Extra Credit #1 – Since the pandemic has struck, can you think of new “civic activities” that have arisen. What are they? What are the civic commonplaces that they embody?

  1. Since the pandemic has struck, can you think of new “civic activities” that have arisen. What are they? What are the civic commonplaces that they embody?

There are many civic activities that have arisen due to the pandemic. The first primary civic activity that many engage in is sanitation. Especially during this pandemic, sanitation played a key role in preventing harmful germs from traveling to the body through many parts such as skin, mouth, eyes, etc. As many people can intake many chemicals or harmful substances through the mouth when they breathe, masks became especially important to wear as the disease particles can move through the air. When people have dirty hands, the harmful germs from the hands can travel into the body if you simply touch your mouth. A civic commonplace that this civic activity embodies is hand sanitizer. The hand sanitizer is a symbol of good sanitation which embodies getting rid of and preventing bad physical health. It became very commonly used that the hand sanitizer even became a symbol that can be used for getting past the pandemic.

Another civic activity that has arisen is making accessibility more widely available. As the pandemic struck, many organizations turned to virtual means for carrying on the daily tasks that help human society function. Whether it was schools or jobs, the feature of virtual tasks helped allow many people to continue on with their lives without abruptly halting and getting behind in their work. Even as the pandemic is becoming less and less of a problem, this accessibility still applies today. For example, if there are issues with the weather that makes it unsuitable for students to travel to school, then there are still virtual features that make education accessible. If someone has to stay home for most of the day to take care of someone or something that would need frequent attention, there are accessibility options for that person. A civic commonplace they embody is “Everyone does not have equal talent, but everyone should have equal opportunity to develop that talent.” This commonplace shows that everyone should have the same opportunity to pursue and partake in daily life and be an active citizen of society. Making accessibility features gives everyone that equal opportunity to complete their lives despite any obstacle that comes in front of them.

The third civic activity that has been recently getting popular is donating money to healthcare systems. Though this idea has been around before the pandemic, donating money to healthcare systems became even more of a civic activity and responsibility through the pandemic. Because the pandemic has caused so many health problems in terms of the physical body, donating to the healthcare systems to make sure they have enough resources to help the people around them, especially those who may not even be able to afford such healthcare, has proved to be a civic activity. A commonplace that is embodied by this is the quote “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Because everyone wants to see healthcare get accessible for everyone as that accessible healthcare can apply to them at one point, the common place is embodied by the donating money as donating money shows that they want the healthcare system to be accessible for everyone and have resources just in case of emergencies.

RCL #10 – Public Controversy Idea

One possible topic for a public controversy is the involvement of celebrities in political issues. As celebrities get more and more limelight in the public, more and more celebrities are using their influence to persuade people to vote in one direction or another. While some people state that celebrities can have unbiased opinions as they are regular people and not involved in politics, others state that celebrities are too high society to have a political opinion that may benefit the general public. Recently, a television-presenter ran for an election in PA state elections. During the last presidential election, many celebrities spoke up and expressed the political views that others could adopt. Though I am not sure if this is a complete public controversy, this is an idea that may be applicable.

Passion Pitch #9 – Hyper

When someone says a person is family-oriented, that person can be considered a person who thinks for the well-being of others. However, have you ever met someone who has an obsession with their family? In the case of Suri, this person has an obsession with his father. From an infant to adulthood, Suri would not let go of his father. When his father got a small mosquito bite, Suri called 911 and made his father stay in the hospital for 3 days.

Suri’s father is an honest government official. Because of his honesty and unwillingness to fall to corruption, Suri’s father gets transferred a lot to various areas around India. At the latest transfer however, not only does Suri’s father not accept the bribe from a politician, but he also reports the politician to people in higher power. The politician gets angry and tries to get revenge on Suri’s father. For a man like Suri who wouldn’t let even a fly land on his father, Suri not only wanted to stop this politician from harming his father, but also wanted to harm the politician for even thinking about harming Suri’s father, as undeserving of any hate, Suri’s father, is an honest government official.

Suri and the politician get into many problems: fights, chases, clashes, etc. Suri’s father suggests they just transfer again, but Suri wants revenge on the politician. However, the story turns whenever the politician unexpectedly harms Suri’s mother instead of the father. It is not as if Suri does not care for his mother, but Suri’s father thinks otherwise. Suri’s father tells Suri to leave the house, as Suri is now a danger to the family. Destroyed, Suri does in fact leave for some time. Because the climax of the movie is incredibly good, I will not tell the rest of the story so you guys may watch it.

This story brings into question the problems of emotional attachment. Though it is good for someone to work for others, such as parents providing for their children, to what extent should someone be attached. For example, many teenagers complain that their parents are too involved in their lives. The parents respond saying that they don’t want their children to go in the wrong direction in life, as they have faced many of the world’s problems when growing up. That is why I find this movie, though very exaggerated and satirical, a good way to show a balance between attachment and independence.

Passion Pitch #8 – Raja the Great

Most people believe it is possible to do anything, under any circumstances. However, can a dog say “meow?” For Raja, yes. Raja is a blind man who does not let his disability get in the way of anything. Despite his shortcomings of not being able to use eyesight in catching criminals, Raja and his mother try everything to get Raja into a police uniform.

After much convincing and proof that Raja can in fact work as a police officer (while Raja has in fact passed the written exams), Raja’s mom helps Raja to get a job in the police station. However, Raja is only given the position to cook food for other cops. However Raja’s chance shines when he meets a girl named Lucky, who is currently under police watch due to her father, another respected police officer, being killed by gang members.

Because the other police members are busy with their lives and keeping this girl safe, Raja is the only one who has the ability of getting to know the girl personally. Raja does, as the job of cooking is not something that is time consuming. When doing so, Raja becomes close with the girl and even makes her get out of the depression from losing her father. At the same time, Raja has incredible selective hearing skills, as that sense was enhanced due to no eyesight. Using this selective hearing, Raja while hanging out with Lucky was able to discover that bad people were in fact following Lucky everywhere she goes, despite being on police watch.

After the rest of the cops finally understand this mishap from being unable to identify Lucky’s followers, they finally let Raja take over the Lucky case. Raja to everyone’s surprise states to go back to Lucky’s hometown where Lucky’s father was killed. Raja states that if the solution to every problem was running away, then no problem would ever get solved. Once arriving, Raja spends the next couple of days mapping out the area by foot, getting a sort of spatial awareness of the environment he’s in.

Sure enough, the gang members attack, but because of Raja’s spatial awareness, he is able to get the gang members to chase them all the way to a warehouse. When all the gang members are in the warehouse, Raja turns off the lights, allowing them to enter Raja’s world. From there, Raja easily defeats the gang members, as none of them have experience fighting in the dark like Raja does. Though a little exaggerated, the movie shows that if you have a disability, you’re not supposed to let that get in the way of your dreams as you have other gifts that can be focused on in reaching your goal.

Passion Pitch #7 – Temper

Warning: the following blog has sensitive issues such as sexual assault

Do you believe in second chances? For something as simple as stealing a cookie, maybe you would say yes. What if the cop had just released dangerous criminals who continued to wreak havoc, would you still give the cop a second chance?
The movie Temper shows a man who has committed such a mistake, and the movie highlights how he works to correct that mistake.

Daya was raised without parents, and growing up on the harsh and corrupt streets, he learned that the best way to live life was to take advantage of others and do everything and anything that would benefit himself. To do so, he became a corrupt police officer, taking bribes from common thieves to big ministers. Daya doesn’t discriminate against different delinquents. After transferring to one of the most corrupt cities in India, life was good for Daya as illegal money came in left and right for Daya. At the same time, Daya was able to get a girlfriend by using his powers as a police officer to influence volunteer organizations that the girl partakes in to help Daya look like an active volunteer. One of the illegal tasks Daya had to do was release some prisoners that are the central minister’s brothers. Those brothers then went on to sexually assault a girl for 3 days and murder her in the end. The movie turns around when Daya finds out that the girl was Daya’s girlfriend was bestfriends with the girl who was murdered.

After watching the victim’s mom come to the police station everyday for justice for her daughter, Daya finally decides to become a good samaritan. He realized the mistake he had done in letting the criminals go. However, it is hard for the police officer who indirectly caused the atrocity to reverse convict the criminals, especially when there is limited evidence for the case.

In the end of the movie, Deva finally convicts the wrongdoers by claiming that Deva himself was part of the group, and that they all committed the crime together. Deva then created false evidence to show that he was at the crime scene also. When the court has no choice but to convict the whole group, even though they secretly know Deva is innocent (at least in terms of physically committing the crime). However when a constable investigating the crime scene finds hard evidence that suggests that the criminals did not include Deva, Deva is saved in the end. This movie suggests that if someone truly realizes their mistake and works to fix it, then a second chance is deserved. However, to what degree can this mistake happen?

Passion Pitch #6: Bhale Bhale Magadivoy

How often do you forget things? How important are the things you forget? For example, do you usually forget small things such as where the remote is, or do you forget big things such as important meetings? What if I told you that there was a man who forgets big and small things all the time, whose name is ironically Lucky.

Bhale Bhale Magadivoy shows the story of Lucky and the complications of his life due to constant short-term amnesia. For example, Lucky once accidentally went all the way to work without his shoes. He once gave his credit card to a banker and walked out of the bank immediately without his credit card. When Lucky’s boss at work gets into an accident and needs Lucky to donate blood, Lucky forgets about the boss until his friend reminds him. Lucky arrives just in time when the boss was about to go into a fatal condition. When Lucky asks his friend if he made it on time, his friend states that the boss had plenty of time and even played cards while waiting for Lucky!

When a girl who Lucky finds attractive catches onto Lucky and asks him what the problem was, Lucky simply tells her that he’s a philanthropist, who gives away his money to people who need it. As Lucky and the girl fall in love with each other, Lucky encounters a huge problem due to his absent-mindedness. A couple months back, Lucky had an important meeting with the girl’s father (before Lucky even met the girl). As you may guess, Lucky missed the meeting, ruining his reputation with the girl’s father. However, when the girl introduces Lucky to her parents, Lucky has no recollection of meeting her father, so it becomes surprising to Lucky when the girl’s father immediately rejects him. After the girl’s father tells the girl Lucky’s true personality, which the girl doesn’t know because Lucky told her he’s a philanthropist, the girl also is angered by Lucky for not telling the truth. The rest of the comedic movie shows how Lucky tries to convince the girl and her parents to accept him.

Though this movie is just a comedic representation of someone with a problem of forgetting everything (which is not medically accurate in how amnesia works in the real world), the movie does bring up good points about mistakes. Taking the important meeting example, it is not as if Lucky intentionally wanted to miss the meeting. At the same time, in the real world, it is important to not miss big events. For example, if you were a surgeon who forgot about a surgery, that would be fatal to a lot of people. Therefore, it is important to consider your honest mistakes and the degree to which you make them.

RCL #7: Unit 2 Ideas

Some may consider this to be the most famous TED-Talk, but the Inside the Master Procrastinator Talk by Tim Urban is my favorite TED-Talk. For me, that talk was more entertaining than informing, but somehow I learned more from that talk about procrastination than other talks about other topics. The way of displaying the concept of procrastination into a story about a monkey in your head has really stuck due to the unique way of presenting the ideas. 

The concept of presenting information through the form of a story is something that I would want to try with my Ted-Talk project too. One idea I have is to talk about the daily life and struggles of common farmers in India, and how it and people’s views on farmers progressed over time. I would perform research on daily living conditions and statistics on gross incomes of various villages in India. I would find examples of farmers who had a typically comfortable life and farmers who had a typically unstable life. I would find media reports that would talk about certain villages, such as if a village has too many unstable conditions, and then find statistical data that would show whether the media was correct or not. Coming from a farming background, I could even take personal testimony from my grandparents. I would then present the talk as a story of a fictional farming man from birth to old age, where I can highlight much of the information like the talk by Tim Urban. I could also do other ideas or forms of the talk based on the comments’ suggestions.

Passion Post #5 – Bheeshma

We eat food everyday, and a lot of that food comes from farming. Therefore, the food that gets produced from farming has to be healthy, with minimal use of artificial fertilizers. In the movie Bheeshma, one farming distribution company named Bheeshma (which supports organic farming practices without harmful chemicals) competes with another company named Field Science (which uses harmful chemicals for faster growth of crops). The founder/CEO of Bheeshma gets old and wants to give his position to someone who can carry on the values of an organic lifestyle. Because a lot of people depend on the crops from farms, this position needs to be passed on to someone who is capable of fighting an entirely different organization. Now imagine if this position was passed on to a college dropout who makes memes for a living.

Bheeshma, who coincidentally has the same name as the company, is that college dropout who has nothing better to do in life but make memes and find a girlfriend. When a series of events lead Bheeshma to stumble upon a girl who works at the company Bheeshma, the protagonist does everything he can to impress the girl. Bheeshma learns everything he can about organic farming and even speaks at a conference, where different farming companies meet up to discuss new technologies. Not only does this catch the attention of the girl but also the attention of the CEO of Bheeshma company gets caught. After the CEO does more background research on Bheeshma, he appoints our protagonist as the acting manager for 30 days, much to everyone’s surprise. The founder announced that if anyone has a problem with Bheeshma at the end of the 30 days, then the character Bheeshma won’t continue as the CEO.

This makes the CEO of Field Science very happy as he knows a man with no real experience in anything cannot manage a company. He even bribed some of the Board members of Bheeshma company to make sure everyone votes out Bheeshma at the end of the 30 days. However, Bheeshma’s unusual way of managing the company proves to work out for everyone. By continuously using bad meme puns and children’s games on the various directors of the company, Bheeshma somehow unites everyone to work together and work for the company’s good. When a small village has a problem distributing their crops, Bheeshma personally goes to the village and works things out rather than just letting the one village go. By accidentally meeting one of the health ministers through a girl who rejected him in college, he convinces the minister to expose and ban the Field Science company for use of harmful chemicals. Because of instances like these, the company accepts Bheeshma as their new CEO, with the lead female falling for Bheeshma too (a common theme in Indian movies). Whenever Bheeshma has a final talk with the Field Science CEO, he states that Field Science was good because they were important, but Bheeshma’s company was important because they were good, in their values and customs. Bheeshma’s company therefore had success as they were trying to do the right thing. From this, there is a message to the audience that by doing good, anything is possible.