Commentary Draft

I am beginning my second year here at UCF, so it is my second year of living on my own and doing things like regularly shopping at Publix for myself. One thing I have often observed there is that there is a large percentage of people who are overweight or out of shape physically. I have read in the papers about the trend in this country of more people being overweight, and when I shop for food each week, I see many of these people. Sometimes I can even hear their uneven and laborious breathing. The foods I see in their carts make me feel that they are not concerned as much as they should be with their health and fitness. There is so much attention given these days to health care and health insurance, but there should be more emphasis on people taking care of themselves to stay fitter and healthier. That would be the best way to keep the costs of health care down. It looks to me that many people just don’t care enough. It reminds me of Nero fiddling while Rome burned. I feel that they should at least be aware of their situation, and try to become healthier by eating better and exercising.

Even on the UCF campus, where students are younger and have had less time for unhealthy habits to affect them, I see this unhealthy trend of poor eating and lack of exercise beginning for some. On the other hand, on campus and off campus, there are at least a number of people who have recognized this negative trend, and are consciously trying to take the healthier approach. I have always been involved in athletics, and for the last few years, I spend much time in the gym (here at the Wellness Center). It is important to me to exercise regularly and to maintain a healthy diet. While too many people do not take enough responsibility for their health, luckily there are many others who feel the way that I do, see the trend towards an unhealthy lifestyle, and are taking the correct steps to reverse it.

1. The wellness center; personal fitness and physical reform. Not just in UCF, but on a global aspect.

2. The parking situation. Can we be on time for anything anymore?

3. The bookstore. How broke are you because of textbooks?

The Plame Has To Fall Somewhere (Final Memoir Draft)

For as long as I remember, the foundations and concepts that this country was built on have always been incredibly meaningful to me, and not exclusively from a political direction. On a personal level, ideals such as our inalienable rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” had always made me feel very proud just to be alive in this country. Although I still feel great pride, these feelings of idealism were greatly affected by actions taken by our government throughout my childhood. During the 2000 presidential election, I began to become somewhat emotionally invested in political matters that were transpiring at the time. I had always held a great interest in the historical context of the American government and political system, but it wasn’t until around the time I segwayed into junior high school that I began being greatly fascinated by them. Following the “appointment” of George W. Bush to the presidency, I began to understand just how much such matters could affect me, not only tangibly, but also morally. Especially after the 9/11 attacks and the incorporation of the Iraq war into our lives did I become invested to a point where cultural and political issues began to shape who I was. Never more evident was this potential in cultural matters to impact me psychologically and emotionally, than in the instance in 2003 when the identity of C.I.A. Agent Valerie Plame was leaked the press by affiliates of our own American government. The disclosure was made in a newspaper column written by a conservative journalist and commentator, Robert Novak, and was published on July 14, 2003.

Upon my first hearing of these series of events, I was in Kingston, NY, having just finished 7^th grade. A former ambassador named Joe Wilson had been given the investigative assignment of traveling to the African country of Niger to verify if they were selling nuclear fuel to Iraq. In the summer of 2003, Wilson published an opinion-editorial which indicated that prior to this expedition, the Bush Administration pulled him aside and told him that whatever the truth turned out to be, that he write an article tying Niger to Iraq in a nuclear sense, for it was vital to their justification for invading Iraq in the first place. I can clearly remember watching my uncle’s television set in his museum-esque, three-story house in Kingston surrounded by trees a hundred feet high. Carl Rove, Scott McClellan, and other high affiliates of the Bush Administration repeated over and over to the press that this was not true at all and that Wilson was a liar and a coward. Of course we didn’t find out about everything that followed this right away, but over the next three years, the true, disturbing story was slowly brought to light.

Upon Robert Novak’s article being published, naming Valerie Plame as a covert agent for counter-proliferation in Afghanistan, David Corn in his article for The Nation, quotes Joe Wilson: “Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career.” The Bush Administration had essentially revealed her name to the public as a means of revenge on Wilson, in efforts to delegitimize his statement questioning the Iraq War’s factual basis. Wilson would go on to say “...however abominable the decision might be, it was rational that if you were an administration and did not want people talking about the intelligence or talking about what underpinned the decision to go to war, you would discourage them by destroying the credibility of the messenger who brought you the message. And this administration apparently decided the way to do that was to leak the name of my wife.”

As soon as these elements of the case were revealed, I began to become enveloped with these turns of events, for my perspective on my government was starting to change at a rapid pace. I just couldn’t imagine that it was actually possible that under the direct order of close personnel to our president, an act of high treason such as this could be committed, and then be greatly overlooked by most of the American Public. Following the disclosure, President Bush pledged that if anyone within his administration was involved in the leak, "I want to know who it is... and if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of." Over the next three years, it was revealed that a criminal investigation within the Department of Justice as well as a grand jury investigation into the leak had been held. Initially, the White House denied that Karl Rove, Bush’s Chief of Staff, or “Scooter” Libby, Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, had anything to do with the leak. However by the time the investigation ended and the details were revealed by the press, it turned out that Libby was indicted on five counts of obstruction of justice, perjury, and false statements to the grand jury. This eventually led to the federal trial of United States v. Libby on January 16, 2007, which I followed as closely as a high school kid in south Florida could.

According to testimony in the grand jury investigation as well as Libby’s trial, it was evident that Bush administration officials Karl Rove, “Scooter” Libby, and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had indeed discussed Valerie Plame’s employment as a covert operative for the CIA with members of the press. I was already close to finishing my junior year in high school when the verdict came in convicting Libby and sentencing him to 30 months in prison. Later that summer, President Bush commuted Libby’s jail sentence to absolutely zero jail time. I remember watching that transpire as I was in my Flagler Beach apartment house, watching CNN unfold the details of the investigation. I can still see the newsline across the bottom of the screen reading that Bush had overridden the grand jury’s decision and verdict. I don’t remember ever feeling so enraged, yet so helpless at the same time. My father stood next to me, seemingly unable to move, as was I, saying, “you’re looking at one act of treason, pardoned by another act of treason.” Of course, the Bush Administration would go on to retire free of all charges regarding this matter.

I felt as betrayed as I’ve ever felt about anything in my life. The integrity and awe-inspiring history of this country and the principles of which it was founded is something that I have dedicated all of my knowledge and love into since I was a little boy. When I was six, I memorized every president we ever had, in order, according to years in office. The Declaration of Independence and the ideas that people like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln incorporated into the American Government still resonates as vast and profound components of what defines my emotional and psychological make-up. Upon resigning from the Bush Administration in 2006 as White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan published a controversial book titled “What Happened”, where he not only verifies Rove and Libby’s roles in the outing of Valerie Plame, but goes on to say that Vice-President Dick Cheney had direct knowledge of the leak before it occurred and that he and President Bush took measures to make sure that the truth did not come out, (if the truth turned out to implicate their affiliates). The mere fact that these people sat in the same office where Abraham Lincoln sat, is a fact that not only brings me to tears, but scares me to the point where I can not only say I will never feel the same about the Oval Office again, but also that it has made me a much more cynical and less idealistic person. It was almost like a loss of innocence. The odor of treasonous traitors actually reached as high as the chair that the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence once sat in, and I can genuinely say that this instance of the purposeful outing and military assassination of one of our own agents was an act of high treason that has left me permanently scarred by my government. While that pride I had will never entirely disappear, neither will that feeling of helplessness and loss of innocence.

Memoir: The Plame Has to Fall Somewhere

During the 2000 presidential election, I began to become somewhat emotionally invested in political matters that were transpiring at the time. I had always held a great interest in the historical context of the American government and political system, but it wasn’t until around the time I segwayed into junior high school that I began being greatly fascinated by them. Following the “appointment” of George W. Bush to the presidency, I began to understand just how much such matters could affect me, not only tangibly, but also morally. Especially after the 9/11 attacks and the incorporation of the Iraq war into our lives did I become invested to a point where cultural and political issues began to shape who I was. Never more evident was this potential in cultural matters to impact me psychologically and emotionally, than in the instance in 2003 when the identity of C.I.A. Agent Valerie Plame was leaked the press by affiliates of our own American government. The disclosure was made in a newspaper column written by a conservative journalist and commentator, Robert Novak, and was published on July 14, 2003.

Upon my first hearing of these series of events, I was in Kingston, NY, having just finished 7^th grade. A former ambassador named Joe Wilson had been given the investigative assignment of traveling to the African country of Niger to verify if they were selling nuclear fuel to Iraq. In the summer of 2003, Wilson published an opinion-editorial which indicated that prior to this expedition, the Bush Administration pulled him aside and told him that whatever the truth turned out to be, that he write an article tying Niger to Iraq in a nuclear sense, for it was vital to their justification for invading Iraq in the first place. I can clearly remember watching my uncle’s television set in his museum-esque, three-story house in Kingston surrounded by trees a hundred feet high. Carl Rove, Scott McClellan, and other high affiliates of the Bush Administration repeated over and over to the press that this was not true at all and that Wilson was a liar and a coward. Of course we didn’t find out about everything that followed this right away, but over the next three years, the true, disturbing story was slowly brought to light.

Upon Robert Novak’s article being published, naming Valerie Plame as a covert agent for counter-proliferation in Afghanistan, David Corn in his article for The Nation, quotes Joe Wilson: “Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career.” The Bush Administration had essentially revealed her name to the public as a means of revenge on Wilson, in efforts to delegitimize his statement questioning the Iraq War’s factual basis. Wilson would go on to say “...however abominable the decision might be, it was rational that if you were an administration and did not want people talking about the intelligence or talking about what underpinned the decision to go to war, you would discourage them by destroying the credibility of the messenger who brought you the message. And this administration apparently decided the way to do that was to leak the name of my wife.”

As soon as these elements of the case were revealed, I began to become enveloped with these turns of events, for my perspective on my government was starting to change at a rapid pace. I just couldn’t imagine that it was actually possible that under the direct order of close personnel to our president, an act of high treason such as this could be committed, and then be greatly overlooked by most of the American Public. Following the disclosure, President Bush pledged that if anyone within his administration was involved in the leak, "I want to know who it is... and if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of." Over the next three years, it was revealed that a criminal investigation within the Department of Justice as well as a grand jury investigation into the leak had been held. Initially, the White House denied that Karl Rove, Bush’s Chief of Staff, or “Scooter” Libby, Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, had anything to do with the leak. However by the time the investigation ended and the details were revealed by the press, it turned out that Libby was indicted on five counts of obstruction of justice, perjury, and false statements to the grand jury. This eventually led to the federal trial of United States v. Libby on January 16, 2007, which I followed as closely as a high school kid in south Florida could.

According to testimony in the grand jury investigation as well as Libby’s trial, it was evident that Bush administration officials Karl Rove, “Scooter” Libby, and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had indeed discussed Valerie Plame’s employment as a covert operative for the CIA with members of the press. I was already close to finishing my junior year in high school when the verdict came in convicting Libby and sentencing him to 30 months in prison. Later that summer, President Bush commuted Libby’s jail sentence to absolutely zero jail time. I remember watching that transpire as I was in my Flagler Beach apartment house, watching CNN unfold the details of the investigation. I can still see the newsline across the bottom of the screen reading that Bush had overridden the grand jury’s decision and verdict. I don’t remember ever feeling so enraged, yet so helpless at the same time. My father stood next to me, seemingly unable to move, as was I, saying, “you’re looking at one act of treason, pardoned by another act of treason.” Of course, the Bush Administration would go on to retire free of all charges regarding this matter.

I felt as betrayed as I’ve ever felt about anything in my life. The integrity and awe-inspiring history of this country and the principles of which it was founded is something that I have dedicated all of my knowledge and love into since I was a little boy. When I was six, I memorized every president we ever had, in order, according to years in office. The Declaration of Independence and the ideals and notions that people like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln incorporated into the American Government still resonates as vast and profound components of what defines my emotional and psychological make-up. Upon resigning from the Bush Administration in 2006 as White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan published a controversial book titled “What Happened”, where he not only verifies Rove and Libby’s roles in the outing of Valerie Plame, but goes on to say that Vice-President Dick Cheney had direct knowledge of the leak before it occurred and that he and President Bush took measures to make sure that the truth did not come out, (if the truth turned out to implicate their affiliates). The mere fact that these people sat in the same office where Abraham Lincoln sat, is a fact that not only brings me to tears, but scares me to the point where I can not only say that I don’t hold unceasing pride in my government anymore, but also that I will never feel the same about the Oval Office again. The odor of treasonous traitors actually reached as high as the chair that the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence once sat in, and I can genuinely say that this instance of the purposeful outing of one of our own spies was a military assassination of one of our own troops, and is an act of high treason that has left me permanently scarred by my government.

Memoir Draft

During the 2000 presidential election, I began to become somewhat emotionally invested in political matters that were transpiring at the time. I had always held a great interest in the historical context of the American government and political system, but it wasn’t until around the time I segwayed into junior high school that I began being greatly fascinated by them. Following the “appointment” of George W. Bush to the presidency, I began to understand just how much such matters could affect me, not only tangibly, but morally. Especially after the 9/11 attacks and the incorporation of the Iraq war into our lives did I become invested to a point where cultural and political issues began to shape who I was. Never more evident was this potential in cultural matters to impact me psychologically and emotionally, than in the instance in 2003 when the identity of C.I.A. Agent Valerie Plame was leaked the press by affiliates of our own American government.

Upon my first hearing of these series of events, I was in Kingston, NY, having just finished 7^th grade. A former ambassador named Joe Wilson had been given the assignment of traveling to the African country of Niger to verify if they were selling nuclear fuel to Iraq. In the summer of 2003, Wilson had come out with this implication that prior to this expedition, the Bush Administration pulled him aside and told him that whatever the truth turned out to be, that he write an article tying Niger to Iraq in a nuclear sense, for it was vital to their justification for invading Iraq in the first place. I can clearly remember watching my uncle’s television set in his museum-esque, three-story house in Kingston surrounded by trees a hundred feet high. Carl Rove, Scott McClellan, and other high affiliates of the Bush Administration repeated over and over to the press that this was not true at all and that Wilson was a liar and a coward. Of course we didn’t find out about everything that followed this right away, but over the next two years, the details of this case that transpired forever changed the meaning of the word “government” for me.

Peer Review Memo

Leading up to our class session where we got into groups and did peer reviews on the rough draft of our memoirs, I had a pretty decently written first paragraph which added up to somewhere between 170 and 180 words. The topic of my memoir is the outing of C.I.A. Agent Valerie Plame, so as such, it was, and will be, rather difficult to implement certain aspects of the assignment criteria into my story. As my partner for the peer review pointed out, an example of this would be the idea of bringing the reader into a fixed setting that they can visualize in their head. While my locale at these events occurred will be covered in my paper, I doubt it will compel the reader into visualizing it, as the vitality and overall tone of my memoir is not a scene I went through, but more a state of mind.

My partner and I discussed many things concerning the overall structure of our final drafts and how our essays could flow most effectively. I was told that my first paragraph did an excellent job of giving my memoir a foundation on the events that follow, but it would probably be best to set the scene and describe the details of the case in my second paragraph. This actually gave me a good push in the right direction as I have now outlined exactly what I want from each paragraph as the essay transpires. Most of my feedback centralized around one broad issue and that was about finding the most effective way to make a memoir out of a cultural event. My partner told me that as long as I take the body of my essay to describe how this event affected me then, and how I feel about it in retrospect, it should be everything that I want it to be.

memoir ideas

1. When I was 13 I was greatly affected by the purposeful outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame by our own government. This was significant to what I've become because I never looked at things like "government" and "honor" the same way again.

2. A few years ago I decided to sneak into the Woodstock grounds when I went to see the museum. This was a very memorable and magical moment for me although it did not exactly change me very much.

3. When I was 16, two kids in my neighborhood played a sick joke on me making me think I had hit one of them with my car. Once again, this did'nt shape who I am today, but it's one of those instances that is rather hard to forget.