Julian Assange: "The International Manhunt"

Many important people have been brought up this week in AIS, all of them having to do with civil liberties.  One man who has played his role in history is Daniel Ellsberg.  For those of you unfamiliar with Ellsberg, he is the man who released the Pentagon Papers to the public in 1971.  To learn more about Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, click here.  So, it's a Saturday night, and I feel in the mood for one of my favorite shows, The Colbert Report (if you're out there reading this, Stephen, you just got the Kolbe Bump).  Anyways, it just so happens that in the episode I am watching, (from 12-9-10), Stephen interviewed Ellsberg.  To watch this interview, go to this Colbertnation video.

Stephen and Ellsberg spent most of their time talking about Julian Assange.  If you have not yet heard about Julian Assange, he is somewhat of a modern day Daniel Ellsberg.  Assange founded the WikiLeaks website in 2006.  On November 28, 2010, WikiLeaks leaked information about United States diplomatic cables.  The White House called Assange's actions "reckless and dangerous".  For some brief background detail on Assange and WikiLeaks, click here to see Assange's Wikipedia page.  Anyways, back to the interview...

Stephen and Ellsberg spent the majority of the time talking about how Assange should be viewed.  Ellsberg thinks that Assange is a hero, and the public deserves to know this information.  Others, though, are on the complete opposite end of the spectrum.  If you watched the interview, then you saw how some people say Assange should be assassinated.  One man, whose name i frankly do not know or care, said "I think Assange should be assassinated, actually, I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone."  Someone who is more known, Newt Gingrich (Speaker of the House from 1995-99), called Assange a "terrorist".  I personally take a more neutral side on this debate; I neither applaud his actions, nor do I think he should perish for them.  If I had to choose one side, though, I think that I would personally tend to agree with Ellsberg, because the public has the right to know these things.


Julian Assange

A Blog for the Sake of my Grade

Well, not to say that what we talked about in AIS this week was not stimulating, but I could not seem to scrounge up an interesting idea to blog about.  This is a first for me.  All of my blogs thus far may not be masterpieces, and they might not come off as very insightful.  Nonetheless, every week I try to post on a relevant issue that I can relate to.  What I am going to present in my blog this week is a stretch, but is an issue that may be relevant to some of you, and it definitely is to me.

This blog, to be honest, has no correlation to the AIS topics of the previous week.  I am aware that one of the guidelines for the weekly blogs is that they have to relate to classtime discussions.  The problem is that not every discussion will have meaning to every listener or participant.  So what if none of the topics broached in class spark a thought in your mind?  Should you be forced to write a blog?  Personally, I feel that a blog like this, one that clearly is "breaking the rules", is better than having no blog at all.  It is better to at least make an attempt than to not try at all.  Also, like any typical New Trier student, I have ambition.  I have unfortunately been taught that grades are more important than anything else.  So maybe a blog like this may have no meaning, but I have to blog, or else my grade will suffer.  The same for blogging goes hand in hand with participation in the classroom.  If grades didn't matter, I would only participate if I had something meaningful to say.  But since participation plays such a big role in my grade, i feel the need to participate at least once a day.  I know that I have kind of been restating the same thing over and over again, so to sum it all up, do you think that it is better to only speak when you have something meaningful to present, or should your grade come before all else?