Author Archives: Norman

Prime Time

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On February 5 we discussed marketing and football with GRF Shiv. The Super Bowl brings big bucks. With over 110 million viewers, the average cost of a 30 second commercial is around $5 million. This year the event netted Fox about $500 million: http://www.businessinsider.com/fox-gets-500-million-from-super-bowl-2017-2

Commercials used to be a tad less expensive. According to that same article, a 30 second ad in the first super bowl would have cost you a little under $40,000. The cost was only $4 million about five years ago, which tells us that it has been increasing pretty considerably year over year.

As a lifelong New England Patriots hater and a temporary Atlanta Falcons fan, the game was a wild ride. The Falcons led 28-3 halfway through the third quarter, which was completely overrided by the Patriots to my stunning amazement. This game set the record for the biggest deficit over-come in a Super Bowl, but not the biggest comeback in general. That honor goes to “The Comeback” in 1993, which had the Buffalo Bills recover from a 32 point deficit to win 41-38 against the Houston Oilers: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/04/sports/pro-football-bills-eagles-turn-mountains-into-molehill-buffalo-erases-32-point.html

They Call Me Muslim

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The Film *They Call Me Muslim* follows the story of a muslim, Samah, living in France, and a muslim woman living in Iran. Samah is a student who wants the ability to wear a headscarf at a school where it is banned. The woman in Iran does not want to wear a headscarf or any sort of head covering, but is required to by the Iranian regime.

I would like to provide some details regarding the case law of France’s legislation on the wearing of the headscarf in schools.

In 2004 the French government enacted a law banning the wearing of religious symbols in all government elementary and secondary schools. Many felt this law was meant to target muslim students in France. This law was challenged and appealed to the European Court of Human Rights by two muslim students, which uphold the law in 2008: http://www.dw.com/en/french-headscarf-ban-not-discrimination-says-european-court/a-3850797.

However, a Sikh student appealed to the United Nations, which sided against the French law, in 2012: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/case-watch-new-perspective-france-s-ban-religious-headcoverings-schools. It is not clear to me what the consequences are of France ignoring this ruling.

Why does torture even exist?

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Last week I attended a talk by Nick Cheesman, a fellow at Australian National University and specialist in the use of torture in Thailand. Joining him was Pornpen, a human rights activist.

Since the 2014 coup in Thailand, martial law has been in place throughout the country, marking a strained relationship among law enforcement of all levels in the country. Waves of crime have led to local police using torture in criminal cases to force a confession. While the country’s attorney general rejects the practice, there has been no firm national legislation to stop the practice.

The natural question “Why torture?” arose in the Q&A. Whereas many people would approach this question through the utilitarian perspective of finding the criminal and his tools, Cheesman disagrees that this is the best approach. Rather, he sees torture as a sort of performance art put on the state, perhaps for legitimizing the regime and downplaying criticism. In which case, torture is a means of stifling transparency and proper appeal of criminal cases. Corruption is an ongoing problem in Thailand.

Advances and Challenges in Immunotherapy treatments for Cancer

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I attended a great table talk by GRF Shiv last week. We discussed some of the advancements and challenges facing cancer research.

Of particular interest is one treatment making the rounds of clinical trials lately based on Car T, or a Chimeric T cell receptor. Car T is, in a sense, a combination of an antibody and T cell. The mutations or specific characteristics of the patient’s cancer are identified and their T cells are selected for modifications. The T cells, using a virus, express receptors for specific cancer cells, which mimics the behavior of the natural monoclonal antibodies produced in the body. These Car T cells can then hunt down the cancer cells and are activated into a killing mode by the instructions given to them. They are then injected into the body where they reproduce.

Specificity is one challenge. How sure are we that the cancer cells we want gone are being targeted correctly? So far trials have been mainly in certain leukemias and lymphomas. There is a lot of potential for research in Car T use in other cancers.

Some reading for additional information: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/health/cancer-cell-therapy-immune-system.html

If it tastes good it’s good for you, right?

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The Rose Cafe talk by Dr. Ziegelman last week was about the diets of those living in the USA during the Great Depression. She discussed her book “A Square Meal” which is about the very simple, and very reductionist, recipes that Americans in food pantries and kitchens put themselves through. Many of these “square meals” were lacking in flavor and some staple ingredients like butter.

One of the consequences of the Progressive Movement was that scientists, and certainly many people, began constructing a great number of grand theories as to why things in the natural world were the way they were. These theories were very focused on health, especially in the case of positive eugenics and prohibition. When it came to diet some number of dietitians adopted the viewpoint that spices and other flavors that “popped” may have been linked with forms of cancer and various diseases. A more serious number were concerned with helping reduce hunger and worked on food that was easy to make but high in calories – and thus the canned and processed meal was born.

Fortified breakfast cereal was one invention that came from Cornell. Another was this “white sauce” actually developed by Flora Rose herself.

Perhaps this movement was partially to blame for the rise in processed food and added sugar in American diets after World War 2. As fat and fiber were taken out of food, they were replaced by salt and sugar. Perhaps important for people who are starving. Less so for a society stricken by obesity and diabetes.

All Rise

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Last week Tompkins County Judge Scott Miller gave a Q&A session on how the justice and legal system in the United States operated. Various issues were discussed such as the higher level of leeway state judges had over sentences in comparison to federal judges, and the election versus appointment of judges in the United States.

Something interesting that was brought about was the legality of the police using a terry stop to search someone who emanated the smell of marijuana. The idea is that such an odor does not create a reasonable suspicion that there was a crime. Terry stops have been very controversial in NYC, where they have been more popularly known as Stop-and-Frisk. This specific act of frisking by the NYPD was ruled unconstitutional by a U.S. District Court Judge(1). This decision was appealed but I believe the appeal was dropped after a change in NYC’s mayoral administration led to disapproval and consequently a sharp downturn in Stop-and-Frisk stops carried out.

While there is precedent for police to search a vehicle where drugs are suspected to be held, it seems that the case regarding the search of a pedestrian was unique in New York State. It would be interesting to see if the rest of the state incorporates this into their case laws.

Additional Information on the Stop-and-Frisk Case:
1 – http://www.factcheck.org/2016/09/is-stop-and-frisk-unconstitutional/

Applying to internships/grad school? Some words of advice

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Professor Hill and GRF Magdala discussed the daunting application process for internships and grad schools. As sophomores, it’s possible that you’re applying to some places yourself for the summer. Underclassmen are generally at a disadvantage in the process, so a string of rejections might be easily overlooked on your part. Don’t let your mistakes get away! There is at least one big thing you can do to get past the first hurdle, paying attention to…

Keywords! Keywords, keywords, keywords. If you’re applying to any large firm it is likely that your resume and Cover Letter are being screened by computers. They are being screened for something! Even when they aren’t, your Cover Letter is being read in under 10 seconds…Impressive on HR’s part, but you’ve got to stand out in the process by emphasizing what the company wants. Job descriptions, Info sessions, and a company’s website all can help.

In general, when applying for a job or a masters or PhD, you’ll want to avoid keeping your resumes and cover letters homogenous. In the US, personal statements for applications are likely to ask you about your inspiration, and admission committees will assign you to an advisor if they think you’re a good fit for the department or program as a whole. In other countries like the UK, they’ll expect a specific project proposal, and will look for an advisor to take you on. In some US universities funding will be offered with an acceptance, but in the UK you will have to secure funding yourself through a separate application process. In these cases you’ll definitely want different versions of your resumes and CVs tailored to these different admission criteria; it will increase your chance of getting accepted generally across the board.

Why Are Good People Divided by Politics?

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Last Wednesday, the Rose House hosted a talk by Professor Peter Enns. We discussed some current events like the Cabinet nominations in the new administration, and the general politicking and scheduling of nominations so that, for example, Senator Sessions could have voted for Betsy Devos’ nomination to education secretary before Session would face his own vote for Attorney General. From the perspective of the Republicans this was a smart strategy, but from the perspective of the Democrats it may seem a little insidious.

In the age of increasing polarization – at a level not seen since before the Second World War – what divides these two groups so strongly?

Professor Jonathon Haidt, of the NYU Stern School of Business, has spent his career trying to find an answer. In one TED Talk he gives on “The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives” he divides the left/right based on several moral categories: Harm, fairness, In-group loyalty, respect for authority, and purity/sanctity. Based on several surveys the left tends to care a great deal less about loyalty, authority, and purity, than the right, who may see things like punishment as very important policies to communicate to others for the sake of the group’s survival. In a very general sense, the left is more open to experience, and the right is more open to familiarity.

“If you’re high in openness to experience, revolution is good, it’s change, it’s fun. Conservatives, on the other hand, speak for institutions and traditions. They want order, even at some cost to those at the bottom.”

These fundamental moral intuitions, ones about institutions and reciprocity, are very important for informing our sense of the world (and our ideologies). They can, I think, help explain what’s driving the left and right in Congress to act the way they do.

Martha Van Rensselaer, A forgotten suffragist

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If you asked them, Americans could probably name one or two prominent suffragists off the top of their hand: Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Both were certainly important advocates for women’s rights, the 19th amendment, and the Progressive Movement generally. There were, of course, many suffragists. Membership in groups like the National American Woman Suffrage Association probably exceeded several million. I’d like to focus on a suffragist who hasn’t been as fortunate to be in the spotlight as some of the others.

Martha Van Rensselaer was a member of the prominent Van Rensselaer family, a friend of Susan B. Anthony, and co-founder of the College of Human Ecology at Cornell. Martha Van Rensselaer Hall does use her namesake. She was not just an important advocate for a woman’s right to vote, but also their tertiary education. She helped create Home Economics classes on campus in 1903, and a department of Home Economics in CALS. She worked with both Flora Rose and Anna Comstock, naturalists at Cornell.

In 1923, when Herbert Hoover was Secretary of Commerce, Martha was chosen to lead several conservation and food commissions. As part of her leadership she led outreach efforts in women education in biology abroad in Belgium. That same year the League of Woman Voters stated that she was 1 of the 12 most important women in the country.

Throughout history there have been those who were recognized at the time but forgotten. It’s easy for people to fall through the cracks of time. Susan B. Anthony lauded Martha getting “the farmers’ wives to talk” in a 1905 letter addressed to her. Susan B. Anthony was certainly important for the suffragist movement, but she wasn’t the only suffragist. Without others like Martha, she could have only gotten so far spreading ideas and lobbying by herself. It was through Martha’s connections and cooperation with Eleanor Roosevelt, that she got FDR – when he was governor of New York – to help create the College of Human Ecology at Cornell.

The story of history is not the story of a “great man” or “woman”, but a convolution of sparks and wires. Without people and their ideas nothing happens. No President, No ruler, No person can rule alone.

Let’s keep Martha’s name in the spotlight.