From Venice With Hope

http://www.thecorsaironline.com/lifestyle/from-venice-with-hope-1.2119765

 

One of Los Angeles’ more idiosyncratic neighborhoods, Venice Beach, lays claim to one of the most diverse and, at times, bizarre groups of people the city has to offer. Individuals from around the world come to this beach to stroll along the boardwalk and experience the many sights and sounds it has to offer. Performers, artists, musicians, fortune tellers, and even the occasional Hollywood celebrity sightings make up but a modest fraction of the animated population here.

But there is a class among the many people here who have come to call this place home.

According to the latest homeless count taken in Santa Monica, 263 people live on the street like David Michael Courtland Jr, while another 477 live in shelters, cars and encampments.

Watching the sun descend into the Pacific, Courtland reclines on the shore, combing his hair.

“I try to keep a real nice cut on, if I can,” he says with a distinctive drawl. “I go to Super Cuts, that’s where I go.”

Courtland is 58 years old and homeless. His clothes are a disorder of corroded, sun-faded pleather and a wool sweater that looks as though it’s made of dreadlocks.  His face is bronzed and marked with incisive lines.

Originally from Ventura, California, Courtland arrived in Santa Monica a mere nine days ago.

“I’ll tell you what I did!” said Courtland.  “I came from Santa Clarita on a bus to L.A. They dropped me off at this bus depot here, where all these buses come and go, and I got off this bus that said Santa Monica. It’s the first time I’ve ever been to Santa Monica.”

Asked what he does now that he’s relocated to Santa Monica, he claims to be a playwright, working everyday on writing a new drama for a Hollywood producer.

“It’s titled ‘The Fox,’ and it’s a rated R work I’m working on,” said Courtland. “I write G and PG material, but this is an R rated work about a young woman named Linda Fox. That’s what I’m writing now.”

Courtland hasn’t always been a professional writer, however. At the age of 24, he said he chose to become a professional musician and singer while living in Nashville, Tennessee. “I’ve been a professional entertainer ever since.”

Now that he’s settled in Santa Monica though, he says he has big plans for the future. “I see myself as a Hollywood film producer, making motion pictures.”

He claims to have had four film credits, two of which were “Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll,” and “The Candidate,” considered prominent films in their day. But a search for his name on the Internet Movie Data Base turns up nothing on Courtland.

With Courtland, it’s difficult to distinguish truth from fiction. He freely admits to being a storyteller, but fails to say where those talents end or begin. But living in Santa Monica, where he “just loves the weather,” he’ll have plenty of time to master his craft, and pursue his goal of being a Hollywood producer.

 

 

 

Nuking Nuclear Power

http://www.thecorsaironline.com/opinion/nuking-nuclear-power-1.2119715

 

Nuclear power. Atomic energy. These words undoubtedly carry a potent weight in the modern world, with their very syntax in possession of a burning activity.

Considering the devastating 9.0 magnitude earthquake and the calamitous tsunami which utterly decimated much of the eastern coast of Japan last week. Mother Nature can sometimes display indifferent and absolutely monstrous forms of destructive power–so much so–that in the wake of natural disasters, our own forms of power can sometimes seem dwarfed in comparison.

But during the days following the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, a potentially more lethal and nefarious disaster is unfolding, only adding to the horror in Japan.

Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactors have been experiencing all of the classic symptoms of a meltdown due to damage caused to the emergency water pumps needed to cool the spent fuel rods in the reactor. Emergency measures have been frantically taken; but trying to restore the systems that were online before last Friday’s disasters has proven impossible. Injecting corrosive seawater into the reactors’ vessels and cores also failed, causing even more damage and uncertainty to the already fraught apparatuses.

In light of these ongoing crises, Americans need to make a sober assessment of our own use of nuclear power as a means of providing energy to our society. We need to decide for ourselves and for the generations to follow if the benefits of nuclear power outweigh the risks associated with the means of production.

According to a recent New York Times article published March 12, 2011 (“Danger Posed by Radioactivity in Japan Hard to Assess”), the presented dangers of a meltdown are caused by the massive amounts of radioactive material that spill out of the damaged reactors. Radioactive byproducts like nitrogen 16, tritium, iodine-131 and cesium-137 are all potentially hazardous to human health, with the last especially deadly, as it has an average half-life of 30 years. This means that two centuries would have to pass for the total amount of cesium-137 to diminish to 1 percent.

According to the same article, “Cesium-137 mixes easily with water and is chemically similar to potassium.  It thus mimics how potassium gets metabolized in the body and can enter through many foods, including milk. After entering, cesium gets widely distributed, its concentrations said to be higher in muscle tissues and lower in bones.”

With potential risks such as these, which are only a few out of a long list of dangers, it’s deadly important that we face reality. Though nuclear energy is often described as an effective method for producing energy in a “peaceful” way, the consequences following a meltdown are incredibly far-reaching, as well as also far outweighing any of the purported benefits of nuclear production being “efficient.” Chernobyl should have been enough of an ominous warning to cause our leaders to steer our energy needs away from atomic schemes.

However the events in Japan play out, we can exploit this tragic situation to our own benefit. At the moment, we are in possession of reactors very similar to the ones we’re seeing meltdown in Japan. There is really no question about whether they are safe or not. They may be advertised and advocated as such, but there is simply no way to assert with any confidence now that they can withstand the destructive forces of Mother Nature.

What makes matters worse is that nature never strikes predictably. We may be able to build safeguards that can withstand normal earthquakes, but when a 9.0 occurs, we find ourselves conspicuously unprepared for such potent devastation.

No doubt doing away with nuclear power is a tall order.  To dismantle the current plants we’ve already invested millions into is probably just impractical by any standards. But what about demanding that safeguards be improved upon, to the extent that the nation can rest assured that the long term health of the land and public will not be threatened by disasters caused by Mother Nature and human error?

Events such as these only serve to build an airtight case for the pursuit of renewable forms of clean energy. After all, what would you rather invest in, a form of power that uses the Earth’s resources in a peaceful, efficient manner? Or artificial, man-made methods, involved in the fission of the universe’s most powerful forces, with all of the potential risks mentioned, and then some?

We must not allow a shock to jolt us to action. We’re living above and beyond our environmental means, and have been doing so for a very long time. Let’s fix things now, before they permanently spiral out of control.

 

 

We’ve Got Issues: Daylight Saving Time

http://www.thecorsaironline.com/opinion/we-ve-got-issues-daylight-savings-time-1.2119723

 

Daylight savings time is one of those convenient fictions that we choose to decidedly ignore. Until the time comes twice a year to adjust our clocks, we carry on in our lives with the assumption that our notion of time is correct and infallible.

Here’s something to consider: Do we ever change the measurement of a foot? Have we ever changed the measurement of a liter? Some things are absolute, so given that, why isn’t time?

What do we even gain from adjusting our clocks? As far as I can see, the only thing I lost was an hour. Last week I used to wake up and have breakfast with the sun. Now I wake up and make coffee in the darkness, feeling groggy and distant.

The whole basis behind this irrational practice began with the need to unify local city times and synchronize them with train times. According to the Library of Congress, on Nov. 18, 1883, railroad men accomplished the demarcation of four time zones, and shortly thereafter people were compelled to conform to the trainman’s time, or risk being isolated to the rest of the “timely” world.

For all intents and purposes, the trains accomplished the impossible: they held a monopoly on time itself, and were able for a short while to hold the sun still, long enough for everyone in America to conform to their schedule.

Though daylight saving time didn’t officially begin here, the consequences of this date mark the first time in our history where we literally adjusted time on a national level.

I wouldn’t care in the slightest if we got rid of daylight savings time.  Speaking frankly, I don’t reckon you would either. It’s utterly useless, inconvenient, and worst of all, a fiction. We’ve wisely abolished it before, and strangely enough, our society didn’t collapse! Widespread panic didn’t ensue! America carried on, calmly and agreeably.  When people realized that time wouldn’t spin out of control, and antemeridian wouldn’t suddenly switch to postmeridian, it became painfully clear that our efforts to try and “adjust” time were fruitless and asinine.

I can understand the “need” for this kind of thing, historically speaking. In the age of telegraphs, information moved at a snails pace, and it was extremely important to devise ways of synchronizing time between people over long distances.  But today, the preservation of such an absurd practice is tantamount to changing the distance of a mile twice a year. We just simply don’t need it anymore.

Now, I know. This isn’t the most pressing and relevant argument of the day. With all of the political and social problems we’re experiencing today, it’s hard to justify getting so worked up about an hour’s difference on a clock. But just think of all the time we’ll save!

 

 

SMC is 1 of 7 in the nation to launch AcademicPub

http://www.thecorsaironline.com/news/smc-is-1-of-7-in-the-nation-to-launch-academicpub-1.2119831

 

Santa Monica College is one of seven colleges across the nation to become a pilot customer for utilizing a service called AcademicPub, a service provided by SharedBook, Inc., which allows professors to build course material in real time, add content from a wide variety of sources, and gain copyright clearances in seconds.

AcademicPub is part of a growing industry of online platforms built for the needs of educators and students. Essentially, professors can customize, aggregate, and organize their own course materials from a wide variety of sources. Once compiled, they can provide these course materials to their students in various forms such as paperback or PDF format.

Aside from the convenience provided from such a service, there are also clear advantages afforded to students and professors using AcademicPub. Professors save time by gaining quick online copyright clearances for the materials they wish to share with their students; they can limit the amount of material they use. For example, a professor of botany using AcademicPub can compile a course packet with material solely focusing on their subject, instead of requiring their students to purchase an expensive biology textbook that potentially only contains a few chapters that students might need.

Students are also given an economic advantage: they can purchase a paperback version of the course material or download it onto their eReaders and computers.

Albert DeSalles, the manager of media and reprographics at Santa Monica College, has been the program manager of the pilot program for AcademicPub since SharedBook, Inc. contacted him in November 2010.

“We’re excited about the possibilities, but we need to conduct additional pilots to produce a scalable model for our instructors and students.  The efficiency, ease-of-use, and flexibility of the online AcademicPub system is tremendous,” he wrote over an email correspondence.

“However, in practical terms, we need to spend more time in analyzing and developing a ‘best case’ economic model that gives our students high content value and low cost,” said DeSalles.

Keith Graziadei, a temporary ESL professor, was the first at SMC to use AcademicPub to successfully construct a custom course pack for his students. Created during the winter session, the 52-page course pack became available for his 10G ESL students at the beginning of spring 2011 for just under $20. The course pack is also available as a PDF download.

“The course pack can be edited and proofed electronically in the AcademicPub system before it is completed,” DeSalles wrote. ”This was a very useful feature along with the ability to secure immediate copyright clearances.  We also had the option to print the hardcopy version in-house.  This effectively made it less costly, which was key to passing on the cost savings to our students.”

 

 

Potential Republican Candidates Looking for Someone Least Like Obama

http://www.thecorsaironline.com/opinion/republicans-looking-for-the-least-obama-like-option-1.2108245

With every passing day, the question of who the Republican Party will select for their presidential candidate for 2012 becomes all the more elusive. At the present moment, there has been no official selection; all that one can claim to know at this point are merely hearsay and rumors.
Mitt Romney, the Governor of Massachusetts, by all intents and purposes seemed an extremely viable candidate, but with his close associations to President Obama’s healthcare policies through healthcare reforms he enacted in the state of Massachusetts, the dreaded phrase “Romneycare” has decidedly begun to uncomfortably stick to him, and republicans are beginning to doubt the efficacy of this once hoped for candidate.
Sarah Palin, who ran for vice president in 2008 alongside John McCain, has kept quiet about any plans to run in 2012. It wouldn’t be any surprise, however, if she did end up deciding to run. The fact of the matter is a great deal of conservatives admires her and would vote for her again given the opportunity to do so.
Curious to see what students on our campus think of this issue, I took to the quad and started asking questions.
I asked a student named Amir Motamedi who he thought would run for president on the conservative ticket, and why. “Probably Mitt Romney,” he said, “because he probably has a more economical view of things. I think we need a president who can handle some fiscal issues better.”
Beyond fiscal issues, Motamedi expressed some concern for Romney’s social stances. “I wouldn’t say his social outlook is the best,” he said, “but out of all the republican candidates, he’s probably the most honest.”
Moments later I met Timothy Ooley, 29 years old and a former Marine who served for two years in Iraq and six months in Afghanistan. A member of the Veterans Club on campus, he told me that for the last presidential election he voted for McCain, and usually votes for conservative candidates. “But right now,” he told me, “I don’t see a lot of candidates I would want to vote for.”
Asked what kind of candidate he’d like to see, Ooley said “I’m looking for someone like a Reagan conservative.
The issues facing an upcoming republican candidate are clearly some of the most contentious social problems our country has seen in decades. Whoever decides, or is selected to run for the GOP, will have to find a way to convince the American public that they possess the know-how and political finesse to deal with the biggest federal deficits in our country’s history, how to finally turn the page on the most economically costly wars in our country’s history, what to do about education, massive unemployment, and so on.
Beating an incumbent president has never been easy to accomplish either, and though President Obama’s once nearly universal admiration amongst democrats has suffered as a result of just some of the vast problems we face, there is little doubt that he’ll have any trouble winning the vote of the country’s democrats once again.
If the GOP wishes to have any semblance of a fighting chance in the next presidential election, they’re going to need to select a candidate who is not just a new face, but someone who can speak to the American public without alienating those who lean left. If we face the facts, the country is in a very conservative mindset. Last years elections confirm that, with the republicans winning a landslide victory in the congressional elections.
But the lynchpin here is the crisis the country faces over balancing the federal deficit. If a deal cannot be struck and a federal shut down happens, the republicans could face a massive defeat to their public image, even more so than what has already occurred with the massive blow to against the unions in Madison, WI.
The democrats will want to exploit the perceived stiff-necked nature of their republican congressional counterparts. But that could be a double-dged sword, in which a republican candidate can possibly convince America that their democratic leaders are on a mission to spend the nation’s wealth into oblivion.

 

Sacramento Story

http://www.thecorsaironline.com/news/sacramento-story-1.2108347

Thousands of students from all over the state of California gathered in Sacramento on March 14th, 2011 to march through the pouring rain towards the Capitol building. Signs with bleeding ink read “CUTS HURT,” “Save Our Schools,” “TAX THE TOP, NOT THE BOTTOM,” and another that read “Do Not Go To School, Go Directly To Welfare, Do Not Get A Future, Do Not Get Education Funding,” designed to parody a Monopoly game card. The energized crowds worked themselves into an organized frenzy, with some people beating on drums and others bleating out frantic cries with plastic vuvuzelas.
“Education is going in the toilet,” said Savannah Bethany Dowell, a 20-year-old college student of Modesto Junior College. Her major was culinary arts, but due to recent budget cuts, those courses are no longer available to her.
“These cuts are affecting my ability to be employed, and employable, in the near future; they’re affecting my ability to get into a career I’m able to advance in.”
Dowell’s story is only one example of just some of the human costs of the Californian educational system’s budget cuts. She explained how her options were quickly running out, about how being unemployed and living off food stamps was taking a toll on her outlook on life. When asked where she would have to go from here if things continued down the same path, she said, “probably the military. It’s the last haven for anybody with half a brain who wants to get some kind of an education. And even that’s iffy.”
Montrell Williams, a 20-year-old unemployed student at Santa Monica College studying construction management, explained how with very limited financial aid amounting to 1,000 dollars per semester, if not for his grandmother putting him up in her home, he’d be in a very precarious situation. “I eat less, I budget more, and I am literally forced to have more of a solid focus on getting out of school faster,” he said. “It’s sad, that I’m hungry a lot, but you don’t complain about it; you just do your homework.”
Tobil Holmes, an unemployed and homeless 29-year-old film student of City College of San Francisco, lives without support from any family members or financial aid. “While going to school I was essentially in the shelter at 8th street, just struggling really hard to try and make it work,” said Holmes.
But facing the reality of raised fees and living in poverty, the prospect of continuing his education is looking harder with every passing day. “It’s very stressful being broke,” said Holmes, “I have to worry about getting something to eat every day.”
Outside of the Capitol building, the massive crowd shouted “Let the people go,” a biblical allusion to the struggle to break free from Pharaonic powers.
“Everyone deserves an education,” said Holmes. “What they’re trying to do is dumb down the youth.”

 

KCRW may lose needed federal funding

http://www.thecorsaironline.com/news/kcrw-1.2108322

KCRW, the community radio station of Santa Monica College, has for many years stood as a model of original and innovative public broadcasting. With a blend of eclectic, commercial free music, National Public Radio and an assortment of talk radio programs, KCRW has become known for drawing in listeners keen on tuning into programming that stands apart from the vast majority of cookie-cutter commercial stations.
Lately KCRW has found itself in a fiscally perilous position due to the proposed federal budget cuts emanating from the Republican-based House of Representatives.
Included in the GOP’s sweeping federal budget plan is a legislative bill titled H.R. 68. Introduced by Republican representative Doug Lamborn from Colorado, the bill is designed to amend the Communications Act of 1934, effectively prohibiting the federal government from funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting after the fiscal year 2013.
This could mean big problems in the future for KCRW if H.R. 68 passes through Congress.
According to an email sent from KCRW General Manager Jennifer Ferro, “Federal funding is one of three main funding sources for KCRW and all other public radio stations. The sources are: membership, underwriting (corporate and other business sponsors) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. CPB funding amounts to 9% of our operating budget — $1.2 million a year.”
If KCRW loses federal funding, they will in essence be forced to find alternative methods to make up that $1.2 million gap in their budget. This is a precarious situation, because if KCRW is unable to secure those funds, it would, according to Ferro, “result in a paring back of our operations.”
All of this is further exacerbated by the recent debacle at NPR which resulted in the resignation of NPR’s president Vivian Schiller. Schiller stepped down last Wednesday, March 9, after a series of damaging comments made by NPR’s senior vice president of fundraising Ron Schiller (no relation).
In a secretly taped meeting in which Ron Schiller was duped into believing he was meeting with potential donors from an American Muslim group, he made disparaging comments about American conservatives and said “It is very clear that we would be better off in the long run without federal funding.”
For KCRW, this means that the threat to the station’s economic survival is now on two fronts. “One of them is political, no doubt, and is making NPR a target,” said Ferro. “The other force is deficit reduction. Even though CPB funding makes up .0001% of the federal budget, many programs will have to justify why they should keep their funding.”
And in such dire economic times when federal deficit reduction is the item of the day, justifying KCRW’s continued financial support from the CPB could be a daunting task.
“The truth about the NPR issue is that zeroing out the funding for CPB will only hurt public broadcasting stations, not NPR. NPR charges us for programming and will continue to do so regardless of our budget issues,” said Ferro. “The real hit will be absorbed by local stations like KCRW who employ local people and have an important relationship with local communities.”

 

So, what do you know about Libya?

http://www.thecorsaironline.com/opinion/so-what-do-you-know-about-libya-1.2083544

If the biggest news story of your week was Charlie Sheen’s series of bizarre interviews filled with Chuck Norris-like declarations of self-adulation, here’s a breaking news update: You’re not paying enough attention.
In case you aren’t aware, Arabs across the Middle East and North Africa have been incensed and enraged, protesting against their governments, kings and autocrats by the hundreds of thousands.
And if you thought that the price of a barrel of crude oil rose to over one hundred dollars last week because the Libyans felt like being jerks to us, think again. Increasing prices at the pump are due to the fact that the common people of Libya in the past two weeks have been embroiled in a vicious conflict against their delusional and psychotic dictator Col. Moammar Kadafi.
Col. Kadafi has been the president of Libya since 1969. Since he seized power in a coup d’état against the former Libyan monarch, King Idris,he has subjected his people to what can only be described as an Orwellian nightmare, where dissention is met with hard jail time, torture, or an unostentatious disappearance of the guilty and their entire family, all under a deceptive guise of what Gaddafi claims to be a “pure democracy.”
Interested in gathering student opinions of the current situation in Libya, I spoke with three Santa Monica College students on Friday, March 4, 2011.
Krysta Ohle, 19, from Mar Vista, had little to say about Libya, or anything pertinent occurring in the Middle East.
“I don’t know much about it,” Ohle said. “But I think it’s sad that things have come to this; that anarchy has become the rule.”
Kamil Berrada, sitting on a wooden bench with his friend Jeremy Renault, are both 22 years old, originally from France, new to SMC, and enrolled in the English program.
“Personally, I think it’s a good thing what’s happening in Libya,” said Berrada, “but honestly, it’s none of my business.” Turning to Renault, I asked him what he thought.
“I don’t read a lot of information on the news,” said Berrada.
Perhaps it’s just me, but I find it difficult to understand how anyone living in a free country such as ours can so casually claim to be disconnected from issues resembling Libya. It seems to me that as long as what’s happening in the world doesn’t directly affect an American’s day-to-day standard of living, the outlook I’ve found to be prevalent is a mixed form of deep apathy, made comfortable with the reprieve of a charitable sense of sympathy.
But therein lies a question: If our daily lives need to be directly affected by world events in order for us to care about them, why is it we see that paying four dollars per gallon at the pump is not even scratching at the surface of what’s needed to jostle and free us from our torpor? Do gas prices need to reach five dollars per gallon? How does six sound?
In other words, do we need to be brought to a crisis for Americans to be brought to activism?
This is a deeply troubling mark of our society in decline; I don’t wish to single out any of the individuals I’ve previously mentioned, if for any reason than that they left me with the impression of being essentially decent and compassionate people. What troubles me though is my perception of a deep, yawning apathy I find in our culture for people around the world fighting and dying to be free.
It’s easy enough to scold ourselves for taking our freedoms for granted; but what does it say about us—about our cultural values, when we can hardly bring ourselves to keep up to date on a present-day story such as Libya?
Generations from now, when our descendants review the annals of history, they will look at this time hopefully as a great upheaval, a massive, worldwide demand for freedom. But what role will we as Americans play in fostering this hoped-for reality?
Will we be seen as beacons of hope, and great champions and advocates for freedom? Or will we be remembered as deaf, dumb and blind simpletons, spoiled by our privileges and wealth, concerned only for our celebrities and transfixed in admiration for their train wreck lifestyles?
We need to raise our voices to a deafening pitch, and demand justice for repressed people everywhere in the world. We have the resources and wealth to create a world with possibilities beyond our wildest dreams, but it will all be for naught if our attention spans continue to dwindle to nothing, and if our values continue to decay.

 

Demanding Internet

http://www.thecorsaironline.com/opinion/demanding-internet-1.2041116

In the wake of the past six weeks, the world has bared witness to one of the most historically unforeseen epidemics of national revolt across the Middle Eastern and North African world.

What began with daring insolence in Tunisia rapidly spread like droves of locusts to Egypt. Upon seeing the Egyptian’s overwhelming unity and strength in numbers, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Morocco and Algeria’s people have come together in epic proportions to protest their oppressive regimes, massive unemployment, political nepotism and virtual abolition of civil rights. One of the major problems that haunt these massive displays of civil unrest is the attempt made by governments to stifle or to swiftly cut off access to the World Wide Web.

Which begs the question: Should the Internet be considered an essential human right just as food, clothing and shelter are? I happen to think so. And though we may not need the internet to survive the way we need water or food, life in the Information Age is practically dependent on the internet for a number of obvious reasons.

According to a BBC World Service poll released March 8^th, 2010, four out of five people around the world agree on this issue, that having access to the Internet should be a safeguarded human right. And the reason is simple: Today, connectivity is equal to expression.

“The Internet is a medium,” said Arvind Ganesan, Director of business and human rights for the Human Rights Watch Organization in Washington, D.C. “People should have a right to express their opinions on the net,” he said.

Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reinforces Ganesan’s statement.

It states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

We should be outraged at many of the circumstances that have led to the revolutions we’re seeing sweep across the Middle East. But when their governments and dictators hinder peoples’ access to the Web, we should be appalled at such audacious attempts to conceal their corruption.

We need to realize and advocate that the Web is far more than just surfing your Facebook page or watching viral videos on YouTube. We need to realize the truly powerful aspects of the World Wide Web and stop wading through endless bogs of smut.  What good is a universal human right guaranteeing the most decadent and self-absorbed activities? What makes the Web worthy of being an inalienable human right is it’s ability to give every individual on this planet a platform to communicate with the world. We should consider ourselves blessed to live in a time when six billion people can express themselves in a matter of moments!

The Internet is our safeguard against tyranny, and our united voice against oppression. More so, the Web has made it possible to usher in a new era of transparency in the dealings of governments. One case in point is whistleblower andenfant terrible Julian Assange of WikiLeaks.

Assange is living proof that with courage, determination and ingenuity, normal people can reveal extraordinary things with the World Wide Web. The implications of organizations like WikiLeaks are far reaching, but can be summed up as simply as this: Those who intend on working in the shadows of obscurity and secrecy will be exposed, and their secrets are not safe.

Perhaps the most pressing reason for universal access to the Internet is the concept of emancipation of information. Surfeited with knowledge, there is little we cannot achieve.

If every person on this planet can be guaranteed access to the Web, this would help ensure that everyone is given the equal opportunity to enlighten themselves and break free of the quicksand of ignorance. And no one will argue that an educated person is better equipped to deal with the harsh realities of life.