Talia Bootz

The federal government is investigating Facebook, and subsequently its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a legal battle regarding the invasion of, and lack there of, privacy. Currently, Mark Zuckerberg is testifying before congress. This is in response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal and concern regarding Facebook’s role in the dissemination of Russian falsehoods during the 2016 presidential campaign. Arguably the biggest investigation that is currently taking place is from Cambridge Analytica data regarding Facebook sharing the data from as many as 87 million users. What is being debated is whether or not Facebook violated a 2011 consent decree with the FTC regarding deceiving consumers of their rights to privacy.

But this scandal has grown. What were once smaller problems for Facebook are now spreading beyond just the scope of the company. People are even calling for the government to pass regulations for Facebook. There is no simple solution to this problem. Even the speakers of the over 40 senate members in the hearing don’t seem to understand the questions they’re asking.

While listening to The Daily podcast, I heard one reporter explain that it often sounded like Zuckerberg was a grandchild explaining Facebook to his grandpa—and it did sound that way. A big problem is that Facebook’s terms of service are long and convoluted. People don’t really choose to read it before they sign up. But is that on Facebook? Is it not the individual’s decision and obligation to read a contract before signing it? Or is it Facebook’s responsibility to provide more concise, readable information? The problem here is that I don’t see how Facebook could make the amount of information it must share with its users (regarding being connected to a network of billions—literally, billions—of users) that much more concise. There’s a lot to share, and, in turn, a lot to read and understand.

You told me you saw the finish but not where the race began.

If you’d take two steps back

I’d take one forward.

If you watch the clock

You’ll only count the hours. 

But I’d count the content.

   Be soft. 

I’ve heard that some things taste better with two spoons. 

carefully water your bet hedge. keep it well trimmed. talk to it. offer it the occasional tequila shot. like friends do. if overtaken by parasites, find natural ways to take care of this problem. examples include: throwing it out, moving across the country to avoid the responsibility of ridding your hedge of bets of said parasites. if your hedge bets you, double down. hedges can’t talk. it doesn’t even have the viable assets to bet in the first place. what would a bet hedge bet if it even could bet? it’s plainly stepping out of its lane by trying to bet you. assert your superiority by betting your hedge that it can’t bet. it can’t rebuttal for the reasons listed above. easy win. 

Run.

I thought.

Run.

Maybe this is it. Going out alone in the masses. Call mom. Tell her goodbye. That you love her.

Run.

What I thought were small, bomb-like explosions turned out later to be police smoke bombs, thrown at anti-nazi protestors (like myself), “attempting to diffuse” the situation.

It started at my balcony. I live four stories up in an apartment in the middle of Belltown, Seattle. It began soft, but the noise continued to grow enough to peak my interest. Leaning over my balcony, I saw hundreds of people marching in the streets–reminiscent of a Women’s March I had attended in Portland just months before.

“No hate. No Fear. KKK not welcome here,” blasted through speakers and echoed in voices from the crowd.

Ah, a cause my gay, Jewish, half Israeli self could get behind. After the horrific events in Virginia, this is exactly what I needed to see – to be reminded of the good that lives.

“HEY!” I was startled. I searched down in the crowds of people to find a man with a bullhorn pointed directly at me. “Out of the condo and into the streets!” I signaled a thumbs up, ran to my closet, put on the most liberal of t-shirts I owned, and sprinted downstairs.

Soon I was engulfed in an angry crowd–an angry crowd for the right reasons. Black lives matter, anti-KKK, pro-immigrant / refugee, and other chants continued to erupt around me. But after about 20 minutes of marching, I could feel the knots in my stomach growing.

Here, I learned that there’s something to intuition.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched a man in a neo-Nazi t-shirt strike a protestor in the face. The protestor fought back. Things continued progressing this way. People backed away.

Next, what sounded like a small explosion echoed in the distance. A woman ran away and her friends giggled, comforting her and telling her it was okay. But the explosions did not cease – they only got closer in distance and in time until one went off about a hundred feet away.

“RUN.”

Smoke diffused into the air.

“RUN.”

Though they ended up being smoke bombs used on us to keep us away from the Unite The Right / White Supremacist protest (an argument for another time), there is something to thinking, momentarily, that they could have been bombs. They could have meant death. That could have been it. In that moment, there was only fear. Only terrified people. Only panic. And if I hadn’t survived – if they had, in fact, been bombs – I would have been proud to go out fighting for what I know is right.

If you had asked me how I felt

I would have said alright

But hidden in plain sight

“Oh, hey!”

“Hello!”

They sat down to meet. Pulled out pens and paper. Business-y things. I wouldn’t have been surprised at a briefcase.

“I think I met you here a few years ago, just over there.” She pointed to a table set between two chairs just a few feet away.

“Oh, yes. Yes. I remember.” Though she quite clearly did not.

“Wow, yeah. 12 years here now.”

“18 for me.”

“18? Wow, yeah.”

stagnancy.

the frost existed.

though it was fragile

so long as I didn’t touch it

it didn’t melt

it didn’t leave

it remained

glowing off the greens of the plants

I watched as it melted away that morning

everything covered in the mist of ice

I didn’t want it to go

but the sun rose

and though usually I’m thankful for a sunrise

I was not that day

as i turned to let myself be warm again

things fell together -- or apart

sometimes once light is shed,

fragile things disappear.

I think I prefer the cold.

Words have the ability cover up meaning in the same way fog covers buildings: it lightly, or even sometimes quite heavily, masks what truly lies beneath. As words have always played a vital role in the clarity I am able to have on not only the world but also myself, this was an interesting realization to come to. Maybe this isn’t the greatest metaphor for the situation described, but this is the only picture of mine that could relate in any possible way to the topic I’d like to discuss. Ha.

Let’s start here, an excerpt from Soledad Brothers: The Prison Letters of George Jackson:

“Blackmen born in the U.S. and fortunate enough to live past the age of eighteen are conditioned to accept the inevitability of prison. For most of us, it simply looms as the next phase in a sequence of humiliations. Being born a slave in a captive society and never experiencing any objective basis for expectation had the effect of preparing me for the progressively traumatic misfortunes that lead so many blackmen to the prison gate. I was prepared for prison. It required only minor psychic adjustments” (Jackson, 13).

I grew up with the understanding that, if I worked hard, was genuine to people, and held on to the uniqueness of my being, I would be rewarded. I would go to college, get a job in something that I loved, have the opportunity to get married and have a family if I so chose, and make a distinctive impact on this world. I grew up believing that. My mom pressed this vision into the back of my skull, “Dream big,” she told me, “you can do anything you set your mind to.” I dreamt big. I got into most of the schools I applied to; I got a full ride to college. I “set myself up for success.” I am living that now. That is not to say it came without struggle. Amidst things from losing my big brother figure to my dad walking out on my family, I cannot say these things came easily. But, I also can say that they did in relativity to most.

Growing up, I was warned of getting a speeding ticket. I was told to not walk home alone at night. To not talk to strangers. To listen in school. To make sure I stood up for myself and for other people. I grew up in a (fluctuating) middle class family. I am white. I was never warned that my life would be interrupted with the inevitability of prison, or that living past the age of eighteen would even cross my mind as a significant threat. I never thought about preparing my mental state for life behind bars. I was not raised to understand that I would eventually be humiliated by the very system that favors me. I did not have to be raised to understand these things because they were not things I would have to, by way of the advantageous form I was born in, be exposed to. Though I am quite sure that I was not raised nearly as ignorantly as many that have walked in similar situations that I was brought up in, I was, nonetheless, raised as who I am: a white, middle class female.

“I was captured and brought to prison when I was 18 years old because I couldn’t adjust” (Jackson, 13). I was captured. Captured. This word strikes me. In these times, we hear the words arrested, incarcerated, imprisoned, detained. Captured is not a word I often hear when thinking about the way we treat those who eventually end up incarcerated. Captured is a distinct word.

cap·ture

ˈkapCHər/

verb

1.1.

take into one's possession or control by force.

Synonyms include: arrest, apprehend, seize, detain, incarcerate, imprison. Yet, as I said, we only hear “capture” by these synonyms. Something about the word capture feels animalistic—primitive. Perhaps, it resembles slavery too prominently for any white person to feel “comfortable” enough using. We are a nation fueled by living in the depths of the comfortable nature of things. To put it in the most self relevant terms as a vegetarian (recognizing the inherent downplay): pork isn’t called pig for a reason; beef not cow; butcher not murder; arrest not capture. To think of capturing another human being feels wrong. It is wrong. Maybe, if we allowed ourselves to be uncomfortable in understanding the truth, we would notice. The words we choose to represent actions are powerful. Simply not referring to “arresting” as “capturing” has a significant impact on the mind and how we are able to justify an action.

This past weekend, myself and some of my favorite people in the world lost an advertising competition-- a competition that we had spent 7 months and countless hours working on. We lost because, among a few other things, we were told we were too creative. Yes... TOO CREATIVE. I’d say that’s a pretty dope way to lose.

I’m not gonna pretend like not doing well in a competition was a fun experience. In reality: Losing. Sucks. A. Lot. 

But what IS losing?

According to my dear friend Merriam Webster, to lose means the following:

lose

/lo͞oz/

verb

gerund or present participle:

losing

1.be deprived of or cease to have or retain (something).

Well. I cannot say that I was deprived of or that I ceased to retain pretty much anything other than a shiny trophy. So... hol’ up. Let’s break this down a bit.

Through these 7 months of trial, I retained the following in how to:

Work on a team

Be a TRUE teammate

Slam your head into a wall until an idea falls out

Write the same thing one hundred different ways

Write the equivalent one hundred different ways

Write the same thing 100 different ways 

Understand a brief (like... REALLY understand a brief)

High five your teammates at 2 am despite feeling so tired you weren’t totally sure that your arm would extend upwards enough to meet your friend’s hand-- which leads me to a question: if you’re too tired to hear the sound of a high five in the depths of your journalism school building, did the high five make any sound at all?

Understand the language of strategy (kinda)

Understand the language of media (more kinda)

Understand the language of design (even more kinda)

Drink so many cups of coffee you’re unsure if your hands will ever stop shaking

Know when to take a step back

Know when to step up

Put your favorite idea you’ve ever had on the table and be okay when nobody else likes it

Lose

--end of list for purpose of the conservation of time--

We lost that competition-- straight up, we lost that shit. But had we won, (which, might I add, would have felt AMAZING) I’m not sure too much would have changed. In fact... I’m fairly certain the only things that would have changed would have been the addition of one trophy and a few more smiles. So yeah, the judges didn’t go our way, and maybe had the judges been different human beings, we could have won. 

But here’s the important thing: ideas are completely subjective to the mind of the viewer. 

There are a lot of viewing minds out there, including those that made the campaign we produced-- and we thought that shit was fire. 

So, yeah; competition wise, we lost. But in every other way other than that of the competition, we totally won.

Totally. Won.

Take THAT, underlying insecurities that despise losing.

Next year, maybe we will win and maybe we will lose. But I can assure you that there will be many more wins in cumulation than there will be losses. There is no way I cannot be okay with that.

My mom always taught me that travel is the one expense that simultaneously pays itself back. 

There is nothing like coming home from a log winding adventure to stormy Oregon and an empty wallet. It’s almost as though bare pockets also mean a full heart. Maybe this isn’t far off in many circumstances. 

While I’m young, I’ll spend and receive on experience-- when I’m old, I’ll do the same. 

I’ve lived in Oregon since I was seven, but there has yet to be a day in which I am not in complete awe of this.

I’ve lost friends to this mountain; I’ve lost years of being able to do the things I care about to this mountain. But when I think back about the fact that all of the negatives came from the purest moments of positivity and doing the things we loved in this place, I come to truly, deeply know that there is no other way to live. 

Despite the dislocations and surgeries and metals placed in my body just so that I could move my arm again, I regret nothing. Without this mountain, I would not be whole. I would not know what it feels like to meet the clouds at eye level or to know the spaces between the trees as the only map I would ever need. I would not know what it feels like to finally take off a snow covered bandana and come back into warmth.

I don’t think he would have had it any other way either. Without this place, he would not have lived.