The modern art museum lecture by Professor Schwartz was interesting because it was a cultural history, rather than a tour to analyze the formal composition of art. This is important because we learned art is speaks to the moment in which it was created. We learned about the Interwar Weimar Republic and its contribution to the creativity that the artist depicted. We were surprised at how closely many of the artists during the Interwar period in Berlin were communicating, and inspiring each other’s work. We talked to the need for artists to contribute to political dialogue. Especially with regard to sculptural piece depicting the horrors of war, we, as a group talked about the importance of art as a way to communicate different the impact of different wars. I thought that was especially important because, as Professor Schwarz stated, the art is understood through the frame that the folks who are viewing it see. I was also impressed at the array of the Hudson River school artworks because I had already been introduced to many of those artists in an art history course that I had taken. What I had failed to notice in my trips to the Johnson before was the number of Hudson River school artists on display. I had simply walked right by them without stopping and really looking at them which is what Professor Schwartz had us do at our trip to the Johnson.
Author Archives: gt324
Voting problems beyond hacking and cyberattacks
We were given a presentation about what else beyond just hacking and cyber attacks, two sort of buzzwords about technology and elections that breaks down our faith in the basic reliability in the voting process, that we should be worried about. The event, Polarization in American Democracy brought to the fore a more basic premise that we citizens should be concerned about in terms of national elections. Both hacking and cybersercurity, while a priority to beware of to instill voter trust in elections, is not the top priority. Whateverwe believe our votes are going to count has been an ongoing struggle. We have seen this struggle in court cases and local corruption all throughout the seventieth and into the twenty-first century. Rather, the speakers argued that we need to think about the process of election administration. Of course, there is the need to maintain the security of the vote. Of course, after the elections of 2000, and the national attention of creating conditions to secure and make more consistent the mediums to vote, the election administration that regards this point has been understandably improved. The speakers argued that there are threats to our trust in the voting system that extend beyond just cybersercurity. Therefore, the question being asked today and given threats of cybersecurity is what does it take to secure an election againstforeign threats. Because of the threat, social media is now in play in a way that it had not been before, the spread of information, of election fraud of ways to motivate distrust in the voting system strike at the heart of the administration of a fair elections. Therefore, what the MIT-Caltech project did was try to figure out what would it require for us to think that a fair election was conducted. Much of the work over the years that they have completed had to do with the aftermath of the 2000 elections and the lost votes given long lines, absentee ballots and folks feeling as though their votes would not count. All told this cost the election two to four million votes in 2000, and the need therefore to address these three issues is paramount going into this next presidential election season.
A new sort of Animated story
I think Spirited Away drew audiences towards the art of the animation which, given it stature as an acclaimed movie, the best animated feature at the 75th Academy Awards, is an important development as genres that were once thought on the margins are readily accepted mainstream articles. Perhaps the most impressive point that this animated movie made was the foundation of it in the Shintoism, which is an impressive way of placing the actions and the tangible realities of the characters involved in the movie. When I think to the sort of animation movies that Pixar and Disney are now making, what I do not see is the sort of recognition of the realm of magic, of belief, that is not just a prop. While some may disagree, I would state that for many young American viewers, what cannot be explained by science is necessarily something that is fiction. I think that Spirited Away challenges this assumption. What the movie does is present a very clear reality of a young girl who comes of age because of the clear introduction of shintoism as a way of thinking about life. It does not have to be because of magic that frogs can talk, that nature can have different forms, and that humans are at the whim of some higher spirit that recognizes our faults and at times capitalizes on them for their own benefit. I think the set-up of the story, that greed can turn humans into pigs is a very clear and justifiable conclusion. While pigs may not like their representation, I think what is important for the viewer and for those who believe, that even younger children should be able to see these sorts of movies even though they do not align well with what they might know given a background that is not Shinto, is the increased respect that we can have for characters, and for stories if it is undergirded in some deeper morality like Shintoism which is by nature, absent in many of the movies from Pixar and Disney.
A multicolored pumpkin
Right before Halloween, we at Rose House had the pumpkin patch brought to us to paint and carve pumpkins. What a treat, but the trick was, of course, what to carve, and what to paint. Rose events like this made me realize how fun this program was, how social it could be. We, least of all me, had much prior experience in the pumpkin painting department. Carving, yes, of course but this new element I believe made the event novel. We were able to see the different creative elements of our fellow Rose Scholars. I was impressed by the different saying, the different motifs and the, somewhat serious, nature of it all. I had no need myself to create a picture, I was really impressed by the color choices and by the way that I could layer my point on my pumpkin. I think it is important for any blog post reader to realize, that many of our ideas of what should be on a Halloween pumpkin were incongruent with what actually ended up on the pumpkin. Pumpkin carving is quite a traditional activity, we all know what is supposed to be on the outside of the pumpkin carving, some sort of rendition of the Jack-O-Lantern, however, the painting brought color in the picture. We had folks mixing colors, creating a design that was lighthearted, a unanimous emotional choice, which was quite a departure from the scary and haunted faces that a pumpkin usually issues. I think this was an important development because the pumpkin itself was thought of more like a canvas, something that one could doodle on. There were of course haunted scenes, but the colors we had were bright, the pumpkin could help but be lighthearted. I came away thinking that this sort of exercise where people could just create what they want with shared materials is an important way for us to communicate with each other. Yes, we all know that we are academics, there is something a bit relieving knowing that we all can laugh and be silly at the same time.
Eating Well, Frank Rossi
This week we were given a lecture at Bethe House by Frank Rossi about food engineering and his ongoing course at Cornell. Given that the western diet is composed primarily of mon-agricultural crop, we were given to understand that agri-business was also increasingly in control of our western diets. I thought this was an important critique to the western food system especially given the relative investment in monoculture that such large agribusiness depends upon. To this end we talked about the massive research investments in genetically engineered foods as it has continued at increastingly larger rates after the end of World War Two. I thought that in an historical perspective, this was an important point to make, not because it was premeditated at the close of the war, so much as how an increasingly globally connected world became increasingly dependent upon large monocultures that could produce high startch foods at low prices.
We also learned about the average distance such a global agricultural business entails our food arriving to our plate has to make. More that fifteen hundred miles were taken for most of our food staples, more in cities even. As a midwesterner, I was surprised at this figure because I believe in locally grown food, and have easy access during the summer months to such food grown on small farms in the area that I grew up. However, in all of those years out in Wisconsin, I guess I was oblivious to the dozen or so companies that actually controlled much of the agricultural crop (not the ‘specialty’ locally grown stuff) but the large swaths of farms in Wisconsin that produced commodities for a dozen or so companies and applied with fertilizer for the other dozen or so companies that control nearly 90% of all fertilizers, I think while it is important to try to buy local, we should nevertheless be aware that the global food system is not going to change any time soon that would allow for increasingly many people on earth to subsists given the amount of waste that and mass consumption allows.
1917: Last Best Time to be an Atheist
This evening our Table Talk hosted Andy and Catherine Crouch to discuss religion and how they’ve come to recognize its representation in physics and journalism. We were introduced to these threads by way of a history dating back to 1917. There, we came to understand that the mechanistic world view, and optimism to place categories and ideal maths onto the world began to break down as the quantum world opened up to physics to contingent, relational tenants. As Andy said, this was the moment when it “was the last best time to be an atheist.”
What ensued, of course out of the quantum realm was religion as an answer and, specifically to the discussion with Andy and Catherine, how much of a responsibility those doing science now had given they were in a position to interpret their results for a general public who might see into their remarks implications for religion. Such might have not been their intent, but as a journalist would tell you, much depends on the implications of one’s arguments. A person doing science may use categorical thinking, necessary of course to model reality, but also might be motivated to make a conclusion from that model which reduces the complexities of the world. There was a sense that theologians, and I might be wrong in my interpretation, with their background in philosophy, had the intellectual toolkit that wouldn’t reduce a sophisticated world down into a confined science; there was just bound to be complications that would be elucidated because that too benefited the public.
I thought this would be a good place to ask a question that to what extent and where, given journalism and physics, was the innovation of bridging religion and high-tech or physics seen at these days. If people were able to participate in fields that could account for both science and religion, where might they be? The answer was informative, Catherine Crouch stated that a colleague went through a sort of revelation moment that allowed her to become more grateful of her place and her work gave new religious overtones and while it was not informed by religion it nevertheless was still the best analogous framework to use to describe her growth experience.
Learning about Silicon Valley with Tas
Perhaps the best learning is ‘on-the-job’ training where novice can try their hand at production right out of the gate and determine what the job expectations are like. However, to do so requires the coursework and experience to find a job placement. Tas Tabassum gave us a first-hand look of two industries in Silicon Valley, the first in the mature manufacturing sector where change was more incremental and the faster start-up culture of she began her work at after graduating with a Master’s in engineering from Cornell.
Her experience in that fast paced ‘just in time’ order fulfillment meant the constant stress culture, meant a high-demand high achievement emphasis which could only be thought of to our Rose Scholar minds sitting around the table as a perpetual preliminary exam schedule. However, we were impressed by hearing about this environment, where companies converged for those above reasons. The Valley we were told was a beehive of startup companies on their way to maturation who were able to recruit folks wanting to be on the cutting-edge of their industry. It was fascinating to think of all these companies, so competitive with each yet cordial and close, at least in proximity. Tas described the culture as cordial when the question came up, how do folks get along with others from competitor companies. We all were somewhat impressed that many who work in the Silicon Valley companies know many of the others who work in Silicon Valley. The combination, of creative energy and similar industries brings people together who would ordinarily become fast friends anywhere in the world.
I realized that the proximity of industries allowed folks to jump ship from one company and join another, where a year’s worth of employment may not be frowned upon if the job felt dull or stagnant. Having the freedom to find those industries where the point was to have passion for the work seemed like the ideal for many of the Organizational Behavior lectures I’ve had stating that workers are drawn towards doing their best work in an environment that is stimulating and novel. Tas did point out that not all of the industries are as fast-paced or demanding as the start-up culture. She now works in a mature industry assembling solar panel coatings. Here, there is marginal growth rather than rapid innovation and here a typical workday is 9am until 5pm and while there is a high cost of living, home for her was fifteen minutes away and job stability and satisfaction was present. Even how she ended up in the position she’s at now was through mentor’s advice based on her fit. Rather than continued research in the Master’s area, she found more growth managing a team and that continually seeking those sorts of opportunities for lateral growth came about in Silicon Valley.
The Big Picture: Board of Trustees Talk
Perhaps one of the few times in my college career when I will come to know the Board of Trustees happened in our very own seminar room among Rose Scholars. Several faculty, a resident from Ithaca, and a graduate student comprised of four of the sixty-four Board of Trustees at Cornell. The forum convened with an overview of their responsibilities and to which the audience asked questions to tease out how exactly this was accomplished.
For example, we asked about the North Campus residence hall project and the goals they had in mind for completing it. The project had been in the works for several years given the relative age of some to the halls on North and the need to renovate. Given the campus climate surveys the Board realized that the residential communities were greatly effecting the quality of life for students and that closer knit communities were desired. One Rose Scholar asked about class size and whether the long-time construction would decrease class size. I was surprised by the level of detail that the Board was able to relate accounting for numbers decreasing slightly for freshman enrollment and the time windows when certain residence halls would be closed for renovation.
This freshman enrollment discussion turned into a general discussion on the recent college admissions scandals at several peer schools and the work that the Board saw to audit our existing admission policies. Thankfully, the Board was swift in their audit of the freshman class to prevent undue preference. Additionally, the Board stressed the admissions environment at Cornell which lacked the ‘gate-keepers’ admissions which allowed carte blanche admissions decisions based on faked athletic ability.
Again, this conversation developed into what the Board saw as a long-term mission to increase diversity and investment to that end in admissions. I was surprised at how invested the school was to continually improve socio-economic and demographic diversity because of the increased difficulty to maintain that momentum as improvement seem to be solidified and the potential for admissions initiatives to shift. Additionally, I was surprised at the reported relative absence of ‘poltics’ that detract from organizational mission. Instead, the folks at the round table stated that the Board recruited deeply committed individuals to the University and this common goal mitigated instances of progress stagnating.
Opportunity Cost and Willpower in UThrive Discussion
Zach Grobe led a discussion on UThrive: How to Succeed in College (and Life) relating the barriers that students place before themselves and how we’ve gone about (un)successfully managing them. Each of us Rose Scholars in attendance mapped our strategies to those outlined in the book. Because the book mapped out several approaches to success, our breakout groups were able to focus on these broad categories before we came back into the group where Zach facilitated discussion.
These breakout sessions brought out a consensus in the group that I participated in. Our group’s theme was willpower. We approached the theme in several different ways but found common ground on the premise that was also mirrored in the book that spoke to willpower understood in terms of opportunity cost. We all saw that willpower as a long-term game, that we could only exert so much willpower in a discrete timeframe, that realistically we may not be able to create much success if we had just a short amount of time to work on something. Instead, our group discussed willpower in terms of realizing that effort over a longer term gave us much more control over the outcomes. As a group, we discussed how smaller decisions, time management, smaller study time intervals and the like, actually allowed us more discretion and planning. These smaller intervals seemed to be the bread and butter with how our group managed to feel like we would not get burned out as it were on a task.
Ultimately, our group resonated with Zach Grobe’s overview of the chapter which spoke to the chapter’s strengths because it showed that willpower is actually about the decisions one does not make that allowed continued exertion. However, what was interesting was the approach of willpower was not lots of exerted, focus effort so much as an approach that allowed progress over time which again spoke to how our group discussed the topic of willpower relative to opportunity cost and long run growth rather than smaller discrete time increments which were not adequate for larger and oftentimes more significant tasks.