To Ryan...

"Ryan" is the internet pseudonym of someone who commented on my latest column. He says that I am "well-known" on campus as a hater of Muslims by several leaders of student groups who've been quite offended.

OK, supposedly-existing personal enemies, can you, like, let me know you exist or something? Unless you've got some kind of attack planned (a fantasy so paranoid even an internet commenter couldn't manage it), there's no need to go around being someone's enemy and never saying anything.

Or do you not actually exist? Am I not the pariah that some jerk on the web says I am? OH HORROR ! ANONYMOUS INTERNET PEOPLE MAY BE WRONG WHEN THEY TELL ME I'M AN ASSHOLE! HOW CAN I LIVE IN SUCH A WORLD!?

Releasing Gitmo Prisoners

When the right in this country cries out against releasing Guantanamo prisoners as per Obama's executive order to close it, I literally marvel at their hypocrisy. They're worried about the security threat it may cause, that it somehow means we're vulnerable to more terrorist attacks now.

In the same breath, though, they ignore the enormous number of terrorists abroad that have been created (or radicalized) by Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, the occupation of Iraq, U.S. military bases in Muslim holy lands, unconditional support of Israel over the Palestinians, or a host of any other terrorist-breeding policies. There are only a couple hundred Gitmo prisoners, and we won't be releasing even a majority of them, I think. So the potential number of terrorists we release is dwarfed by the potential amount of terrorists and terrorist sympathizers we have created and antagonized through aggressive foreign policies. To quote Tyler Cowen:

"When the number goes up by one hundred, no one much notices. If the number goes up by one hundred because we release some previously identified terrorists, there is or will be a public outcry. But it's the same consequence."

The facts are you're not allowed to detain human beings indefinitely without even telling them why. It's against the law. It's immoral. It's tyranny. This move by Obama is much more likely to improve America's image in the Muslim world than to subject us to another attack.

Armchair Innaguration: The Speech

If Barack Obama had a cool sports nickname, it would be something along the lines of BO44 or the O-Bomb, which wouldn't normally be relevant at a presidential innaguration; but, it's not very often that a president-elect takes the stage to the same type of chant you'd hear forDustin Pedroia.

So, as this largely wildly popular president prepared to assme the position of Commander-in-Chief in front of the largest crowd ever gathered for a presidential innaguration 9at thee time of this writing, place estimated to be around 1.4 million people in the mall alone) it remains to be seen whether or not he will be succesful in leading the United States in getting us out of this economic hellhole.

In terms of his much anticipated speech, however, President Obama (that sounds wierd) attempted to bring forth shades of JFK, FDR, LBJ and other great presidential speeches that may or may not have been made by presidents who were referred to by their initials. However, as Obama's speech developed, it quickly became apparent that this was not just another speech on "change" and "yes we can."

Obama's inagural speech incorporated many harsher tones that were avoided during his campaign. As he spoke, he shifted to a tone that is much more familiar with Bush' speeches, that "wrath of god" aura that has become commonplace in presidential speeches since 9/11. As it was noted on TV, Obama spent very little time on policies and what he will actually do in office.

There was no mention of Guantanomo or bailouts; instead, Obama focused on the values that will be incorporated in his administration and what he hopes to accomplish while he is in office. It was a type of speech that was, until now, not expected of Obama. It was made in the "yes we can" model, using the word "I" only three times (I'm saying this on the TV analysts' word, I didn't I would analyzing the speech too much myself).

Notes:

There is a tendency at speeches for politicians to not wax poetic. So, why is it that inagural speeches use poets? I do appreciate the author's contribution to the inaguration and Barack Obama; but, the poem really didn't make all that much sense. I got the idea of it, but it just seemed really vague and didn't get the point of it. "We see this," "this person works hard," "this person goes through this "hardship." It felt like I was in English class again, trying to figure out what the hell was being said in the poem.

I'm not going to have those five minutes back.

Dr. Joseph E. Lowry had the first truely lighthearted moment of the inaguration as he finished the benediction. When he first took the stage, I thought the guy was having a stroke. But once I got past the slightly slurred words, I saw what was really the most personal take on the civil right aspect of the election when Lowry said that now is the time where it's ok for:
Black to not go back.
Brown to stick around.
Yella' to be mella'.
The red man can get ahead, man.
White to do what's right.

By the way, am I the only one who tried to call the ABC narrator's bluff in mentioning that the White House website changed to acknowledge Barack Obama as the 44th president?

And isn't it just appropriate that Dick Cheney leaves the White House in wheelchair, an image indicative of the prior administration basically dragging itself along as it came to a close. Also, it's nice to see the emphasis that ABC ( I'm not quite sure what the other networks were showing) put on George W. Bush leaving town in a helicopter. It seemed that the cameras were going to remain trained on the chopper until his being no longer remained on Washingtono soil, a detail sure to be enjoyed by the former president's many opponents.

Nick O'Malley

Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia that 1400 People Edit

The general consensus on the topic of Wikipedia is that it is edited by a bunch of random people that have nothing better to do than... you know... edit Wikipedia in their spare time.

But is this really the case?

According to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, the site is updated largely by a small "community."

"I expected to find something like an 80-20 rule: 80% of the work being done by 20% of the users, just because that seems to come up a lot. But it's actually much, much tighter than that: it turns out over 50% of all the edits are done by just .7% of the users ... 524 people. ... And in fact the most active 2%, which is 1400 people, have done 73.4% of all the edits." The remaining 25% of edits, he said, were from "people who [are] contributing ... a minor change of a fact or a minor spelling fix ... or something like that."

In case my Wikipedia-esque sourcing isn't enough. If you look deeper in the sources on the link up there, it comes from speeches and lectures that Wales has done. Speaking of which, wouldn't it be awesome to have the Wikipedia dude give a lecture? All we get is Ralph Nader.

It seems stranges, by the way, that this little fact isn't made more public to Wikipedia users. The fact that a smaller group of more experienced people changing things on the site seems a little more trustworthy than random people changing things on a whim. However, it is stated that a lot of the changes made on the site or done by those random people, albeit small changes for typos and incorrect information.

On the other hand, though, Wales did mention that there are "malicious" Wiki users that purposefully change information. The question is, though, why do they do it?

Because it's hilarious, that's why.

Back to the point, though, the majority of changes are made by a small group and nobody really knows about it. So why doesn't the site just feature those certain individuals? Is the ability for anyone to make the changes they want at anytime truly that important to the site?

Not really. People use Wikipedia because it give you the information you want on the subject you want. Right now. Boom. Plus, it almost always has the same topics you want and there really isn't a substitution for it.

There is Google, but you usually get a bunch of random stuff that you don't want. The only restriction is that people really don't trust the site because of the fact that anyone can change it.

The open dictionary factor is cool, but really just brings the site's ultimate demise. So Wikipedia should just close the site's moderation capabilities. No one cares if anyone can change it just as long as people get the information they want.


Or, they can just keep the site as it is, which is pretty much a gimmick you can use to look things up.