Center Website). In videos on the CTC website, rowers explain that CTC has allowed them to seriously consider attending college due to the scholarships and help with admissions that rowing can provide. 

This rowing team, which once looked entirely out of place in its community, has become much more than just an ordinary rowing team. It is an organization that is managing to change lives, and the potential for the future of many of its members is looking much brighter because of it. I truly hope that CTC will certaintly not be the only crew program of its kind in the United States. 

"Don't Forget Your GoPro"

As I reclined in my friend's boat under a warm July morning sun, I marveled at Lake Michigan's near complete stillness, and total abscence of cloud in the sky. My friend, waterskis submerged in the water, hunched over a small camera, and banged on the deck with a fist as he struggled to get the Go Pro camera to work. "I'm heading in" he said, "if it doesn't record for me this time. I'm sick of this."

The GoPro, a small gray camera enclosed in nearly indestructible plastic armor, is intended for filming one's point of view, and can be combined with an array of mounts and straps that can attach the camera to anything from a forehead, to a mountain bike, to the tip of a snowboard. As Nick Paumgarten explains in his article about the GoPro, "We are a Camera", featured in The New Yorker, the founder of GoPro, Nick Woodman, took his invention, originally intended to help film himself surf, and, with the help of the era of technology and social media, turned it into a company, valued at three billion dollars at its initial public offering. 

The GoPro has made it easy to film both adventure and everyday activities in ways that were once very difficult to do. GoPro has created a link between  filming and social media. ". . . the GoPro name [has] become shorthand not only for all P.O.V. cameras. . . but for the genre of short video that has arguably become as much a feature of daily life as the three minute pop song", says Paumgarten. The camera, with its skyrocketing popularity, has grown from a cool gadget to something notably damaging to people's behaviors.

The capabilities of the GoPro has negatively changed the way people take part in activities, causing 

them to take risks and obssess over getting the best shots for film. As Paumgarten explains in his article, pro mountain biker, Aaron Chase, described riding his bike among a herd of elk in the Smoky mountains as "hell" all because he was unable to get his camera to film it. I would describe it as a once in a lifetime experience. Unfortunately for Aaron Chase, this experience will be remembered something he failed to capture. 

Unfortunately, this negative attitude towards enjoyable experiences has not limited itself to those using the GoPro as part of their career ( i.e. many extreme sport athletes now). I see in my life, people ranging from distant acquantainces to close friends, focusing activities around capturing a shot on film, photograph or video. As my friend expressed that one morning we went boating, there wasn't really much of a point to us jetskiing any longer if he could not get it on his GoPro. The appeal of jetskiing is not gone just because of this camera, however, in the eyes of my friend, the experience surely was not complete. The goal of the outing was not just to enjoy ourselves this time, it was to let others know what we were doing and that we were enjoying ourselves.

This new goal in life is not just the result of the GoPro camera. I have witnessed similar effects with Facebook, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, and I am sure I am missing others. These sites and apps have all caused people at my school and in my community to stress over their "appearance" on these apps. They must maintain a certain status or something like that. The GoPro is simply a piece of hardware, the only piece that I can think of for that matter, that is enabling or moving forward the transition to a social media oriented world. Maybe the GoPro is the first of social media hardwares, or the last, but it is certainly taken away from the joys of jetskiing. 

What does "Minimum" truly mean?

Shortly following Labor Day this year, several hundred protestors, primarily fast-food workers, took to the streets of New York, chanting in unison their desire for a fifteen dollar minimum wage. After the city police contained the workers with metal barricades, they arrested 19, using plastic disposable                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        handcuffs, cramming them into the back of police vans (William Finnegan, The New Yorker). According to William Finnegan, in his piece, Dignity, featured in The New Yorker magazine, these fast-food workers were employed by a number of restaurant chains across New York, and were victims of the cruel systems designed solely to maximize profit. The piece centers both on current union movement against abusive fast-food empires, and the story of a Arisleyda Tapia, a McDonald's worker, and single mother of a young girl, making $8.35 an hour.

The way that Finnegan wove together the personal story of this struggling woman with the recent events in the battle "to get a union and fifteen", as the protestors say, was eye-opening to say the least.  Through revealing the harsh realities of working for an emotionless fast food empire, Finnegan has convinced me that the politicians in Washington need to stop worrying about every possible, little consequence of adjusting the minimum wage in every which way, and start focusing more on the fact that there are millions of Americans suffering from the current policy at this very moment.

As I used to see it, the argument over whether to raise the minimum wage or not did have two very strong sides. However, inaction means that nothing with change for those working minimum wage jobs, who are unable to adequately provide for their families, or afford a quality education, despite working full time. One recent study revealed the figure of minimum wage fast food workers that require some form of public assistance at nearly 52 percent. That is not a figure being predicted by some politician or economist who is not even involved in the issue; that is what is really happening to actual people.

This does not seem to fit into the American ideals that I grew up being familiar with. Isn't the US government supposedly one of the fairest in the world, emphasizing equality and freedoms for all people, regardless of class, race, gender, or beliefs? Though the US government is not oppressing anyone directly, millions of American citizens are without many freedoms because the US government cannot decide whether they should allow workers stable living incomes. The government isn't quite sure whether Tapia deserves the money to send her daughter to preschool.

While simply rasing the minimum wage will not simply result in aiding the lower class without any reverberation, the separation between classes in this country may be growing so vast that reverberations may just have to dealt with for the time being.With the differential between income of the typical fast food worker and the C.E.O. of the respective company in the country averaging as high as 1200 to one, it is difficult to say that fairness and equality is still as economically present in our nation as it should be (Finnegan). If our nation wants to maintain the values that it prides itself so greatly on exemplifying, then our country must accept that working class citizens and C.E.O.'s alike, are both entitled to a certain standard of living.

A Nation Driven by Competition

In honor of the NFL kickoff weekend, millions of people invest hours of there time to root for their favorite team in the hopes of starting the season off with a win. Throughout the fall and into the winter, victories lead to celebration and losses result in curses shouted and even tears shed as the road to the Super Bowl inevitably shortens. Driving the passion behind these millions of viewers, to the point of procrastinating away Sunday afternoons and Monday nights, is the hope that their   favorite team can defeat all the others. This is the basis behind some of the most lucrative programming in all of entertainment, and this is just one sport in our country. 

Before I became a critical blogger (a profession that I made for myself earlier this week) I would have thought nothing of the popularity of competitive sports in the United States. However, my new  critical lens of the world leads me to question why our country has more professional sports franchises than any other nation in the world. Also, 44 of the top 50 most valuable sports franchises in the world are American teams, all football, baseball, or basketball. Although the most valuable team in the world happens to be England's Manchester United, no country even rivals the United States in terms of total money in the professional sports industry.

This may not seem to be very significant to many Americans, because it is all they know; it is part of being an American. However, I would assume that a foreigner, even from somewhere as relatively culturally similar to us as Europe, would realize the major role of sports in everyday life.

I believe that the extreme popularity and importance of sports in our culture is a result of something
something that is deeply ingrained in our culture. Something that comes to mind is the competitiveness in our culture to always be the best, possibly due to our position as a global super power, acquired in the first half of the twentieth century. Or maybe, it goes back even farther, to our country's origins as a rebellious group of colonies, fighting for their own beliefs against a much more powerful adversary. Is it, and has it always been, the American way?

I am not even close to a solid answer to this question. Still, it is one of the many pressing questions that I hope to gain a more solid understanding of in this class throughout our study of history , and our study of the very water that we are swimming in as Americans.