Admittedly, I failed as much as the media I was attempting to call out. Here I am, privileged enough to have a voice on a respectable media outlet and I didn't take advantage of the situation. I waited around for others to say something. During the initial threats by the Florida-based church to to burn the Qur'an, there was a flurry of criticism. Everyone seemed to make efforts to highlight the distance between this man and the rest of the non-Muslim world. The threats led to worldwide attention and shunning. Seven months later, when the church's leader, Terry Jones, actually followed through on those threats, the act was reported but not discussed.

Even my tweet was met with the response, "Let's not give them the attention they crave." 

If only it were so simple. That Jones and his followers were just seeking attention, and that ignoring them would make it all go away. The U.N. staff in Mazar-e-Sharif probably wish that was the case too. Or would, if they and a mounting number of others hadn't been killed in the violent protests that took place throughout Afghanistan in response to the book burning.

Sadly, it took the violent deaths of innocent people for us to pay attention and realize this was more than a ploy for notoriety. Jones likely believes that the reaction to what he did proves that what he did was right.

Would anything be different if the press, myself included, had created more of an uproar? Why didn't I use the medium I have at my disposal to speak up about something that I found so disturbing?

For starters there was the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that another wacky American preacher, Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church, have the right to free speech. Phelps is the charming man of God who pickets military funerals and makes signs that proclaim God's distain for homosexuals. While I wish people didn't hold some of the opinions they do, I don't want them censored or forced into any kind of indoctination via gunpoint (Mike Huckabee, I'm looking at you).

So, yeah. I was a big old chicken. It's easier to defend Jones' right to burn a Qur'an when he hasn't actually done it. 

Maybe I wanted to believe that this man had gotten enough face time and I just wanted to close my eyes and wish him away. But books, no matter how incendiary - even the ones with zero cultural or intellectual value - shouldn't be burnt. I once worked at a bookstore and had to ship a book, I can't remember the exact title, that claimed to have slave testimony about why the United States south was better before the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Instinctively, the urge was to "disappear" that book, but intellectually I could only hope the person who wanted it did for a reason that was closer to my own beliefs -- ie. to debunk that testimony and prove that it wasn't so.

Lastly, I didn't write anything because I didn't want to cover America again. I like Current Intelligence because it doesn't focus on the U.S. the way so much media does. We've got writers in the U.K.,  Afghanistan, India, Hong Kong, Canada and elsewhere and do a damn good job looking at the world as a whole. I'd just written about Islam and America and really wanted to look somewhere else. In doing so, I may have missed an opportunity to write something compelling about why Jones is the minority, even among those in the U.S. who are distrustful of Islam. I'm not saying it would have stopped any violence, but it should have been said nonetheless.

Oh, and before I go, one more thing. Because I'm a stickler for spelling, I just want to point out to all those media outlets out there who are using the spelling Koran that the Arabic spelling is لقرآن‎ or al-Qur’ān. I'm not asking for the diacritic, or even the apostrophe, but can we all at least go A.P. Stylebook with Quran? Koran is so old-timey, like Mohammedan or Hindoo. kthxbye.

Last Saturday, when several hundred thousand protesters (the press was reporting anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 people in attendance) took to the streets of London to fight the system, I went to a museum. I wasn't the only one either. The line in front of the Natural History Museum snaked its way down the marble steps and along a fence bordering Cromwell Road. As people slowly trickled out, others were let in. To avoid waiting in a line for hours, I scrapped my original plan and headed to the Science Museum instead.

While Labour leader Ed Miliband spoke to a crowd that's focusing its anger on the current leadership and ignoring the part Miliband's own party played in Britain's economic mess, I looked at wooden models of ships from the days when the British fleet was the most impressive in the world. Even in their scaled-down glory, they were huge, a poignant reminder of the immense wealth and influence Britain once wielded.

As I left South Kensington to make my way by bicycle through Hyde Park where the rally took place, I passed several placard carrying protesters. They looked, as they headed back to their lives, somewhat disenchanted. Cheers came from the crowd but not one of them looked back.

Seen from a distance, it was less inspiring than were the student protests of last fall. That might seem unfair, because I experienced that protest from a distance too. But the build-up was also pretty uninspiring, hence the trip to the museum. Last fall's student protests didn't just touch me because I'm a student -- the raised tuition doesn't actually effect me, given that I'm a foreigner already paying overseas fees, but I understand what it's like to worry about not being able to afford the college everyone tells you is a necessity. This Saturday's protest, on the other hand, was against "cuts". The TUC flyer I received a few days before didn't do anything to clarify what that meant exactly, and I had to go online to find out that TUC stands for Trade Union Congress. Maybe it's the foreigner thing, but the assumption that I should automatically know who TUC is or what it's fighting for seems a little naive. 

I understand that the cuts people are wide-spread and include teachers and libraries and other public services but there just hasn't been any specific mention that "X is being cut and you should be pissed off about it". 

Personally, I'm skeptical of a moment that doesn't have a coherent argument. When I was reporting on the Tea Party in the United States I found that lack of coherence to be the biggest obstacle to the Tea Party's potential to bring about real change. Most of the folks I talked to at those tax day rallies wanted lower or more effective use of taxes, but the whole thing seem less a movement than a collection of scattered rhetoric, vague enough that it could resonate with a range of worldviews, be they religious, anti-big government, etc. 

It’s not surprising that the follow-on media coverage of the protests has focused on the violence and vandalism done by a very small percentage of protesters. Leading up to Saturday the Guardian’s coverage offered people a forum for explaining why they were heading to the protests. Responses didn't suggest a a common baseline.  The student protests, at least, were more focused and therefore more powerful, even if that collective power was ultimately ineffectual.

When did newspapers start phrasing headlines as questions?

I ask because the current vogue to do so grates on every last one of my nerves -- and to make a larger point. To begin an article with a question (in this case as the lede rather than the hed) implies not only that the question asked will be the question answered, but that finding the answer will be the main point of the article. 

Sadly, such is not always the case. I blame the Washington Post online outfit Slate for the popularity of the question-hed (it's also present in WaPo's Foreign Policy magazine), though that blame may be misguided. It's simply where I started to notice the trend. 

The reason I bring this up: I found myself duped into reading three articles in the Christian Science Monitor because the questions were interesting. I say duped because the answers to those questions weren't really central to the articles. All three revolved around the House Committee on Homeland Security's hearing on "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response".

I've got some semantic issues with that too, but one thing at a time.

First, the headline, "Who's testifying at controversial House hearing on radical Islam?"  -- a question I thought really needed answering. I imagined a list of witnesses, credentials, political affiliations, etc. A real who's who of House witness testimony. Instead I got "Families of radicalized or 'brainwashed' young Muslim Americans", "a Los Angeles sheriff", and a couple names of who wouldn't appear (those being U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI director Robert Mueller). That's a pretty weak answer to a very specific question. Much of the article focused on the controversy surrounding the hearings, rather than the actual meat of what was slated to happen. That L.A. sheriff, by the way is Leroy Baca.

Next up was the ironic "Why won't media -- or Muslims -- address Islamism in America?" Here Boston College political science professor Peter Skerry does a hell of a job of taking the current keywords about Islam (read: Muslim Brotherhood, Islamists) and demystifying some of the myths with a gentle nudge that informs without being didactic, but really doesn't say much about media -- or Muslims -- and the conversation.

"Muslim Americans: What Would Jesus (Or George Washington) Do?" actually came closest to answering part of the question. (That'd be the George Washington part, not the Jesus part, by the way.) While the whimsey of wild speculation about what either of these iconic characters would do in relation to Muslim Americans would probably be a fun, and divisive read, it's pretty obvious that's not going to happen. Instead we get another academic, Thomas S. Kidd of Baylor University, explaining American Christian sectarianism at the time of founding.

I'm picking on the Christian Science Monitor here not just because its inquisitive headlines grabbed me, but because -- despite my feelings about its headline tactics -- its hearing-related content is the most diverse and informative I've read. The opinion pieces by the academics are strong essays that seek to contextualize the controversy rather than simply reiterate. Despite not answering the question that was asked, staff writer Gail Russell Chaddock's piece adds some good reporting to what could easily be a roundup and regurgitation of existing coverage. What Chaddock doesn't do (and I think this is to her benefit), is go into depth about why the hearings are controversial. It's mentioned in passing, but the heart of the article focuses on what might actually be said during the hearings and the variety of  likely views that will be offered.

What I haven't seen in any of this is a discussion of the language of the hearing itself. The strongest criticisms, for example, have focused on House Committee on Homeland Security's chairman Peter King and his McCarthyesque witch-hunt of U.S. Muslims. That's strong language, and the kind of thing that's brought up in U.S. media pretty much anytime an American legislator wants to discuss controversial topics surrounding societal "others".

Preconceived notions of what will or won't be said run something like this: on one side of the spectrum. claiming everything about American Islam is dangerous; on the other, focusing on how everything is fine and we can all live in peace and harmony. Setting that aside, a quick look at the title of the hearing suggests something rather comforting. Instead of framing the hearings as Radical Islamism in America -- which is what I'd was going on, based on the media panic of the last few days -- the hearing seeks to discover the extent of radicalization. This is actually pretty important in the larger American dialogue in which often all Islam is assumed to be "radical". I separate that word here because in the American context "radical" is meant as a dangerous, separatist movement and one that excludes the progressive movements that are likely more common in American Muslim communities. 

The only real semantic issue I have with the name of the hearing is "that Community's Response". In other words, the Muslim community. Separated and demarcated from the rest of American society. It implies that the Muslim community alone is responsible for the activities of people who call themselves Muslim. I think the genuine intent of the hearings, though, is to focus on the wider community's response to Islam and Muslim Americans.

I listened to the hearings,  and they went down pretty much like anyone would imagine. A few references to American ignorance about Islam, a discussion of sharia and its implementation in the United States. There was partisanship, there were efforts to include other groups (ie. KKK) in the definitions of those participating in religious terrorism. It will give pundits on both extremes something to complain about.

The real question is whether the House hearing will flounder in controversy or whether any actual dialogue will emerge. Sadly, that's a question that can't be answered in a simple blog post, but one that will unfold over time. Quick guess though, since I don't like to leave questions unanswered, it's a whole lot of fuss over a very little bit of content. Next week, we'll all be riled up about something else and a new "McCarthyist" inquisition.

A boarded up movie theatre in Marrakech’s Gueliz neighborhood tellingly demonstrates the city’s struggle with both poverty and modernity. It sits abandoned, barbed wire preventing access to windows and doors, a block from a bustling street filled with European-style bars and restaurants, many beckoning visitors with 1950s-era neon signs. Scattered among the aging, once high-end hotels are the signs of what’s likely to become of them. Multi-story empty buildings, closed off on the ground floor, their window openings, devoid of glass, allow the weather to seep in. The Gueliz, once the French enclave of the city, is no longer new, as its other moniker, Ville Nouvelle, implies. Instead, it has become a dying hub of Marrakech’s struggling middle-class. Few of the buildings suggest that they have been repurposed, their lifespans seemingly limited to the businesses that once thrived within their walls.

Were it not for the mix of low-end fashion, galleries offering affordable contemporary art, and beat up late-model cars, the Gueliz would seem frozen in time. It moves along, but at a pace that has been left behind by the Europeans who built it.

As pundits fill television screens, offering predictions about which Middle Eastern states will fall next to waves of protest, Morocco does, from the inside, seem relatively safe. From the Gueliz to the traditional Medina, newspaper stands dominate major intersections and offer Arabic, French, German and English papers and magazines. According to the CIA’s World Factbook, 53.2 percent of the total population can read at least some of those papers. Of these, 65.7 percent are men and 39.6 percent are women. There is a range of information about the rest of the world on offer to them, and for those lucky enough to have internet-capable devices. There's an outdoor garden, a literal cyber-park, that offers access to the online world. For the rest, the satellite dishes that spring up from nearly every rooftop in the city channel information from around the world.

An air of oppression certainly exists, but it isn’t crushing. Marrakech may also be unique, in that so much of its economy is dependent upon outsiders. Evidence of a tourist-based economy are everywhere, from the luxury hotels that line the road from the Medina to the Guilez, to the tour groups wandering through narrow, high-walled streets peppered with impoverished idle youth, to street signs that point only to sightseeing destinations and roads leading to other cities.

Nearly all of those sightseeing spots are stunning if dilapidated examples of Islamic architecture. Outside them, local boys offer hash for sale in a handful of Western languages while school-age children bat sad eyes in efforts to exchange packets of tissues for a few dirham. The history that hides behind the high walls is inaccessible to the very people to whom it belongs - part of an unspoken, subtle antagonism between  Moroccans and outsiders. Too much struggle on offer and the tourists won’t come, making that struggle even worse. 

Unemployment in Morocco already sits at approximately 9.8 percent, only slightly higher than the United States’ estimated 9.6 percent or Egypt’s 9.7 percent. Government is largely invisible, with private security guards most prominent at the city’s train station and a mixture of private and public uniformed police forces in the Medina’s main square. The protests that took place across the country last Sunday are unsurprising but not fraught with the urgency found in similar ones across the continent. Rather than calling for an overthrow of the ruling powers, Moroccans demanded the king introduce constitutional reforms that would limit his power. Easier said than done: he's part of a ruling line that claims to be descended from the Prophet Muhammad and took power in 1631 -- a power declared in the constitution to be sacred. The reforms that protesters called for limit the king's power to dissolve the government or to have the final say in government appointments, giving that power back to voters.

The protests in Morocco are less likely to be broadcast around the world than others taking place in North Africa. This isn't because they're less important. They're just less dramatic. Rather than a people trying to topple a longstanding government, Moroccans are trying to compromise with the system that already exists. Reform might not play out well on television but it certainly is just as extraordinary.

Reshape the constitution to make life better for the people of Morocco and perhaps that beautiful old cinema can have another life too.

It's that standing up that's caused an Al Jazeera English blackout in the United States since its inception in November of 2006. It's no secret that America's right wing has protested Al Jazeera since its inception as anti-American -- a shaky label that, if included to mean anti-U.S. government, the right's darling FOX News certainly could share. 

Now, however, as people find themselves captivated with the ongoing protests in Egypt, it's that strong editorial stance that seems to be drawing people to the internet for a look at the channel. Al Jazeera has successfully demonstrated itself to be the definitive source for information on the story. Americans are sharing links to AJE on Facebook and Twitter, The New York Times reports that the online campaign to bring the channel to the U.S. is working, and talks with Comcast will be held later this month.

All this is great, because Al Jazeera might be what the American television news landscape needs right now to focus its attention back on the actual events of the day, and less on its own rhetoric and misreporting.

There's one little problem though. While Americans found themselves supporting Egyptians during the heat of protests, the story has already begun to fade from the headlines. Julian Assange has found his face splashed on the front pages of the Guardian and The New York Times, while the Egypt spotlight has dimmed. So too will American enthusiasm for Al Jazeera. 

I'm not saying they'll stop watching and start uninformedly talking smack again. Al Jazeera has proven itself  a network that will relentlessly chase a story it thinks worth telling, even as its journalists are detained, its offices raided and its feed officially banned. Americans will do what they always do (which means going back to whatever it was they were doing before). A few might put AJE into their news rotation but with the heavy focus on the Arab world, most will turn away, in that other American tendency: isolationism.

As life returns to normal for some Egyptians who can't keep their shops closed any longer, so too will Western news habits. Just a week ago most couldn't help but ask which country would be next. Most, unfortunately, won't tune in to find out.

To the West, "Partly Free" Morocco has managed to stay out of the headlines for the most part -- despite its freedom rating falling in the last year and a case of self-immolation by a young man in Casablanca last Friday. 

East of the North African protest strip, of course, the freedom ratings aren't much better. From Jordan to Afghanistan, with pockets of partial freedom here and there and the exception of a very free Israel (Occupied Territories notwithstanding), what in many places is democracy in name only is being challenged by people who want undemocratic leadership out. 

Tunisians began protesting in mid-December and it took weeks of sustained and on-going protests for President Ben Ali to leave. Egypt, thus far, has one full day under its belt and reports from Algeria imply protest there are unsustained. By cutting off social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, governments hope to quell efforts to organize potential protests but reports (largely on these same sites) indicate that protesters are still managing to relay information to others about assembly points (after all, it worked during the French Revolution... ). Reuters is reporting Egypt has banned demonstrations and will detain protesters, a move that will likely lead to more protests rather than less.

But while the West focuses on protests in pretty places it knows better for their tourist potential than for their internal politics (I've already seen London taxis with Egypt and Tunisia travel advertisements on them today) some less dramatic protests also plague the region. 

What should stand out most about the demonstrations is how they mirror what's been happening in the West. Tunisians didn't oust their president after 24 years simply because two and a half decades is long enough. Rising food costs and high unemployment became intolerable to a people who saw their leaders as corrupt and out of touch. Certainly the London student protesters of late last year, fighting rising tuition costs and feeling deceived by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg (who promised to end fees altogether) can relate. Just today the BBC reported 20 percent of university graduates are unable to find work. Spain, of course, has such a high unemployment rate, and has for so long, that one more bout of unemployment is viewed as an inevitability. Around the globe there are fears of higher costs for food, oil and other natural resources, at risk of rising due to inflation. McDonald's, that Platonic form of cheap food, is raising its prices -- though the more cynical among us will chalk that up as just another move to boost profits.

Lets not forget too that in Pakistan, Karachi University ended its fall term in a fit of violence and protests, starting classes in January two weeks later than scheduled. Here the issue is largely one of gaining political control over the university in the country's ongoing political disputes. Rather than protest government control and partisan bickering, Americans simply scoff at the seating arrangement for the State of the Union Address, criticising every word while not actually taking action on governmental inaction. In fact, even the press in the U.S. has become so used to rising costs, unemployment and political infighting that it barely reported that the U.S.' old nemesis Osama bin Laden -- you know, the archetypal evil villain, the one who inspired military operations in Afghanistan -- released another tape. Not that most Americans seem too bothered. Even the one-time sole representative of all that is bad on earth has become a footnote. 

Maybe, for the west, the problem seems too big. Obama's speech last night talked of the need to freeze spending on everything except defence and major social programs, while his government made more than US$16.5 billion in arms deals with the Near East/South Asia region last year alone. Maybe the low numbers for "Not Free" political rights and civil liberties have something to do with all those weapons in the hands of oppressive governments. Good thing the one selling them all is rated the most "Free" a country can be.

In an effort to get you off the internet (save of course your obsessive reading of Current Intelligence), I want to remind Londoners of two upcoming events related to the news.

Tomorrow (that's Thursday 27 January) Nir Rosen gives a talk titled, "From Beirut to Baghdad & Kabul: Civil war, Sectarianism, Occupation, Resistance, and Counterinsurgency" at the School of Oriental and African Studies." Sneak peek Rosen's work here at CI.

Then, next Wednesday (2 February) the Frontline Club offers a panel discussion on "The Tunisian domino effect and the Middle East".

In the past, China has offered pandas to zoos around the world as part of what's been dubbed "Panda Diplomacy." Though the practice officially ended in 1984, a press release noting Monday's announcement that Edinburgh has been granted two pandas demonstrates that pandas and diplomacy go together like bears and bamboo. "The project represents the culmination of five years of political and diplomatic negotiation at the highest level," it states, "and it is anticipated the giant pandas will arrive in their new home as soon as a date is agreed."

China's other long-term diplomatic project, also culminating this week, doesn't involve fur and probably won't excite nearly as many school children. It has greater implications. I'm talking, of course, about the handover of long disputed territory from Tajikistan to China. The deal was cut more than a decade ago for the handover of the 1,000 square mile track of remote mountain land (and sorry panda fans, it's not really habitable for that particular endangered species), but the Tajik government didn't actually ratify the handover until Wednesday. 

According to the BBC, "it is not clear where exactly the land to be ceded is or how many people live there." But apparently it was all resolved peacefully, save for Tajik opposition leader Mukhiddin Kabiri calling the move unconstitutional. 

While the move may be largely symbolic, it is, like the trading of pandas, important to the world's second largest economy, second largest by land area, and which is getting a little bigger in Central Asia. The stretch of territory in question is in the Pamir mountains, and borders both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The English-language Chinese People's Daily newspaper reported this week that China and Pakistan are ramping up economic efforts to tie the two countries together. Meanwhile, relations with India are strained due to an incident in September 2010 in which it accused Chinese forces of entering Kashmir and threatening construction workers. In Tajikistan, China initially sought 11,000 square kilometers, and it currently claims rights on 90,000 square kilometers in northern India. Relations between China and India have been less than friendly since a 1962 war over territory, and China's growth in Central Asia is sure keep India's attention focused.

Rather than rehash all the happenings I'm going to assume that if you're here, you're already moderately informed about what's been going on in the past week. Instead, I'm going to look back a little further in order to focus on the future of Pakistan.

Late last fall, Pakistani human rights activist and lawyer Asma Jahangir spoke in London about the future of democracy in her country. Speaking to an audience of about 200, mostly Pakistani lawyers and other left-leaning elites, Jahangir expressed fears that Pakistan would return to the dictatorships of the past but was optimistic that the country could move forward into a more functional democracy.

In Pakistan, "democracy is a growing phenomena", she said, adding "you can't run a country like a company, and that's what's happening" now. In order to give the power back to the people, Jahangir laid out a twelve point plan that included everything from a freer press, to more accountability and transparency.

She didn't specifically discuss the blasphemy law that allegedly inspired a member Punjab Governor Salman Taseer's security staff to assassinate him. She did allude to changes in such legislation, criticising an atmosphere in which peace activists are considered anti-Pakistan and in which standing up for religious minorities risks being tarred as anti-Islam. For Jahangir, these perceptions will only change with more civilian control of the the decision-making process, and a press that's allowed to focus on alternative voices. The latter is developing, she said, but suggested a press council that does not include the government, instead made up entirely of self-regulating media practitioners. Article 19 of the Pakistani constitution guarantees freedom of speech to individuals and to the press, "subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by the law in the interest of the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defense of Pakistan." But journalists are still intimidated by police and face threats of physical violence.

Jahangir spoke of the need for a stronger, institutionalized opposition. This, for her, includes the appointment of judges who can assess the constitutionality of new and proposed laws, and for committees that would focus solely on government corruption. "We need to oppose for the sake of opposing", she said, highlighting the view that disagreements in governance leads to better representation for people.

"Even the most liberal parties cooperate with conservatives to make deals that get people not to vote", she said, pointing out that not everyone in Pakistan enjoys fair representation. Kashmir, of course, is the most obvious (and taboo) case in point. According to Jahangir, the judges of the northern province are tied to the ISI -- the Pakistani intelligence service. Decisions about the province are made exclusively in Islamabad, without input from Kashmiri's themselves. Given those conditions, Jahangir doesn't believe that democracy can thrive in Pakistan.

She also brought up the fact that large tracts of land are being sold to Gulf countries, claiming that the issues that this potentially raises are "not brought up because opposing the Gulf is opposing Islam." For Jahangir, what's key is being able to discuss these things openly with a variety of voices being able to chime in. It requires a clearer electoral process, where everyone is assured of a vote that will be counted and where electoral preference be exercised without fear of repercussion. In order to do this, she believes a democratization of the political parties needs first to occur -- wherein new politicians are allowed to enter the conversation. That women play a large role, 33 percent according to Jahangir, is a step in the right direction. But she called for still more, arguing that women are representative of the pockets of democracy that flourish in the country.

Jahangir's criticisms and recommendations for improvements must surely resonate with the citizens of democracies elsewhere making similar arguments about their own systems. In some ways that means Pakistan is on the right path toward a stronger democracy -- so long as people like Jahangir keep fighting for it. Clearly, Pakistan has a long way to go and not everyone agrees with Jahangir's views, but that she and others can and do speak up despite the death threats they receive is a powerful statement.

BONUS: Anyone in London who wants to learn more about Pakistan's blasphemy law can attend a free public talk at the School for Oriental and African Studies sponsored by the SOAS Pakistan Society. The 7 p.m., Wednesday, 12 January talk will feature University of Cambridge Iqbal Chair, Dr. Tahir Kamran, University of Oxford Jinnah Chair, Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed and SOAS Law Phd, Dr. Tahir Wasti. Email soaspaksoc2010@gmail.com for more info.

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John Magee (Bishop, Catholic Church). Bishop Magee actually tenured his resignation in March 2009 but it wasn’t until a year later that Pope Benedict XVI accepted it. A report noted that Magee, a former secretary to Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II, had failed to report child sexual abuse by several Irish priests in the 1990s in his Cork, Ireland diocese.

Gordon Brown (Leader, Labour Party, United Kingdom). After an election that left no party with a majority win, Labour Party leader Gordon Brown hoped to align the Liberal Democrats with Labour by stepping down. Brown’s ploy didn’t work, however, as the Lib Dems formed a coalition government with the Conservative Party, making David Cameron the UK Prime Minister. Ed Miliband was named Brown’s replacement in September.

Horst Koehler (President, Germany). Though not a position with a lot of real power, Germany’s President found himself at the center of controversy after commenting in a radio interview that the deployment of troops to Afghanistan was necessary to protect German economic interests. Accused of promoting gunboat diplomacy, Koehler resigned his role.

Yukio Hatoyama (Prime Minister, Japan). Elected amid promises to close down a controversial US airbase on Okinawa, Prime Minister Hatoyama left a mere eight months after taking office. The unpopular Futenma airbase wasn’t the only stain on Hatoyama’s leadership. It was plagued with funding scandals, and upon leaving office, Hatoyama asked his party’s Secretary General, Ichiro Ozawa, to step down as well.

Stanley McChrystal (General, United States Army). A Rolling Stone article was the downfall of the Commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. McChrystal and staff were caught out disagreeing with President Obama’s strategy for the war, as well as for disparaging comments about other high-level US government officials. McChrystal was replaced with Iraq “surge” mastermind David Petraeus.

Mark Hurd (CEO, Hewlett-Packard). The attorney for a woman who filed a sexual harassment claim against HP CEO Mark Hurd argued there was no sexual relationship; the claim instead uncovered tens of thousands of dollars in misappropriations.

Yuri Luzhkov (Mayor, Moscow). It’s not completely clear what went down inside the Kremlin between Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and President Dmitry Medvedev. Whether Luzhkov, one of Russia’s most powerful politicians, was involved in corruption or simply disagreed with the President, he  was shown the door. His cries of slander and lies went unheard.

Tony Hayward (CEO, BP). The April BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was one of the worst environmental disasters on record. It was statements by then CEO Tony Hayward that made him an international villain: “there’s no one who wants this over more than I do," he noted. "I would like my life back” The comments didn’t win him any friends, inside or outside the company.

Rahm Emanuel (White House Chief of Staff). After longtime Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley announced he would not run for re-election after more than 20 years in office, the notoriously impatient Emanuel left his position as President Obama’s right-hand man in order to enter the mayoral race. Emanuel detractors then immediately claimed that as a non-resident he was ineligible, an argument that was quickly shot down. He's expected to win the late-February race.

Kim Tae-young (Defense Minister, South Korea). The May resignation of Defense Minister Kim Tae-young wasn’t actually accepted until November, despite ongoing tensions within South Korea over North Korea's sinking of one of its war ships in March. Government leaders argued that South Korea’s more technologically advanced military should have been able to prevent such an attack, and lawmakers called for Kim’s resignation several months after he tendered it.

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Business leaders and politicians weren’t the only ones to find themselves without work. Four U.S. journalists broke the cardinal rule of journalism by becoming the story, when personal opinions led to their losing their jobs. Some fared better than others.

Helen Thomas. Thomas, who covered US presidents from Eisenhower to Obama, retired after unpopular comments she made about Israel and Palestine were replayed as part of the news cycle. Despite apologizing for the comments, Thomas has since held firm that she spoke her mind and felt pressure to quit because of her criticism of Israel.

Dave Weigel. Washington Post hired blogger Dave Weigel as its conservative voice, but he resigned after the public release of email in which he made disparaging comments about many of the conservative leaders he was hired to cover (and demonstrated significant personal biases that undermined his credibility as an "objective" reporter). Weigel didn’t stay out of work long, being hired by online news magazine Slate, which is owned by... the Washington Post.

Octavia Nasr. "Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot." A simple tweet, but one that led CNN to fire its 20-year veteran Middle East expert. Nasr's efforts to explain that she wasn't expressing approval of Fadlallah's policies failed to convince.

Rick Sanchez. CNN fired Rick Sanchez for comments made about The Daily Show anchor Jon Stewart (Sanchez called him a "bigot"). Sanchez later retracted but claimed Stewart was prejudiced and uninformed. Stewart, true to form, took on the comments on his program.

Juan Williams. After appearing on FOX News and saying that people in “Muslim garb” on airplanes made him nervous, NPR let Williams go. FOX promptly snapped him up, on a multi-million dollar contract.

But the mission of these two men isn't very different and, in truth, it is Zuckerberg and Facebook that more directly affects our everyday interaction with the world. Where the two men's worldviews deviate is a matter of perspective. Both seek to bring an unprecedented level of transparency to the world. For Zuckerberg that transparency is individual. He wants us all to know more about the people with whom we interact on a daily basis. The side-effect of this is, of course, that we also know more about those with whom we used to interact more frequently than we would if we saw them every day. Social networks show us that old friends we haven't seen in years have babies or are getting divorced. Catching up time with old friends is made nearly redundant. 

Assange, on the other hand, couldn't give a rats ass about us personally. His mission is to expose the inner workings of government, hundreds and thousands of documents at a time. He wants us to learn every crummy thing a diplomat has ever said about another diplomat, every report that's every been filed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Like it or not, though, Zuckerberg's formula of wall posts and status updates inform the way Assange's information is being disseminated. WikiLeak's Iraq and Afghan Logs came out in two big blasts, which were acknowledged by the public before it went back to what it was doing before. This time, with Cablegate, Assange wised up, releasing documents daily and in small bits. He's turned the large scale dump into a trickle of status updates that permeates the newsfeed.

This, of course, is intertwined with Assange's own daily drama; turning himself in to British police, subsequently being freed on bail, and so on. Much like the comments thread of a shared news article on Facebook, the story itself (the leak) gets lost in the personal asides and tangents that bind the commenters.

Assange has logged a lot of likes under his status. But he, like Zuckerberg, remains an enigma. And that is what makes the whole relationship between these two men and the world they seek to change so interesting. Neither is guilty of the overshare, and what we know about both comes from the media. Primarily that enjoyably annoying force called Gawker, which takes a gossipy bent on news and a newsy bent on gossip. It's Gawker that stalks Zuckerberg outside his house and around town, turning the tables on the private man who inspires public  outcries every time his company changes its privacy settings. It's Gawker that publishes old emails sent by a 30-something Assange to a 19 year old student. It's also Gawker whose editorial stance of making fun of everything under the sun, got its servers hacked and the email addresses and passwords of commenters flung far and wide onto the web. 

This breach of security and exposure of personal information probably would have seen a lot more criticism if Facebook hadn't already prepared us en masse for mass, non-consensual leaks of personal data.

So while WikiLeaks and Assange are the cause du jour it really was Facebook that was preparing us for this throughout 2010. A year ago, document leaks like those done under WikiLeaks auspices would have seemed like more information we could handle. The fact that they contained little that was Earth-shattering would have made them seem superfluous. But in a world where Grandma is on Facebook and can see how much you enjoyed that microwave popcorn and Hot Tub Time Machine, there's really no such thing as overshare.