Sunspots (https://sunspots.cornellsun.com/page/45/)
I want to dissociate. Split myself into two bodies, break myself apart into two corporal entities. It would be a twisted ode to nuclear fission, except instead of dividing the nucleus of an atom I would just be dividing myself. Just imagine! I could exist in two places at once, think two thoughts at once, do two things at once.
Immediately following the death of Keith Lamont Scott, protesters had come to the incontrovertible conclusion that the police officer who shot the 43-year-old African American man in Charlotte, North Carolina had clear racist motivations. Violent protests and riots erupted in Charlotte, forcing the North Carolina governor to declare a state of emergency. A similar string of events happened in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 after police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African American man. Following the incident, the media was convinced that race played a key role in the death of Brown. Sensing that the government was granting Wilson impunity, protesters and rioters took to the streets and turned an otherwise ordinary U.S. city into a virtual war zone.
There are some places where the eyes of the press rarely go. Maybe it is because they do not care. Maybe it is because they cannot. Yet this lack of a gaze has left a large blind spot in coverage, which may allow some truly terrible things to continue to happen. The United States has more people in prison than any country in the world.
The one-hour car ride back to Cornell from Auburn Prison is a time for tutors to talk about how the night went. On my last trip, a few of the tutors in my car observed a voting poster inside a classroom. They found its presence ironic: after all, felons can’t vote. According to New York state law, no one who is currently incarcerated or on parole can vote. With the election less than two months away, efforts to register voters are ever present on Cornell’s campus.
1. The Humble Brag
They say America runs on Dunkin, but I say otherwise. This pristine country runs on the humble brag. What exactly is this nuanced art? Well, somewhere down the line, it became socially unacceptable to run around flaunting your job offers, Rolex watches, 4.3 GPAs, high school accomplishments, Yeezies, and social standing.
“You liberals get off my lawn!” commands Lionel Shriver in her recent New York Times Op-Ed. Shriver, who might be more well known for her bellicose opening address at the Brisbane Writers Festival earlier this month than any of the 13 books she’s published, has more than several bones to pick with the “left,” or anyone who is not a blatant homophobe, sexist, racist or otherwise elitist. The author was asked to speak on the topic of “community and belonging.” She chose instead to focus on identity politics. A valid substitution, given all the discourse about campus activism and trigger warnings. Personal identities have never truly been personal; they’ve always affected our communal spaces.
A new census found that median household income in the US had risen by 5.2% in 2015 compared to the rise in income in the previous year. Although this is good news, the data turns out to be more a reflection of the health of the labor market, rather than the health of the economy. In other words, rising median income, according to a New York Times article, was due to the expansion in employment. Although gains were made in median household income, we have yet to see the market move in the direction that one would predict it to move if the health of the economy had adequately recovered. According to a Financial Times article, the months prior to the past month of August have shown decent consumer spending.
If you are like many college students, you probably find that you have barely enough time to complete your class work, let alone follow the news everyday. In case you have managed to avoid a newspaper since you came to campus in August, I am here with some potentially bad news: Hillary Clinton has lost the solid lead in the polls that she maintained towards the end of the summer. Nate Silver, the famed statistician of FiveThirtyEight, currently has Clinton’s chance of winning the election at only 55.8%, while a month ago he predicted her chance of winning at 80.9%. Furthermore, Donald Trump seems to be gaining more momentum in key battleground states like Florida and Ohio — both of which Silver predicted would vote for Clinton in August and now predicts will go to Trump. However, Clinton still has time to come back from her bumpy September.
I have to hand it to Donald J. Trump, he truly is a genius in ways I never thought anyone could ever be. The man was amazing in the first debate! He handed Hillary such a thorough defeat (almost on a platter) that I was for a time left totally speechless by the content of his answers. Where to start? I suppose at the beginning, though Trump’s opener was kind of lacklustre; at the start of the debate Trump abandoned his usual assertive, confident demeanor in favor of a more restrained, presidential look.
Hello, all you beautiful people! I hope prelims, papers, projects and just life in general are all going well for you this week, but if they haven’t been, I’ve got the perfect momentary escape for you—San Francisco! I’ve lived in San Francisco my entire life, and only after spending my freshman year in Ithaca did I come to appreciate my hometown and how integral it has been to my identity, be it through my Asian heritage or my liberal views. Be that as it may, upon further reflection, I realized that I never took time to explore what my city has to offer, so when I returned to San Francisco this past summer, I made it my mission to do all the touristy things I never did. I definitely accomplished my personal goal because I ended up:
ascending the Filbert Street steps to Coit Tower;
visiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), the Contemporary Jewish Museum and the Legion of Honor;
discovering the Stow Lake waterfall in Golden Gate Park;
traversing the Golden Gate Bridge; and
wandering around Fisherman’s Wharf.