Rose Scholars Feedback

Dr. Hill’s explanation of the Rose Scholars program and the many comments by the scholars during the café provided a great deal of food for thought concerning the future of Rose House. I thought I’d use my blog post to give my own feedback on the Scholars program, since I was a bit quiet during the café itself.

  1. Social Events: I think more events designed with the purpose of encouraging socialization between Rose residents would create a more cohesive community and identity for the Rose system. I have actually never held a conversation with another Rose Scholar at a Rose Scholar event. This might be a result of the types of events I have participated in (films, Rose Cafés, and lectures), and maybe some of the Saturday excursions have more socialization, but I would appreciate some events expressly created for that purpose.
  2. Food Events: Food-focused events, like cookie decorating or dumpling making would make for great social events, and it is still possible to make these activities more “scholarly” by teaching the scholars about the culture or science behind the food.
  3. Plant-Based Food: As another scholar mentioned during the café, if there are food-based events next semester, it would be great if there were vegan options as well. It’s pretty frustrating that even at the cafés, there are no vegan snacks or non-dairy milk/creamer.
  4. Films: During the first semester, I was pretty frustrated with the selection of movies we could see with the Rose Scholars at the cinema, since the events were almost always for documentaries. All films, not just documentaries, have intellectual and artistic value. I’ve appreciated that this semester there has been a lot more variety in the cinema films available for scholars. However, I am a still quite confused by many of the choices. For example, this week, the Cornell Cinema is showing both Pulp Fiction, an extremely popular movie among college students, and Daughters of the Dust, a influential film that would likely stimulate discussions about race and gender, but the Scholar event is Pablo Lorraine’s Neruda. As a biopic, Neruda does have educational value, but it strikes me as likely to be the least popular of the three among scholars.
  5. Scholarly Event Topics: While the café speakers have all been very interesting, I have found the range of topics to be rather narrow. Most of the speakers have spoken about either food or politics. With this semester’s smaller café format and encouragement of scholar participation, I often feel that I have little to contribute in discussions because my studies have not been in these fields. I would appreciate if we had speakers from a wider range of academic backgrounds. I’m an engineer, so I would actually really like to have some engineers/engineering professors come in.
  6. Rose House Identity: I understand that one of the goals of the Scholars program is to cultivate a unique Rose House identity. However, I don’t really understand what type of culture we are trying to create. Is Rose House supposed to be the intellectual house? The pre-professional house? I think the house that is closest to having a unique culture is Cook. Cook is seen as the “international” house because of (1) the language house (2) multi-cultural house events (3) those flags in the dining hall. I think if Rose wants to establish its own culture it should learn from Cook and host events that promote that culture. Or add something quirky to the dining hall decor.
  7. Regular Input: Finally, I agree with other scholars’ suggestions for monthly/weekly input on the events that will be offered. I always see posters for interesting events around campus and would appreciate if there were an easy way to communicate my interest to those who organize the events.

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed being a Rose Scholar for these past two semesters. The program has given me a great incentive to attend lectures and see films when I otherwise wouldn’t have, and guaranteed housing is a blessing in Ithaca.

Unrealistically Nice Characters?

While I enjoyed Hidden Figures, I was slightly uncomfortable with how the film dealt with race. Obviously, I loved seeing black women’s intellects celebrated on the big screen, but I actually felt that the movie’s portrayal of white characters was far too sympathetic. Of the four most prominent white characters (Harrison, Mitchell, Stafford, and Glenn), all four, by the end of the movie, are sympathetic towards the black main characters and take an active role in reducing discrimination against them. This feels somewhat unrealistic, given how pervasive racism was in the 60’s. In addition, much of Katherine Johnson’s achievements in the film are only accomplished because Harrison (a fictional character) goes out of his way to accommodate her. Mary Jackson only becomes an engineer because a white engineer encourages her to do so and a white judge allows her to take classes. This narrative, in the film, feels a bit too similar to the worrisome “white savior” narrative, when a work of art emphasizes how a benevolent white character cures the ills of the people of color. While it is true that these women’s accomplishments were often only possible with the aid of sympathetic white people, it is alarming that the much of the ugliness of the pervasive racism of the time is swept under the rug. This is even more concerning when you consider that both the director and the writer of the film are white.

After watching the film, I thought that perhaps the white characters had been altered from their historical counterparts in order to make them more palatable for white audiences. However, Harrison, Mitchell, and Stafford were all fictional characters created for the movie, and Katherine Johnson actually reported that she didn’t really notice segregation while at NASA. She says, “I didn’t feel the segregation at NASA, because everybody there was doing research. You had a mission and you worked on it, and it was important to you to do your job…and play bridge at lunch. I didn’t feel any segregation. I knew it was there, but I didn’t feel it.” In addition, apparently John Glenn DID have a great deal of respect for Katherine, and really did specifically request that she check the numbers for his launch. All in all, despite some of the disturbing similarities to white savior narratives, it appears that the film was actually mostly accurate in its sympathetic portrayal of the white NASA employees.

Varying Environments and Repeating Dairy

Simões’s discussion of the various different biomes present in the different regions of Brazil was very enlightening. It’s easy to reduce our image of another country to what we see from popular tourist locations. When I think of Brazil, I generally only picture the Amazon and the streets of Rio. Of course, Brazil is so much more than what we see in movies and Facebook albums. It’s actually a gigantic country, the 5th largest by area and by population, so naturally its different regions have drastically different ecosystems.

Another component of the presentation that I found interesting was Simões’s description of Brazilian diets. He mentioned that Brazilians eat a simple breakfast of bread and milk; a hearty lunch with rice beans, meat, and vegetables; and a light dinner with bread, milk, and ham/cheese. This reminds me a lot of my maternal family’s diet, which generally consists of the same, except they eat corn arepas for their bread. It sounds like a healthy, wholesome meal plan, but because of my American upbringing I find South American meals weirdly redundant: After many years of having the food pyramid drilled into my head, I can never be comfortable with a meal consisting of only one carbohydrate and two types of dairy. My European paternal family follows a similar meal structure, with light, bread-based breakfasts and dinners and a heavy lunch, but they rarely eat beans. The amount of sandwiches this diet entails is also a bit strange, but I find it slightly more tolerable because at least there’s a bit more variety in the food groups represented at each meal. I think having the largest meal in the middle of the day does make the most sense health-wise, since you get all that energy when you need it, in the afternoon, but it’s generally too impractical for the strict American 9-5 schedule.

7.8/10, too much soup -IGN

What I found most surprising about Duck Soup was how much I actually enjoyed it. Most comedy is difficult to appreciate outside of the time and place where it was originally conceived. English subtitles for Japanese romantic comedies often alter jokes entirely because the translators know that the original joke will be lost on viewers from another culture. I rarely find myself laughing when listening to comedians like Jim Gaffigan and Louis C.K., whose stand-up jokes generally revolve around fatherhood. However, the jokes in Duck Soup, despite being written more than 84 years ago, still had a whole theater of modern moviegoers in fits. I think this is the result of two factors. First, the Marx Brothers’ comedy routines do have some sort of universal appeal that can transcend the barriers of time and social context. Their use of straightforward wordplay and physical comedy, along with the lack of pop culture references, result in a style that can be enjoyed by almost any viewer. Second, I think our current cultural context is close enough to the culture in which the film was created for us to enjoy it. We’re in the same country, speak the same language, have the same expectations for/criticisms of our leaders, and understand the same historical references. And yes, I’ll admit it: While the original audience for the movie found Rufus T. Firefly amusing because he reminded viewers of Mussolini, modern viewers still find the character relevant because of Donald Trump.

“Health Foods” as Trends

What I found most interesting about Jane Ziegelman’s presentation on the Great Depression was the change in what were considered health foods then and what are considered health foods now.

During the Great Depression, nutrition experts like Flora Rose advocated for the consumption of “white sauce,” a roux-like dairy-based sauce. It was added to casseroles, bakes, and pasta. However, as some students mentioned during the discussion, today such creamy, milk-based sauces are seen as unhealthy, harmful foods. One popular trend in food blogging today is replacing milk-based white sauces with cauliflower, soy, or cashew-based sauces. Americans are increasingly reluctant to consume cheeses and animal fats, and are becoming more aware of other calcium sources.

Flora Rose also created fortified cereals such as Milkwheato and Milkorno. These foods would give the starving American people both the calories and the nutrients that they lacked. Today, cereals, even fortified cereals, are seen as junk foods. Most popular brands, such as Cheerios, Raisin Bran, and Fruit Loops, use alarming amounts of added sugar and food coloring, to the point that their detrimental effects outweigh their nutritional value. Even cereal brands that market themselves as healthy alternatives, such as supermarket granolas, actually use disproportionately large amounts of sugar. The public has also turned on fortified foods as well – often vitamins and nutrients must be accompanied by other nutrients in order to be properly absorbed by the body, so isolating a nutrient from a food and adding it to another could result in less absorption.

Nutritional science is constantly evolving, and it’s alarming knowing that even our understanding of nutrition today is limited. In another hundred years, likely many foods that we consider healthy will be proven to be harmful for our bodies. I just hope that nutritional science never turns on avocados.

27 Reasons Why Cat Videos are the Death of Culture (Number 24 Will Shock You!)

(Sorry, the title is a lie- this post contains exactly 0 reasons why cat videos are the death of culture. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are, though.)

While watching the Cat Video Fest at the Cornell Cinema, I couldn’t help comparing these innocuous home videos to a very different compilation of animal videos, the animal rights documentary Earthlings. Directed by activist Shaun Monson and narrated by celebrity vegan Joaquin Phoenix, Earthlings explores five reasons for human exploitation of other animals: pets, food, clothing, research, and entertainment. The film is composed entirely of real life footage of human treatment of animals in the United States. The pets segment mostly focuses on the cruelty of breeding practices, and the entertainment segment only covers circus animals, but I think the way that we use our pet cats for entertainment is also worthy of criticism.

Sitting in the packed theater, I found myself slightly disturbed each time the crowd erupted into laughter at an animal getting injured or frightened. On one hand, cat videos are a perfectly normal and mostly harmless form of media, and I can see how my reaction would appear to be a bit irrational. It is natural to find humor in these situations: Cats are generally graceful and vicious animals, so when a cat reacts strangely to something, the unexpected behavior makes us laugh. Also, we enjoy watching videos of other humans getting hurt or scared as well, as proven by the long-standing popularity of America’s Funniest Home Videos. We don’t just find cat videos funny because of “speciesism,” since we enjoy watching the same things happen to our own species.

However, I do think that there is a key difference between videos showing humans getting hurt and videos showing animals getting hurt: consent. An animal cannot agree to releasing footage of it being hurt or scared, and it is difficult to gauge the extent to which it was harmed in filming. I’m not saying that these types of cat videos are inherently immoral, but I do think there are some bizarre elements of sadism and exploitation inherent in cute videos of kitties being scared ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Modern Immigration Policy and Abrahamic Religions

I greatly admire Cornell’s faculty for putting together this panel in order to educate international students on their rights and the current issues facing immigrants in the United States. With President Trump’s recent executive orders targeting American immigration policies, many have been worried about their situation and in America. Of the many topics addressed in the panel, the one that stuck out to me was the ideological effect of these policies on immigrants and religious minorities.

One panelist mentioned that the increasingly Islamophobic atmosphere in the United States since 9/11 has actually encouraged terrorism. Young Muslims in America feel unwanted, hated, and alienated. Policies that prevent Muslim refugees escaping countries torn apart by American wars from entering the United States have only increased anti-American sentiments.
Interestingly enough, this has also had the effect of creating a growing sense of Jewish-Muslim fellowship. Someone on the panel mentioned that there has been increased anxiety among the American Jewish population in the past year, and there have been more and more occurrences of anti-Semitic verbal attacks. The growing prevalence of anti-Semitic ideologies is likely due in part to the legitimizing of these beliefs though the promotion of known anti-Semites such as Steve Bannon and Richard Spencer. As these two religions, Judaism and Islam, have been increasingly persecuted under this administration, it is only natural that they have developed some form of fellowship.

Something I find particularly fascinating about this development is how it relates to the controversy over the term “Judeo-Christian.” So often Judaism and Christianity have been seen as sister religions, with similar “Judeo-Christian values” and similar histories. However, many Jewish people are uncomfortable with the term, as it erases the years of oppression Jews have experienced at the hands of Christians. Today, Muslims are undergoing discrimination at the hands of majority Christian nations as well, making these two religions more closely linked by their own conflicts with the third Abrahamic religion. I wonder if, as this regime’s openly discriminatory policies continue, the trend towards Jewish-Muslim fellowship will continue as well, and one day “Judeo-Islamic” will become a more relevant term for discussing religion in the United States.

Life in a Post-Fact Society

Professor Enns and several Rose House residents brought up some important points concerning current discontent with the American government. I have been alarmed by the rate at which President Trump has been issuing executive orders creating dramatic changes, but this type of rapid, drastic change is exactly what the public asked for when it voted him into office. After Barack Obama’s “Change We Can Believe In” never quite materialized, Americans wanted someone who would actually use their executive power to enact tangible changes immediately. One reason for Obama’s failure to produce some of the “change” he promised is the slow bureaucratic processes required of the United States’ federal government. Getting anything done in such a large government takes so much time because it involves many different people with competing agendas. The polarization of the political parties in the United States has only worsened government gridlock.

The fact that increasingly polarized parties have in part contributed to this recent barrage of executive orders has forced me to reflect upon my own political leanings. Have I been ascribing to certain beliefs simply because people who share my views on other unrelated issues hold those beliefs? Recently, I volunteered to usher for All Governments Lie, a political documentary shown at the Cornell Cinema. The film featured a host of reputable journalists and scholars whose views on the mainstream media and President Obama were very different from my own, and whose stances were extremely well researched and supported by their own investigations. Viewing this film made me realize that I should make sure to diversify my political news sources and ensure that I hear many different opinions on the same topic. Hopefully this will help me develop more informed opinions on various political issues, instead of blindly adhering to the position of my party.

Money and the Historically Female College

I found Eileen Keating’s lecture on the history of Cornell’s College of Human Ecology to be extremely informative, mostly because I had known next to nothing about the college coming into the Rose Cafe. I certainly had not expected the story of the college to be so closely tied to women’s rights and women’s work.

Originally the Department of Home Economics, the College of Human Ecology was created through the collaboration of two women, Martha van Rensselaer and Flora Rose, and was expressly developed to fill a need for farmer’s wives. It maintained an entirely female student population and an all-female faculty. Men were only allowed into the Department of Human Ecology when the School of Hotel Administration was introduced into the department.

The day before the Rose Cafe, in my engineering probability and statistics class, the professor compared the average salaries of graduates of Cornell’s colleges. The College of Human Ecology had the lowest salary by a significant margin, $6000/yr lower than the next lowest, that of the College of Architecture. This is quite surprising for a college that houses a common Pre-Law major, Policy and Management, as well as the common Pre-Med majors Human Development, Global Public Health Sciences, and Human Biology, Health, & Society. I would expect a college housing majors related to the potentially high-paying fields of medicine and law to produce graduates with high salaries.

I suspect that the college’s relationship to gender could be a contributor to the low numbers. Women’s work and women’s fields have historically been looked down upon and undervalued, and this could have had a lasting effect on the salaries in the fields that the college focuses on. This could also have affected the College of Human Ecology itself, resulting in it receiving less respect and funding than it deserves. Even now, the student population of the college remains mostly female, so the lower salaries could also be a result of the gender pay disparity that still exists today. Interestingly enough, the School of Hotel Administration, the only aspect of the college that was never all-female, has a starting salary more than $9000/yr higher than that of Human Ecology.