What Does Reality TV Say About Our Culture?

Everyone in the world watches television. After a full day of life what do we do when we get home? Take off our shoes, put down our stuff, and turn on the television. Due to the nature of today's programming most people are turning on a reality TV show. Reality TV is a mainstay in our culture. The characters on these shows have become "stars" in their own rite and in return we praise them. But what do we praise them for? Acting foolish, putting themselves on display, nothing? What does this say about our culture?

Television big wigs will pay people enormous amounts of money to do nothing. These characters are paid to get drunk and act like a fool for 15 minutes of fame, a possible sponsorship and with any luck an appearance on a future reality TV show. Our culture seems be fueled by one thing - money. Reality TV is in a way a form of corruption. We put people on shows make them act like idiots and we enjoy it. It seems like we lowered our standards of how money is earned. Why waste your time with a career when you can go to the Jersey Shore, get drunk, and somehow get paid $5 million dollars in sponsorships and an appearance on Dancing with the Stars?!

So will it ever change? It doesn't seem likely. Reality TV has been part of the American culture for 20 years with the inception of "The Real World" in 1990. Since then there have been over 200 reality TV shows created and aired throughout the world. Reality TV is a contagious disease and seems to be growing with the emergence of new shows every month. Our culture pays people to act like morons and makes younger generations think this is appropriate behavior. Soon enough children will go from dreams of becoming an astronaut or doctor to wanting to be the next reality TV villain. Is that what you want your child to be when they grow up?

Failures of the Peace

The Arab-Israeli conflict has made headlines for decades, but few understand the history of the struggle or the reasons why the attempts at peace have failed. Is it any wonder that the very next day, Israel’s Arab neighbors attacked, determined to destroy the new state. In 1987, a Palestinian intifada erupted and Israel responded to the violence with harsh reprisals. Many attempts at peace have also occurred, but the conflict continued because one or the other parties broke its promises. The peaceful settlement of the Arab – Israeli conflict has failed for several key reasons; the intellectual dishonesty during negotiations by all parties, the injustices committed against the civilian populations and the international and regional politics of the area all contribute to the continued cycle of violence in the Middle East.

The injustices committed against the innocent civilian populations of Israel and Palestine can never lead to a peaceful settlement of the conflict in the Holy Land. Those committed by the Palestinians are well known, and have been covered extensively by murder of the athletes of the Israeli 1972 Olympic Team in Munich. Eight Arab terrorists, who called themselves Black September, invaded the Olympic Village in Munich and eleven innocent young men and women were massacred. In 1999, the mastermind of the killings acknowledged that the PLO was behind the massacre in his autobiography,. In response to this, the Israeli Mossad news outlets all over the world. The one incident that stands out most in history is the initiated one of the most ambitious covert counter-terrorist campaigns in history, called the “Wrath of God”. Again the cycle of violence was fueled.

The Palestinians are not the only ones inflicting injustice and harm on innocent civilians. Israel is also doing this. The construction of Israel’s wandering wall in the occupied Palestinian West Bank is another injustice perpetrated on innocent civilians. In the name of national security, and to secure the safety of its people, Israel bulldozes through large tracks of Palestinian communities, destroying homes and businesses. Next, they erect a wall and declare the area on the Palestinian side of the wall a designated military area. The Palestinians are then forced to obtain “permanent resident permits” to remain in the homes that are left in the military area. These Palestinians are then considered to be aliens without rights under the law. The international court of justice found that Israel had not adhered to the international humanitarian law, and the wall should be dismantled and the Palestinians compensated. Inflicting injustice only creates blind rage in the populace, which then leads to increased violence and in many cases, an increase in radicalization.

Peace in the Middle East will never be attained as long as intellectual dishonesty remains a tool of the negotiators to achieve their goals. If opposing factions continue to accuse each other of committing injustices against civilian populations and justify their own injustices as acts that establish security and safety for their people, violence will only increase exponentially. Finally, if international and regional politics continue to advance their goals without any consideration of the needs of the people of the area, the cycle of violence will spin out of control. A peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict has failed for all these reasons and will continue to fail until all parties involved in the peace process sit down to discuss the issues honestly, keeping the primary goal of peace in sight.

Soccer, Football, Futbol ... The Sport that Spans All Cultures

It’s the sport played round the world. As we have seen recently soccer is a big deal in most cultures. During the FIFA World Cup 2010 the world was rooting for their teams to make their countries proud. During the summer months it was the top thought on everyone's minds, in all conversations and on all news coverage. It seemed like the world, all cultures, were unified for a split second.

Soccer has probably been played for centuries, but the first record of its standardization was at Cambridge University in 1848. Today it is a global sport played on every continent. The Cambridge Rules were drawn up at Trinity College in the mid-nineteenth and then migrated to other schools in England. The first professional soccer match took place in 1872 between Scotland and England in Glasgow.

When I went to Italy soccer was the sport of choice. Children play the game from birth and are experts by their tenth birthday. The first question my cousins had for me was "do you play soccer?" I had played soccer when I was younger but 12 years later my skills were no match for that of my cousins. Soccer is a way of life in Italy, as it is in most countries and cultures around the world. It is how everyone makes friends, it builds a community and eventually your team becomes your family.

Soccer is the sport that reaches all parts of the world. The proof is the recent World Cup was the most watched sporting event in the world. It’s a sport that has a power to bring people together unlike other sports.