To the Editor:

Re: “People’s Republic Honors 60th Anniversary,” News, Oct. 2

The omissions in this article are an unfortunate example of journalistic negligence. How is it that out of an 880 word article about the history of the People’s Republic of China, there are only 70 words about the genocide of the government against its own people?

Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips (known musically as Dean & Britta) brought Andy Warhol’s Factory to Cornell Cinema on Friday night. The duo provided the musical accompaniment for 13 Most Beautiful… Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests. Together with the Andy Warhol Museum, Dean & Britta put together a set of songs to accompany 13 four-minute, black and white silent screen tests shot by Warhol in the mid-1960s. Playing both original compositions and cover songs, the band’s distinctive pop aesthetic seemed to be influenced by 1970’s punk rock (think a pleasant Joy Division/David Bowie combination).

As Cornell attempts to “Reimagine” the future of many of its internal functions, the History department has began to re-examine itself. A panel of professors within the history department held an open meeting yesterday in McGraw Hall with students to discuss the future of the major and the department.

“Periodically, we like to revisit the major and take the time to touch base with the students,” Prof. Maria Cristina Garcia, history and American studies, said at the beginning of the discussion. “We like to make sure that the requirements aren’t too onerous or too easy and see what else the students hope to gain from the department.”

To the Editor:

Re: “Univ. Pulls Peanut Products Off Shelves,” News, Feb. 18

I think it behooves us to recognize that Salmonellosis and Salmonella (as written about in the article “Univ. Pulls Peanut Products Off Shelves”) is named after Daniel Elmer Salmon, the first Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, 1876, in the United States. The degree was awarded from Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, the first in the country.

Stanley Scharf

To the Editor:

It’s unfortunate that we have not seen more coverage of an unprecedented event in our nation’s history, occurring as we speak covered in more detail here in The Sun. The stimulus bill currently being debated before Congress is massive in scale and scope on a level before seen in our nation’s history.

We have all read about the programs of the New Deal in our history books and how they permanently changed the role of government in our society. Today we face a bill that even in inflation-adjusted dollars dwarfs those game-changing social programs.

As Cornellians celebrate this Black History Month, we must take a moment to reflect upon how far this country has come. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s secured many basic rights for blacks, and America notably elected its first bi-racial president last November. Historically, great strides have also been made at Cornell. Alpha Phi Alpha, the country's first black fraternity, was established at Cornell in 1906, and in 1969, the Willard Straight takeover led to changes such as the creation of the Africana Studies and Research Center.

Cornell’s historians — professors, graduate students and archivists — see President Barack Obama’s policies toward a more transparent government not merely as a step forward, but a complete reversal in direction.

On Jan. 21, Obama released a memo in which he encouraged governmental agencies to “adopt a presumption of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in the Freedom of Information Act and to usher in a new era of open government.”

The act, which allowed for the disclosure of most official governmental documents, was first instated in 1966 during the Lyndon Johnson’s Administration.

“FOIA was built on a presumption of openness and disclosure rather than secrecy,” explained Prof. Fredrick Logevall, history.

While much has been said about President Skorton’s recent visit to Iran last November, another Cornell-Iran connection has gone largely unnoticed: Prof. Jon Weiss’ class, History 2161: Iran and the World. The class is exceptional in that it allows students to interact with Iranians, and therefore learn about world conflicts in a direct and engaging way. However, such a course should not be unusual; to best educate Cornellians, the University should develop additional classes whereby students can obtain first-hand perspectives and knowledge about other cultures.

After suffering through years of history lessons about the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and John Winthrop’s role in shaping his “city upon a hill,” one would think that (yet another) novel on the subject would be a less exciting read than the New York City phone book.

Sarah Vowell’s newest novel about the Puritans’ stateside adventures, however, is a pleasant anomaly in the catalogue of history books about 17th century New Englanders. Witty and cheeky in the face of Puritan sobriety, Vowell interprets excerpts of our forefathers’ diaries and doctrines to reveal a society more complex than our history books have taught us.

“Don’t try to understand ’em, just rope, pull and brand ’em.”

So goes the theme song to the classic early television show Rawhide, about a seemingly endless cattle drive through the Old West, which included a young Clint Eastwood as drover Rowdy Yates.

A maverick, of course, is a term originally applied to an unbranded cattle, or a person unbought, unbossed and unbeholden to anyone but his or herself. The term dates to Sam Maverick, a 19th century Texas rancher, and his decision to buck tradition and leave his cattle unbranded.