The gift that keeps on giving, or giving the gift back?!

     

Not so long ago, I dubbed the Lance Armstrong affair the "gift that just keeps on giving" and I was not wrong, except for the fact that today's update is about him giving some of his (stolen) "gifts" back. In what is truly a sleazy example of the slimy underbelly of not the sport of cycling itself but of the sport's heretofore biggest star, Armstrong was recently sued by the Sunday Times of London.

I had predicted this countersuit by The Times in a past blog as it seemed like such a no-brainer. The second that the scandal broke and Armstrong de facto admitted to having cheated in all seven of his Tour de France wins by using performance-enhancing drugs/techniques, then he also exposed a side of himself that made the actual cheating and lying seem cuddly cosy by comparison. 

Why did The Times sue him recently? Well, in case you may have forgotten, Armstrong sued them over an article published in 2004 that essentially claimed there was evidence that he was a doper and a cheat. Given that back then, anyone who did know anything about it was too intimidated by Armstrong's since-exposed pressure tactics and threats to anyone who knew anything that could hurt him, there was little hard evidence to back up the article's allegations.

So what did ol' Lance do? Well, he sued, naturally! This is where I think I have the most problem with this entire sick, sad, sorry story - it is one thing to be a ruthlessly ambitious competitor who would do anything for victory (quite typical in professional sports, actually) but quite another to stand up all holier-than-thou and go after an institution like The Times, demanding financial reward for "the lies" they wrote about you, when you, and in principle only you, know it is the total truth. 

This is beyond even hubris, and is perhaps more telling about the man than his repeated decisions to cheat in order to win. There is something fundamentally sick in someone when they will sue for vast sums of money over allegations they know to be true, but they are so far buried in their  own lies that they actually believe themselves to be righteous. Millions of fans around the world believed in the myth of Lance Armstrong, thus so did he, and he sued over it to their great joy and support, further elevating himself in the public eye. Ironically, further burying himself in the process. 

I wonder how he slept at night, and wasn't lying awake worrying if this colleague or that competitor would spill the beans on him, but then again, there are drugs that can help you sleep too, and those are legal. But the noose was tightening and the pressure was mounting, so "Team Armstrong" happily invoked strongarm (now that is a handy play on words!) tactics to keep the sheep in line and threaten anyone who threatened to talk. It all comes down to money, always. Greed is a most insidious illness, and when there are bucket loads of money at stake, it seems many humans let all their values fall by the wayside. 

It was one thing for Armstrong himself to be a cheat, a liar and a bully, but another that his army of willing foot soldiers (I suppose many of whom had also bought into his lies) executed threats on his behalf, and he sat back and smiled about it. This included the wife of one his ex-teammate accusers being told over the phone "I hope someone breaks a baseball bat over your head", and indeed Lance himself, speaking to Oprah Winfrey (someone else he lied on-air to) about Betsy Andreu, said something like "I may have called her a crazy bitch, but at least I didn't call her fat" . With a smirk. Uh-huh. 

The Lance Armstrong that cheated to win was one big lie, but the man who sued The Times, or threatened teammates, or their wives, or snickered while implying a teammate's wife was fat, who willingly deceived millions of rubber wristband-wearing fans/celebs and who repeatedly misled everyone who would listen - well, this is less of a lie and is probably much closer to the truth of who he really is - and it's very far from warm and cuddly. 

I often wonder how long he thought he was going to get away with it, or was he expecting it only to come out when he was in later life and he would be safely hidden in the hills of some exclusive countryside compound, with his many millions forming an impenetrable moat through which the outside world could never pass? Or maybe he lived every day with the fear of the myth crumbling at his own front door, but given who he is, well, he had big enough ones to be able to handle that no problem at all. 

As it turns out, The Times sued him for the 300,000 pounds he fraudulently sued them for iand won back in 2006, and today The Times announced that Armstrong had dug into his wallet and settled with them, for an "undisclosed amount" - naturally. No shock at all that Lance probably wants the number kept quiet as the amount alone is probably tantamount to another massive admission of his guilt. He likes control, also, so probably insisted on the non-disclosure aspect. 

The Times was asking for 1,000,000 pounds in monies owing, interest and costs, and I bet you they got most of it - in cash. It's a sad fact that Lance can probably still afford it. Given the other suits against him, he's going to be buying his way out of trouble for so long that it's probably a way of life for the beleaguered ex-superstar by now, but also has (allegedly) been for a long time. 

Much as he hopes that an undisclosed lump sum payment to The Times will allow yet another mess to go away quietly, the bigger mess he made of his own career and life will now never go away; and I daresay that even if he is left with several millions to line the walls of his castle with - they are gonna be some rather lonely millions and I bet he would exchange them all for even one legitimate yellow jersey to hang on the wall instead. - Kevin Mc

Stuck at Today, seemingly incapable of finding a tomorrow...

   

Anyone who has paid any attention to this blog over the last year or so knows that I have been watching and documenting the trials and tribulations of the "Today" show on NBC on an occasional basis, and realises that I am neither a fan of NBC's handling of the talent nor the apparent politicking (some call it a boy's locker room or even a bullying mentality) that seems to be intertwined with company policy and daily operations. 

No, I am not going to retread the fiascos that were the Leno-O'Brien affair nor the almost incomprehensibly unprofessional strategy/execution of the entrance/exit of a certain Ann Curry - we all know what I think about that, and NBC never listen to my words of wisdom anyhow. I correctly predicted the outcomes of both of these situations, which is either remarkably good luck for an outsider or a total indictment of those involved in the decision-making process and execution at NBC. Wait - did I say "execution"? A Freudian slip, honestly!

Due to recent changes in my own schedule, I have been not been able to grab the remote at 6:59am in bed and exclaim "Ah, time for my news!", thus missing out for the last few months, but I had a week off this week and so was able to check in once again. It was quite shocking to realise not only had I not missed anything, but the show has become a shadow of its former greatness and is occasionally barely watchable anymore! The strained efforts to appear all smiles and one big happy family amidst shots of hordes of beaming "fans" is a major contributor to the show's woes - it's called trying too hard, folks.  

If there was one outcome of recent events that no one was able to predict, it was the rather startling revelation that the show's ratings actually worsened following Ann Curry's departure. This shook the rafters at 30 Rock, and the vibrations were felt all the way up even in the bigger offices, irrespective of the insulation provided by the plush luxury carpets. This situation created a crisis that no one saw coming, subsequently rocking (!) the foundations of the nation's most profitable news franchise to its very core. 

Today went into essentially an identity crisis in the past year following Curry's unceremonious exit; something that was unthinkable given that not only was (former) golden boy Matt Lauer staying on board, but he was now freed to work with a co-anchor with whom he would have greatly augmented personal/professional chemistry, even if that augmentation might be a perception rather than the actual truth. It's all in the eye of the beholder at NBC, right?!

All sorts of stories revealing insider observations involving the major players like Lauer, Curry, Steve Capus, Jim Bell, Steve Burke et al. have surfaced, not the least of which was a quote attributed to Lauer telling a colleague: "I can't believe I am sitting next to that woman". It almost sounds Bill Clinton-ish! No prizes for guessing who that woman was, and the quote surfaced in the New York Times's Brian Stelter's racy expose, "Top of the Morning: The Cutthroat World of Morning TV". Lauer later denied the quote, but somehow we can all imagine him saying it. 

The year following Curry's exit from the hotseat in the show's sweltering kitchen was quite brutally focused on Lauer himself, both for the disdain over his alleged role in Curry's ignominious departure as well as a hotter spotlight that shone on his bare head over ratings losses to the major competitor: ABC's "Good Morning America". If Ann Curry was the problem, and we got rid of her, and we still have our Matt, then why are we losing ratings - unless, God no, it was not Ann who was the issue after all?!

Well, of course she was, and one cannot deny that. I always said that I felt she was a stereotypical example of ambition overriding talent - she was described by one NBC insider as "f**king ambitious", way back - and that sheer ambition drove her demands to be in the hotseat. This ambition didn't suddenly surface at the time of dear old Meredith Vieira's imminent departure in 2011 either: Ann had caused a stir as far back as 1993 when she called up Andrew Lack and vented her displeasure over the appointment of one Brian Williams to the weekend "Nightly News" slot - now that takes some balls, people, because Brian Williams is a top tier newsman and brilliant broadcaster, and I can't see any of the various #1 anchors at any network today being capable of berating the veritable President of NBC News over that excellent decision - yet our Ann did. Very telling indeed.

Ann should have seen the writing on the wall when she was (rightly) overlooked following the departure of the charming Katie Couric in 2006, as that was a clear sign not only that she was not considered ready, but additionally, that after some 16 years at NBC (including a decade-long apprenticeship reading the news on the Today show itself ), if you weren't ready by then you were effectively never going to be ready. When NBC finally gave in after 15 years of Ann reading the news and allowed her to replace magnificent Meredith, well, I think they knew, like me, from day one, that the exit meter was already running. 

I am not a believer in sheer ambition being allowed to rule in the absence of raw talent, and the results are almost always excruciatingly painful for all concerned, not just the inappropriately promoted individual. We've all seen it, in one office or another. There sure were some excruciatingly awkward gaffes and she and Matt never fit well together on screen, and the rest is history. But what of Matt? How come the ratings went down and how come the performant Savannah Guthrie in combination with Matt have not repaired the problem?

Well, even though people at NBC are probably under orders to not say it, I think we all know that Lauer may have come to the end of his road at Today. Something changed, he changed, his brand has been damaged by the last two years, and dare I say it, he is apparently less "likeable" than at any time in his career that I can remember. We don't see that boyish, cheeky, charming guy he used to be, and in fact, he often comes across today as glib, even condescending and regularly superior; something I find kind of shocking for someone whose day job is to read words others have written for him off a teleprompter to a camera on a show that whole hordes of producers and technicians actually make happen around him. Brain surgery it ain't, people. Hell, teaching kids in a classroom it ain't, people! But piles of money and a minor degree of fame and celebrity do change many people, so I guess he let it all go to his (talking) head. 

No one at NBC will ever listen to me, but I will give them a free piece of expert insight - the thing that none of them really observed is that Matt Lauer is only as good as the female co-anchor sitting beside him. Don't get me wrong, if she is a star, then Matt shines like a beacon right out of the screen into breakfast rooms everywhere. His performance is very positively impacted by the presence of a good woman at the desk - this is undeniable when one retraces the tenures of both Katie Couric and Meredith Vieira - they were both superstars who brought out the best in Matt. 

Once Ann went in, things crumbled almost instantaneously and I think people were running around in confusion, not sure what was going on, but what was going on was the crystallising reality that Matt cannot carry it on his own. Take away Meredith, and he was lost. Ergo, and to wit, the Lauer of Today is not the Lauer of even five years ago: he is weighed down by new, heavier baggage than he has ever shouldered in his career to date, and it weighs on him, daily. It wears on him, daily. His brand loses another sparkle, daily. They say behind every successful man is a good woman, and that is patently true of Bryant Gumbel (Jane Pauley), Matt Lauer I (Katie Couric), Matt Lauer II (Meredith Vieira) but simply not true of Matt Lauer III. 

"The time is up, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say..." [Roger Waters, natch]

Instead of us patrolling through a succession of female co-hosts over the next few years, damaging the franchise irreparably, the smartest thing to do would be to cut Lauer in 2014 and let the fresh-faced and very sharp Willie Geist take over. Done! Trust me, NBC, less than a year in, no one will be reminiscing about Matt being in the chair, and many will barely remember it - our Willie is a shoe-in, a natural, and he is going to take authority in that seat like a seasoned old pro. Then it's simply a question of finding the moth to his flame, which I think will be a much less daunting affair than trying to accommodate the increasingly delicate and sensitive problem that Lauer and his ego now represent. 

However, NBC, if you insist on honouring Lauer's multimillion multiyear contract, well, you should have learnt your lessons from the past - Matt needs an older woman, not a younger one. Duh! Both Katie Couric (albeit not by much) and Meredith Vieira are older than Matt, and that's one of the reasons it worked! For whatever reason, the chemistry seems to be better with a woman who has greater experience/knowledge in life, but one also with rock solid broadcasting credentials, perhaps because it allows Lauer to be the little brother or new boy on the block, a position in which he has thrived. It just doesn't feel the same when the gal siting beside him was an underling at the same show, even if she was older, too, but she couldn't cut it so lost authority right there. 

So NBC needs to bring in a Meredith II, if Lauer is to be kept on. I cannot only criticize the network though, because the show used to be stellar, and I happily admit that the sourcing of Vieira by Jeff Zucker of NBC was true genius - it represented the open-minded out-of-the-box type of thinking that has been sadly lacking since, and I think someone ought to be out there shopping for a Meredith II, or even work some total magic to bring her back. 

Feeling generous today, I will also inform NBC that their current attempts to get back on top by essentially copying the formats of the other big shows is not only not going to work, but actually demeans the great NBC brand. When did NBC start cloning other team formats, instead of being the leaders that all others follow? I do not like the new format of all four people at a big desk, at all, as it is both a distraction and is cumbersome. I don't need to see Al Roker or Natalie Morales sitting at the top desk as total equals because even based on salary alone, they are all far from equals. Neither Roker nor our Nat are the leads we want to hear the day's big headlines being discussed by - they simply don't have that kind of intellectual authority!

I need my two top anchors to be the focus, as they are the top talent (or should be!) and when our Nat reads the news the camera can swing to her podium, and when Al and his suit are called in to say - "that's what's going on around the country, here's what's happening in your neck of the woods", for the millionth time - then the camera can swing over then also. Additionally, trying to create the warm, family atmosphere that permeates the set of the ABC or CBS shows, which in their case facilitates the group sitting together from the start, doesn't work for Today. Why? Well because they are not one big happy family, anymore, not least due to the fiasco of Curry and her exit, and the pressure being felt since. 

Perhaps NBC brass think they can fake it, but you only have to watch the competition to see what is real teamwork and collegiality (look at ABC's "Good Morning America" team/format on weekends for a great example) and how watery and paper-thin the Today version seems. Look how great Dan and Bianna are together on ABC, and how smooth the chemistry is between them and the other two, the indefatigable Ginger Zee and cheerful Ron Claiborne. Ditto the work done by Anthony Mason and Rebecca Jarvis on CBS's "This Morning Saturday". By comparison, NBC is struggling to find anything even close to that degree of warmth no doubt due to the freezing chills pervading the very corridors of 30 Rock each day. 

There's another thing or two about the show that is cringe-inducing in it's smarmy fake sweetness and that is entirely superfluous - the ongoing all-morning "good morning"s between the hosts. So for example, at like 8 10am, with Matt, Al and Sav out on the plaza, Matt announces that we are off inside to hear the news. Then our Nat is forced to say, over an hour into the show "Thanks Matt, and good morning to you, Savannah and Al" even though they originally said good morning about four hours ago and have said it several times on air since? It's ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as the exit for a break: "When we come back we will be hearing how Oprah wasn't able to spend a disgraceful $38,000 on a crocodile skin designer bag, but first, this is Today on NBC!" Does anyone even know what that means?!

No, I don't mean filthy rich ol' Oprah's "problem", I mean "but first, this is Today on NBC". Uhmm, I think we all know that this is Today on NBC, by now, no?! Why are you reminding us, for the fiftieth time in one show? Ah, you mean it's supposed to mean but first, here are some more never-ending advertisements for you to sleep through? Then why don't you say that? Because, but first, this is Today, is essentially meaningless. How sweet it isn't, as old friend Willard Scott (didn't) used to say. 

And speaking of Oprah, quite why NBC chose Al Roker and not a heavy-hitting journalist to interview her recently for the show is beyond me - it reeks of either pandering to a member of staff or the viewers, or both, and I refused to watch it. Now we have the weatherman doing the interview with an admittedly global superstar such as the Big O - why?! I am amazed that she didn't demand it to be Matt Lauer, or Savannah Guthrie at least - because she's worth it, that's why!

I think I have helped NBC enough for one day, and shall leave it at that, dear friends. Oh, by the way, the reason for the dated picture of Today, today, is that it is a picture taken in much happier times, when the balance was seemingly perfect due to the superglue that brought the entire show together and made it all work - Meredith Vieira. It used to feel like a family back then, and I would advise NBC to stare long and hard at that picture, instead of staring at ABC or CBS, in order to find a solution to the mess that they have created Today. - Kevin Mc

Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives!

In a quick footnote to a section in our last blog - with almost no delay since the sentencing of one Ariel Castro to a lifetime plus 1,000 years in jail, today, August 7th, 2013, saw the demolition of the Cleveland house of horrors wherein Castro perpetrated his heinous acts. This is a significant statement and quite literally clears the way of any physical reminder of Castro's existence on that street, and allows for something entirely different to be erected in its place.

Quite what that will be has yet to be decided, but the greatest aspect of it already being gone is that no ghosts will be able to haunt the rotting walls of that sick space, and the previous owner of it is already "sleeping with the fishes", metaphorically speaking. In this particular case though, sleeping with mere fish is hardly a truly just punishment for the crimes committed, and being forced to sleep with the sharks might be more appropriate!

If one was forced to choose a particular species of shark? Well, why don't we go right to the top of the marine food chain and bring in none other than, wait for it, yes, Megalodon! It's one thing to be on holidays in early August, but another thing entirely when one realises that it coincides with "Shark Week" on the Discovery channel - but it is a coincidence, honestly! 

What a thrill that they decided to kick it off with newly surfaced evidence of Megalodon cutting a boat in half off Cape Town in South Africa, and physical details showing that it could not have been a whale slapping onto the top of the boat; rather, this boat was cut in half from the bottom of the boat, ripping it apart, and no doubt that the four bodies spilling out of it fell right into some extremely frightening dentition. 

Speaking of dentition, fossil remains of Megalodon teeth have documented that they were often as long as seven inches in diagonal length, which gives you a scary idea of the size of the animal. It is estimated that this giant of the seas grew as long as some 60-70 feet, making it unquestionably one of the most dominant and foreboding vertebrate predators that ever existed. Of course, it is believed that Megalodon became extinct 1-2 million years ago, and the great whites that remain today are simply smaller relatives of it - but who knows?

The boat that was torn apart in April, 2013 did not provide any answers other than it was struck from beneath by something huge that could only have been going after it in a predatory fashion, and given the sheer size of Megalodon and their capacity to bite a whale's tail off, well, a large boat in dark water could appear to be the form of a whale to a hunting monster such as Megalodon. 

Look down the gullet of this monster and tell me you don't think it could bite a chunk off a small boat and cause some serious damage! Megalodon was a fierce predator and had it evolved onto land, well, I am not sure we would be here today. The experts say that even Tyrannosaurus rex would have been no match for Megaladon, well, apart from being a perfect match on its dinner plate beside a fistful of salad in the form of a few lush trees!

Sadly, the documentary on Sunday night provided no firm proof that Megalodon still lurks deep down in the unexplored virgin territories of the lowest ocean floors, but that's the way it should be. Something that is a combination of classified as extinct and an urban (marine) myth should be bloody hard to find! We haven't found the Loch Ness monster either, yet we all know it's down there, somewhere, right?! And the lads of "Finding Bigfoot" talk about ol' squatchy as if he was their next door neighbour, so he has to exist, right? ;)

Scientists discover new species all the time, and even have found living fossils of species believed to be already extinct, such as the giant fearsome monster Octopus species that mythically terrorised mariners through the ages, but actually existed! What if a very select few Megaladon still roam the ocean floors, surfacing to grab a great white for a snack now and then, or on the very rare occasions that their hunger becomes desperate due to lack of food, they surface and tear down whatever looks big and tasty enough?

Well, we won't know today, that's for sure. Only time will tell, and as scientists, of course we all need physical proof of the existence of Megalodon, but given some of the strange occurrences and sightings on radar, there appears to be something huge down there that we don't understand. We are prone to hate sharks, perhaps in part due to their ferocity and reputation as total killing/eating machines, but as humans I also think we are programmed to find their very faces to be the physical representation of pure evil. It's en evil, twisted, dangerous face with the coldest eyes in nature, and historically man has simply wanted to kill it. 

But we have come to understand them better and there is a very refreshing new tone to shark fishing contests in the US today - they catch the sharks, weigh and measure them, then return them back to their home. Now that's a huge shift in our ongoing evolution with these remarkable (and remarkably scary) creatures - who knows if it will come back to bite us some day, quite literally!

You can't beat some evolutionary entertainment, and "Shark Week" always provides that in abundance, so as far as this blog goes, we want to exclaim that "Megalodon is with us! Megalodon lives! Megalodon rules the waves!" - and on that note I shall return to the solidity of my terrace planks, and sip a Californian Chiller Triple Espresso Dark Chocolate iced coffee, while staring out onto the cityscape and seeing killer sharks everywhere. 

They are real, too, but sadly in the city they come in human form! ;) - Kevin Mc

Fancy a ride on the whistleblower rollercoaster?!

     

A big week for legal matters, the justice system and enemies of America - though the language might have to be changed to perceived enemies of the state in the first two cases, depending on whether you blow hot or cold on the phenomenon known as being a whistleblower - which can get one labelled as both a "hero" and an "enemy" in the same week and in the same courtroom. 

First up we had Bradley Manning, the WikiLeaks-associated military whistleblower who kindly placed thousands of military cables and army logs into the hands of the elusive Julian Assange, who, given his proclivity to buck the system and in assertion of his belief that the public wants what the public gets - promptly published them for all to see. Including, quite naturally, the real enemies of the state - yeah, those other ones, that were/are actually fighting ongoing wars with Amerika Inc.

Private Manning has been held in various levels of detention since 2010 and this past week was exonerated on the most serious of 22 charges against him - that of actually "aiding the enemy". However, he was found guilty of basically all of the others, related to offences under the Espionage Act. He will be sentenced next, and one can only envision that there is some serious incarceration time ahead of this 25-year-old. 

Although these situations are very hard to deal with and argue over, not least because they raise such extreme and opposite opinions from people, and even stronger emotions, I cannot get away from the fact that you don't join the US army to then betray it. Quite how such a low level recruit got access to all of the classified material that he did is beyond me, but he did, and the military needs to address that issue. 

I haven't heard anything that came out of those classified communications/documents that exposed the Army as anything other than a military outfit engaged in two wars, so what was the heroism in Manning's actions? It's easy to claim that such individuals are heroes, but it is just as easy to pigeonhole them as someone at the bottom of the ladder wanting their fifteen minutes of fame. 

Snowden clearly saw his chance to ride the whistleblower rollercoaster, and the 30-year-old did so in rather spectacular fashion by leaking his inside knowledge of mass surveillance systems put in place by both the US and UK governments. Snowden is a former CIA employee and was most recently an NSA contractor who leaked his information to Britain's "The Guardian" newspaper in spring of this year - resulting in what is considered to be the biggest security breach at the NSA in history. 

We all basically know the rest: his appearance in Hong Kong, the mocking response of China to US demands for support in bringing him back to the US, and then his extended vacation in a transit area of Moscow's airport while his fate hung in the balance. Although Venezuela, Ecuador and the other usual suspects offered him a safe haven, due to airspace reasons he was forced to appeal to Russia's Putin to save his ass. 

This stalemate put Putin and Russia in general at direct loggerheads with old cold war foe, the US of A, and what happened next was entirely predictable - they gave Snowden refugee status and freedom to live anywhere in the country for the next year. This was obviously in direct contradiction to what the White House had asked of Russia, and you can just imagine the chuckles of laughter in Putin's offices at "puting" one over on mother Amerika. Mockba!

Again though, why would you ever be truly shocked by what goes on inside the CIA, FBI or NSA? Especially in the post-911 world?! We all know we are being watched, and most mature non-criminal types accept it as part and parcel of being kept safe from terrorists, and maybe we don't actually need or want to hear the details! Not everyone agrees on that, of course, but I have got to say that like Manning, no, even more than Manning, the focus of this story has been squarely focused on Snowden himself, and I don't hear about the riots in the streets by an incensed populus at being surreptitiously monitored so closely!

"Fifteen minutes with you (fame), well, I wouldn't say no....." [adapted from Mr. Morrissey]

I did agonise over the inclusion of the third picture above, because that particular face associates much more closely with being a reviled enemy of the nation, albeit for very different reasons. That face should be seen one last time because of the situation the photo derives from - the court where that monster was sentenced to life without parole + 1,000 years - which ensures not only that this sick face will be buried for the rest of its miserable life, but, as a by-product of avoiding the death penalty (due to the typically cowardly plea deal), the next 1,000 years will truly be an eternity in Hell itself. 

As Michelle Knight, one of his heroic victims said so eloquently: "I spent eleven years in Hell, now your Hell is just beginning. I will overcome all of this that happened, but you will face Hell for eternity." 

There is perhaps a less than obvious reason why the Castro trial was important for me to include alongside both Manning and Snowden - the story of the three victims of Castro reminds us who the true heroes are - law enforcement personnel who put their lives at risk on a regular basis and who never give up on even more heroic victims such as Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, as well as the legal system that then enforces justice on the perpetrator. 

In my book, there's a huge difference between doing something that might have something noble underlying it but which additionally brings one instant fame, and what victims who prevail over evil have overcome and what law enforcement does on a daily basis to free such victims. 

I am not sure the former can be viewed as victims of anything other than their own magnified sense (or even hubris) of  "doing the right thing", even if it screws up their lives and those of their loved ones, completely. What information do we now all have that we didn't have before that can classify either Manning or Snowden as heroic? 

Ariel Castro has been removed from society, and for what he did he cannot possibly argue that his sentence was not what he deserved. In the cases of Manning and Snowden, will they feel a similar resolve at being removed from society (in one case, only from Western society) when they see their youth evaporating in a concrete cell or some concrete high rise in the suburbs of Moscow? I don't think so! - Kevin Mc