As a fun end of the semester activity we were able to go ice skating at Lynah Rink. This destresser, gave us a fun way to enjoy spending quality time with friends while participating in a fun activity. Since I hadn’t gone ice skating for a long time, it took a few tries for me to get into the rhythm of things. yet, after those first few “close call falls”, I was able to find myself enjoying the satisfying gliding sensation that I had enjoyed so many years ago. Overall, I would highly recommend this worthwhile activity for anyone looking for a good time filled with laughs.
Author Archives: mff55
Health Care
I participated in a session that discussed Health care in the US which is an extremely important topic still debated as everyone needs access to health care, yet there is major disagreement on how to achieve it.We first discussed whether health care was a “right”. Whether all individuals should be entitled to health care, despite socioeconomic differences. Based on the article that we read, the majority of Americans believe that people should have access to healthcare, yet the concern is that there will be those that will take advantage of the system. As the Americans’ interviewed expressed a similar belief in not wanting to have their taxes be utilized for individuals that would not work to defray costs due to medical expenses. Therein lies a major problem for the politicians: how to make health care coverage accessible to all, but make it affordable. Yet the greatest problem arises from the medical institutions/ insurance companies. As the majority of healthcare payments in lost due to administrative work between insurance companies that offer different plans for the same benefits. If the government could offer a basic plan that companies could abide by so that the people’s taxes could go directly towards funding their healthcare/medicine/surgeries, the US would be able to have a universal health care system that would not bankrupt the nation.
CPR Training
Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) training provides you with important skills as it teaches you how to save a life in case of an emergency. I participated in a CPR training session and became CPR certified. The Heart-saver courses are designed to prepare people to provide CPR and automated external defibrillator (AED) use in a safe, timely, and effective manner. The hands on session gave me a chance to learn how to perform CPR, which is a major component of first responders day-to- day efforts. If more people in our community could learn CPR, there would be many lives saved as first responders may be delayed in arriving and in situations were seconds count or in events where too many people need attention for a single first responder to act, you can also help with your CPR skills to save lives.
Citizen Kane and Fake News
The award wining -film Citizen Kane directed, produced, screenplay and acted by Orson Welles, who played also the main character Charles Foster Kane, is considered one of the greatest films of all times. It addresses power, corruption, and vanity of a newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane, who became one of the richest and most popular men in America and then falls in disgrace.
Kane’s final words “Rosebud” and the snow globe refer to the traumatic childhood memory of when he as an eight-year old was torn away from his family in snowy day in Colorado to be sent to a boarding school, which marked him for the rest of his life. The scrip is the journey of how Kane becomes very powerful but is unable to reciprocate love. When Charles reached adulthood and inherited his fortune, he did not know at first what to do, but was full of idealism and recognized that if he had not been rich he would have been a better man. Although he could buy everything he wanted with his fortune, he chose a selfish path always imposing his own terms on others and manipulating public opinion, for which he paid a very high price losing his first and second wives, son, and friends.
“Rosebud” the name on the sled that he was playing with when he was separated from his parents represented critical times on his life when he confronted major loses: first the lost of his mother and father as a child, then when he lost his chance to become a governor and maybe President due to the scandal of his affair with Susan Alexander, who will become his second wife. Ironically, at first, he did not care for money, and had dropped out from many Ivy League Schools, including Cornell, and had no clear goals until he became a publisher for “The New York Daily Inquirer”. He made many changes so that the news could go out 24/7, hired the best reporters at the time, and included gossip and scandalous articles of corruption. He also published his own declaration of principles: “I will provide the people of the city with a daily paper that will focus on the truth,” without special interests, and “will tireless champion for the rights of the citizens.” Later on, however, he betrayed his own principles, and became corrupted and driven only by his obsession for power and fame, creating his own reality with false news. His paper manipulated mass opinion, when his ambition was exposed many people abandoned him while he continued with misinformation and fake news manipulating others. His friend Leland and his second wife Susan left him, as they could no longer accept how he was dishonest and manipulated the truth constantly for his own gain. Driven to lonesomeness by his own ambition, he did not trust or believe in anybody else. At the end, he grew disappointed of the world and built a world of his own in Xanadu, where he died in isolation.
The issue of fake news and how people can be manipulated by misinformation stroke me as it is still a major concern in our times with the advent of social media. Fake news spread fast through social media confounding the truth due to the lack of filtering of misinformation since anyone can post statements without validating the information at any given time to manipulate mass opinion even if the information posted is fake. To avoid falling on those scams, it is critical to be able to separate facts from fake news and be aware of the sources of information that can be reliable versus those that just manipulate others with misinformation to manipulate public opinion.
Finding your own voice
On October 20, I saw the film Dead Poet Society, from Director Peter Weir, featuring Robin Williams as John Keating, an English teacher with unorthodox methods that inspired his students to think for themselves and realize that words and ideas can change the world. Keating’s love for teaching brought him back to his own preparatory school, Welton Academy, an all-boys elite boarding school in Vermont, the “best preparatory school in the US”. Welton’s moto was: Tradition, Honor, Discipline and Excellence. The film starts when the new student Todd Anderson, meets his roommate senior Neil Perry, who introduced him to his friends Knox Overstreet, Charlie Dalton, Richard Cameron, Steven Meeks, and Gerard Pitts.
The group of students soon bonds with Mr. Keating’s unorthodox teaching that pushes them to trust their own believes as unique and to dare to take the less traveled road. The students found out that Mr. Keating had founded the Dead Poet Society when he was himself a student at Welton to promote the dangers of conformity and push to live deliberately. Mr. Keating taught his students to read and write poetry because the human race is built on passion. Life identity is powerful if you contribute with a verse and learn to seize the day.
Neil and his fellow friends restart their own Dead Poet Society and Neil Perry defies his father that wants him to focus on school and go to Harvard’s medical school, by following his own interest on acting accepting the role of Puck in Midsummers Night Dream. Neil’s father urges him to drop the role, but advised by Mr. Keating Neil performs the play and is acclaimed by the audience. Enraged, his father decides to transfer him to a Military School to make sure he follows the path he set for him to go to Harvard, but Neil in desperation shots himself.
Welton’s Director, Mr. Nolan, presses Neil’s close friends to accuse Mr. Keating and fires him. The boys cannot help it but line with Mr. Keating as he leaves the classroom by standing on their desks and calling him as he taught them: ‘O Captain, My Captain’! They respected him for teaching them self-expression and to stand for their own believes to make their lives extraordinary. I was moved by the fact that the movie was inspired by the true story of Samuel Pickering, an English Professor at University of Connecticut. Prior to obtaining his Master’s degree, Pickering taught at the Montgomery Bell Academy where one of his students, Tom Schulman, wrote the script for the film based on his eccentric teaching style. Professor Pickering is now Emeritus and his writing focus on the absurdities and pretensions of civilization. I found the movie’s theme enlightening for Keating’s teaching passion and unconventional ways to push the young students to find their own voice.
Ezra Cornell and the history of Cascadilla Gorge Trail
We had an exceptionally nice Fall day October 14 for our tour on the Cascadilla Gorge Trail. Our hiking tour became not only a chance to oxygenate and enjoy the beauty of the Fall colors but more over a way to admire the history that the Gorge guards. The sedimentary rock deposits made 400 million years ago in the Paleozoic era, hide fossilized records of the time when life was moving from water to land, and fish were developing extremities to walk. The carving of the bedrock on Cascadilla Creek is impressive as it drops 400 feet from campus to downtown Ithaca. Those rocks were once the floor of an ancient Ocean. In 1828, while fallowing Fall Creek into Tompkins County, Ezra Cornell, then 21 years old, contemplated for the first time the beauty of the region where he decided to settle and later found Cornell University. He worked early on blasting a 200 feet tunnel into Fall Creek and then helped construct a stone dam to contain the waters of Beebe lake. Although he then lost his job was forced to leave Ithaca, and suffered the loss of four of his children, his perseverance and hard work paid off when he built his fortune aiding Samuel Morse expand the telegraph becoming the largest stock holder in Western Union. At age 50, he was the richest man in Tompkins county and purchased a 300-acre farm in East hill, and became a philanthropist joining efforts in the NY State Senate with Andrew White to combine part of his fortune ($500,000) with the money from the Morrill land grant act (federal grants in the form of land rather than cash) to found Cornell University. The University was founded in 1865, in the farmland that Ezra Cornell donated. Two gorges, Fall Creek Gorge and Cascadilla Gorge, bound Central campus. During our walk in Cascadilla Gorge trail, we learned about its history and how its construction came about. Cascadilla Gorge was donated to Cornell by Robert Treman in 1909. At the time, (early 1900) there was no trail so it was very difficult to appreciate safely the scenery starting at Beebe Lake and continuing to the narrow gorge of Cascadilla Glenn. The unique water settings, the texture of the geological formations, and the unique vegetation were inaccessible and hard to appreciate as there was no safe way to visit. In 1915, Charles N. Lawry, landscape architecture, sent to Cornell’s Committee for Buildings and Grounds a proposal on how to make accessible Cascadilla Glenn from Lynn Street to the Upper Dam. He wrote about the need to remove a house and construct a bridge to give access to the first falls. The path will reach the falls without the use of steps, and a rail addition was suggested as well as other modification with an estimated cost of $21,438. The Cascadilla Gorge trail was first built from 1929 to 1931 with a donation of $175,000 from Henry Sackett, Cornell alumnus and trustee. The trail was closed in 2008 due to safety concerns, and reopened in 2014 after extensive renovations that costed $2.75 million, with repaired stairs and retaining walls, new railing and draining systems. Cornell University provides $250,000 annually to maintain both Cascadilla and Fall Creek Trails. It is awesome to think that the scenic beauty of those trails that we enjoy in our hiking trip, made Ezra Cornell settle here in 1828 and persevere to found our University, which continues after 152 years to make contributions in so many fields for the benefit of mankind.
Space Exploration: Mars?
The science fiction movie The Martian, with actor Matt Damon, is quite entertaining and gives us an insight of what could be the era of planet exploration for mankind. Our passion for space travel was fueled by former US President Jack F. Kennedy with the race to the moon announced in 1961, shortly after the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA is now focusing on how to explore new planets sending robotic probes to determine if they are habitable since unexpected circumstances like a meteorite or extreme climate change may render planet Earth inhabitable. In the movie, the inhospitable Mars surface becomes even more challenging when a sand storm forces the evacuation of the Ares III mission crew. Astronaut Mark Watney (a botanist, played by Matt Damon) was accidentally left behind as the crew presumed him dead when his suit was pierced during the storm. Although humans cannot stand decompression in outer space for more than a minute, Mark survived miraculously when his blood clogged the hole in his suit. Driven by his mental strength, scientific knowledge, and survival instincts, Mark overcomes incredible challenges: including stitching himself to close a piercing bound to his abdomen, and creatively overcoming major food shortages. Aware that the next man mission to Mars will not arrive until 4 years later, Mark finds a way to cultivate potatoes to increase his food supply. Remarkably, while facing overwhelming odds, he remains physically and mentally strong and “sciences out” of every problem he encounters. Four months after the crew has departed, NASA finds out by comparing satellite pictures of the Mars surface that the astronaut is alive, and regular communications restart. NASA refuses initially to tell the Ares III crew that Mark is alive, but they finally give up and share the news with them. Without NASA’s consent, the crew unanimously decides to return to Mars and rescue Mark and bring him back to earth.
Mark is finally intercepted 561 days (1 year and a half) after he was left behind, by Commander Lewis and his fellow crew members. Once back in earth, Mark reflects how despite suffering tragic setbacks, an astronaut has to be ready to solve problems using his intuition and scientific knowledge. Mark makes this remark while addressing new astronauts and also reflects that he was well aware that he was struggling for “something greater than himself”. As astronaut Neil Armstrong expressed during the first human walk in the moon: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. Many challenges still remain for us to travel to Mars, not only distance ways but also how to avoid the radiation you will be exposed to given the very thin atmosphere which does not shield from cosmic radiation. Protective habitats and protective suits like the ones described in the movie have to be designed to minimize radiation exposure. NASA currently has a bid for origami designers that can come up with a shield that can be folded to reduce space during storage but can be expanded to be used in outside walks to reduce radiation. Ingenious designers also are looking into how to reduce the weight of the space suits while maintaining functionality. Important challenges to overcome, as we move forward to explore our closest planetary neighbor: The Red Planet.
Overcoming the Odds
The historical film ‘The King’s Speech’ highlights the very private struggle endured by King George the VI of England. In 1934, Prince Albert, Duque of York, (nicknamed by his family Bertie, played by actor Colin Firth) underwent very unorthodox methods to overcome a stammer. After the death of his father King George V in 1936, his brother King Edward VIII abdicated the British throne to marry Wallace Simpson, a twice-divorced woman from Baltimore, forcing Prince Albert reluctantly to accept the throne becoming King George the VI. Although the last words of King George V were: “Bertie has more guts than all his brothers put together,” he was unable to ever compliment directly his son Bertie or show him his love and acceptance.
Prince Albert had struggled since childhood with low self-esteem and could not recall a time when he did not struggle with a strong stammer. Moreover, being the Duque of York his official engagements required often public speaking, which was emotionally draining given his stuttering condition. To help his troubled husband deal with the condition, his wife Elizabeth contacted an Australian speech language therapist Lionel Logue (played by actor Geoffrey Rush). The film brilliantly focuses on the unique relationship between Prince Albert, later on King George the VI, with his speech therapist Lionel Logue. Lionel insisted with his peculiar methods to help the Prince find the psychological roots of his speech impediment to help him regain self-confidence.
During the therapy sessions which methods were so unorthodox that border into hilarious, we learned about the psychological traumas that Prince Albert endured as a child. Like many stammers, he was naturally left-handed but was forced to become right handed. His youngest brother Johnny had died at age 13 from epilepsy, and during his childhood the Prince remembers being raised by nannies that threatened to punish him for no reason. The relationship with both his father and mother was very distant and cold because of royal protocol. His father was authoritarian and screamed at him un-patiently when he struggled with his speech: “Get it out boy”! His older brother David verbally abused him and mocked him when he stammered. After many private speech therapy sessions, in which Lionel insisted to call him Bertie and make him relive his traumatic childhood, the Prince started to face his fears, and learned to breath, and pause to overcome his speech impediment. Overall, Prince Albert learned not only how to improve his speech but most importantly how to let go from the fears that scared him as a child. Lionel’s therapy also helped the Prince accept that he was as deserving and perhaps more capable to become the new King of England than his brother who chose to abdicate the throne.
Interestingly, despite the psychological traumas that Prince Albert endured during his childhood, his relationship with his daughters was remarkably just the opposite of the one he endured as a child with his father and mother. The caring and close relationship with his daughters Princes Elizabeth (now the Queen of England) and his sister Princes Margaret was highlighted when he asked them for their opinion about how well he delivered the speech to declare war against Germany in 1939. Remarkably, Lionel’s speech therapy skills were not gained from a medical degree, but from experience after being exposed to soldiers that returned traumatized from WWI.
Perseverance through Adversity
As my first activity as Rose Scholar this Fall, I participated on a very interesting conversation dinner with Dr. Dambala Gelo Kutela, who is a native of Ethiopia, where he studied forestry prior to obtaining his MS in Economics and Resource Management in Norway, and his PhD in Economics from the University of Pretoria in South Africa in 2015 where he continues to work as a postdoctoral. In 2017, Dr. Kutela came to Cornell as a STAARS Fellow, a program that stands for Structural Transformation of African Agriculture and Rural Spaces, supported by the African Development Bank, the World Bank, and USAID among others. At Cornell, Dr. Kutela works with Professor Christopher Barrett at the Dyson School of Economics on economic development and transformation in sub-Saharan Africa. The topic of his research is improving our understanding of the drivers of poverty and food insecurity, and how private and public policy can facilitate desirable structural transformation in low-income societies. During dinner, Dr. Kutela described how parental income is very uncertain for farmers in Ethiopia due to severe draught exacerbated by climate change, and how children can only attend school when the crops grow well, while they are taken out of school if bad weather affects their crops as they have to help their families generate their income. Dr. Kutela’s father was also a farmer in Ethiopia, and as a child he had no choice but to stop studying to help his father. It is the uncertainty of the income for farming families that is at the center of the lack of continuity in child education that becomes a major driver for poverty in Ethiopia, with more than half of its population being illiterate. Dr. Kutela’s very personal story was very enlightening to me as we many times take for granted education, food, running water when others cannot.
Ethiopia’s economy relies heavily in farming, with its main export being coffee. Ethiopia’s main sources of income come from services and its agricultural economy but unfortunately drought is still a major factor affecting directly farming families and threatening food security. In recent years, Ethiopia has attracted roughly $8.5 billion in foreign direct investment, mostly from China. However, Dr. Kutela’s expressed apprehension of political corruption that does not lead to investment in development for the Ethiopian needs. In my view, a very challenging future for a country with such rich cultural heritage, and cradle of the first modern humans. Hopefully, Dr. Kutela’s training and that of others with true interest in economic development will help Africa and particularly Ethiopia implement innovative approaches to prevent extreme poverty for the well-being of their population. Certainly, continuous child education and increased literacy are essential foundation for sustainable development.