8-29-23 entire issue hi res

Te City of Ithaca unanimously passes safe haven amendment

By SOPHIA TORRES Sun Staff Writer

Out for delivery | Schuyler House's mailroom shut its window Aug. 21, leaving residents to travel 10 minutes each way to Cascadilla Hall.

Schuyler Service Center Closed After Move-In

By SOFIA RUBINSON and CARLIN REYEN Sun Managing Editor and Sun Staff Writer

When Joshua Park ’26, a newly-transferred student to Cornell, arrived at his dorm assignment in Schuyler House, he was able to pick up his room keys from the conveniently located mailroom on the main floor of the 125-resident building. But when his espresso machine arrived in the mail a few days later, he had to lug it the 10-minute hilly walk from Cascadilla Hall.

“It would have been much nicer if the mailroom was open, especially because Schuyler House itself has a lot of hills, and going up and down with packages is quite difficult,” Park said.

But walking 10 minutes each

way for mail and key services is the new reality for residents of Schuyler House, one of the farthest dorms from campus. While the residence hall used to sport a fully functional service center, that mailroom closed Aug. 21 following this semester’s move-in period and residents must now utilize the service center in Cascadilla Hall.

“Due to the small number of packages delivered to the Schuyler Service Center, that location was closed for the time being and service has been transitioned to the Cascadilla Service Center,” Brandi M. Smith-Berger, associate director for Conference and Event Services,

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On Wednesday, during an Ithaca Common Council meeting organized to vote and propose new legislations and policies regarding human resources, financing and appropriations, the Council unanimously passed a resolution bolstering the Ithaca Trans Safe Haven Resolution.

The resolution outlines six different regulations for providing safe access to healthcare for transgender and gender nonconforming individuals in the City of Ithaca.

These regulations include statutes stating that the City of Ithaca cannot impose criminal punishment for seeking or receiving gender-affirming healthcare or assisting another individual in receiving it. In the event that the New York State Legislature inflicts criminal punishment on anyone receiving gender-affirming healthcare, the City of Ithaca must make enforcing such a law their lowest priority. City personnel are not to give out information to other jurisdictions or enforce judgment in accordance with the other jurisdiction’s legislation unless required by lawful authority. The resolution also encourages all city departments to adopt a similar policy.

The resolution comes as a response to recent legislation regard-

ing transgender rights being passed in other states, such as Missouri and Florida — posing barriers or making it illegal for transgender individuals to receive certain forms of healthcare. In 1945, the New York State Legislature passed the Ives-Quinn Anti-Discrimination Bill — renamed the Human Rights Law in 1968 — which prohibited discrimination in employment based on race. Since then, it has been amended several times to include more identity groups of, such as those with disabilities, and more institutions, such as non-sectarian educational institutions. In 2019, the Human

Rights Law was amended to include language that would explicitly protect people of any gender identity or gender expression.

Despite New York State already having certain protections for people of all gender identities, Caitlyn Hunter, community organizer for the Planned Parenthood of Greater New York’s Ithaca location, expressed belief that having specific protections in the city of Ithaca is equally as important as protections on the state level.

To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun.com.

Distinguished Cornell Football Coach Dead at 85

Maxie Baughan, former football coach who lead the team to Ivy victory in 1988, died Aug. 19

Maxie Baughan, former head coach of Cornell’s football team from 1983 to 1988 and National Football League linebacker, died of natural causes on Aug. 19 in Ithaca. He was 85 years old.

Baughan was born on Aug. 3, 1938 in Forkland, Alabama and played football for Bessemer High School before attending and playing for Georgia Tech. During his senior season there, he was named the 1959 Southeastern Conference Lineman of the Year and was eventually inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

Upon graduating from college, Baughan was selected 20th overall in the 1960 NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles, where he immediately became a starter and won an NFL championship in his first year. Following his fifth season with the Eagles,

By NIA PERRY Sun Contributor Nia Perry can be reached at ncp44@cornell.edu.

Baughan began playing for the Los Angeles Rams and was named their defensive captain, where he remained until 1970, when he retired due to an injury. But in 1974, he served as a player-coach for the team formerly known as the Washington Redskins, appearing in two games before officially retiring. Baughan was selected to the Pro Bowl nine times, inducted into the Philadelphia Eagles’ Hall of Fame in 2015 and was recently announced as a semifinalist for the 2024 Pro Football Hall of Fame class.

Following his retirement, Baughan served as defensive coordinator for Georgia Tech before returning to the NFL as the defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Colts and Detroit Lions.

To continue reading this article, please visit www. cornellsun.com.

ANTHONY CORRALES / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Students soak in the sun at Libe Slope, a popular destination a week into the fall semester.

Summer Slope

Legendary title | Maxie Baughan is pictured after winning the Ivy championship in 1988, which ended the team's decade-long title drought.

Sophie Torres can be reached at storreslugo@cornellsun.com.

Dem. Common Council Hopeful Wants Cornell to Pay its Share

Saint-Perez, law student and native Ithacan, talks housing, taxes, infrastructure with Te Sun

By ANTHONY NAGLE and JONATHAN MONG Sun Contributor and Sun News Editor

Third-year law student Pierre Saint-Perez grad grew up surrounded by Ithaca’s natural beauty and supportive community. After finishing his undergraduate degree at Carnegie Mellon University, Saint-Perez returned to Ithaca to attend Cornell Law School. He now aims to give back to the city that raised him by running for the Third Ward’s two-year Common Council seat as a Democrat in the hopes that he can maintain what he considers to be Ithaca’s central characteristics.

set to expire in June 2024.

As an educational institution, Cornell is largely exempt from property taxes despite owning roughly 47 percent of the city’s property value. It instead pays about 1.6 million — or 0.03 percent of its $5.26 billion annual operating expenses — in annual PILOTs to the city, whereas Ithaca residents pay a cumulative $30.5 million annually in property taxes. The City of Ithaca, meanwhile, has faced growing homelessness, increased housing prices and decreased TCAT services.

“It sometimes feels like Cornell isn’t pulling its weight in our more cohesive situation and relationship,” SaintPerez said. “Cornell needs to contribute to our community, just like we as a community contribute to Cornell. We work together to build a better experience for residents, for students, for faculty, to attract the professors that make this university so incredible.”

“We’ve always been a welcoming community. That’s part of our nature,” Saint-Perez said. “But we need to make sure that as we grow, we don’t lose our core aspects of what makes Ithaca so special.”

Saint-Perez said one of his top priorities is the negotiation process between the City of Ithaca and Cornell over the mutual memorandum of understanding regarding Cornell’s Payments In Lieu Of Taxes to the city, which is

Saint-Perez said he believes Cornell should help pay for municipal improvements such as sidewalk and infrastructure repairs — the quality of which drew ire from Ithacans during the primary elections in June — since the University would benefit as much as the city does from the improvements.

“I don’t think that’s an unreasonable ask from an institution in town that relies on and uses those sidewalks and roads,” Saint-Perez said.

On-Campus Housing Selection Now in Sept.

By JULIA SENZON Sun News Editor

The upperclassmen on-campus housing process will officially be completed throughout September — compared to the past spring semester timeline — wrote Cornell Housing and Residential Life in a Friday, Aug. 25 email to students.

“[The adjusted timing] means rising juniors and rising seniors will get first choice in the Housing Selection process,” Housing and Residential Life wrote. “[The new process] also ensures [rising upperclassmen] have the best understanding of [their] on-campus and off-campus options, allowing [them] to make informed decisions for the 2024-2025 academic year.”

The email updates housing’s announcement on May 1 that upperclassmen interested in on-campus housing options would complete room selection throughout the fall semester and be able to participate in continued occupancy — which refers to retaining the same room for the following academic year — with the ability to invite preferred roommates into their living arrangements.

Students who utilize the preferred roommate option can add roommates to continued occupancy or same community housing selections, if additional roommates meet the criteria for that housing option and there is still space available within the room, according to the Aug. 25 email.

The May 1 announcement also said there would be additional beds available for upperclassmen, particularly in Townhouse Apartments and West Campus residence halls. Upperclassmen will also be able to live in Balch Hall once renovations are completed in Fall 2024, said the May

Schuyler Mailroom Shutdown

1 announcement.

“Being an upper-level student should have perks, right?” Housing and Residential Life wrote in the Aug. 25 email. “You asked for more singles, Townhouse Apartments, West Campus rooms and access to newer buildings… and now you have it!”

The Aug. 25 email said upperclassmen students would not only be able to access more housing options in more desirable locations but the selection process would warrant freedom of movement to other locations. Students can essentially opt for continued occupancy, move to a different room within the same residential building or housing community or switch to an entirely different housing location.

All areas of campus — North Campus, South Campus, West Campus and program houses — will have expanded upperclassmen housing options, according to Housing and Residential Life.

Unoccupied upperclassmen-designated housing will be open for rising sophomores throughout their room selection process, which will begin in March. These spaces can also be filled throughout the summer swap period.

Modifications to streamline the housing process were based on focus group and survey responses collected during the 20222023 academic year, according to Housing and Residential Life.

For the 2023-2024 academic year, already about 300 more upperclassmen students were able to live on campus than expected. The housing selection process for the 2024-2025 academic year will begin in September.

SCHUYLER

Continued from page 1

said in a statement to The Sun. “This location offers more service hours for residents and additional staffing. We are looking into opportunities to bring mail services back to the Schuyler community, but at the moment, we are servicing the residents through Cascadilla.”

Residents were provided justification for the closure in an Aug. 23 email from graduate resident advisor Joseph Giliberto.

“The reason for the closure is because the service center department does not have a full-time staff member to manage the service center, this in turn means that no students can be hired to cover night/ weekend shifts because they would not have a supervisor,” Giliberto wrote in an email obtained by The Sun. “They felt that it would [be] best to have all of the packages for Schuyler go to Casc[adilla] because it is able to operate on a “full time” schedule thus allowing residents to access their packages/mail on a more consistent basis.”

Chiedza Musiiwa ’24, who worked in the Schuyler mailroom last school year alongside two other student employees, was skeptical that the move of the Schuyler mailroom to Cascadilla Hall was actually due to a desire to increase hours for Schuyler residents, saying that the only difference between the Schuyler House mailroom and the Cascadilla Hall mailroom is that the Cascadilla service center is open Sundays.

“I felt like the hours are fairly reasonable. I think we were open [at Schuyler] for way too long, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., so there was plenty of time for people to pick up packages. It was never an issue,” Musiiwa said. “So the whole thing about them wanting to offer us more hours — it’s probably because you know, since this is a fairly quiet building, they just want to cut staff down.”

Residents of Schuyler who spoke to The Sun said the closure brings an added inconvenience to living in an already far dorm from campus. While Schuyler is just an eight minute walk from the Ithaca Commons, it is a 20 minute uphill walk to McGraw Tower.

“It’s a burden. Now you have to go out and go to Cascadilla. Some of our packages are pretty big, so we’ll have to walk downhill in the winter, which may be a safety hazard,” resident Angel Zhou ’26 said. “I know a couple of people from the dorm have been trying to ask the administration to reconsider, but they sent out an official email that it’s not going to happen.”

Schuyler House resident Alyssa Fitzgerald ’25

told The Sun that while her friend has a car to help her transport heavy packages from Cascadilla, she feels bad asking him repeatedly for favors. Fitzgerald said she is nervous about Ithaca’s cold winters and what that will mean for traveling between Schuyler House and Cascadilla Hall.

For Musiiwa, a second-time resident of Schuyler House, the mailroom’s closure disrupted the convenience of being able to work close to home.

“We’ve had a couple packages sitting outside... if it gets stolen, nobody’s responsible because you put the wrong address on there.”

Chiedza Musiiwa ‘24

“I was a little bit upset about [being transferred] at first because it was just really easy for me to work here [at Schuyler House],” Musiiwa said. “But now I work in between classes. Not the greatest, but I can still get work done.”

Musiiwa said she worked at the Schuyler House mailroom during move-in this semester before being transferred to the Willard Straight Hall Service Center. But she said that since the move, there has not been clear communication with mail carriers, resulting in residents’ packages being delivered to a variety of locations.

“I know there’s some confusion on what address to put down. Some people think they can keep putting Schuyler down on their packages, but that’s not true — not all the mail carriers know [to deliver to Cascadilla],” Musiiwa said. “We’ve had a couple packages sitting outside… if it gets stolen, nobody’s responsible because you put the wrong address on there. I’ve been trying to remind people in the building, ‘Please, put Cascadilla on there,’ but some stuff still ends up here.”

“I know that this is very frustrating and extremely inconvenient,” Giliberto said in his email. He suggested that residents organize a car-pool to drive to Cascadilla Hall on a semi-frequent basis. “This would be particularly helpful when residents get heavy packages, or the weather is bad and walking up/down the hill could be dangerous. As a note RAs are not allowed to drive residents due to liability issues.”

Coming home | Pierre Saint-Perez grad hopes to maintain the welcoming community of Ithaca that he grew up in, while prioritizing holding the University accountable.

COURTESY OF SAINT-PEREZ FOR COMMON COUNCIL

“We need to make sure that as we grow, we don’t lose our core aspects of what makes Ithaca so special.”

Pierre Saint-Perez grad

Pollack Emphasizes Free Speech Teme in Welcome Email

By CARLIN REYEN Sun Staff Writer

Four days into classes, President Martha Pollack welcomed Cornellians back to campus and underscored the Freedom of Expression 2023-2024 academic theme in an email statement issued to Cornellians on Thursday, Aug. 24.

This year’s theme is officially named “The Indispensable Condition: Freedom of Expression at Cornell,” Pollack wrote. Pollack referenced recent book and classroom bans, as well as attempts to shut down campus speakers, as reasons behind the necessity of freedom of expression.

“Free expression and academic freedom are essential to our academic mission of discovering and disseminating new knowledge and educating the next generation of global citizens,” Pollack said. “They are key to our ability to equip our students with the skills needed for effective participation in democracy: from active listening and engaging across difference, to leading controversial discussions and pursuing effective advocacy.”

Pollack said that to usher in this theme, the University will be hosting a variety of music and art events centered around freedom of expression, including the Scalia/Ginsburg Opera. She noted that Cornell Dairy will also be developing a new ice cream flavor that celebrates freedom of expression.

“Ultimately, free expression and academic freedom are essential to our democracy: to the ability of each citizen to freely speak and learn, and to make informed decisions about their own life and future,” Pollack wrote.

Pollack cited her involvement in the Campus Call for Free Expression, alongside the presidents of 12 other universities — Benedict College, Claremont McKenna College, DePauw University, Duke University, James Madison University, Rollins College, Rutgers University, University of Notre

Common Council Candidate Saint-Perez Shares Vision for City

Continued from page 3

Dame, University of Pittsburgh, University of Richmond, Wellesley College and Wesleyan University.

Pollack acknowledged the political debate surrounding tensions between diversity, equity and inclusion and freedom of expression.

“From the left, the criticism is that we cannot uphold a commitment to DEI if we do not curb some forms of expression,” Pollack wrote. “From the right, the criticism is reversed: that an institutional commitment to DEI is inherently a violation of free expression, and we fail in upholding free expression to the extent we uphold DEI.”

Saint-Perez also acknowledged the ongoing housing crisis in Ithaca as one of the central problems the city is facing. Housing prices in Ithaca have consistently increased in the last few years, and Ithaca is one of the most expensive places to live in the country. In Tompkins County, the annual cost of living is $110,163, more expensive than Los Angeles County — which has an annual cost of living of $102,226 — and comparable to San Diego County — which has an annual cost of living of $110,158.

Saint-Perez pointed to the issue of Southwest Woods — the part of Ithaca that houses the homeless encampment better known as The Jungle — as a summation of his viewpoints.

“A lot of the people who live in Southwest Woods are victims,” Saint-Perez said. “I think the city should be doing something. We need to provide some level of dignified living for people who are clearly falling through the cracks in our social fabric.”

Ramos ’25 Featured in 30 Under 30 List

By MARIAN CABALLO and JULIA SENZON

Editor

When Gia Mar Ramos ’25 was in ninth grade, she became a national winner of the National Center for Women and Information Technology Award for Aspirations in Computing — making her the first student in the country to win the award as a ninth grader. A few years later, one of Ramos’ own mentees became a Puerto Rico winner of NCWIT, after Ramos coached her through the application process.

The girls teamed up and eventually outperformed the boys in the class, despite the initial learning curve.

While Ramos was not particularly interested in robotics, her interest in computer science persisted. The next summer, Ramos decided to stay in Puerto Rico. She searched for computer science summer camps there but could not find a program that interested her.

science majors identify as women, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. Ramos said she aims to bring girls into computer science by making sure activities are appropriate and engaging, rather than intimidating.

Pollack said that the response to these conflicting ideas, as scholars, is not to avoid differences in opinion, but rather to develop solutions through respectful, open dialogue.

“Rather than banning offensive or hateful speech, we can respond to it: supporting those who are affected by it and offering individual and institutional counter-statements,” Pollack said.

Pollack added that speaking out on behalf of the University should only be done in cases where the offense is “truly egregious,” in order to avoid the University’s counteracting its own mission through speech censorship.

The student was part of the first summer program of Ramos’ non-profit Girl Innovation — founded in 2018 to address the gender gap in computing and technology.

“[I was proud] seeing her growth with computer science through Girl Innovation,” Ramos said, regarding the student that was honored through NCWIT. “I actually got a girl to love computer science, which is kind of the whole point of [what I do].”

Four years later, on Aug. 9, Ramos — who is from Gurabo, Puerto Rico — was named a member of the inaugural Forbes Puerto Rico Local 30 Under 30 List.

Ramos is a junior majoring in computer science in the College of Engineering. She is a member of Pi Beta Phi and an operations analyst for Cornell DEBUT, the University’s only biomedical engineering project team.

Ramos’ interest in computer science began unintentionally. In fifth grade, she had intended to take a crime investigation class through the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth summer program. Ramos’ father instead signed her up for a robotics class, without telling her.

Ramos recounted that she and the one other girl in the class were both anxious and overwhelmed with no prior coding experience.

“The only [tech summer camp] I found was a 3D printing [program] that [had participants] 3D print your own bow or 3D print a bracelet,” Ramos said. “It’s cute, but it wasn’t actually coding, so I wanted to create my own [program].”

This gap in computer science education motivated Ramos to create Girl Innovation in 2018, which creates opportunities for girls, especially those in underprivileged areas around Puerto Rico, to gain exposure to computing. Ramos said that she particularly wanted to target third- to eighth-grade girls who are in the critical years when they may be discouraged from pursuing science, technology, engineering and math.

Her idea came to fruition when she gained mentorship and funding from NCWIT’s program Aspire IT.

Ramos attributed the amount of funding she acquired to her applying to every pitching competition that she came across.

The initiative has been sponsored by CISCO, Cortelco, HERLead — collaborated on by brands including Ann Taylor and LOFT — and T-Mobile, with an accumulated $10,000 in funding derived from grants, sponsorships and savings.

In the first summer of running the program, Ramos taught approximately 15 girls in day-long classes every Saturday. The curriculum ranged from Scratch, an educational block-coding tool targeted towards children, to coding robots to complete challenges.

Only 19 percent of computer

“It’s pretty much just trying to find things that aren’t scary from the start,” Ramos said. “If I were to just tell them ‘Oh, let’s code in Java’ from day one, I feel like they would be terrified.”

At the beginning of the course, Ramos — inspired by the coursework of CTY — has the students instruct each other on how to complete a simple task, such as putting on a jacket or shoes, in the language of code. Ramos said that this practice introduces the specificity necessary in writing code and helps students internalize how code functions in an engaging matter.

After the summer camp, Ramos facilitated a mentorship program starting with two of the girls from the camp, encouraging them to compete in technology competitions that she had done herself. In the first year of mentoring, the two girls became semi-finalists in ProjectCSGirls, a nationwide competition with over a thousand competitors.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Ramos also launched Girl Innovation Talks, a digital video series in which she interviews women in science and technology.

Ramos’ plans for the future are to facilitate an ambassador program to expand the organization outside of Puerto Rico, where she will lead teaching workshops to train the ambassadors to teach the course in their own hometowns.

SAINT-PEREZ

Carlin Reyen can be reached at creyen@cornellsun.com.

Marian Caballo can be reached at mcaballo@cornellsun.com.

Julia Senzon can be reached at jsenzon@cornellsun.com.

Anthony Nagle can be reached at afn27@cornell.edu. Jonathan Mong can be reached at jmong@cornellsun.com.

Sun Assistant News Editor and Sun News

“Ultimately, free expression and academic freedom are essential to our democracy: to the ability of each citizen to freely speak and learn, and to make informed decisions about their own life and future.”

President Martha Pollack

KIKI PLOWE ARTS ASSISTANT EDITOR

I’m a recent convert to country music. At one point, I might have given the usual line that I listen to “anything but country” — now, if you see me driving around campus with my windows down, you’ll probably hear me blasting my hours-long “country era” playlist. This week, the country album of choice has been Zach Bryan’s new self-titled album, a raw 54 minutes of poetry, folk and Americana.

On August 25, Bryan released his fourth full-length album since his debut DeAnn (2019). In the last four years, Bryan has amassed over 16 million monthly listeners on Spotify and sold out shows nationwide. Yet, despite his quickly-earned success, Zach Bryan does not pose as anything other than Zach Bryan. A big part of his music’s widespread appeal is its expertful intimacy and authentic sound. Zach Bryan is entire-

Zach Bryan’s Zach Bryan

ly self-produced and shows listeners who Bryan is. The country artist has said on numerous occasions that he doesn’t care what people think of his music.

The album opens with “Fear and Friday’s (Poem),” an honest minute and 47 seconds of Bryan speaking over instrumentals. The track gives old fans an on-ramp into their favorite feelings and unfamiliar listeners a preview of who Bryan is: honest, reflective, self-critical and full of feeling. The second track, “Overtime,” opens with the blaring beginning chords of the national anthem. The song defines the album’s flavor of Americana, also weaving in a personal touch from Bryan, who was born in Oklahoma and joined the U.S. Navy at seventeen.

The instrumentals are crisp, weaving together folk, rock and country. Though the album couldn’t stand without the reliable character of Bryan’s guitar, the real strength of the music lies in its poetry. The magic arises from Bryan’s balancing of the

personal and the universal; he expertfully crafts his lyrics with details that are specific enough to paint a vivid picture but accessible enough to evoke intense feelings in any listener. The lyrics are carefully crafted but not lofty; his language is precise but also simple enough for any listener to enjoy.

Each song tells a story, and Bryan draws you into his world: “And you’re grinnin’ like a vandal / after swiggin’ on a handle of Tito’s / Lord, I didn’t plan this / I’m just goin’ as far as the wind blows” (“Holy Roller (feat. Sierra Ferrell)”). His songs bounce between love, heartbreak, remorse and wistfulness, and he is a wizard at making his own experiences feel universal. I am Diet Coke and New York, but Bryan makes me long for whiskey and Oklahoma.

The album features other big names in folk and country like Kacey Musgraves and The Lumineers. “I Remember Everything (feat. Kacey Musgraves)” is another standout song filled with memories

and longing: “You’re like concrete feet in the summer heat / That burns like hell when two souls meet.” Bryan seamlessly blends his style with the featured artists’ and brings out the best of both.

Many of the songs on the album do sound the same, but the similarity between songs adds to the cohesiveness of the album, rather than making for a boring listen. Each song stands on its own as a moment of emotion and reflection, but the album as a whole also provides an artfully crafted and consistent listening experience.

Bryan has a number of songs under his belt like “Something in the Orange” and “Oklahoma Smokeshow” that you’ve probably heard on TikTok and may be more catchy than any of the songs on Zach Bryan. However, it might be a more impressive feat for Bryan to have written an album that captures his essence as a complete body of work, as an anthology of poems rather than radio hits.

Bryan’s work is nostalgic yet fresh — he’s found suc-

British Paw Patrol Review

MAX FATTAL ARTS ASSISTANT EDITOR

On the first or second night of staying with some family in England, a young second cousin twice removed (or something of that sort) asked me to name a movie… one she’d know of. I responded: “Barbie.” After asking me if I’d seen or liked the film (I’d apparently picked one that had been on her mind), she got to her question: “so, when they show… Barbie in your country do they have to have the actors re-record some of the lines?”, alluding to the fact that some of the actors don’t naturally speak English with an American accent. I chuckled a bit and responded, “No. Actually, I think part of the movie takes place where I’m from,” pointing out that some of the non-Barbieland scenes in the film were shot blocks away from my childhood home. It remained funny to me, though, that my accent (or something about me) had been silly enough that my cousin believed I couldn’t possibly be engaged in the same cultural ecosystem as her (even in the case of a movie where numerous British and Australian actors were putting on American accents).

A week or so later, I relayed the story to my partner. We laughed about the coin-

cidence of the movie choice, then bemoaned the ramifications of the interaction: “You know, it’s sad that accents are going away with globalization.” It was sad, even to two people staring down the barrel of a semester abroad filled with potential misunderstandings and lost lecture teachings.

Another week or so later, now staying at the house of another cousin with another, far less inquisitive child, I got the chance to watch a half episode of Paw Patrol (in between the incessant stylings of the Netflix-generated Russian animated silent short series Booba). Having younger siblings meant I knew Paw Patrol inside and out (I’d gone to a Paw Patrol birthday, for Christ’s sake). But this wasn’t exactly the Paw Patrol of my brother’s youth. It was nearly an identical product, but with the key change of every character now sporting a British accent as opposed to an American (or, as my furious Google searching found, Canadian) one. Evidently, Paw Patrol is dubbed in Britain to preserve the King’s English, as are presumably many other children’s shows. My other cousin was right for asking the question about dubbing; I had pie on my face.

It’s hard to know how to react when confronted with something as startling as British Paw Patrol . First comes the jerk-reaction annoyance:

“This isn’t MY Paw Patrol ” (it never was, you didn’t watch the show, idiot). Then you return to that earlier conversation (accents are disappearing) and get excited: Someone, somewhere is trying to protect accents. Then, slowly but surely, that answer becomes a bit unsatisfying as well. Accents are an exciting representation of distinct lived experiences and cultural backgrounds. They continue to exist (and may subsequently cease to) as a last gasp of a world expanded by capitalistic homogenization. They provide a window into a world populated by an entirely distinct ecosystem of entertainment: different board games, cartoon characters and national cinemas themselves informed by different political environments, life experiences and art histories. Any art lover would and should salivate at the suggestion that there exist movements and cultures as of yet uncanonized by Western academia, just as they should pursue those movements and champion their canonization. The restrictiveness of the Hollywood studio system becomes more valuable by their distinct contemporaries in post-war Japanese cinema and Italian neorealism; Schindler’s List’ s hegemonic position as the de facto Holocaust movie becomes palatable by the existences of Nazisploitation and Shoah , each themselves oper-

cess within the scene of contemporary country music, but also hasn’t fallen prey to the vicious trap of bottled pop country. Bryan’s continued self-awareness is another big appeal of the album. He puts all of himself into his songs, even the parts that may be ugly or “distasteful to mostly everyone,” as he writes in his opening track. He embraces his roughness around the edges, asking in “East Side of Sorrow,” “Do you ever get tired of singin’ songs / Like all your pain is just another fucking sing along.”

It’s music for the girls, music for the guys, music for friends or for a morning alone. Zach Bryan gives us sixteen tracks of unapologetic Zach Bryan, and the big-hearted and acoustic guitar-minded among us will be grateful to add the album to their Spotify libraries.

ating on opposite ends of a reputability spectrum. Accents are the window dressing that provide the gateway into all of that. They plainly state an underlying diversity which we might then desperately pursue.

British Paw Patrol isn’t any of that. It’s the window dressing, certainly, but devoid of any window away from the endlessly expanding homogenization. It’s a pernicious liberalism willing to tolerate a person talking a bit different than the dominant culture, but deeply uncomfortable with any actual radicalism in their personage.

British Paw Patrol is rainbow pride, where the language of queerness is crammed so squarely into the aesthetics of corporatism that it is rendered… ordinary. British Paw Patrol is Blue Beetle , where the only chance for Latinx representation in a Hollywood blockbuster is a 5th phase, third-string, paint-by-numbers superhero origin story distinguished only by its groundbreaking cast and presenting that as radical in and of itself.

British Paw Patrol is a representative of the espoused but unenforced language of American liberalism: To shift the Overton window to allow anti-cop, anti-imperialist or anti-capitalist statements, without a subsequent shift in the acceptance of anti-cop, anti-imperialist or anti-capitalist actions.

It doesn’t matter all that much, British Paw Patrol that is. There’s even an argument to be made that British Paw Patrol is a lesser of two evils between Paw Patrol being a monoculture without any national distinctions and Paw Patrol being a part of a monoculture with those national distinctions. The shift away from homogenization must start somewhere, after all. On the other hand, a corporate cession of language tends to breed complacency. It’s not worth complaining about homogenization because we allow and even encourage surface-level diversity. We will keep up the appearance of difference, even if we sternly reject it when it emerges.

My cousin will grow up to have a British accent, thank goodness, but he’ll also grow up going to McDonalds, loving Mickey Mouse and watching Paw Patrol . He’ll be British, but really he’ll be a citizen of capitalism, as I am, as my brother is and as we all are. He’ll be allowed his quirks (an accent, perhaps an anti-royalist streak, or even a love of cult cinema), but I’m not looking forward to visiting in 15 or so years and discovering that, no matter what those quirks are, we’re not so different after all.

Kiki Plowe is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at kplowe@cornellsun.com.

Max Fattal is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. They can be reached at mfattal@cornellsun.com.

The Corne¬

Charlie Tebbutt Rêveries

Charlie Tebbutt is a third year PhD candidate in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. His fortnightly column Rêveries is a collection of musings that wander from the hill, over the Atlantic and out to the beautiful planet that we all share. He can be reached at ctebbutt@cornellsun.com.

Oppenheimer (et al.)

In the Age of Co-authorship

Like you, I did not expect to walk out of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and into the library with renewed inspiration to crunch my dissertation data. Like you, I couldn’t begin to justify such a feeling in the face of the actual results of the Manhattan Project. Yet, while acknowledging the impossibility of putting aside the destruction wrought by the inventions at Los Alamos, those of us outside the business of weapons development have plenty to envy in J. Robert’s research setup.

How often do scientists find themselves with 2 billion dollars, a private ranch in New Mexico[1] and unstoppable self-belief? Not to mention definitive knowledge of who exactly constitute the world’s best minds, and the ability to assemble them all in one place under their direction. Dr. Oppenheimer never had to question his work’s relevance or applicability; of all the things that kept the father of the atomic bomb up at night, lack of “real-world impact” was surely not one of them (restricting that impact to the “right” part of the real world was the central concern).

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Given the opportunity to interview the man, you might have more pressing questions than ‘can I take a look at that grant proposal?’, but the glamor with which Hollywood depicts the scientific process makes one curious. Does world-changing science really only convalesce around privileged, misunderstood geniuses, who require nothing less than carte blanche and universal deference to realize their prophetic visions? Were the contributions of collaborators like Cornell’s Nobel prize-winning Hans Bethe and Richard Feynman really equivalent to a few choice lines and an occasional riff on the bongos?[2] Oppenheimer would have you think so (as would A Beautiful Mind, A Theory of Everything and countless other science biopics).

Nolan’s latest offering dedicates three thought-provoking hours to dredging the soul of one man over the course of his explosive career. During this time, Oppenheimer’s, or “Oppie’s” (every patriarch needs his familiar diminutive) accolades soar from “founder, mayor, sheriff” of Los Alamos, to “sphinx-like guru of the atom,” and finally “the most important man who ever lived.” Anyone for Kool-Aid?[3]

It is compelling (as, I gather, was the Rev Jim Jones) — and complicated enough without delving into the backstories (God forbid the mathematical workings) of our merry band of physicists. Perhaps the individual, as the atomic unit of human experience, really is the best way to communicate science to the public. Certainly, I remember being moved to close Netflix halfway through a viewing of The Man Who Knew Infinity and open up a long-unfinished manuscript that I suddenly had to complete. The scene in question featured the young Srinivasa Ramanujan running across a Cambridge quad brandishing his first publication. This sepia-toned lens made academia look like a fairytale quest for personal glory, where heroic individuals battle a world that cannot comprehend their genius.

These narratives are, of course, just that:

stories[4] designed to entertain (or whatever you call ruminating on nuclear apocalypse for three hours) cinema audiences who’d rather not spend their weekends exploring theta functions in all their glorious detail. But the fallout radiates to (and from) traditional conceptualizations of science as a “story of individual heroes […] with a hierarchical and authoritarian moral to it.”

Indeed, Oppenheimer is not alone in sensationalizing the “unstable, theatrical, egotistical, neurotic” personality of its promethean protagonist. From Einstein’s tongue to Humphrey Davy and Archimedes’ “Eureka” episode, eccentric flair appears to be the rule, rather than the exception. It is argued that Charles Darwin’s socio-economic position propelled his theories beyond those of contemporaries like Alfred Russell Wallace. Could flamboyant personalities exert similar effects?

The academy certainly still privileges the individual through concepts such as the H-index, "rockstar professors" and "vanamed researchers." By treating science as a series of individual achievements, publications and citations, the research community systematically biases against sections of academia shown to contribute more to team-oriented, educational and collaborative work. Perhaps a few brooding sages really do fill the halls over in math and physics, but the science I see every day doesn’t look like that (nor have those fields resisted the exponential increase in co-authors over the last century). Domineering faculty playing “founder, mayor and sheriff” are well known among students and avoided, except by those desperate to build their list of “rockstar” references.

My paper did eventually get published, but the process involved far more time revising and discussing with co-authors — hardly summer blockbuster material — than running across quads waving manuscripts. When we come to make films about the Predator Drone (or perhaps something that actually saved lives like the COVID-19 vaccine), will they bear the names of individuals like “Karem” and “Rossi,” or collectives like “General Atomics” and “Moderna”? I can’t say you’d find me in the front row for either, but I think it’s time we started the clock to blow the myth of the self-made scientist sky-high.

[1] There are also those few hundred square miles of stolen land.

[2] You might ask why any single person would want to take credit for the atomic bomb. While the film doesn’t hide its contention that Oppenheimer ‘wanted all the glory and none of the responsibility,’ another argument for de-centring the individual would be to distribute that responsibility more widely.

[3] Jonestown claimed 909 lives, compared to the atom bomb’s 200,000.

[4] The individuals in these films are all real, unquestionably intelligent and may indeed have worked with varying degrees of independence; but aren’t they a little overrepresented in films about science?

ANGEL’S ARSON

Fill in the empty cells, one number in each, so that each column, row, and region contains the numbers 1-9 exactly once. Each number in the solution therefore occurs only once in each of the three “directions,” hence the “single numbers” implied by the puzzle’s name. (Rules from wikipedia.org/wiki/ Sudoku)

Name it after you

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9 LOST AND FOUND

Lost Your Earrings?

If you’re a second-year CU student from Massachusetts, and you shopped for antiques with your family in Trumansburg a week or so ago, tell me the MA town you’re from, and I’ll give you your earring back. Contact slist@cornellsun.com.

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Women’s Soccer

T e Red Draws in Home Opener

Women’s Soccer ties Lehigh 2-2 in its frst game of the season

By GRAYSON RUHL Sun Sports Editor

Women’s soccer kicked off its season on Sunday, Aug. 27 when it hosted Lehigh (1-0-3) at Berman Field. The two squads were facing off for the first time in nearly 14 years, with Cornell looking for its first win and the Mountain Hawks seeking its second. After a slow first half and a back-andforth second half, the teams settled for a draw, 2-2.

just three times all of last year, the Mountain Hawks has three in its first four games this season.

The Red had a number of opportunities to convert off of corner kicks, but could not convert until the 71st minute. Senior forward Laken Gallman set up the play with a shot on goal. Lehigh’s keeper blocked but could not contain it, and junior forward Maddie Leroy drilled the putback into the net to tie the contest at one.

Just over two minutes later, Cornell took the lead. Again it was Gallman with the assist, finding sophomore midfielder Abigail Bishara, who scored from 20 yards out.

The Red (0-0-1) was looking to extend its twogame winning streak from last season. Cornell was also vying for its first victory over Lehigh. The Mountain Hawks won both of the previous two contests between the teams, in 2008 and 2009. Lehigh was coming off back-to-back ties against Villanova and St. Joseph’s. After draw- ing

The match got off to a slow start, with both teams struggling to generate offense. The squads combined for just five shots in the first half, with the sole shot on goal coming from senior forward Ava Laden.

A stout Cornell defense kept Lehigh off the board in the first 45 minutes despite two corner kick attempts from the Mountain Hawks. The game went to halftime tied at zero. Coming out of the locker room, both sides appeared to pick up the intensity. Six minutes into the half, the Mountain Hawks broke through, as Ava Schaller set up Faith Dobosiewicz to take a 1-0 lead.

The Mountain Hawks continued to fight and found the equalizer 10 minutes later, taking advantage of a deflection off a Cornell defender. With the game knotted at two, neither team could secure the winning goal in the last six minutes of play. The Red came away with a draw, 2-2.

The Red has little time to reflect on this game, as the team travels to Poughkeepsie, New York, on Wednesday, Aug. 30 to take on Marist (0-1-1). The game is set to kick off at 7 p.m. and will be broadcast on ESPN+. Grayson Ruhl can be reached at gruhl@cornellsun.com.

A season for the ages

Draw of deuces | The Red and Lehigh both scored a pair of goals in the second half of the game, leading to a 2-2 draw.

The two squads were facing off for the first time in nearly 14 years.

A stout Cornell defense kept Lehigh off the board in the first 45 minutes despite two corner kick attempts from the Mountain Hawks. Bump.

Volleyball placed fifth in the Ivy League last season and will begin its 2023 season on Saturday, Sept. 2 against Niagara University.

After winning its first NCAA tournament game in over 40 years last season, men’s soccer begins its 2023 season on Saturday, Sept. 2 against University of Vermont.

After drawing against Lehigh, women’s soccer continues its season on Wednesday, Aug. 30 against Marist College. The Red Foxes is also looking to secure its first win of the season.