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International News

International // 2016 Nobel Prizes Selected

Last week in Stockholm, Sweden, twelve men were awarded this year’s Nobel Prizes for their outstanding contributions to humanity. Prizes were awarded for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, economics, literature, and peace.

Three British physicists, David Thouless, F. Duncan Haldane, and J. Michael Kosterlitz, who all work in U.S. universities, were awarded this year’s prize in physics. The Nobel Prize website describes the prize being awarded “for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter,” or as described by CNN, “for revealing the secrets of exotic matter.” According to Thors Hans Hansson, of the Nobel Prize Physics Committee, this prize is important because their research “could be used in the next generation of electronics and supercomputers.”

Another trio was awarded the Prize in chemistry “for the development of the world’s smallest machines,” according to BBC. Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa “designed and synthesised molecular machines” that are “a thousand times thinner than a strand of hair.” These machines have the capability of entering the human body and directly delivering treatment to cells, but could also be used in the development of “smart materials” for use in vehicles and other commonly-used artifacts.

Yoshinori Ohsumi of the Tokyo Institute of Technology was awarded this year’s Prize in physiology or medicine. He is credited with discovering new methods of “autophagy.” Autophagy,, according to NPR, is a “fundamental process cells use to degrade and recycle parts of themselves.” The Japanese biologist’s work has “opened the path to understanding how cells adapt to starvation and respond to infection,” according to the Nobel awarding committee. Though scientists have known about the process since the 1960’s, the precise machinery used in the process were unknown. Ohsumi showed that instead of their being a “waste dump” within the cells, it is actually a “recycling plant,” according to the chair of the awarding committee, Juleen Zierath.

Two professors from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) share this year’s Nobel Prize in economics. Oliver Hart from Harvard, and Bengt Holmström from MIT,) were both awarded the prize for their contributions to contract theory, which, according to CNN Money, is “the agreements that shape business, finance, and public policy.” Holmström’s research focused on employment contracts, including those between CEO’s and shareholders. When asked in about the sizeable bonuses many CEO’s have taken as of late in a CNN article, he described them as being “extraordinarily high.” CNN reported Hart’s research as having“looked at whether providers of public services, such as schools, hospitals, or prisons, should be publicly or privately owned,” and determined that the “incentives for cost reduction are typically too strong,” which can lead to a decrease in the quality of services.

Colombia’s President, Juan Manuel Santos, was awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. According to the awarding committee, he was recognized for his “resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year long civil war to an end.” According to the New York Times, the agreement the Colombian government reached with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) would have ended the “longest-running war in the Americas.”The efforts for peace seem to have been, at least temporarily, thwarted by the rejection of the agreement by the Colombian citizenry, whose approval is required for the peace-deal to take effect. However, in spite of this set-back, after receiving the award, President Santos was resolute in his commitment to the peace process, and stated “I invite everyone to join our strength, our minds and our hearts in this great national endeavor so that we can win the most important prize of all: peace in Colombia.” The chairwoman of the Prize committee shared the President’s feelings, and stated, “The committee hopes that the peace prize will give him strength to succeed in this demanding task.”

American singer, songwriter, and artist Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. The Nobel Prize organization stated this honor was bestowed upon Dylan “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

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Stories In Focus

Sherlock Series Three Disappoints

After a two-year hiatus, Sherlock returned to television at the beginning of this year to the jubilant delight of thousands of fans around the world.  For those unaware, Sherlock is a retelling of the classic stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in a contemporary setting. It provided the stage on which Benedict Cumberbatch, playing the titular character, burst into international acclaim, and it has not done poorly for the reputation of Martin Freeman in the role of deuteragonist John Watson, either. Written by Stephen Moffat (of Doctor Who) and Mark Gatiss, the show has thus far displayed a great ability to adapt Doyle’s original stories to a modern setting.

Courtesy of hollywoodreporter.com
Courtesy of hollywoodreporter.com

The third season had a tall order to meet. The dazzling success of the first two ended in the heights of mystery, as fans everywhere were left wondering how Sherlock had survived his apparent death while deceiving even Watson.  We all loved that ending, and looked forward to learning the explanation, as well as witnessing Sherlock’s return to his beloved London.

Any writers would have been challenged to deliver on fans’ expectations, and unfortunately, Moffat and Gatiss didn’t quite manage it. Compared to the prior two seasons, the third one has thus far been a relatively unremarkable example of television. Catering to the curiosity of the fans, Gatiss spent the majority of the first episode, The Empty Hearse,  focusing on Watson’s reaction to Sherlock’s return. As one of those curious fans, I was absolutely delighted by the emotion and concurrent humour involved with said reaction, but given the brevity of the episode, it was surely a mismanagement of time. It would have been business-as-usual in a show which featured seasons of normal length, but Sherlock only has three episodes per season, and I felt as though this writing decision cost them. Because the episode focused so much on Sherlock’s return, the drama of the actual case—in which Sherlock is to prevent a terrorist bombing of parliament à la Guy Fawkes—is hurried and unfinished. We never learned enough about the antagonist to actual fear that he might succeed, and by the end of the episode he still felt like an empty threat. Consequently, the resolution rang hollow as well.

The second episode,The Sign of Three, was slightly reminiscent of The Reichenbach Fall (the 2nd series finale) in its coverage of multiple cases which Sherlock hadn’t been able to solve. While it only seemed right that the writers should deliver handsomely on the wedding of John Watson, this episode again felt unfulfilling. The majority of it was retrospective, delivered in the form of history’s most awkward wedding speech, and it felt quite taxing by the time Sherlock wound to a close. Despite the fact that they tied all of the cases together at the ending and Sherlock was able to prevent a death during the reception itself, the entire episode still seemed as though Moffat and Gatiss had drawn inspiration from Michael Scott of The Office. While entertaining, it seemed out of place in Sherlock. Overall, the second episode was very disappointing. Most of the episode meandered without a clear antagonist to anchor it, and when he did show up it was without much hubbub or recognition. He was less engaging than a monster from Scooby-Doo, and the episode suffered for it. In most shows, I would call this a “filler” episode, making it a real shame that they wasted both the Wedding of John Watson and Sherlock’s first Best-Man speech on it.

Between the meandering and unfocused script of the second episode, and a first episode which, with its spectacled man and ominous music at the end, might well have been written to fulfill a checklist of “How to Introduce a Scary Villain,” the season has been much less enjoyable than the preceding two, and has felt much less engaging. That is not to say that it is a selection of terrible episodes, because it really still is far superior to most other contemporary television shows. Rather, in the third season, Gatiss and Moffat failed to meet the high bar which they themselves raised impossibly high in their first two seasons.  They put in a very good effort, though, and so I recommend that everyone who has not yet seen the season put the popcorn on and watch it ASAP—so long as you don’t hold it to the same standards as you might the first two seasons.

 

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News

World Leaders Pay Respect at Mandela’s Funeral

Dignitaries from around the world flew to South Africa on Tuesday, December 10, to commemorate the life of former South African President Nelson Mandela. Mandela, instrumental in ending apartheid policies in his country, died on December 8 at the age of 95 after a persistent lung infection.

Courtesy of forbesimg.com
Courtesy of forbesimg.com

According to the Washington Post, huge crowds of mourners filled a soccer stadium in Soweto, South Africa where together they sang and clapped, memorializing Mandela as a racial healer, a figure so humble and transcendent that he felt comfortable with rich and poor, young and old, black and white. The service lasted for four hours with many emotional tributes and joyous song about a great leader lost. This all happened during an intense rainstorm which, according to tradition, symbolizes the passing of a great leader into the afterlife.

The venue of the memorial service, Soweto, is symbolic for many South Africans. The Washington Post writes that Soweto was the site of the 2010 World Cup tournament and the last time Mandela was seen in public. Moreover, Soweto was a formerly segregated township that was at the center of anti-apartheid protests in the 1970s and 1980s, a fitting place for South Africans of all backgrounds and color to unite to mourn a leader who fought against this segregation.

Among the mourners were over ninety presidents and prime ministers from around the world, including U.S. President Barack Obama, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and British Prime Minister David Cameron. According to the BBC, Obama, who was cheered as he took the podium to offer a eulogy to Mandela, remarked that “we will never see the likes of Nelson Mandela again. While I will always fall short of Madiba [Mr. Mandela’s clan name], he makes me want to be a better man.” Cuban President Raul Castro, whose brother Fidel showed much support for Mandela’s anti-apartheid cause, also stated during his eulogy address that Mandela was the “ultimate symbol of dignity and the revolutionary struggle.” Other mourners included many celebrities, such as Charlize Theron, who was born in South Africa, along with Bono, Oprah Winfrey, Peter Gabriel, and Sir Richard Branson.

While President Obama may have been cheered, the warm welcome was not spread to current South African President Jacob Zuma, who was booed and jeered as he prepared to give his closing address. According to Reuters, Zuma’s government is currently in the midst of numerous corruption scandals, upsetting many South Africans who view him as a fraction of the man that Mandela was. Undeterred by the booing, the BBC reports that Zuma stated that Mandela was “one of a kind…a fearless freedom fighter who refused to allow the brutality of the apartheid state to stand in way of the struggle for the liberation of his people.” Additionally, Zuma announced the renaming of a number of public buildings. This includes the Union Buildings in the capital Pretoria, where Mandela will lie in state until December 13, which will soon be known as the Mandela Amphitheatre.

The ceremony concluded with a speech by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who asked the crowd to rise to their feet for a final tribute. On December 15, a state funeral for Nelson Mandela will be held before his body is interred in a family burial plot.

 

Categories
Opinions

Idolization of the Extremes

Christians go back and forth on whether ours is a religion of moderation or extremes. On the one hand, we are meant to abstain from indulgences such as sexual promiscuity, consumerism and materialism, and overeating. Purity and health are both important to us, and as any good nutritionist or fitness trainer will tell you, moderation is key. We should not hoard wealth. We should turn the other cheek. On the other hand, Jesus could easily be painted as a revolutionary. He braided whips and flipped tables. He told off the Pharisees. He called us to live in a radical way; the same standards that require moderation could also be seen as extremist when compared to the sedentary lifestyles of many—give up everything you have and follow me? In a way, it’s flattering to think of Christianity as a religion of extremes. We are supposed to be “not of this world,” after all, right? We are special. We are different from others in a profound and fundamental way.

I recently came across two different articles that changed the way I think about these questions of moderation and extremism. The first was an article on BBC News that described the heroic acts of a teenage girl who saved a middle-aged man. The girl, Keshia Thomas, was eighteen when she was witness to a KKK demonstration in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She attended with a crowd of black protestors. A white man with an SS tattoo and a Confederate flag t-shirt was noticed in the crowd of observers. They, along with Thomas, began to chase him out. At some point he was knocked to the ground and the crowd began to kick and beat him. Thomas threw herself down on top of him and fought off the attackers, quite possibly saving his life, had the blows escalated.

The second article, found in The Washington Post, is a profile of Nadia Bolz-Weber, a progressive Lutheran minister who heads a small church, House for All Sinners and Saints, in Denver. Bolz-Weber grew up in a Christian home but felt marginalized by the church and was heavily involved in drug abuse, surrounding herself with “underside dwellers . . . cynics, alcoholics and queers” for several years before eventually getting clean and becoming a minister. She has become well-known for her foul mouth and tattooed physique, and her church prides itself on being accepting of people from all walks of life.

I did not react to these stories as positively as you might expect. Do not doubt my esteem for Kehsia Thomas and what she did. Her selflessness and bravery brought tears to my eyes (which doesn’t hap—okay, it does happen often), but I fear for what many may take away from her story. My first thought was that I would probably never have such an impressive opportunity for goodwill. I will probably never be seen as a hero, I will never be caught in a mob or a riot or a warzone and I will never throw my body over an innocent or a grenade. This can be a very damaging way of thinking. No one should sit around waiting for their “big moment” to come. Waiting for a notable opportunity can cause procrastination on smaller goals. When you don’t feel like you can do any good from where you are in the world right now, it will not seem worthwhile to practice small kindnesses and general friendliness in everyday life. It is a mindset that cripples many, and it is noticeable on Houghton campus, in the numbers of students who have a longing to help others in a big way and yet do not take part in community service projects in Alleghany County. No one is ever going to be in the perfect position to make a huge impact. That is rare and happens to few people—people who were spending their days engaged in doing good work for the world in small places for a very long time before being noticed. As Teri Gunderson, a woman who was impressed with Thomas’ actions, says, “The voice in my head says something like this, ‘If she could protect a man, I can show kindness to this person.’ And with that encouragement, I do act with more kindness.”

The Bolz-Weber profile portrayed her church as a haven for those who have had rocky relationships with the Church (sadly a frequent occurrence), and it is indeed a beautiful thing that Bolz-Weber is giving those people a chance to connect with God in a refreshing church setting. Says one congregant of the experience, “House has a lot of people burned by religion, and this still holds for me. It’s the only church I can stomach.” But the article took an odd turn when it began to describe what happened when Bolz-Weber’s congregation started to expand. “Normal people,” i.e. Christians without torrid pasts, began to attend. “It was awful,” wrote Bolz-Weber. She claimed that the normal Christians were “f—king up [her] weird,” and a church meeting was actually held to discuss whether or not the newcomers should be allowed to continue to attend. This struck me as outrageous, considering that House was formed as an antidote to the unwelcoming nature of other churches. Bolz-Weber’s attitude represents another kind of extreme: the belief that one is not “real” or authentic or cannot know true forgiveness without having first dragged oneself through the rigmarole of sin and depravity. Bolz-Weber prides herself on her honesty and appears apathetic on matters such as chastity and foul language, behaviors that come with explicit guidelines in the Bible. Yes, being open and inviting are strong tenets of the Christian faith (“Come as you are”), but along with that approach comes the condition, “now go and sin no more.” By the end of the article I was left with the feeling that Jesus—a man who spent the first thirty years of his life working as a carpenter and the last three years preaching by lakesides—might not have felt comfortable in the House for All Saints and Sinners. And yet who could understand the message of salvation better than He?

Christians like to embrace extremes. You’re not “good” until you’ve adopted two third-world children, published a novel, and thrown yourself over a man to protect him from a mob. You’re not “forgiven” until you’ve done hard drugs, have a tally of sexual partners in the double digits, and, if possible, have spent at least four years in prison. But God does not call us to make momentous, heroic sacrifices when we find a perfect opportunity. God calls us to make the slow and steady sacrifice of our entire, day-by-day, minute-by-minute life.