Why is Everything so Happy?

A conversation I had with a friend a few days ago forced me to think all the way back to a class discussion from the beginning of the semester.  The debate between my friend and I, came about from discussing the most recent Sherlock Holmes movie.  In the end of the movie, spoiler alert, it appears as though Holmes has sacrificed his own life for the greater good of humanity, but, miraculously, he reappears very much alive in the last scene.  This is very similar to the most recent Batman movie, in which our main character, The Batman, heroically sacrifices himself to save Gotham from a ticking time bomb.  Again the movie ends with shock that he isn't actually dead at all.

For whatever reason, money for the movie makers, or for the preferences of audiences, I think American movies too often have forced happy endings.  As Kurt Vonnegut said when discussing the graphs of stories, in America you would never see a story like Kafka's "The Metamorphosis", where the main character never gets onto the good fortune half of the graph at the end of the story. If you need a refresher on Vonnegut's talk it can be found here.

If you think about movies like "Marley and Me", I think its pretty clear that a lot of times a story is better off with a sad ending.  Okay so it doesn't feel good when the dog dies, we all hate to see it, but the movie would  not be as good if it had a standard American dog-is-magically-still-alive ending.  It wouldn't do as good a job at stirring up emotions or completing the story.  I think it would be great to see more movies that don't blindly follow the tradition of forcing happy endings, even when they don't make sense to the story.

Are We Rome?: The Fall of the Gladiator and the Future of Football

Yesterday in class we had a long discussion about football and its fate due to all the injury issues of the recent past.  This discussion reminded me of Cullen Murphy's book, Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America,  which compares modern day America to the Roman Empire.  I think this comparison can be extended to football and the gladiator games.

Both are very centered around violence, which is obvious in football considering there used to be a show that's sole purpose was to show the most excruciating hits of the week.  Also, both of the images shown here seem to me to have a similar sense of tension.  No violence is occurring in the moment in either one, but in both the viewer can tell that it is eminent.

So then what happens to football? Well gladiator battles began their decline while Christianity was becoming popular in the Empire, and the battles were outlawed shortly after Christianity was made the official Roman religion.  The adoption of Christianity brought with it a new set of morals that abhorred gladiator fights, leading to their slow demise.  Likewise, I think the only thing that could make Americans let go of football is a significant change in morals.  With our current way of thinking America's favorite sport is staying for a long time.

A Sad Day for American Music

 A few days ago I was reading the obituary of one of my favorite musicians and someone I consider an American hero, Dave Brubeck.  The obituary, which can be found here, contains a section about Brubeck's fight against racism.  While I was reading this it really struck me how as a whole, jazz musicians were so far ahead of their times regarding race issues.  People like Jelly Roll Morton in the 1920's and Benny Goodman in the the 30's led integrated bands that performed publicly, something unheard of in their days. Even today in Chicago, which is generally a very segregated city, if you go to the jazz showcase you will see both audiences and performing groups that are very evenly integrated.  All this really made wonder about why this might me true.

The most logical reason that I could think of comes from the origins of jazz.  Jazz was born out mixture of many musical styles.  Much of jazz comes from African American spiritual music.  This later developed into things like blues and ragtime, both hey ingredients in jazz.  However, jazz also takes a lot of influences from minstrel show tunes, music created by solely white artist which comes from European folk music.  So jazz is a unique combination of very culture centered White and African American music.  I think that because of this one can't really properly play or understand jazz music unless they can fully comprehend and respect how all of its cultural influences can be combined, leading successful jazz musicians to be very tolerant to race differences.

The Abdullah Brothers

Last week I was walking past the TV when a section on Rock Center caught my eye.  In this section, shown below, Brian Williams discusses the story of two brothers, Hussain and Hamza Abdullah, who left their NFL football careers this year to make the Hajj to Mecca and support their Muslim beliefs.

I thought the way in which this story was portrayed was fascinating.  In the first sentence of the description of this story, found on the Rock Center website, it is called an "American dream story".  You'll also notice if you watch the beginning of the video above that Brian Williams uses the word "American" twice in the first three seconds.  Later in the same sentence however, he admits that it "runs counter to just about every message our society sends out".  Personally, I found this juxtaposition very confusing.  How can something be American if it goes against the messages of our society?  In my opinion, it can't.  Isn't American defined by the messages of our society and what we believe?  I would argue that what these brothers did was very un-American.  They were on the path of an American dream and chose to step off of it.

Why then would would Rock Center be so adamant about portraying this as an American story?  My guess is that is was an attempt to make sure the brothers were seen as heroes by the audience.  I would absolutely agree that they are heroes and great role models, but I don't see any reason why they can't be heroes and role models supporting un-American values in the US.   I am not at all questioning these brothers' loyalty to their country. In fact, if you start watching the video at 5:30 you will see that they call themselves patriots.  All I am saying is that their actions, leaving professional football to make the Hajj, are not American, and show that un-American heroes can exist in the US.

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The Legacy of Lance Armstrong

In the newspaper, on the internet, everywhere Lance Armstrong's name is seen it is accompanied with talk of doping and how his titles are being stripped and his sponsors are leaving him.  He's become the unfortunate end jokes all over.  This wildly different from the American hero that I heard so much about while he was winning his titles and leading a movement with little yellow wristbands.

There is no question that even after everything that has been discovered recently, Lance Armstrong has done so much more for society than he has taken away by doping.  This seems so obvious to me that it almost strikes me as strange that so few people talk of him as a hero anymore.  I think Americans generally like to see people whose lives improve overtime.  The hero who makes some unfortunate choices early on and then uses his awesome will power to turn himself around and start saving society.  Because of this I think its hard for us to still see Armstrong as a hero because we discovered everything wrong he was doing after all of the great things he did.  I also think and hope that in time, once the shock of recent events has passes, this effect will be diminished and people will slowly look at him as great again.  Do you think he deserves all the negative publicity he has been receiving  or do you agree that he should still be honored?

Third Party Debate

Today in class we briefly discussed the third part debate that occurred last night.  Being part of the majority of the class that hadn't known it happened, I was stunned to hear how little publicity this kind of debate got.  These are people that are running for president of the United States of America I had never heard of any of them.  They didn't even get a spot on network television.

An article I found from the New York Times brought up some interesting ideas regarding the debates.  One thing that caught my eye in particular came in the last paragraph of the article.

Because of Ralph Nader's role in the 2000 election, possibly taking enough votes from Gore to give Bush the presidency, many people consider these third party candidates to be "spoilers" instead of actual candidates.

In my opinion, in order to keep the integrity of our democracy, it is imperative to have smaller party candidates.  Maybe none of them are going to win any elections in the foreseeable future, but I still think they are important.  I believe that the more opinions are heard, the better a democracy will run.  It's also true that the main political parties of our country have not always been constant.  In order for a main party to change, which I think is a sign of democratic possession  a smaller party has to gain popularity.  Without these smaller parties we would be trapped in the same ideas that we've had for years and would be denying what makes a democracy.  If you disagree please comment.

My Almost American Story

Last weekend I attended the Midwest high school single handed sailing championships.  In the regatta, eleven races are run, in each race you receive as many points as your place, the scores from each race are added, and at the end of the weekend low point wins.  In this particular regatta, the top two finishers out of twenty qualify to go to nationals to compete against the top twenty sailors in the country.

Sail	Skipper	School			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11		Total	Pos
199796	Malcolm Lamphere	Lake Forest High School			1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	7	1		17	1
190239	Jack Bitney	Minnetonka High School			4	5	2	5	8	7	15	3	6	3	5		63	2
194242	Jackson Hamilton	New Trier			6	3	4	2	2	8	6	15	3	9	13		71	3
190499	R.J. porter	Loyola Academy			7	2	3	6	3	5	7	2	9	13	15		72	4
181238	Isabella Loosbrock	Minnetonka High School			5	9	13	3	5	4	5	6	10	8	8		76	5
156889	Rose Edwards	St. Ignatius			10	4	11	10	9	3	3	11	5	4	9		79	6
185898	MaryClaire Kiernan	Hinsdale Central			2	10	9	19	15	9	10	10	2	1	3		90	7
167447	Dirk Phelps	Traverse City Central High School			3	15	12	7	4	6	11	5	14	11	6		94	8
180565	Addy Ferguson	Minnetonka High School			11	18	6	9	6	2	2	13	7	5	16		95	9
148754	Samantha Foulston	Hinsdale Central High School			8	7	8	13	11	19	4	4	4	18	12		108	10

Saturday started off pretty well for me, and going into the last race of the day I was in a close race for the second qualifying spot.  Then suddenly, everything went wrong; I had my worst race of the day by far and put myself almost all the way out of reach of qualifying.  For the entire night I had to think about how I had messed up in the last race.  Going into Sunday I felt like I barely had a chance.  That's when things turned around again, I started the day off with string of great races and going into the last race I had put myself in a three way tie for second.  What was interesting, looking back on it, is that at the start of that last race I really expected that I would get the spot.  I was tied with two sailors who beat me at least as much as I beat them usually, but still it seemed as though I had to be the one to end up getting it.  Because of this, when I finished in between the two, taking third, I was incredibly disappointed.  In almost any situation, I would have been thrilled to finish third at that regatta, but I think that as an American, I am so programmed to hear the classic American story graph, that I expected it to come true in real life.  Do you think that the repetition of the same type of story can effect how we think the world works?  Have you ever seen this in your life?  Please leave comments below.

Neighborhood Shifts

Last week on after our field trip to Chicago we talked about watching the changes in your surroundings as you drive through an area.  Just this weekend I had an interesting experience while driving near Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.  I was driving from Severna Park, next to Annapolis, to pick some one up at Johns Hopkins, and then on to the inner harbor downtown Baltimore area.  Where I was staying in Severna Park was a very well off neighborhood with many aspect similar to the area in which we live.  Because of this it was a bit of a shock when I first crossed into Baltimore and was quickly surrounded by boarded up, dilapidated buildings, empty lots, and spray painted symbols on every wall.  This continued for only several blocks until there was a single street marking the edge of the university.  Across the street was a beautiful city college.  Leaving the campus from the opposite direction from which I arrived, we came to a busy, healthy looking downtown area that reminded me of downtown Chicago in many ways.  All of this raised the question: Is this university actually beneficial to the city?  On one hand it does provide an area that is very nice to drive through and be in.  On the other hand it almost seems so act as a divider, further segregating the poorest neighborhoods from the rest of the city.  I would love to hear opinions from people who have visited Johns Hopkins or have seen situations in other cities.

Farr 40 Worlds

This Saturday I had a fascinating experience.  I was one of twenty junior sailors in the Chicagoland area to get to crew on Farr 40 sailboats in one of the days of the world championship being held out of Monroe Harbor.  The top 20 boats in the world who were participating in the event each had one randomly assigned high school sailor in an attempt to get younger racers into big boat sailing.

I was selected to crew on a boat that had traveled in from Turkey.  The crew was made up of a Turkish owner with six hired Turkish hands who spoke almost no English plus three hired Americans.  And me.  When I went to introduce myself to the team, the three Americans were sitting separate from the rest of the crew.  I found it very easy to introduce myself to the Americans, and nearly impossible to the Turks.  Not just because of language. They spoke enough English to understand I was telling them my name, but it was more of a cultural divide.  It was like neither party was comfortable with the other.

As soon as we stepped on the boat however, everything changed.  I would mumble and point at things and they would know exactly what I was asking, they would say something in Turkish and gesture and I would understand exactly what to do.  I wasn't an American thrown into an unfamiliar group anymore.  I was a sailor among sailors.  The language barrier was non-existent because there was so much non-verbal communication and understanding that words were not needed.

It was the first time I had seen culture as something unrelated to heritage.  I've always seen myself as a well an American from a well off suburb, and in that sense I clashed with the Turks.  But now I think my culture is at least as defined by me being a sailor as it is by where I'm from and how I was raised.  When I was in a sailing state of mind, I felt as comfortable with the Turkish team as I would have with someone that had grown up in the same neighborhood as me.

The Great Divide

With the election coming up everyone seems to have picked a side.  Except for a few outliers our country is divided between donkeys and elephants.  Something that really caught my eye was how much members of the facebook community have felt the need to broadcast their alliances, plastering my wall with statuses and memes from each side.  All this has me wondering, why are we so divided?  Why do so many people publicize their opinion of being far to one side, while almost no one publicly looks at all the facts and tries to choose some logical middle ground?

I think that we as Americans often feel obligated to be associated solely with one political group.  It seems to me like people hold the opinion that you are either a democrat, a republican, or you are nobody.  Now I cannot call myself innocent on this matter.  I've grown up in a household of democrats coming from a long line of democrats, and its almost comforting to just call myself a democrat without actually looking and any facts and thinking about why.  Having some opinion, even if uneducated, can feel a lot better than hanging in the middle until you actually have enough information to decide.


I think that our country could be better off if people stopped concentrating so much on their affiliation and more on their own opinions on specific matters.  If you disagree please share your opinion in a comment.

High School Football

An article in the Chicago Tribune caught my eye just a few days ago.  This article, titled "It's Time to Ban High School Football", can be found here.  In the article Ken Reed compares football to smoking, saying that as soon as the dangers of smoking were fully understood, it was banned on campuses all around the country.  He says the new research on brain injuries, showing that about 20 percent of high school football players sustain tissue damage, should put football to a similar fate.  My first instinct was to decide that this is preposterous.  Football has been an integral part of high school for years, and now some parents are overreacting to a bit of a risk.  Next they'll want to keep kids from walking to school because they might get hit by cars.  I also thought about what sports can teach somebody.  I remember seeing the documentary "'Undefeated", which includes the stories of many young men who grew up in unfortunate circumstances and whose lives were reformed by their experiences on the grid iron.  They certainly benefited enough from the game to justify the risk that they took on.  The more I thought about it however, the less certain of my opinion I became.  Most of the country, and certainly New Trier, is very different from the Manassas, Memphis high school shown in Undefeated.  To be honest, at New Trier it doesn't seem to me like the football players have learned any profound life skills from football that couldn't be gained from another sport or interest.  Maybe it would be better for kids if they played less risky sport that still required the commitment and perseverance that football does.  And brain injuries are definitely not something to be taken lightly.  They can have an impact on someone for life, even if acquired as early as high school.  Whatever society ends up deciding on this issue it will have a huge impact on the high school experience.