A Cinderella Story
This is a classic David versus Goliath tale, an epic underdog story of two young Dartmouth students facing what appeared to be insurmountable odds.
As many of you know, the Powerline Blog had a contest to see who could best dramatize the American debt crisis. My partner in crime David Rufful and I decided to take a stab at the $100,000 grand prize, and ended up getting 5th place out of the hundreds of entries. This was a long and grueling process that took up about two months of interviewing students, professors/faculty at Dartmouth, and Iraq veterans. The Dartmouth Alumni should see some pretty familiar places...
Although we came up one spot shy of winning some serious cash, we feel proud of generating awareness on a campus that was predominately blind to the approaching debt crisis. The goal of this video was to beg my generation to stop delaying the inevitable and think seriously about the issues.
When more of our young people are voting for their next American Idol rather than their next American legislator, we have a serious problem. My generation will, one way or another, make decisions that will directly affect a rapidly aging and needy population and an exploding unsustainable national debt.
Also, a huge thank you goes out to my partner Dave, whom spent countless hours editing the video while I was partaking in the Hertog Political Studies Program this summer (which I highly recommend to any college student). Dave was able to edit this video into the top 5 up against professional musicians, advertising agencies, artists, and filmmakers. If I was in charge of hiring people in a new media department, I would look to Mr. Rufful as a lottery pick. If he can create a video this good with practically no resources, imagine how the video could have looked with professional editing software and microphones for the interviews.
We appreciate the help of all Ricocheteers to help us spread this video around and encourage people to look into the numbers surrounding this issue. After a short time of independent research it is not hard to tell we are on an unsustainable path and immediate entitlement reform is crucial.
Men lie, women lie...numbers don't. Hopefully Dave and I did our part to make a difference to prevent doomsday from coming, but we need your help!
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Re: A Cinderella Story
Absolutely riveting. Student responses were such a mixed bag...a lot of those interviews must have been difficult to stomach.
May '10
Re: A Cinderella Story
Great job! Bravo!
May '10
Re: A Cinderella Story
Congratulations, but I have to be honest - the beginning, with all the fast cuts and flashing and noises, was painful for me to watch. I barely made it through to the rest.
Jun '10
Re: A Cinderella Story
Interesting and glad you achieved success in the contest, I just have to ask if this non-stop set of short cuts and closeups are the wave of the future or a passing fad? I hope the latter. I couldn't take the constant changes from one person to another and hearing only a snippet of what they said. Maybe I'm slowly tumbling into curmudgeon-hood.
The most interesting part of watching it was to start guessing who would go left and who would go right. Some were obvious but others were a surprise.
Jun '10
Re: A Cinderella Story
Well done, Joshua. Thanks for your tremendous effort. I pray that more young people, like you, are awakening to the disaster that my generation is leaving in its wake. Good luck and God bless.
Jun '11
Re: A Cinderella Story
Congrads. I thought it was very good and will hopefully get young people, of either party, to at least begin taking about the most important issue of our generation. My favorite part was you said "My peers and I must answer the question of how the Federal Government provides a safety net for the disadvantaged, those unable to help themselves, while at the same time encouraging entrepreneurship and individual responsibility" (and in turn, a truly dignified feeling of self-sufficiency for them and their families if I might add!) This hits the debt issue on the head. Good job!
Jul '10
Re: A Cinderella Story
Congrats.
Mar '11
Re: A Cinderella Story
The experience was jarring---I've never gotten used to the hand-held camera/quick cut video. That said: I was impressed with the percussive cuts and sounds (like a Steve Reich piece), and the cumulative effect of the spoken words. One generation has likely squandered the future of the next; what can we elders expect from those we have bankrupted? I imagine my nieces' and nephews' faces among them, and fear that whether I have participated in this debacle or not, they will hold me responsible. Did I do all I could to stop this train wreck?
How did the Athenian youth feel, who saw the wreckage of their city all around them? How can we leave a heap of broken,shaped stones, and tell the young, "This once was Athens, a city unlike any other, the home of free men: we just valued our plasma TV's more."
May '10
Re: A Cinderella Story
I enjoyed especially the Army Ranger who did a great job explaining the value of every dollar spent on defense.
Sep '10
Re: A Cinderella Story
Yawn. I stopped watching after six minutes. Life is too short.
Sep '10
Re: A Cinderella Story
I've been to Athens, met and spoke with Athenian youth, and can assure you that most are too busy in the high end cafes and fashion stores to care much about an Athenian history of which they know nothing. In the high end areas of Athens, the architectural style was normally a bad case of lime green inspired Ikea spam, replete with water glasses that rose off the table at a 45 degree angle. The British Acropolis museum is a travesty of post modernist architecture, and the only classical architecture I saw in Athens besides the ruins were the government buildings built by the French for the Athenians (though I could be mixing up my historical time period and sequence).
The Athens of which you speak died so long ago, most Athenians wouldn't even know the grave marker anymore.
Sep '10
Re: A Cinderella Story
Very nice. I hope you'll stay politically aware and ACTIVE after you leave the confines of college.