The Pin

For all my avid blog followers, sorry I haven't posted in a few weeks. I was diagnosed with a concussion 2 weeks ago, and am just now able to get back to blogging. This concussion not only came at an awful time because of finals, but I also missed the last two weeks of my Volleyball season. For those who do not know, the New Trier Varsity Volleyball team went down to state on Friday, meaning we were top 8 out of 150+ teams in the state.

Unfortunately, we lost in the quarter finals. If that wasn't enough, it was to a team that we did not like whatsoever. It was a well fought game, but the worse of the two teams came out on top. In the locker room after the game, morale was low, and tears were even shed. Our coach proceeded to explain to us how great of a season we had, and handed each of us the small pin pictured above. When I received this pin, I was livid. After all the work we had put in, 3 months of blood sweat and tears, we were all given one generic pin. I didn't think it was fair, and was embarrassed to be given such a small consolation prize.

It wasn't until the bus ride home that I began to appreciate the pin. Although the pin isn't a 3 foot high first place trophy, it still does represent the unbelievable season we had. And I don't mean unvelievable because of the 32-8 record we finished with, but because of the memories and good times the team shared. When I look at this pin now, I see us beating Loyola in two sets to advance to state. I see my fellow teammates and I sitting around a bonfire bonding. I think of all the amazing times on and off the court that I shared with my teammates. When I look at this pin, the Lake Park loss in the quarter finals is the farthest thing away from my mind.

This post has nothing to do with America, which is the whole point of the blog, but I believe does teach an important lesson. This lesson is to always see the bright side of things, even if it may be hard to. I could have easily thrown this pin away in the locker room, because it reminded me of a horrible loss to a team we could've beaten. Instead, I'll use it as a memento to remind myself of the friendships I made my junior year of Volleyball. Plus, I have another whole year to win that 3 foot tall trophy.

Reverse Racism?

After writing a whole non-opinionated research paper on why affirmative action support rates have dropped, I feel the need to input my opinion on the topic. For those who do not know, affirmative action is the use of programs and quotas put in place in admissions and employment in an attempt to bridge the race gap: socially and economically. While many people feel affirmative action is important due to the fact minorities were treated so poorly in this country for so long, others feel that selection based on race is racist towards whites. As more and more cases appear before the Supreme Court regarding this controversial topic, people are choosing sides.

I believe that affirmative action is absolutely necessary in today's society. As a white, economically stable child, affirmative action does not help me at all, yet I am still able to look past my own gains, and see what is best for this country. There is a huge gap between the wealth of whites and minorities, and affirmative action is a way to attempt to change this. As of 2013, an average black household makes only 59% of the annual earning of an average white household. (Business Insider). This horrifying statistic can be bridged with he help of affirmative action programs. With minorities having the initial upper-hand in selection, more minorities will rise to the top of the economic totem pole, and therefore this gap will begin to close.

Not only are whites the ones being accepted to high-level college, they are the ones who excel in the work force. With 71% of college graduates being white, a whopping 96% of CEO's are white. (Civil Rights Education Fund) This is due to the fact that whites generally hire other white people, and therefore enter a revolving door complex: where the same high level jobs are being passed down to other whites. This leaves the upper-class work force with little to no diversity: a problem that affirmative action can help to change. Overall, I believe that affirmative action is crucial to input into our society, or America may regress into the racially segregated society we were 100 years ago.

Seflie Sunday

Each and every Sunday, teenager's Instagrams are filled with photos of themselves, with the caption "selfie Sunday". A selfie, as recently added into the Webster Dictionary, means a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smart phone. This phenomenon has exploded over the last few years, and now comprises over 30% of all pictures taken by young people. (http://www.relevantmagazine.com). The question now arises: why are selfies so popular? 

In my opinion, the skyrocketing number of selfies can be attributed to the American theme of Narcissism. Narcissism is the admiration of oneself, mainly referring to physical and mental achievements. America is seen as a very narcissistic country, which would explain why people are taking so many pictures of themselves. With so many interesting things happening all around us, many Americans cannot look past their personal bubble, and decide to photograph themselves instead. This obsession with ourselves may strive from the importance the American public and media has put on material possessions. Things such as clothes, accessories, and even make-up is a way for both men and women to propel themselves into a higher class, and photographs wearing/using these material possessions may make the selfie photographer believe they are raising their social status. Also, people want to show off their stuff at all times, and selfies allow people to brag about their stuff in a discreet way. 

On a more optimistic level, the rise in the selfie may be due to the usefulness of the selfie. One of the most frustrating parts of texting is that it's very hard to convey tone. A simple photo displaying a facial expression can help to suggest sarcasm, humor, or whatever tone one wishes. 

As selfies represent the narcissistic attitude Americans hold about themselves, it also shows America's high level of innovation. Technology was missing a personal side, and selfies make this contact seem much more realistic, as it is literally face-to-face communication. I believe selfies are a very American idea, for both good and bad reasons. 

ESPN Alerts: Quick and Easy

Almost all sports fans with smart phones have one thing in common: they all receive alerts from ESPN notifying new and important stories in sports. The interesting thing about these alerts is how brief each message is. One would assume that a true sports fan would want more than a 25 word blurb about the newest news. Yet, many people are completely satisfied with the short alerts they get, and seek no more information. While thinking about this, I began to wonder: What is so appealing about these alerts?

I have come to a few explanations. My first guess is that because they are so short, they allow busy people to stay up on the current sporting events. Instead of turning on Sports Center and watching a 30 minute segment, a quick text message gets the information into their brain, and takes up a fraction of the time. This lack of available free time can be attributed to the hustle-bustle lifestyle many Americans live in this day and age.

My next conclusion that explains this phenomenon is that these alerts allow non-sports fans to talk and act like a sport fan. In modern day America, especially among males, sports is a huge talking point. For males not interested/knowledgeable about sports, a social barrier can be created. By signing up for these free alerts, a non-sports fan can get sent metaphorical flashcards filled with talking points that can help bridge the social gap created by this lack of knowledge.

My last reasoning is because they are simply the next step in the technological innovation of sports. Many sports fans, myself included, love these alerts because they make sure that there is nothing we have missed. Any major game, trade, or event happening in the sports community is documented by these alerts, and ensure that all sports fans are aware that these events are transpiring.

I believe that these ESPN alerts are a great representation of modern day America. They allow people to be knowledgeable, social, it frees up time, and ensures complete understanding. These are all themes that Americans hold near and dear to their heart. As more and more technological innovations occur, Americans will be able to know and do more, while actually doing less.

The Four-Fifths Compromise

As I have been researching affirmative action for my junior theme, I have come across an incredibly interesting story about a university that I am highly interested in attending. Up until 1995, the University of Michigan used a point system to calculate whether a student would be admitted into the school. The point system was out of 155 possible points, and if you earned 100 points, you would be admitted. On the surface, it seems like a fair, even way to calculate how much a student deserves to be admitted. But once I dug deeper, I found the distribution of points terrifying.

The make-up of the points went like this: 80 for GPA, 12 for test scores, 10 for being from Michigan, 1 for a good essay, 4 for legacy, 10 for personal achievement and leadership, 18 for difficulty of high school,  and 20 points for being an under-represented minority. 20 points! The second most important category in this process is the color of your skin! Even black conservative Robert Woodson calls this system "Outrageous", and points out how race is almost doubly important as a perfect ACT score (Geocurry.com). A free 20 points for being a minority makes it a full 20% easier to get admitted. Minorities have to accomplish 80% of white a white applicant must.

Although I am for affirmative action, a process this black and white (no pun intended) is reverse racism. There must be help given in the admissions process to low socio-economic applicants, who happen to be predominantly minorities. Economic standing and opportunities given by the high school should be the defining factors, not race. A minority from New Trier should have no more advantage than a Caucasian from New Trier. It is truly amazing how African Americans were labeled as only 3/5 of a person 227 years ago, and now, they still only have to be 4/5 of the applicant a person has to be. So the question arises: When will minorities finally be treated the same as whites?

Racist Plastic

When one walks into a retail store, the first thing they see is probably a large, plastic, fake human wearing clothes. It sounds strange when you describe it like this, but these mannequins are the norm at the front of every store. What I've never thought of is the color of the mannequins, until I went into the Nike store last week.

Right when you walk in, there are two mannequins reppin' Duke and OSU basketball jerseys. Notice that the mannequins have high muscle definition, as well as having black plastic skin. Once I saw this, I was astonished at how blatantly obvious the stereotyping of that mannequin was: attempting to label all basketball players as looking like that. Then, after doing some research, I found it was really stereotyping, just honest portrayal. Of the 24 members of the Duke and Osu basketball teams, there are a combined 6 white people. Considering 60% of the U.S is white, yet only 25% of the players on these teams are white, this store was just being truthful.

Lots of questions popped into my head when I saw the mannequins. I began to think of how many times I have seen a white mannequin wearing a suit, compared to a black one. On the walk back to the car, I saw countless white mannequins wearing suits, and not a single black one. Once again, is this stereotyping or honesty? I read while researching my junior theme that 95% of CEO's are white. If every store tried to accurately portray the majority through each one of their mannequins, every sports mannequin would be black, and every business one would be white. What an awful way of segregation.

Other questions I thought of are: Maybe because I live in a white-dominant community, all the mannequins are white. Maybe if I lived elsewhere I would see more diversity in suited mannequins. I also thought about it from an advertising perspective. No matter what color your skin is, basketball fans like good basketball players. And the majority of these good players are dark-skinned and very strong. The stores are just trying to model what is seen on television, not stereotype all basketball players. I think this whole controversy could be avoided if all stores did what Addidas does: blue and pink mannequins.

The United States' Air Farce

On Thursday, March 27, at Malmstrom Air Force base, nine officers were fired for cheating on a monthly proficiency test. This was no small, unimportant test either, it was testing the officers on "the launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles"(NY Times Article). When dealing with ballistic missiles, it is crucial to operate it correctly, as the missile is intended to hit multiple targets. The officers at Malmstrom are considered 21st century minute men, and must be prepared at all times for to operate, especially with little notice. Cheating on this test not only ended their careers, but put the lives of innocent Americans at risk. These men took an oath to protect their country, and completely disregarded it by cheating.

What comes as even more of a surprise is that their Commander, Col. Robert Stanley, knew about the cheating, and did not stop it. Although only nine men were fired as of now, 82 of Stanley's other officers are under investigation. Whether we can say if it was he who provided answers, it is unclear. Stanley has been relieved from his duty. Although we do not know who is behind the cheating, we do know how they cheated.

Answers to these monthly tests were sent through text messages to the cheating officers. As I mentioned in my most recent blog, smart phones may be making us dumber. This is yet another example of how technology can be seen as evil and unhelpful. More and more information will inevitably come out in the near future, but this is already being seen as the "largest number of dismissals in the history of the ICBM force""(NY Times Article).

2048

Any New Trier student or teacher would recognize the 4x4 box shown to the left. These boxes are the staple of the newest smash iPhone game 2048. The goal of the game is to match like numbers to create bigger numbers using addition. The game is finished when you add two 1024 boxes together, to make a 2048 box. The game is lost when you fill up the board with numbers, but no viable moves are available.

Unlike the other popular iPhone games this year (including but not limited to Dear Hunter, Flappy Bird, and Candy Crush) this game uses mathematics and strategy. Many people, like author Amanda Rush, believe that the over-dependence on our smart phones is actually dumbing us down. With so many people completely reliant on their smart phones, they have much less use for their brain. The rest of her article can be found here.

Are these smart phones turning us into dumb people? Will a time come when one must choose between their own brain and Siri? Maybe Gabriele Cirulli, the inventor of the game made it to stop this craze, and make smart phones make people smarter. The 19 year-old Italian web designer finally did the impossible: made kids addicted to math. One can only hope there are more games like 2048 in our future, and less like Flappy bird.

Why Retro?

Today, while scrounging around my dads office waiting for him to finish a meeting, I found an old Loony Tunes mint container. I was immediately attracted to it. I picked it up and studied it, only to become even more amused by its simpleness. How could a cheap metal box with a few cartoon characters on it be so interesting to a 17 year-old? The more I thought about it, the more I wondered why people like old things so much.

I've never realized how strange the attraction to retro things are. People are gravitated to things they played with as kids, or that their parents and grand-parents did/wore, for a reason nobody knows. One explanation is the power of nostalgia. Maybe when I saw the box, my memories of watching Saturday morning cartoons ignited, and I was brought back to a simpler time. A time when my biggest worry was what was for desert that night.

Nostalgia may the explanation for the box, but not for the phenomenon of wearing retro clothes. Even the richest of celebrities, like the rapper Maclemore (right), love old things. His top song this year was even a ballad of love for retro items: entitled thrift shop. One would expect that a man worth over 15 million dollars would splurge and buy new clothes, yet he is often seen dressing like the photo below. As an fexaminer.com article states, Maclemore's "home is decorated with thrift store taxidermy, furniture and lamps. In his closets hang fringe jackets and outerwear of purple, red and blue leather". This multi millionaire hates spending "50 dollars on a tee-shirt" as the thrift shop lyrics tell us. 

I don't have a good reason for this crave for the past, but I hope I see people wearing Vineyard Vines sweaters and salmon colored dress pants in 30 years!

Between Two Ferns- Obama

For those of you that have not seen the Between Two Ferns with Barack Obama, go watch it. Now. 

In this hilarious video, Obama and comedic star Zach Galifianakis, poke fun at each other in a mock interview through Funnyordie.com. Zach brings up Obama's birth certificate scandal, and lackluster basketball game. Barack jabs right back at Zach, torching the Hangover 3 and even making a few fat-jokes. After the back-and-forth burn battle, Obama begins to discuss what he obviously came there to plug: Obamacare. 

Obama began talking about the site, (also called Healcare.gov) and stated that the site is now working 
better than ever. Keeping the mood light, Zach continued to make jokes periodically, like asking Obama why he asked the creator of the Zoon to design the website. He finished the plug by telling the viewers that they only have a couple more weeks to sign up. 

While many people (including myself), found this hysterical, others were appalled. Conservative political commentator Bill O-Reilly said that the interview was a farce, and that "Abe Lincoln would not have done it". ABC's Jim Avila said the interview damages the "dignity of the office". MSNBC's Rachel Maddow disagreed with Avila by saying past presidents such as Reagan, Bush, Eisenhower and Nixon have all appeared on comedy shows in the past. 

The controversy is brewing between these two sides, but one thing is for certain: the video was effective. Healthcare.gov has seen a 40% increase in viewership since the video released on the 11th. This is huge for Obama, who says his reasoning behind the video was to reach the 18-30 year-old demographic. Who would've thought that Zach Galifianakis calling Barack Obama a "nerd" would bring in so much publicity?

The Lazy Self-Involved Man-Child Steps Up

On Facebook today, I came across a video displaying Seth Rogen, the raunchy comedic actor, making a speech in front of the senate. To my surprise, it was not a stand-up routine, but instead a heartfelt speech about Alzheimer's. His wife Laurie's mother has been battling the disease for years, and he has decided to use his fame and status to help the cause. He started the Hilarity for Charity program in 2011, where he and his actor-friends go on comedy tours to raise money for the disease. Although their most recent fundraiser raised half a million dollars, Rogen still felt he could do more, and decided to take his cause to the senate. 

He spoke on Wednesday, February 26, in an attempt to erase the stigma around Alzheimer's as well as increase government funding. He was able to use his comedic talent, to draw in the listeners, as well as become a YouTube sensation. He opened by saying he was aware that "this has nothing to do with the legalization of marijuana" and even asked the Chairman if he had seen his major film "Knocked Up". The audience loved it. He made hysterical references to the new television show House of Cards, and also called himself a "Lazy Self-Involved Man-Child". While making everyone, even the chairman laugh, he brought very real, and frightening statistics to light. He stated that Alzheimer's is the only one of the top ten deadliest diseases in the U.S that has no cure or prevention. Rogen also claimed that it is the most costly of all the those ten diseases. 

Cost is a very important part of this issue, and not enough work is being done to reduce the financial burden on families. Luckily, there are some people, like New Triers own Allie Harris and her mother who started a website called http://www.alzcaresource.com/ which not only lowers the cost of necessary products, but donates all the proceeds back to Alzheimer's research. Rogen admitted that if America didn't love his "Genitalia driven comedy" he would not be able to financially support his mother-in-law. 

While I find it fabulous that Rogen has stepped up like this, it is slightly terrifying to think that in order for a cause to become known, it needs to have a celebrity as its face. A medical expert could have made an even more convincing, factually sound argument to the senate, yet the public would never have known about it. With Rogen making the speech, countrywide publicity is achieved. Although it is sad to know Americans are so celebrity oriented, it is nice to know how much of a difference one person can make. Rogen's speech puts pressure on other Hollywood icons to step up, and make a difference. 

Short. Sweet. Popular

For those of you frequent YouTube watchers, I'm sure you have heard of or watched Vsauce. Vsauce is a YouTube channel run by Internet personality Michael Stevens. Vsauce produces short, 5-10 minute videos about various interesting science, cultural, and technological topics. These videos range from titles like :What if everyone JUMPED at once? to Will we ever run out of new music? to Is your red the same as my red?. Although I'm sure these titles do sound interesting, do they sound 5-million-views interesting? That's right, many of Vsauce's videos have 5 million plus views. How does he get so many views on his short videos?

That question is what I have been asking myself ever since my friend Ian showed me these videos. My initial reaction was there are just A LOT of science geeks out there, and Vsauce is just one of the many suppliers of this demand. I decided to compare his YouTube page to National Geographic, the best science magazine of 2013 voted by peer editors according to Allyoucanread.com. I was shocked to find that Vsauce has well over 3 times the total YouTube subscribers that National Geographic does. So once again, I'm left wondering: "What is so appealing about Vsauce videos".

My second and final assumption goes back to an earlier blog I wrote. This post was about how Americans need to have their video games instantly, and how game manufacturers have taken advantage of that. Maybe just like our need for immediate game gratification, we as Americans need immediate knowledge gratification. It may be possible that the reason Vsauce has 11+ million subscribers and is one or two videos shy of having one billion total views is because he has kept his videos short. People see a question like Why do we kiss? as a video title and want to hear the answer within 5 or so minutes. Vsauce provides them with that. This is just a hypothesis of mine, and I'd love to hear any and all reasons for popularity you all can come up with.

Toofer? Nah, Fivefer.

After The Office, 30 Rock, and How I Met Your Mother all concluded or ending this month, I decided I needed a new, easy-to-watch, non-animated comedy. The golden globe results lead me to start watching Brooklyn Nine Nine, a winner of two globes. As I watched the first few episodes, I couldn't get the idea of Television Tokenism out of my head. As I stated in a previous blog, "Tokenism is the inserting of minority characters in an attempt to create diversity"(Previous Nolo blog post). 

We talked a lot in class about different kinds of characters that create tokens. Mr. Bolos showed a presentation that discussed the token character in the aforementioned 30 Rock named Toofer. Bolos' hypothesis was Toofer was code for "Two for One", meaning they filled two Token roles in one character. These roles were the "black guy" and the "smart guy". Brooklyn Nine Nine took this idea to a whole new level. 

One of the main characters in BNN, Captain Ray Holt is the epitome of Token Characters. He embodies FIVE token characteristics we discussed in class. First, as you can see from the image, Captain Holt is black, but making him black was not enough for these writers... so they made him gay too. Notice the prefix to his name: Captain. He is the highest-ranking officer regularly shown in the show, making him the authority minority as well. I'm not done. 

As shown in the picture above, Holt is clearly frowning. Right? Wrong. The longest running joke of the show is that NOBODY can tell Holt's mood by his facial expression, thus, making his a mystical minority as well. Fox couldn't possibly make him anymore more of a Token character right? Wrong again. He is also always the best-dressed man, another aspect token characters usually embody. Holt is constantly yelling at the main character for not wearing a tie. 

30 rock thought they were being obvious with Toofer, but Brooklyn Nine Nine just blew them out of the water. Captain Ray Holt, played by Andre Braugher, is the most obvious token character in any media I have ever seen. The only thing Fox could have done to make it anymore more obvious was to name him Captain Fiverfer Holt. 

BEAAUUTTTYY

While sitting in Little Red Hen, waiting for the next delivery, a blast from the past waltzed right through the door. Jay Zimmerman, or "Jay the Ump"(pictured to the right), is the main little league baseball umpire in Glencoe. He umped just about every single game I played in from 2nd to 8th grade. Jay the Ump was notorious for screaming "BEAAUUTTYY" (short for beautiful) every time he called a strike. All the children would attempt to impersonate his famous saying, but nobody could quite capture the charisma Jay had. I could say a lot of things about this Glencoe celebrity, but his most important quality, is that he LOVES baseball. He loves baseball so much that when I used to get walked, he would ask me "You wanna hit?" and then let me stay at the plate until I got a hittable pitch.
Anyways, he walks in the store, immediately recognizes me and asks me if I still play ball. After making small talk for a few minutes, he proceeds to tell me about how I never should have quit baseball. Granted, I had a pretty nasty curve in 7th grade. He told me about how kids these days quit too easily, and stop playing a sport just because.
He blames televised sports for this change he has seen first hand over his 30+ years as an Umpire. Jay's theory is that kids can now create sporting memories by just watching their favorite professional team play. At first, I thought this is just a generational gap, and this old man doesn't understand television, and therefore blames it for baseballs downfall over the past few years. But then I began to think about it, and how I heard earlier that day that this years Super Bowl had 115.5 million viewers: the largest viewership of any televised event ever. I researched it more and found that the record has been set four times in the last five years, proving television viewership is definitely rising. I began to think:  what if these seemingly unrelated trends were actually correlated? Does the heightened access and viewership of professional sports cause children to be less interested in participating themselves? 
The bolded question above cannot be answered without the raw data of the  Glencoe Baseball Association's (GBA) enrollment over the past two decades compared to youth viewership of professional baseball. Unfortunately, I do not have the access to this data, but I'd love to hear some people's opinion.
And by the way, for all the old Glencoe Baseball players, Jay did tell me that he believes the key to baseball is the "ready position". In case I had forgotten the thousand times he stopped the game to tell at the left fielder to maintain it.

"I can Hear Them All"

While scrolling through pages and pages of vines taking up my newsfeed on Facebook, one video caught my eye. The video was a commercial for Duracell, the battery company. Derrick Coleman, the focus of the commercial, is
in no way considered to be a "famous" football player. I'm an avid football watcher and I had never heard of the man. He has something that sets him apart from the rest of the athletes seen doing commercials.
 Derrick Coleman, the backup Fullback for the Seattle Seahawks, has been deaf since he was three years old. He played college ball at UCLA, and went un-drafted. Everyone told him to give up, but as he says in the commercial: "I've been deaf since I was three, so I didn't listen". What a GENIUS way to show his determination while reminding the viewer of this seemingly un-conquerable problem. The Seahawks stadium is known for being the loudest in the NFL. This ESPN article explains just how loud CenturyLink Field can become. The only deaf football player happens to play for the loudest team in the world? Call that ironic.
The ad included young Derrick getting picked on in middle school, his hearing-aid falling out during a high school game, and not getting drafted on draft day. The part of this advertisement that was so amazing was the final line: "And now I'm here, with the loudest fans in the NFL cheering me on, and I can hear them all". I've seen this video over 5 times, and I get chills every single time that last line is spoken.

After watching it for the second time, I realized why this commercial was so powerful. Of course it's an incredibly inspiring story, but it goes deeper than just the plot. Not once, during Derricks monologue, did Duracell show their logo and try to advertise during their own commercial. They let Derrick have his part, attract the viewer, and then... BAM: "Trust The  Power Within", Duracell's slogan, pops up on the screen. When a Coke-Cola or Samsung commercial plays, and each of their logos is seen 15 times in a 30 second viewing window, it's overkill. This is the first commercial that I can remember to take this new approach to advertising, and it worked. It's all of my friends favorite commercial, and in my opinion, the best commercial I've ever seen. Check out the video if you want to be inspired.

Superman Sam

Throughout the last two years, I have watched my Rabbi's eight-year-old son Sam Sommer fight an endless battle with cancer. On December 14, 2013, this battle was won by "ninja leukemia" as Rabbi Phyllis Sommer called it in her blog. Although I could write hundreds of blogs depicting inspiring stories of Sammy, I wanted this post to focus on the power of Rabbi Sommer's blog and her other social media platforms. 

For years, Rabbi Phyllis, a person of generation X, has been huge into social media. She was the first leader of the synagogue to have a Facebook, a Twitter account, and her very own blog. Up until about 18 months ago, she used these platforms to expand her reach into the congregational community and to connect with the younger synagogue goers. She used it as a light, spontaneous, easy way to communicate and stay informed about Jewish life in the city and beyond. Once her six year old son was diagnosed, she saw a power in social media that went beyond her prior use. 

A Rabbi of a 950 family congregation dealing with a personal tragedy must have asked herself how to keep people informed without responding to the thousands of emails, calls, and texts she was receiving. She chose to start the Superman Sam blog. In this way, she could tell Sammy's story while expressing her own feelings. This blog went viral. So viral that she started receiving gifts, letters, and prayers from all over the world. Each blog post she wrote was commented on by people she had never met, telling her how brave she and Sam were or sharing their own personal stories of Pediatric Leukemia. 

The blog spurred a lot of emotional connection to the Sommer family, but also an incredibly strong community reaction. Am Shalom members banded together to create meal plans, run activities for Sam's siblings, coordinate special events based on his wish lists (posted on the blog), and even sent the whole Sommer family to Israel and Disney World (twice). All of these actions were inspired by the knowledge gained from the blog. Viral emotion on the internet lead to hundreds of actions on the ground. This could only happen in this age.  On Sammy's funeral weekend, Rabbi Sommer, true to form posted, "need a cake for my Aunt's birthday " to Facebook. 52 cakes showed up at her door within the hour. 

People often bash social media sites for being too addictive, or dangerous. Small Business Chronicle released an article about the negative effects of social media. Author Brian Jung says it creates false connections between people while limiting privacy.  Not to say these aspects of social media don't exist, but there is absolutely another side to the debate. The Sommer family would've gone through this catastrophe alone if it weren't for the blogging and Facebooking Phyllis did. Social media did wonders for this family, and Sammy felt it. During one of his final days, his Mom told him hundreds of people are praying for him right now. He responded "I think it's more like thousands". Social media made Superman Sam the only thing he wanted to be. A world renowned Superhero.