Cultural Event 3

My last cultural event that I saw was the Dreyfuss Initiative. It was very powerful and inspiring but also very alarming. Dreyfuss was extremely informative of the urgency in installing American Civics back into the schools for our children to learn. I found it kind of scary when he said "I can see the light at the end of the tunnel on the story of America... and our kids won't know how great of a country we had." I also found it very interesting on how he spoke of our children becoming more and more uneducated or "stupid" and "ignorant" as he referred to them frequently as generations pass by. I also thought it was great how he spoke of the way our country has lost it's way through corrupt corporations claiming to be capitalists and politicians claiming that they speak the truth. Dreyfuss desperately tries to convey the importance of educating yourself and stop listening to the untruthful media outlets. I thought it was interesting how he was explaining to a questioner how Viacom who owns CBS can tell CBS they wish not to be investigated therefore controls what the media outlet relays to the people and that this happens with all media outlets. In the end of his speech he says that there are 75 theaters in the country that he would like to reach about having an American History play and that he's contacted 25 so far and gotten all 25 to be on board. This play on American History can be written by anyone and will be picked to be used and the winner gets $300,000. He also asked everyone to donate money to his organization and to help educate not only our children but the cynical adults who may have given up on saving the history of America feeling it is a lost cause. He quoted Jimmy Stewart from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington saying, "Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for". Alarming, yet inspiring, to say the very least.

Cultural Events 1 and 2

I was able to attend 3 cultural events over the semester which were, a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game, the movie Paranormal Activity 3 and the Richard Dreyfuss Initiative (which was full but I watched it on CSPAN). First, the Phillies game was an exciting cultural event that I attended during their race to the playoffs that has been taking the city of Philadelphia by storm every fall since they made the playoffs in 2007 for the first time since 1993. Philadelphia takes their sports VERY seriously and their fans live and die with their teams year in and year out. This game was interesting in the fact that the Phillies had held the best record in the league for most of the year but ironically this game was arguably the beginning of a sort of complacency that ended up affecting their playoff performance, ultimately helping end their season. This game ended up being a 5-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals which preceded at 10-game losing streak that followed. Media outlets began to see the Phillies as settling into their enormous lead in the standings to which the Phillies argued was untrue. In Philadelphia, fans like me, had seen this before and already began preparing for the worst as Philadelphia fans do. Philadelphia sports fans went from 1983 to 2008 without having a championship in any of the 4 major sports in the city. Although the Phillies ended that drought in 2008, we don't forget that it's possible it could be another 25 years+ before another championship comes to town. We're cynical that way.

I also went to go see the movie Paranormal Activity 3 about a week before Halloween. This was the 3rd installment of the series. For some reason like many others, I get into the spirit of Halloween and like to go watch horror movies during the Halloween season. I've always done this since high school. My girlfriend went with me and she hates being scared and seeing scary movies but said she wanted see it only because it was Halloween. It seems like Halloween is this cultural phenomenon of a holiday that somehow makes people enjoy being scared. Obviously everyone likes dressing up for Halloween but Halloween and more specifically, scary movies around Halloween make people want to be scared. That's the whole reason people go to watch movies like Paranormal Activity is to be entertained and scared. Strange phenomenon.