the eloquent delinquent

If one issue defines the 20th century, the most violent in human history judging by the total number of individuals murdered, it can be distilled into the innocuous question: nature or nurture? Philosophical musings on this topic (beginning after the age of enlightenment in European civilization, late 18th century) have been responsible for the design of a plethora of political systems claiming to best govern mankind, predicated in many ways on the answer to this perplexing issue that goes to the very core of humanity. And if afforded the benefit of hindsight from our perch in the 21st century looking behind us and even to distant antiquity. the answer was always staring us in the face: human nature is unchanging. So it seems rather strange for an eminent cognitive scientist, formerly of MIT, Steven Pinker to wade into the issue once again in defense of this immortal truth. Pinker’s main contribution with his enjoyably thorough book has been the reconciliation of what the classical Greeks knew all along with recent evidence gleaned from an assortment of modern scientific disciplines (population genetics, neuroscience in the age of sophisticated real-time monitoring of neural activity, behavioral studies of identical twins, and tremendous computational power to model complicated systems). His deeply researched treatise is a satisfactory compendium divided into three main sections: the recapitulation of this debate throughout modern human history, a presentation of the latest scientific data refuting claims of the notion of blank slate (the idea that individuals can with sufficient conditioning be made to behave, act and think differently), and finally (and perhaps most intriguing of all) the implications of these truths on crucial matters of public opinion: gender, violence, children and art. The last section on the arts is particularly noteworthy for Pinker deconstructs the perfunctoriness of Modern and post-Modern art that sought to deny universal human truths by flouting established convention, replacing it instead with an unintelligible cacophony of BS (ie., stream of consciousness in literature as in Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, the atonal music of the second Viennese school, cubism of Pablo Picasso, and more recently the trite works of abstract expressionism and Jackson Pollack). Art it was believed during the heydays of the early-mid 20th century is intimately personal (no two people are alike and will tend to interpret the work independently) and should be left to the viewer or the listener to impart whatever meaning they find necessary. Of course, this lead to a barage of mediocrity disguised as highly introspective statements on the human condition (advocated by the creative spirits of the lunatic curators at the Whitney Museum and other such self-proclaimed houses of contemporary art). I have utter disdain for anything Samuel Beckett (preposterously awarded a Nobel Prize in literature) or the trite doldrums of post WWII artists, writers & composers, and now I realize why it was staring me in the face all along.

An unexpected announcement to the entire MIT community on late Tuesday afternoon of October 20th set off a campuswide frenzy: President Obama would be visiting MIT on Friday to speak on the importance of clean energy research. Joyous euphoria erupted among faculty, staff and students alike; another PR coup for the MIT administration led by affable President Hockfield (who a few months prior had even spoke alongside Obama during a news conference trumpeting America’s renewed commitment to alternative energy) who nevertheless deserves full credit for her role in instigating the MIT Energy Initiative soon after beginning her term as president in late 2004. This was only the second time that a sitting US President had visited MIT: the first was in 1998 during a commencement address by Bill Clinton. What made the announcement bittersweet was the obvious fact that arch-rival Harvard had been snubbed, Obama’s law degree and personal affinity were not enough to warrant even a brief stop up Massachusetts Avenue. Yet the thought on most students’ mind was the tantalizing possibility of receiving a coveted invitation to hear the eloquent President. I watched Obama’s speech live in its entirety from one of the many designated viewing rooms on campus and came away perplexed. This administration envisions an economic recovery made possible by a million job clean energy sector — that this sounds preposterous and highly unlikely is evident to anyone remotely engaged with renewable energy. Renewable energy sources (comprising solar, wind, geothermal, etc) currently accounts for a measly fraction of one percent of the entire energy output of this country and anyone who claims that this will scale up dramatically within a few years is simply deluding themselves and the general public at large. The financial crisis last year resulted in the plummeting cost of oil (currently $77/barrel, almost half its peak a year ago) sapping whatever enthusiasm the private sector had for investing in meaningful research & development: this is mirrored in the dramatic scaling back of venture funding for clean energy initiatives in the months since. Now if the government wants to spend tens of billions of dollars propping up an industry with generous subsidies and the like, no doubt an artificial bubble will be inflated that is simply destined to burst once these crutches are removed (likely from an new incoming administration). That President Obama is so fixated on clean energy given the daunting challenges of reducing double digit unemployment, a staggering huge deficit to be exacerbated by outrageous entitlement programs (ie. health care), foreign wars (especially in Afghanistan) spiraling out of control is to me a little strange. No one is denying the important of the issue at hand: the environmental consequences of carbon emission & the national security challenges in buying Middle East oil but the immediacy of those problems dwarfs the larger issues facing this nation.

I spent most of today attending the Startup Bootcamp here at MIT, a first of its kind event featuring a day-long series of seminars by mostly 20-something founders of prominent technology companies (though overwhelmingly internet based), venture capitalists and digital media pundits (all of whom had at one point been students at MIT). The event kicked off with Adam Smith of Xobni (that’s inbox backwards) who described the successful launch of his software company that develops tools for efficient email management, followed by Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Cambridge-based news aggregate juggernaut reddit recounting his company’s humble beginnings at a Halloween party at the University of Virginia to its later acquisition by media giant Conde Nast. The speakers all meticulously (and whimsically I might add with polished presentations, befitting their and the audience’s geeky personalities) described their own uniquely arduous paths from mere idea, torrid development, and ultimate product launch as well as all the insufferable hours spent coding in boxers in their austere apartments-turned-offices with but a dime to their name (the final speaker of the day, Drew Houston of DropBox, humorously recounted the day he went to the bank to deposit into his then $60 account a check for the $1.2 million that his company had successfully raised during its first round of investing). And in a relevant demonstration of the potency of these emerging technologies, one speaker (Angus Davis) actually conducted a web poll during his presentation in order to gauge the audience’s preferences on a wide range of possible presentation topics before choosing the most popular one to focus on (do you get the feeling that the internet as well as all advertising content is on a steady, deliberate crusade to all things personal & customized?). Recurring themes were plenty: all of the entrepreneurs stressed the crucial importance of finding a trusted co-founder in addition to hiring the smartest possible people early on who could then set the highest possible bar for the startup. Moreso, several explicitly mentioned the necessity of foregoing outside funding at all costs if possible so as not to relinquish control of their companies & project directions. A number of speakers (the older ones mainly, those over 30) warned against soliciting too much advice from outsiders, and instead focusing on your own personal vision for the company. Among this accomplished group of highly motivated and obviously passionate techno-philes, two talks stood out for me. The first was by Hemant Taneja of General Catalyst Partners, a VC firm based in Harvard Square that consists of eight individuals currently managing a whopping $1.7 billion worth of funds who opined that never in his twelve years of investing in startups had he experienced such a fertile environment for disruptive, paradigm-shifting technologies; he went on to cite energy and health care as industries primed for radical change. Hemant also laid out a list of key hallmarks of great startups that he had personally observed: brilliant founders, solve very hard problems, address very large markets, are ahead of the curve, and are capital efficient. The second was Robin Chase, founder and CEO of acclaimed car-sharing company Zipcar who recapitulated the story of how sometime during the summer of 1999 while in a conversation with a German friend who had returned to the US from Berlin, she conceived of the idea of car sharing paired with cutting edge wireless technology and the bountiful possibilities enabled by a nascent internet; drastically improving upon what her friend had first witnessed in Europe (yes that’s right, the idea for car sharing was conceived by others; Robin accurately defined “luck” as preparation meets opportunity). Robin’s creative use of technology transformed car sharing into a powerful business model that eventually led Zipcar to acquire its main competitor (Flexcar) and thus reign supreme in its industry, voraciously expanding to more and more markets in different cities and now countries around the world. What struck me most about Robin was her ferocious business zeal: when describing the metric of success by which she would judge her own company, she envisioned Zipcar’s business to have eventually grown so large so as to force an anti-trust suit from the US government. Now here was an aggressive, astute and audacious businesswoman with a profound sense of mission for her company. She even revealed that her prime motivator for starting Zipcar was purely profit driven and that environmental concerns (of which she likes to boast that 500 000 tons of carbon dioxide have been prevented from entering the atmosphere as a result of her company) were entirely of secondary importance. The fact that she can tap into her client’s zeal for environmentally conscious lifestyles is a doubly good dose for her business (it should then come as no surprise that Zipcar first launched in Boston & was met almost instantaneously with fervid success). Incredibly driven individuals innovating disruptive technologies are making our futures look more & more promising indeed.

The oldest technical school in the United States, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY by the Hudson River, has for most of its recent history (particularly after WWII) become increasingly dwarfed by the towering pillars of its innovative peers in American higher education: MIT and Caltech. A once-vaunted school that could boast amongst its alumni the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge (Washington Roebling), the inventor of the television (Allen Dumont), the visionary who spawned email (Ray Tomlinson) found itself falling further and further behind in national academic rankings, alumni support, and international prestige; exacerbated by transient leadership that had witnessed five presidents come and go in the 80s and 90s. Yet, in an unexpected and audacious stroke, the Board of Trustees appointed a black, female theoretical physicist named Shirley Ann Jackson as its president in 1999. Ms. Jackson brought with her a most remarkable set of achievements spanning an illustrious, pathbreaking career: born in Washington, DC to working-class parents, she finished her bachelors degree at MIT and subsequently became the first black woman to graduate from the Institute with a doctoral degree (in theoretical physics) in 1973. She then went on to work at the famed research labs of AT&T in New Jersey with a joint academic appointment at Rutger’s University before being tapped to become the first female president of Rensselaer. Dr. Jackson’s appointment coincided with the ambitions of the Board of Trustees to reinvigorate Rennselaer through an official mandate known as the Rensselaer Plan: to expand the Institute’s research productivity, improve its academic rankings, attract world-class faculty and become an engine of economic growth for the state of New York. This has culminated in the 10 years since the plan’s inception to a torrent of fund raising that has doubled the endowment (immeasurably boosted with the generous donation of $360 million by an anonymous donor that at the time was the largest single gift to an institute of higher learning), a construction frenzy on campus that witnessed the creation of several high-tech labs and major infrastructure renewal, a successful targeted campaign to hire prolific researchers in the prime of their careers in key areas (bio- and information- technology are among them) and a significant increase in new faculty positions; all this has culminated in the steady upward march of Rensselaer’s rankings (it is now #42 in the list of leading universities in the US). Dr. Jackson’s determined, visionary stewardship and relentless work ethic were seminal reasons for the renaissance of Rensselaer befitting of her generous compensation package (she reportedly earns an annual salary of over one million dollars, the highest of any university president in the country) and several reports have suggested that she has been heavily though unsuccessfully recruited by other leading universities (Harvard tapped her to become its next president before appointing Drew Gilpin Faust two years ago). I once had the pleasure of hearing Shirley Ann Jackson speak in person when she returned to her alma mater to give a talk on the importance of basic scientific research to mark the opening of the new Cecil Green (founder of Texas Instruments) Center for Physics, and she struck me as articulate and insightful. That she has recently agreed to a five year contract extension with Rensselaer bodes well for the continual revival of the school in its determined quest to reach the upper echelons of higher education.

My entire childhood schooling was spent in the Canadian public education system where, like virtually all other places in the industrialized world, education is a right legally conferred to citizens by the government through taxes. Through my family’s proclivity to relocate from one part of Toronto to another while growing up (due in part to our evolving financial predicament as immigrants), my sister and I were enrolled in a number of different schools in very different parts of the city; we thus experienced a full range of the public education system at work. Toronto, a teeming metropolis of five million and the nation’s largest and richest city, happens to be the premier destination for immigrants to Canada and as a result I was exposed to a wonderfully multi ethnic learning environment that continues to this day at MIT where as the children of immigrants my generation placed special emphasis on education as the principal means to a better life in a new society. Reflecting on that experience nowadays without bias, I realize now how inadequate the public education system really was and bemoan just how much it left to be desired. The curriculum, as formulated by the provincial government, is standardized across Ontario and mandates that teachers strictly adhere to its rigid guidelines; that it felt bland, highly impersonal, and completely unsuited to my and many others’ insatiable thirst to learn is without doubt and I would compensate by spending (in an era just prior to the advent of the internet) many delightful hours in nearby libraries gorging myself in an intellectual feast of science, world history, music and literature. This was a system in which the creative potential of talented teachers was reigned in at the expense of uniformity. That students with vastly differing aptitudes and aspirations were taught the same material in exactly the same way (all teachers are required to attend teacher’s college for certification) is quite simply, preposterous. Children are not all alike: no one can argue that a blind child and one with sight are the same, in the same way that some children are more precocious than others in grasping reading and writing. The learning process practiced in those public schools, I recall years later, was mind-numbingly regimented (relying on endless repetition and memorization) and catered mostly to the lowest common denominator though it was quite apparent early on that the students in my classes were destined for very different futures. Compounding the inadequacies of this system was the scant choice our parents had to enroll us in better schools since laws dictated which school a child could attend based primarily on where they lived. The very little choice we had, we pursued with full intent: my parents enrolled us in a special middle school for advanced instruction in French which had a far better academic tradition than the school we had been slated to attend otherwise. Yet the one episode that made the most lasting impression on me occurred in my junior year in high school when during a very public spat with the newly elected Conservative government over profound reforms proposed to the education system, the powerful teachers’ union protested by calling a strike and refusing to provide extra-curricular activities for students (presumably as a means to pressure parent voters to reprimand the government). I remember this vividly because in the fall semester of 1997 I had been part of the city-wide championship volleyball team and programming club before those after-school programs and all others were completely suspended for more than a year in what seemed an endless feud between a bullying monopoly and the do-gooder institution that spawned it with innocent children as victims. These extra-curricular programs were a crucial supplement to our education goes without saying and the pernicious and protracted strike sapped the vibrancy out of what once was a highly energetic and involved student body. The fallout from that debacle no doubt lingers even today as the teacher’s union now exerts even more control over the education (and destiny) of thousands of children. I noticed it during class on the stoic expression of the teachers who took out their frustrations with the government by casting away their motivation to teach, with us as the students bearing the ultimate consequences of their apathy for their profession and disdain for being told what to do. This was a system with very little accountability, where the consumers (the students) had very little control over the service provided to them for which their parents dutifully paid for. The root of these ills transcends even this example: Canada, like many European nations, is a socialist country where the spirit of egalitarianism pervades civil discourse; citizens proclaim for themselves innumerable rights and demand that government provide them, education being one egregious example and health care another. It is no wonder that in this environment of entitlement, unintended consequences arise that bedevil its proponents. Those days in high school were heady times in public education and I have lately begun to contemplate ways to improve this most pressing of life’s experience: the education of children.

Having lived in Boston for severals years now, I have always been acutely aware of this city’s prominent role in American history (I remarked in an earlier post on the ebullient July 4th festivities that celebrate those seminal events). Wanting to delve more into the legendary battles between George Washington’s Continental Army and William Howe’s British Redcoats, I sought out 1776 by acclaimed historian David McCullough (who already having won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of John Adams is among the most prominent historians of our age). The book begins with King George III of England addressing the British parliament in October 1775 declaring the American colonies to be in rebellion and issuing a proclamation for a war to put down the revolt, and proceeds to exquisitely recount the battles that ensued between the two sides in 1776 beginning with the confrontation of the American “rabble in arms” against the professional British army during the Siege of Boston. Mr. McCullough has the rare ability to combine exhaustive scholarly research with a captivating narrative that brilliantly recounts the harrowing moments faced by George Washington and his men in their quest for independence; he once stated in an interview with Charlie Rose that he felt compelled to “sympathize” with those people in their times, to “get in their shoes” in an effort to fully grasp their predicament, and at this he succeeds marvelously. Trying to depict an accurate portrayal of war is never an easy task, especially when the only source of written accounts came primarily from letters that had been preserved between Washington and his aides (Nathanael Greene, Henry Knox, Joseph Reed, John Hodgkins and others). After the Americans had successfully (and unexpectedly) dislodged the British from Boston (using a daring expedition led by 25-year old Knox to bring artillery from Ticonderoga through rugged winter terrain to Boston and placed on Dorchester Heights overlooking the city), the epic battle shifts to New York where the Americans were resoundingly defeated by the combined powers of the overpowering British navy (the Americans had no naval capabilities at the time), skillful Hessian mercenaries, and excellent tactics of British generals (particularly Henry Clinton) to stage a night raid through the Gouanda pass that completely ambushed the Americans in the Battle of Long Island. Fearing the total annihilation of his army, a humiliated and humbled George Washington masterfully orchestrated a night time withdrawal of Brooklyn involving some 9000 downtrodden troops along with hordes of artillery across the East River into Manhattan to their fortifications, without the loss of a single life. Yet the British menacingly pushed forth their military might and drove the unsettled and terrified Americans first from heavily guarded Fort Washington on Manhattan and finally from Fort Lee across the Hudson, at which point many thought the war was over as many colonists took an oath of allegiance to the King and scores of men deserted the vastly depleted Continental Army (following Washington’s hasty retreat into New Jersey, the British General Cornwallis was thought to have said that he would catch Washington as a hunter bags a fox). And yet when all hope seemed lost and the noble ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence seemed destined for mere oratory, Washington daringly led a surprise attack on unexpected Hessian troops in Trenton that not only stemmed the relentless American bloodletting but also turned the tide of war. That history can be made so vivid and engrossing is a real testament to the wizardry of David McCullough, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Summiting the various peaks of the presidential range in nearby New Hampshire the last few years has often involved small doses of adrenaline for me, representing the exhilaration and sense of satisfaction one typically experiences of a milestone accomplished. Yet, I gape incredulously at photos of the pristine peak of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest that at an elevation of slightly more than 29,000 ft (8848 m) is comparable to the cruising altitudes of large airliners, and am struck by utter terror contemplating the conditions at such extreme heights. It is said that the oxygen content in the atmosphere at that elevation is one third that at sea level, forcing the human body to breathe much more frequently thereby risking total exhaustion and the accompanying slowdown of crucial mental processes. After seven unsuccessful attempts by other leading expeditions, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers ever to summit Everest in 1953 and would become instant celebrities, thereafter leading a lifetime of fame and adulation (Hillary was conferred knighthood by the Queen in a lavish ceremony). They also unknowingly unleashed worldwide fascination with the tantalizingly quixotic possibility of standing, literally, “on top of the world.” As a result, thousands of individuals have been inspired to follow in their footsteps and a significant number have paid with their life doing so. What is it about mankind that yearns to conquer such dangerous feats? What can explain the complete suspension of rationality when in single-minded pursuit of such harrowing challenges? Tonight, I watched a captivating documentary produced by the National Geographic Society about the 1996 Everest disaster in which eight individuals perished in a horrific and unexpected storm while trying to summit. The documentary provides insightful interviews with key people who were fortunate enough to return alive and spoke candidly about the drama that unfolded during those tense weeks in May. There is American Beck Weathers who having collapsed from fatigue and left for dead in the death zone (altitude above 8000 m), recounts how he amazingly regained consciousness hours later in biting cold and miraculously found the strength to return to camp though severely frost bitten and later having his hands and feet amputated. There is the story of the South African climbing expedition of three that despite initially abandoning their attempt to summit and having returned to base camp, made the unexpected decision to launch another bid that tragically ended with one member (Bruce Harrod) dying shortly after he summited, alone in the company of no one. There is the tragedy of American climber Francys Arsentiev, who foolishly tried to become the first woman to summit without the aid of oxygen, and perished while doing so. A notable line uttered by the legendary American climber Peter Athans (who has to date summited Everest a staggering seven times) succinctly captures the dilemma all climbers face: “to summit is optional, to come back down is compulsory.” The documentary probes the ethical conundrums faced by the climbers in such agonizing circumstances as deciding what to do with fallen colleagues on the last throes of life atop the world’s highest mountaintop. Beck Weathers, who himself had been abandoned to expire in misery, assertively declares (in his deplorable, disfigured state before the camera) that “morality does not change with altitude.” However, one tends to forget the mental state climbers are overcome by, what’s called “summit fever,” when close to the peak: a trance-like hypnosis that causes them to disavow all other responsibilities and march resolutely towards their all-encompassing goal of summiting (what Matt Dickinson, a filmmaker with the NGS on that expedition, dubbed the “magnetism of the challenge”). An interview with the spouse of Bruce Harrod reveals a woman scorned by her husband’s stubborness to follow through with his maniacal goal of reaching the peak despite his deteriorating physical condition and made worse by the contemptible neglect shown by the two other South African members of his expedition who she contends should have persuaded him otherwise given his distraught condition. The cold, hard truth though is that under such climactic moments, the selfish core of mankind is laid bare, and as individuals able to freely make our own decisions knowing full well the risks we take, are ultimately responsible for our own destiny. Highly recommended viewing.

I have been spending a considerable amount of weekend time outdoors lately given the much anticipated arrival of the sun drenched days of summer here in New England. This morning I went on a 50 mile bike ride through the Minuteman Bikeway that begins on the fringes of Cambridge and ends 10 miles northwest in Bedford after which point we (four of us: me along with my advisor and another math/physics professor, Daniel Freedman (a superb rider) and his graduate student) continued through windy, tree-lined roads to a sleepy town named Carlisle and stopped for some delicious, local ice cream (in unimaginably large portions), then proceeded to tour the nearby Great Brook Farm state park before heading back through historic Concord and the Bikeway one more time. Last week, three friends and I maneuvered through 8.9 miles of rugged, rocky terrain trekking the Franconia Ridge Trail in the White Mountains National Forest of New Hampshire, summiting the wind-whipped 5,089 ft Mount Lincoln, that at times evoked a strange resemblance to the mythical dark lands of Mordor (see pictures here). (When I was younger, my father took me on an enchanting day hike up the base of the towering Mount Damavand north of Tehran, Iran’s highest peak that at more than 18,000 ft dwarfs anything in the continental United States). Even last night, on a marvelous clear night, I was fortunate enough to venture out once again to the harbor on the coastal town of Rockport (see this post) to behold the brilliant spectacle of an awesome array of constellations. Transfixed by the heavens above, I reminisced in conversation with two companions on the remarkable change wrought by a plethora of scientific and technological achievements that had elapsed in this slowly fading decade, starkly embodied by the sight of my iPhone in my hand as I googled for more information on the constellations, and the realization of just how much in its infancy the internet was in 2000 and that now, nine years later, I held forth a device that put it all within my grasp, instantly, wherever I went. To consider that in the vast majority of centuries past in the course of human civilization, individuals spent entire lifetimes in a world with hardly any perceptible change and little exposure to the vastness of our planet beyond their familiar environs really underscored just how different our lives are now, so as to be seemingly incomprehensible and even unimaginable to our forebears were they alive to marvel at humanity today. Then I asked myself, what will humans 1000 years from now say about us in our contemporary world today. At that point so far into the future given the unrelenting, rapidly increasing rate of progress, mankind will surely have conquered space flight and traveled to worlds beyond our solar system and galaxy and likely have made contact with other life forms (presumably intelligent) in the universe; and thereby opened up a whole new dimension to the human experience. They will no doubt remark then how narrow our scope of life in the universe currently must have been and revel in the stupefying magnitude of our ignorance today. Thus, we can only surmise at what dreams may come.

Last night, for the second year in a row, some friends and I spent the day canoing on the Charles River and taking in the nighttime fireworks spectacle from a magnificent view on the serene waters between the Longfellow and Harvard bridges. The July 4th festivities are truly a Boston institution given the city’s prominent role in the American Revolution and the many nearby sites of so many legendary events in the American War of Independence: it was here in 1770 that British troops opened fire on a crowd of citizens (enshrined as the Boston massacre) in order to reassert England’s waining dominion over the colonies, it was here in 1773 that colonists denounced George III’s ‘taxation without representation’ and demonstrated by dumping tea into the Boston Harbor, and here that open armed conflict between the American colonists and the British during the siege of Boston broke out in nearby Lexington and Concord in 1775 initiating the American Revolution. I couldn’t help but ponder the significance of these seminal events in history as a colorful mishmash of wondrous light erupted in the clear sky above; that 233 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, America was to become the greatest achievement of humanity’s attempts to realize life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It has been all over the international press since the disputed elections of June 12 where the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was purported to have won re-election with a staggeringly dubious 11 million votes over the challenger, Mir Hossein Moussavi. Anyone taking pulse of Iranian society in the run up to the elections (Roger Cohen for the New York Times and Jon Leyne for the BBC were among the foremost journalists reporting from the ground) knew that a civil earthquake was at hand as decades of unfulfilled promises and deteriorating social conditions exacerbated by Ahmadinejad’s disasterous tenure had come to a head, evidenced by the huge throngs of Moussavi supporters dashed in green, rallying in the largest public gatherings since the 1979 revolution. What once began as an earnest, civil attempt to change political course via republican ballot measures, was soon transformed into an epic struggle between the Iranian people and their theocratic government that has viciously escalated with each passing day. At its core lies the fundamental, irreconcilable conflict between religion and democracy which the Islamic Republic had effectively managed to skirt through 30 years of official lies and deception (through the unnecessary prolonging of a devastating war with Iraq that cost a million lives and economic populism to buy the votes and support of the rural poor and pious) but that now an unexpected sham election has so egregiously exposed. As Mark Twain once said: history doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes. Iran is a large, geographically diverse, ethnically heterogeneous country in the most volatile region on earth with approximately 70 million people whose demographic is heavily tilted towards the young: an astonishing 60% of the population is under 30, all of whom have no recollection of the turbulent chaos surrounding the overthrow of the Pahlavi monarchy and the ascent of the fundamentalist theocracy of the clerical regime. What is foremost in the minds of these technologically savvy young people is the further alienation of their society from the international community, the economic malaise that has crippled the country’s labor market (the unemployment among the young is a whopping 25%) and a bleak future that is portended by the fiery caustic rhetoric of its despotic leaders. The false hopes of the revolution — to reinstate justice and empower individuals within a democratic framework — have been laid bare recently as ghastly footage continues to emerge from the unrelenting bloodletting that has intensified since the stolen election. Gruesome footage of a dying young female, Neda Soltan, collapsing to the ground after innocently being caught in the vicious cross hairs of a government sniper has spurred outrage at the atrocities being committed. Given its rocky history with the outside world and the mullahs’ incessant rallying cries of unity against foreign domination, the West is forced to sit idly by while the ferocious security apparatus of the Islamic Republic (lead by fanatical government militias, the basij) descends on its own people to brutally crush their desire to be free. The outside world, with the resilient aid of social networking websites Facebook and Twitter along with YouTube in spite of an unprecedented, all-encompassing crackdown on foreign media within the country, has now been given a first hand look at the savagery of this medieval theocracy whose once invincible aura has been shattered. Though I am deeply troubled by the stirring images I see everyday (see this photostream), I find solace in knowing that the human quest to be free can never be extinguished. The daring boldness of these protesters to risk life and limb in their non-violent cause to confront tyranny and repression fills me with intense pride. This tsunami is not solely Iranian; it is yet another manifestation of the endless, universal, and distinctly human struggle for freedom. Here’s to you, my Iranian brothers and sisters.