Street harassment has a lower negative impact on pedestrians who respond to it, according to a study by the ILR School’s new Worker Institute.
Researchers analyzed descriptions of street harassment experiences submitted to Hollaback!, which offers street harassment victims free smart phone apps to post their experiences online.
Findings include:
• Street harassment is under-researched but prevalent for many New York City residents.
• Emotional reactions to street harassment vary but any harassment – verbal, groping, assault – can produce feelings of fear, anger and shame.
• Targets who photograph the harasser or report harassment to officials appear to experience less negative emotional impact than those who don’t.
• When bystanders fail to act, their presence tended to compound targets’ negative emotional responses.
• Bystander interventions that had a positive influence on targets could be as simple as a knowing look or a supportive statement.
• When a bystander took action by confronting the harasser, harassment was more likely to stop.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, street harassment targeting women and LGBTQ people is the most pervasive form of sexual violence and the least legislated against.
In a first for technology and for bird watching, thousands of people watched live this weekend as a tiny great blue heron emerged from an egg in between its father’s gigantic feet.
With high-definition and nighttime cams streaming 24/7 from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, viewers around the world are now able to follow the surprising lives of herons, including rare views still little known to science.
The nest has survived several great horned owl attacks, as well as a snowstorm that would have buried the nest in snow if not for the parent steadfastly sitting on the eggs.
More than half a million people from 166 countries have watched the heron cam since March 27. With around-the-clock coverage, viewers Tweet and post screenshots and video clips to help scientists document notable events.
On April 30, the nest had four hatchlings. The last egg is due to hatch any time.
Six therapy dogs and two llamas from Cornell Companions - a pet visitation program sponsored by the veterinary community – visited the Law School April 25.
Selected for their pleasing temperaments, the animals offered law students a chance to relax and bask in furry affection.
Ross Brann, professor of Near Eastern studies, traces the similarities of Hebrew and Arabic to a time when they were considered a single language on public radio’s Academic Minute.
In premodern times Jews living in Islamic lands from Morocco to Iraq spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. They also corresponded, conducted their economic ventures and communal affairs and composed religious, scientific and philosophical works in Judeo-Arabic, that is, Arabic written in Hebrew script. Indeed, nearly all of the Jews’ most significant literary and religious intellectual achievements from the post-Talmudic to the early modern age attained their classical formulation in Arabic during the period when the majority of Jews lived in the region comprised by the southern Mediterranean, the Levant and Yemen.
Jewish scholars were well aware of their deep engagement with Arabo-Islamic learning and its pivotal role in stimulating rethinking and reworking of Jewish culture. For example, Jewish religious and literary intellectuals testify repeatedly to the closeness of the languages of the Qur’ān and the Jewish scriptures. Beginning with the rabbinic leader Sacadia Gaon in turn of the 10th century Baghdad and extending across North Africa and into Islamic Spain, Hebrew philologists and grammarians privileged Arabic learning as an essential tool in the production of Jewish scholarship precisely because of its resemblance to Hebrew. The greatest Jewish scholar of the entire premodern period, the polymath Moses Maimonides, in the 12th century, asserted that Hebrew and Arabic are actually the same language: “and as for the Arabic and Hebrew languages, all who know both of them are agreed that they are one language without a doubt.” Penetration of Arabo-Islamic terms, ideas and structures of thought was so deep and rich that Jewish texts in the Arabic language sometimes refer to Jewish law as “sharīcah” and to the Hebrew Bible as “al-Qur’ān.”
The modern political conflict between Jewish and Arab nationalist movements in the land west of the Jordan River has made it all too common to think of Jews and Arabs as historically opposed and separate. Yet from a linguistic-cultural perspective, such thinking actually represents something of a historical aberration.
Calling all cyclists and pet lovers! Ride in the third annual Pedal for Pets fundraising event Saturday, April 28.
Proceeds support the Cornell University Hospital for Animals’ Patient Assistance Fund, which helps pay for medical and surgical care of companion animals whose owners cannot afford the fees.
Choose a 30- or a 50-mile ride through Ithaca and surrounding communities, beginning at 10 a.m. in the “B” parking lot in front of the College of Veterinary Medicine; register online or at 9 a.m. in the Centennial Room.
“In changing economic times, many of Cornell University Hospital for Animals clients have found it difficult to afford quality medical care for their animal companions,” event organizers say.
If you can’t ride, sponsor a rider. The ride is sponsored by the Cornell student chapter of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
“The Associated Press Stylebook” – the bible that sets the rules for word usage in all kinds of media – recently decided to accept the word “hopefully.”
But nothing’s changed for the style manual born at Cornell. “The Elements of Style” didn’t include “hopefully” in William Strunk’s original 1918 volume or E.B. White’s updated 1959 edition, but in 1972, White ’21 made his disapproval official.
“Although the word in its new free-floating capacity may be pleasurable and even useful to many, it offends the ear of many others, who do not like to see words dulled or eroded,” he wrote.
“He saw the meaning of the word changing from ‘with hope’ to ‘I hope,’ and believed it had become distorted in the 1960s and 1970s,” said University Archivist Elaine Engst (above, with the manual). “In the 21st century, ‘hopefully’ no longer grates on our ears, and people have continued to use it in the new way. Would White have approved? Perhaps, perhaps not. He didn’t see language as fossilized. He himself revised and expanded Strunk’s original work and revised his own work twice; once, of course, to add ‘hopefully’!”
Just in time for Earth Day, two red-tailed hawk eggs began to hatch in a nest 70 feet above the Cornell campus April 22. Viewers from 165 countries glimpsed a tiny beak through a hole in the egg as the mother looked on.
Since March 19, nearly half a million people have watched 24/7 as the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s live cam has streamed high-definition footage of the female hawk, “Big Red,” and her mate, “Ezra.”
People from more than 150 countries have witnessed the hawks bringing sticks to build their nest on a light pole high above Cornell’s athletic field. They’ve watched Ezra present Big Red with gifts of voles, squirrels and pigeons. They’ve seen the pair taking turns to keep their three eggs warm through wind, rain and snow.
Viewers woke April 23 to find Big Red protecting her brood from several inches of snow. A third egg is due to hatch any day now. Also check out activity on the great blue heron cam.
Cornell hosts the 2012 USPA National Intercollegiate Championships, April 18-22 at Oxley Equestrian Center.
On April 18, the fifth-ranked Big Red men beat the No. 4 SMU Mustangs, 28-19, sending Cornell into the men’s semi-finals, where they will meet No. 1 University of Virginia Cavaliers Friday, April 20, at 2 p.m.
Also on Friday, the No. 2 Cornell women will play their final four match at noon against No. 3 Cal Poly. The winner plays the No. 1 Cavaliers.
Dr. William H. Miller, professor of medicine at the Vet School and a medical director at the Companion Animal Hospital, gives Stella the cow a smooch April 18. The annual student-run Kiss the Cow event raised $112 for the Cornell University Hospital for Animals’ Patient Assistance Fund.
Rooms illuminated with stars and glass water drops.
Light suspended in space like a cloud.
The visually stunning LUX exhibition draws renowned artists and scientists from around the world to discuss and demonstrate how light inspires them to create and innovate Saturday, April 21, from 3 to 5 p.m. at Milstein Hall’s Milstein Auditorium.
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Essentially NYC, Seen & Heard | Tagged: ILR Worker Institute, street harassment | 
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Posted by George Lowery
