The Blues Brothers is one of the most absurd pieces of cinema I have ever seen, and yet I found myself enjoying its pure madness due to how the movie goes explicitly out of its way to not take itself too seriously. From a levitating nun, to over-the-top car chases through a mall, and (certainly my most favorite of all) Carrie Fisher randomly appearing with a rocket launcher, this movie is madness distilled into a film. Yet despite its absurdities, I believe this film overall was a celebration of jazz and the Blues and the culture (particularly Black culture) that is infused within such music. The narrative centered around two brothers embarking on a wild journey to reassemble their Blues band in the face of adversity from violent police, country singers (an embodiment of traditional southern white music), and even Nazis. Although released in 1980, these antagonizing forces have become all too relevant in very recent history, making viewing this movie quite timely. The Blues Brothers does an excellent job of noting these poignant realities while also making sure to belittle them in the most amusing of ways. Overall, this film was quite enjoyable–meriting its rather long viewing time–and it places particular emphasis on key themes that are all too relatable 37 years later.
Author Archives: mjs599
Exorbitant Healthcare Costs: An American Pandemic
Last Monday, I attended a seminar given by Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, a medical doctor trained at Harvard Medical School that is now the editor in chief of Kaiser Health News reporting on and investigating the American health system. Dr. Rosenthal is particularly interested in what leads to the outrageous price of healthcare in the United States that is not seen in other developed countries. For me, what stood out the most were her examples on the seemingly arbitrary nature of pricing that exists in this country for an identical medical procedure. A surgery at one hospital can cost nearly an order of magnitude higher than an equivalent treatment at another hospital in the same region or even city. While this may not affect someone that is adequately insured to a large degree, for an uninsured American or a visitor of another nation, the exorbitant prices charged with seemingly little justification on the part of the hospital can have shocking consequences. Also of interest to me was how Dr. Rosenthal highlighted the more recent development of “luxury hospitals” that have more in appearance to a high-end hotel than anything else. Are the associated costs passed on to patients being treated in such facilities justification for the additional comfort they provide? Probably not, especially given that a healthcare system should be focused on providing high quality treatment at a more affordable price rather than installing marble floors and purchasing high thread-count bed sheets.
This nation certainly has a major issue with its healthcare system that is not seen in any other developed nation to quite the same extent. The push against more socialist state-based healthcare to a privatized system has seen the development of for-profit healthcare, and the entanglement of hospital profits and big-pharma influences at the expense of the patient is worrisome. Dr. Rosenthal highlighted this excellently while also stating the difficulty of making a large headway toward improvement via new policy due to the controversial nature of healthcare in our political system and the conflicting ideas of many of the potential solutions and inability of our policymakers to compromise to a sufficient degree to make a meaningful change in a timely manner. With any hope, greater patient awareness of their rights and healthcare options will help to push for the demand of a more transparent healthcare system, but if anything can be said for certain, it would be that any lasting change will take much time and perseverance to see any substantial improvement.
Transgenic Salmon and the Future of Genetic Engineering
Last Monday GRF Tyler Moeller led a discussion about the recent approval of transgenic salmon into the Canadian food supply. The technology behind the salmon is nothing novel, overly innovative, or exceptional with regards to other achievements in the field of biological engineering, and the fish themselves that have been modified to grow at twice the rate as wild type salmon have existed for over 2 decades. Why then are we only just seeing the introduction of these fish in 2017 (and not in the US despite established FDA safety clearance)? To me this is a classic example of the tiring over-regulation and bureaucracy that exist around genetically engineered food that force applied progress in this field to a painstakingly slow crawl. The time, money, and overall process required for regulatory approval is not justified from a scientific standpoint (see Conko et al., 2016 in Nature Biotechnology for an excellent overview on the backward nature of the bureaucracy surrounding regulatory approval of genetically engineered foods in this country), and for me, the salmon we discussed are just another long overdue step in the development of our food system that is increasingly demanding a more diversified, accessible, and economical food supply that in turn must grow and adapt to not just the needs of the consumer but even more so to long-term sustainability.
There is a global shortage of salmon (see report from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization [FAO] for more information) that is causing large increases to the global price of salmon, and as a result, there is now a greater incentive to turn to natural sources of salmon to meet the present demand. Exploiting natural areas that proliferate with wild salmon in an attempt to meet the global demand will not be sustainable in the long term, and as is the case for a variety of other species, over-harvesting will lead to a loss of population biodiversity and overall species vitality. The genetically engineered salmon represent a high-throughput method of salmon production that can help alleviate pressures on wild populations to prevent over-harvesting and the subsequent harm to species biodiversity.
Advances in human civilization have always been met with similar advances in food production to address food security for a species ever-growing in population and complexity. The demand for salmon will not decrease in the near future, and genetically engineered salmon should be seen as the next step in the intensification of our food production system that must occur to satisfy consumer demand in a sustainable manner.
Dead Poets Society: Tradition and Revolution
I had the chance to see the Dead Poets Society last week as part of the Friday Rose movies series. For me, this film dealt with the conflict of established tradition and the revolution of free thinking. We are presented with an elite all white male boarding school that prides itself in its ability to prime young men for elite higher education. Tradition and pride in the establishment are rampant and especially marked in all the professors save John Keating played by Robin Williams. Keating advocates for a novel way of looking at poetry that does not adhere to rules set by some academic but rather those that resonate more personally with the reader through individual interpretation. Excessive tradition and dogma hinder the growth of the mind by limiting the way it can branch, grow and develop. Keating advocates for Carpe Diem and for his students to move beyond the limits of the institution to explore the world by their own will and through this to develop an appreciation of literature as a medium for personal expression. While the movie does end in tragedy, the final scene shows the impact Keating has had on his students as they rise in defiance of the institution to give one final salute to their mentor that taught them more than any book ever could.
The Cascadilla Gorge: a Historic and Natural Wonder
Yesterday I had the chance to hike through the Cascadilla Gorge, one of campus’ many hiking trails maintained by the Cornell Botanic Gardens. The hike was curated by Todd Bittner, the director of natural areas at the Cornell Botanic Gardens. From Todd’s expertise, the attendees learned about the gorge’s long history and how it has evolved with the university after being acquired in 1909 through a donation by Robert H. Treman.
As times have changed, so has the use of the gorge as is evident by the remnants of a quarry in the gorge that was used to harvest the stone that today composes Cascadilla Hall. Today, the Cascadilla Gorge is a valued and historic natural area that is protected and maintained to help preserve its beauty for generations to come. Over the past century, the gorge has undergone radical changes, having once been partially submerged via the construction of a now-demolished dam and through the replacement of some of the native flora with invasive species. Outside of the realm of man-made impacts, natural changes to the gorge’s architecture are evident from historic artifacts such as photographs and slope documentation that can be found in the university’s rare manuscript library showing the dynamic effects of the environment on the land. The Cascadilla Gorge is one of the many natural treasures found on campus that is diligently maintained by the Cornell Botanic Gardens, and it will continue to hold its prominence as both a historic and natural wonder for many years to come.
Climate Change and Global Food Security: Perspectives from the Front Lines
On Thursday, September 28th, I had the chance to have dinner with Ruth Magreta, a PhD student from Malawi that is currently a STAARS (Structural Transformation of African Agriculture and Rural Spaces) fellow visiting Cornell to establish a network that will be used to foster future collaboration. Ruth is particularly interested in addressing climate change with regards to agriculture and food security in her native country of Malawi as she has seen and felt the effects firsthand in a region where many people suffer harshly from the effects of a changing climate without ever realizing what the causative factors are. It comes down to a season by season hope for many that the rains will come, and as Ruth poignantly stated, if they do not, people will not eat. When the rains do arrive, people are equally leery that they will not fall with such force to cause rivers to erupt within minutes and cause untold destruction. Often, harsh rains far upstream will catch villagers off-guard in lower lands, sweeping people away never to be seen again. Over the past few decades, abnormal weather conditions have increased in prevalence and severity, leaving many wary of what is yet to come in a nation already burdened in its efforts to industrialize.
Of particular interest to Ruth was our opinions on climate change and of the United States as a whole. The stability of the food system within the United States and other industrialized nations has had a numbing effect on the opinions of many with regards to the extent or even existence of climate change. After all, someone in the US expects all staple foodstuffs to be available every day of the year without exception, regardless of potential crop failures. If a crop fails in one region, we expect it to still be on the shelves in equal quantity, imported from some distant place that often is never considered by the consumer. If climate change does not personally threaten something so fundamental as food security in a Western nation, how can people truly ever understand the potential implications of such a threat? The people of Malawi do not have that luxury. If a crop fails, there will be no food of that type for the year. If that crop is a staple, people will starve; people will die, and this is a reality that Malawians and many others in developing nations will have to increasingly confront as weather patterns continue to intensify in severity.
For me as someone studying plant breeding and genetics with an emphasis on global food security, this dinner was an incredible opportunity to speak to someone with such a valuable perspective. There are not many people in the United States that can truly tell you what it is like to live through a famine or to feel the effects of climate change ravaging your village. Talks like these affirm how critical it is to address global food security and to actually speak and listen to people personally effected to gain their invaluable perspective that will be needed as we work together to confront this issue on a global scale.
Not your Average Market
Truly a gem of Ithaca, the Ithaca Farmers Market is one of the county’s most precious establishments of the summer and fall seasons. Located under a large open pavilion adjacent to the waterfront, the Ithaca Farmers Market provides a space for over 150 vendors to sell their wares ranging from fresh vegetables, to meats, to fungi, to honey, pastries, tapestries and more all under one roof. The market has grown considerably since its establishment in 1973, and each week it attracts thousands of patrons, many of whom travel from outside of Ithaca just to visit the market. From this, the Ithaca Farmers Market forms a crucial backbone of the agritourism sector as it connects farmers and artisans from within 30 miles of Ithaca with members of community on a weekly basis.
On my trip down to the market, I had the pleasure of purchasing some delicious ground cherries (Physalis) and eating them fresh as I explored the market. Ground cherries (a husked fruit found in the same family as tomato) are just a single example of some of the unusual produce that can be found weekly at the market. After running into a friend from Ithaca College (one can never go to the market without seeing at least one familiar face amongst the hundreds), I enjoyed a fresh baked sweet roll and purchased a new plant for my room–night blooming jasmine cultivated at a nearby nursery. Before heading back, I took the time to enjoy some of the local musicians playing by the waterfront. The Ithaca Farmers Market is not your average quaint countryside market; it is instead a bustling hub showcasing a wonderful variety of goods so diverse that there is certainly something to pique the interest of just about anyone.