Feb. 24: Third time's the charm

My third NFTY Convention experience gave me a very different opportunity than my first two. Seeing behind the curtain at all the work that goes into creating such a memorable moment for almost 1,000 teenagers made me appreciate all the more those who came before me, and those who made my own time in NFTY something that changed my life.

I have never gotten as little sleep as I did this past week. I also have never been so active on my feet. Truly every moment of the event came with some crisis that needed to be handled, some situation that needed to be managed, and some situation that must be kept under control.

I was working with my best friends, which in and of itself isn’t an easy task. It can be so hard to separate the difference between work and play, and as a staff member, we needed to occasionally be reminded of that difference. We also needed to remember that this event was not for us; we had had our NFTY experience, and it was time to put that magic together for those who came after us.

Two major things struck me from my time working with the NFTY convention team. First is an appreciation of my past. I now have an understanding of the litany of individuals who came together to create the incredible Conventions that I attended as a participant, one in Washington D.C. and another in Dallas. The group of people who selflessly gave their time and energy to making my time in NFTY meaningful went thankless for too long, and if they are out there, here is my official thank you. I am pleased to be able to say that I took my own experience and turned it into one that hopefully made something significant for the next generation of NFTYites.

The second thing is that I realized that NFTY is a youth group, but what it precipitates is a whole life of significant involvement. For every teen present, there was an adult who gave something to them. Whether it was official as a Rabbi or Jewish educator or as part-time as a TYG advisor, it is clear that these individuals have an incredible support system of adults. That opportunity is one that is ripe for me to take. I can make this more than just a passion of my youth, but rather a realistic career and a way to continue to make a difference, even after my membership and titles have expired.

A young woman came to speak to the Convention participants on the third day, speaking about her experience as a CEO of her own company. She had started it when she was 7. Now, at 18, she is continuing her work, doing something that she is passionate about, and making a significant difference to the world, despite her lack of age. This was huge for me. I was incredibly struck by several things that she shared.  First and foremost of them is her resourcefulness. None of the things that this girl did were outside of the realm of possibility for a young child. It was when she took the initiative to string these things together that she made a huge difference for herself and for her world. That means that we, as people, don’t need to hit a certain age to make a difference; we just need to be paying attention to the opportunities that come our way.

Youth doesn’t need to be a handicap. Instead, it should be an opportunity to look at the world from a different perspective than the adults around us. I’m quickly losing my ability to identify too strongly with “youth,” but I refuse to stop looking at the world with the wide-eyed excitement of a NFTYite.

February 10: In some cases....

February is a big month for moviegoers. With the Academy Awards, a collection of aging action stars making comeback attempts, and fresh new story ideas popping up everywhere, it is a good time for the silver screen.

One such movie that came out this past week was Side Effects. Staring Channing Tatum, who is attempting to turn his career toward the more serious roles, Rooney Mara, who is coming off the big success of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Jude Law, this movie features a couple trying to get back on its feet after a jail sentence for Tatum’s character. As the story develops, the main theme that rises through is the use of prescription drugs to cure depression, and how those drugs are bought and sold.

This was a fascinating film for a multitude of reasons. Most prevalent of them is that I don’t think this movie could have existed a decade ago. We are growing more and more dependent on drugs to cure our problems. Rather than putting in the time and effort to solve some of our problems, we believe that we can be cured by a little pill that has the magical power to make everything better.

This is, of course, not to say that depression is any less legitimate. Depression is a major illness that plagues a great many people. There is, however, a vast difference between clinical depression and feeling depressed. Those feeling legitimate clinical depression need some kind of medication to balance out the chemicals that, within them, are making day to day living a virtual impossibility. Feeling depressed, however, is something that must be managed on its own.

The view that one of the characters (attempting not to spoil anything) demonstrates toward these medications is very much indicative of the cultural view of drug use in curing depression. At one point, this character asks for a pill that can make her feel better, and she does not seem to care about the side effects that may be induced. Another scene shows a doctor prescribing a medication to layer over the other in an attempt to hide the negative side effects of the first. It is only later, after a particularly bad side effect (again, protecting those who will see the film) she says that she no longer wants to take any form of medication, indicating a blame placed on the drugs, an ability to shirk the responsibility from one’s self onto the medication.

While this is only one of the great many elements of this movie, it brings up two very interesting elements of the world in which we live. Primarily, it gives us insight into the dependence that we create on drugs in an attempt to find an automatic way of feeling better. Living a happy life isn’t easy, and far too many people want to find a simple way of creating that happiness without putting in the work to make it so. This movie calls out, in some ways, the prevalence of this over-medication in the world today.

Another, far less significant part of this film is the writing that comes into play when creating media that is indicative of the changing of times. While some stories are timeless, this one is clearly geared to a very contemporary issue, and indicates a very exciting new kind of storytelling. It is incredible to see that there are new and different stories coming out, and it is exciting to see where those stories will take us.

February 3: Something to Ad

The biggest stars of the Super Bowl happen between the plays. Commercials draw the attention of sports fans and others alike. Doritos, Bud Light, and GoDaddy.com compete for the Nation’s attention at millions of dollars per thirty second time slot.

What these media messages are saying, though, actually is contradictory to what society has been saying the 364 others day of the year. It is not unusual to hear people discussing the objectification of women, the promotion of new technologies, and the status symbols of the newest, biggest ,and best. Unfortunately, you won’t see any combat coming from these highly-anticipated ads. In fact, every media message that has been critiqued in the past 50 years of advertising will be put on display.

In this year’s Super Bowl, we saw a Calvin Klein ad that showed male nudity in its most intense form permissible on television.  We saw Bar Rafaeli and Danica Patrick affirm their sex appeal and use their bodies to see a website that has nothing to do with attractive women. We saw a lifeguard having to help the helpless, bikini-clad damsel in distress, and then expect a kiss as thanks for his act of bravery.

What this says about our media intake is fairly startling. What it really says is that, those things that we so often hear are bad for us, the hostile media messages that ruin our society, actually work. The advertisers wouldn’t use them unless they were successful in selling their product. If images of attractive men and women using a particular product or doing a certain activity didn’t get the average viewer to make a purchase, they wouldn’t use those messages. It is fairly simple. Our culture is saying one thing with our mouths, and another thing with our actions.

There were, of course, some messages that do contradict some of the “negatives” that America faces. There was one commercial in which Coke showed a variety of different sayings, images, in which they promoted the better side of life, including random acts of kindness, love, and care. We saw men dressing up in dresses to play with their daughters, even if it was only to get to a bag of Doritos. We saw a heartwarming story about a man and his horse.

This leaves a very simple question. What do we really want? Do we really want the politically correct answer, images that promote equality in every way, and promote our society’s common good? Or do we want images that will entertain, that will excite, and that will, in truth, manipulate us.

In the end, I don’t have an opinion either way. My thought, however, is that there needs to be some consistency. Either we, as a culture, need to be quiet and stop yelling about the atrocities of the media industry, or we need to change our behavior. Unless some change happens in the behavior of the public in purchasing, the media outlets cannot be held accountable to change their behavior.  The industry is, first and foremost, an industry looking to make money. The longer we give them the money for affirming these social stereotypes, the longer we perpetuate them in our society.

The broadcasting industry is meant to put together content that is designed for the public interest and welfare. Unfortunately, at the moment, the public is creating for itself a very difficult situation when what would be interesting is not the same as what would be good for our welfare.

In the long run, Super Bowl ads will continue to evolve to up the ante for what will be most effective at making money and getting the attention of the public, as they have for several decades. In that evolution, it is the times for the public to make a statement by letting its buying history speak for itself. If that can’t be done, it isn’t what society really wants, in which case we need to come to terms with the stereotypes we are affirming.

January 27: Missing the Mark

We are a little over a month past the tragedy of Sandy Hook Elementary School. It has been 6 weeks since a madman tore apart dozens of families, leaving a trail of pain and questioning in his wake. Yet it doesn’t appear as though humanity is any closer to an answer to solving our egregious problem.

In the weeks following this tragedy, the American public started calling for better gun control laws. It appeared as though two very different ideas stemmed from the same issue.

The first idea was to create significantly tougher gun control laws. The defendants argued that it would make attaining a gun much harder for a would-be shooter, and thus lower the risk of such a tragedy occurring. Unfortunately, I am not under the impression that it is that simple. Most shootings occur in situations that would be incredibly hard to control. The popular saying “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is uncomfortably true. The problem isn’t the ability to use guns. The problem is with the people who are doing the killing.

Another proposed solution is actually to legalize the ability for college students to bring guns to school with them. The idea is that, if it isn’t possible to control the killers, you might as well arm the potential victims. To say the least, this is a ridiculous idea. As a college student myself, I would say that my judgment is suspect at best at times, and I would live in constant fear if I knew that my peers, who I trust far less than I trust myself, have the ability to carry concealed weapons on their person. There is no good reason that we, as students, should have to live in fear of having guns in our college classrooms. This goes for the legal ones as well as the illegal.

I am, in essence, on two seemingly oppositional sides of the same debate. I am not in favor of restricting second amendment rights, because I do not believe it is the government’s job to tell me how I am to protect my household. At the same time, I also believe that making guns more accessible is not the solution either, because more guns would not scare people straight. It would lead to conflicts where individuals would be far more likely to come out guns blazing. Literally.

The issue truly comes down to a need for further education. I am going to stop short of calling for schools to teach gun safety, but I do say that there is a need for students in public schools to learn what it means to wield a weapon, the ramifications of violence, and what it means to kill someone. While death is an uncomfortable topic of conversation, I believe it is one that must be spoken of more frequently in schools. The assumption at this point is that an initial conversation about death, what it means, and how it impacts people will occur at home. This conversation must stretch into the classrooms, so that a more thorough appreciation of life can stem from it.

The true root of the issue is the valuing of human life. A gunman intent on killing a classroom full of children demonstrates not only a mental illness, but also a lack of appreciation for the act of living. This is also one of the reasons, I believe, that murder-suicide is so common amongst high school shootings. A killer doesn’t have an appreciation for life, including their own. They don’t understand the power of their actions, and the finality of death. Which is why, with a better education on death, I believe the desire for killing would decrease.

In the wake of Sandy Hook, we have seen several smaller scale shooting incidents, which lead me to believe that this tragedy served less of an awakening as it should have. We as an American society owe it to the victims and their families to find a way to live together, and a way to cease from killing one another.

January 20: A man we need, the men we have

He sure isn’t the first college student to have a fake girlfriend, but Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o most definitely is the most famous.

Early this week, I got a text message saying that the girlfriend of Te’o, who had supposedly died early during the football season, was actually a hoax. I couldn’t believe it. The person who had served as an inspiration to the biggest story in college football this year was non-existent?

As the story developed, the blame game became a tornado of suspicion. Many believed that Te’o had been involved, looking for a big story to help boost his publicity. Others believed him when he said that he was the victim of a horrible scheme to try to make him look bad. Either way, it was a horrible example of just how messed up the world can be sometimes.

The first question that should be on everyone’s mind is what exactly was the definition of this relationship. Te’o admits that he never really met this girl, that their relationship was occurring strictly online. It was then revealed that all of the social media attributed to this individual were taken from some other source, another individual who was literally “the face” of the hoax. If this relationship was one in which he never really met nor had any in-person communication, why exactly was this a top news story. By most definitions it was not in any way a serious relationship. Why was it that when she “died,” it was as if she was his fiancé?  That is both a flaw in the relationship styles today, as well as the media craze that surrounds the personal lives of athletes.

If that wasn’t enough for a week, Lance Armstrong decided to talk to Oprah. Of all people, Armostrong’s choice to reveal is steroid use to Oprah demonstrates yet another publicity stunt, attempting to get as many headlines as possible both for the cycling star and for the television diva. It was a rough day, hearing that the American hero who had won seven straight Tour De France races was a fraud, and that he had, in fact, used steroids during all of them.

On the other end of the spectrum, the sports world was saddened to hear that Stan Musial, the great St. Louis Cardinals legend had passed away at the age of 92. Musial was a man who was known across the baseball world as a light unto the athletes of today. He conducted himself in a professional manner, and was considered to be a star not only on the field but off as well.

Isn’t it fitting, then, that the world lost a clean, good man the same week that a steroid user and a girlfriend hoax both came to light. A man who comes from an era when steroids were used to clear up a sinus infection, not to cheat.  A man who represented his team, the St. Louis Cardinals, for 22 years.

Between the media craze, conspiracy theory, steroid use, and other insanity of today’s sports world, this was an even more startling tragedy.

The world is a little worse off without this man in it, especially at a time where the world could use a hero. It is about time to use this man’s legacy as a dream, a message, toward living a better life. We expect better from our athletes. It’s about time we got better once again.