Penn State Riots: Just or Just Idiocy?

Over the weekend my good friend alerted me to the news of the riots at Penn State. On November 10th a riot broke out at Penn State. For background information, it's helpful to read "Penn State Students Clash With Police in Unrest After Announcement" from the New York Times. Basically, Joe Paterno, the former football coach, was fired. His former assistant coach has been arrested for sexually abusing young boys. Paterno was fired because he didn't go to the police when a witness came to him about an incident of sexual abuse by the assistant coach in 2002. Students took the downtown streets in a mad riot to protest the firing of Joe Paterno. The students protested saying the board of education "tarnished a legend" and "is an embarrassment to the school."

Jon Stewart provides a comical, opposing viewpoint:

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He draws a connection between religion (Catholicism) and football at Penn State. The Pope is much like the Coach and the services are the games on the weekends. This is pointing towards the sex abuses scandals that plague the Catholic Church. However it also illuminates the obsessive love of competition and sports in America.

Americans thrive on the Sunday football games. It's an American past time! These students that protested at Penn State show how deep that love is. They turned over media trucks and jumped on cars simply because their football coach was fired, thus jeopardizing their season. The riot exemplifies the crazy adoration Americans have for sports and competition.

How does competition affect your life?

Simba's Dilemma

Last weekend I took a long bus ride with my rowing team and, of course, we watched movies to pass the time. One of the movies was Up, which is an incredibly sad movie. The people around me started to discuss the fact that there are many disney movies that are excruciatingly sad! We mentioned Toy Story 3, namely when all the toys line up and hold hands as they wait to be incinerated, and Up, when the wife dies and Mr. Fredrickson has such a rough time to overcome the grief. However, for me, the most depressing moment in a disney movie is when Mufasa dies in The Lion King.

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To give a little background, though I hope you've seen this movie because it's a classic, Simba was tricked by his Uncle Scar to stay in a valley for a "surprise" from his father, Mufasa. However, Scar sends a stampede of yaks (I believe) into the valley. Mufasa comes and saves the day by saving Simba from the rampage. Alas, Mufasa, while trying to escape, is murdered by his own brother, Scar. This heart-wrenching scene is almost too much for me to bear. Especially since Scar tells Simba afterwards that Simba killed his own father. I can't even grasp the trauma that would be for poor Simba. He goes on to run away and adapt a new moto: Hakuna Matata. However, this lackadaisical manner doesn't last long. His pride is in trouble and his trusted friend, Nala, with a little help from Rafiki, the baboon, show him that he can't run from his problems.

This really speaks to a greater theme in American life. There is a general idea that you can't run from your problems. It's considered cowardly. The way to face grief and/or other life problems is to stand up and face it, head on. While I didn't realize this theme at the time, I can see it now. I do believe that it would take a bit more than a tropical vacation to get over the trauma of believing that you killed your own father, the idea is still relevant. So, Simba, stand up to your grief and go save your pride!

What themes do you see now that you look back on the movies you watched as a child?

Always Looking Ahead

So over the weekend I visited Boston to watch the Head of the Charles Regatta. However, while I was staying in Boston I visited Boston College. Naturally, much of the weekend turned into a chronic conversation about what I'm looking for in college. I was starting to feel really stressed. All I really wanted to do was to relax and watch some excellent rowing.

But, when I thought about it, it seemed every moment of my life was preparing myself for the next. In middle school my teachers all ways told us that they gave us so much homework because they were preparing us for high school. Then last year my history teacher always talked about how we had to prepare ourselves AP courses Junior year. Now I'm constantly on the look out for the perfect college for me and making sure that I give myself the best chance I have to be accepted into that college. When will it be that I'm done preparing and looking for the next move?

I honestly believe that day will never come. Each moment of our lives is devoted to creating our best selves. But, for what? In this day and age it is all about being innovative and creating the next great commodity. Steve Jobs is an incredible example of this. He was beloved for his ingenuity. Apple is always making the newest phone, music device, and the next must have technologic device. It's the American way to get bigger and better each and every day. So it seems that I may never reach my dream of simply relaxing. Well, I am currently in a rocking chair watching the planes take off in the Boston airport so I'm fairly content.

Our Downfall

So the other day in math class I came to realize how lazy I am. However, Americans are supposed to be hard working and always making their own opportunities. So it made me think because I know I'm not the only one. I've talked to others in my generation of teens and they feel the same way. So why is my generation of teens so different from my parents'?

So when I sat down and thought about it for awhile I came up with a rough idea. Our parents were the hardworkers that gave America it's reputation. They had to find their own way in the world. They had to create their own opportunities and fght their way into the world. However, another part of the American Dream is to use your success to create a better life for your kids as well. And they certainly have done that. I mean, I'm going to be honest here, I can't remember a time when I actually had to create my own opportunity. I've tried out for sport teams, but that's not really making your own opportunity. Our parents have done such an incredible job of making our lives more comfortable than them, they've practically set us up for our disaster!

"We All Aspire"

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The other day I was surfing the channels on TV when I came across the commercial above. I found it interesting because I had blogged before about competition and the drive to be the best. This Samsung Galaxy S II commercial made me wonder. The narrator mentions some interesting points:
"Nobody ever set their sights on second place."
"Who aspires to be almost remembered?"
"There's a reason there are no giant foam fingers that say, 'we are number three.'"
"No one wants to tell an average joke, make an underwhelming entrance, go out with a whimper."
"Nobody ever dances in front of the mirror with a hairbrush pretending to be the tambourine player."
"And there are definitely more kids dressed as batman than robin."
And the final point that really struck me was: "We all aspire."
Quite powerful, if you ask me, but why is it so? America, I believe, is seen to be a nation of 'go-getters', but how much of that is because we were taught by our parents to 'aspire'? Or was it society that told us to be that way? There's a common phrase: "If Johnny jumped off the bridge, would you?" Now that's an exaggerated situation, but it is a legitimate question when asked about less hyperbolized situations. If everyone around you is competing to be the number one, would that make you compete to be the best?

Reconstructing History

The other day in American Studies, we discussed memory. First we made metaphors about memory: memory is a filing cabinet, a bulletin board, a dirty carpet, or a messy storage unit. Most agreed on that memories tend to pop up due to the experiences you are having at the moment and when they do they are completely intact. After the discussion, Mr. Bolos let us in on a little secret. When you look back and recall a memory, you are actually reconstructing the moment with your current emotions mixing in with the ones in the memory. Every time you look back you are changing that memory. A more detailed description of this can be found in the Radiolab episode, "Memory and Forgetting". So that made me think, if we change our own memories with our personal interpretation because of our feelings, what about history? Can we trust primary sources? Are our "unbiased" text books to be trusted wholely?

I also found another activity connected when thinking of how history might be misrepresented. Awhile earlier we discussed telling stories and how textbook editors can differ which subjects get put in a better light. Perhaps people "remember" things differently than another eye witness simply because of bias and mood. I believe that this often occurs in American society and history. We pose our actions to make them look like the right or only way possible. By simply changing a couple adjectives and leaving a few details out we can make murder of American Indians seem righteous, like in Bacon's Rebellion. Americans, it seems, are always looking for little ways to make themselves look better.

Patience and Hard Work

Today during my consumer education class we were researching possible career paths and their projected income and requirements. While on my computer, I overheard a conversation between my teacher and another student. She was asking him what career he found most appealing. I didn't hear what career he mentioned, however his "con", if you will, to the career was that it took a master's degree and that would take a long time and a lot more school work. Master's degrees can take from one to six years. It certainly would be a much longer time in school and thus more school work then simply graduating from a traditional four-year college. The values that are apparent in the aforementioned conversation are that speed and less work is better. What happened to "patience is a virtue"and not "taking the easy way out"? I think that patience and intense mental labor went out the window when technology became more advanced. This whole idea goes along with Mr. O'Connor's post about the Kindle commercial: "How to Read a Kindle". His interpretation talks much about how the commercial portrays the value of speed by the fact that new books can be bought in "less than sixty seconds" rather than the long period of time it takes to go to the bookstore and purchase a print copy of the book. The commercial also indicates that hard work is bad by the absence of it when the book is purchased over the Kindle. The man has to simply touch a button, rather than walking or driving to the nearest bookstore. Have the american values of patience and hard work changed? Has technology made us crave speed and effortlessness in all aspects of life?

This comic strip I found while surfing the web further demonstrates the negative reputation hard work has recently gotten. A man has just come back from his lunch break and his secretary informs him that he has "a few messages". Actually there's mountain rivaling that of the Himalayas of paperwork. The comic has the reader (looker?) feel sympathy for the poor man who actually has to do the labor. The mounds of paper work seem a tedious task. The sarcasm in the secretary's words, "a few messages", makes it comical because there is more than just a few.

Just Can't Resist Showing Off a Little

Mr. Bolos's blog post on "Suburban Castles" made me think about why people purchase massive homes, luxurious cars, and other expensive material items. I realized that it's mostly to show off. Many people's goal in America is to "make it big": be incredibly successful and rich. However, when some Americans reach this goal, they can't keep it to themselves. Everyone else around them must know that they are successful. They can't resist showing off. They buy a big house, a fancy car, another home in some far off land, and anything that their children ask for. Is it in the American culture to have the competitive drive to show that someone has "made it big"? Perhaps they are just "fishing for compliments" and looking for attention. They are looking for people to realize how great their life is now, or how great it appears to be. Whichever it is they just have to tell the world their good fortune. But maybe they have a right to. In a lot of cases the people who are prosperous, worked very hard to get there. If someone is born wealthy, then someone in their family history worked very to be successful because America was built by people ready to work to get rich. Perhaps it's just in our nature to want to spread the great news. However, should they?

Not Quite Conformity

The other day in class, we discussed the American dream and how it shows a sense of conformity. Almost everyone in the US seems to try to follow the American dream. However, when we each voiced our idea of the American dream at least ten different ideas were discussed. Many had the same idea but unique twists to them. The most popular one that I've heard many times, is that "anyone can make it with hard work and a little luck" or "rags to riches". However, what is the meaning behind "making it"? Most Americans each have a different view of what it is to "make it". As with the American dream each person puts a unique twist to their life goal. For example, one student in my class said that "making it" was to achieve prosperity and happiness, while another said it was to achieve the "white picket fence" which entails an upper middle class living with a quaint house and happy family. Each of these examples deal with happiness and living richly, however one is more specific towards what kind of happiness and just how rich. That discussion on the American dream showed that if a person simply glanced at the American culture, it would appear a conformist society, despite that if one looked closely into American society, they could see the distinct qualities that tint each individual.

When thinking this over, I realized that this individuality can also be seen in fashion. There are different styles, yet fashion allows the wearer to add a personal touch to his or her own style. From this new styles arise and more people add their personal touch to the new fashion. Each year people high in the fashion world decide what will be "in" this season and as it reaches the people, the styles either become more absurd or more understated depending on the wearer and his or her own distinct qualities. These examples of hints of individuality that lie underneath the conformist appearance are what make the American dream.