By Evans Saso
I was raised to not talk about things like religion and politics in public. I was raised to respect women. I was raised to treat people how I want to be treated. I was raised to look at people for who they are and not to judge them based on how they look. With that said, Donald Trump is President. When I woke up the morning after the election, I was not offended, distressed, or bitter-- I woke up and I was glad that I lived in a country where you can vote for the person who will build up the nation or ruin it. In the aftermath of the election, the media has decided to focus on the negative, primarily focusing on the groups of people who have decided to emotionally voice their opinions in non-peaceful ways. The media has failed to show the positive. I am not going to preach a message of solidarity because that is equivalent to ignoring the real problems that the country is currently facing. To the eyes that will read this article, my message to you is that we must focus on the positives. We have a responsibility to lead the older generations who are seemingly set in their ways. As racial tensions rise, the way millennials react is crucial because we are the future and soon this country will be led by us. We are being watched, if not by the older generations, then by each other. Here at The College of New Jersey, the atmosphere is different from what the media is currently displaying. Speaking from a personal perspective, I believe that the atmosphere here on campus is reflective of our generation. I truly believe that my peers do not see me for my skin color. To my peers, I am just another student, another classmate, and another friend. We [Generation Y] have been looked down upon for our intense attachment to social media and technology, but I believe that the surge in social media is our strength. The intensive interconnectivity provided by social media has allowed us to experience and learn about different people and contrasting cultural norms. In light of the election, we voted and someone was chosen. There was neither a civil war nor was there a violent transfer of power. We should not harp on the negatives displayed by the media, we should look to ourselves. We should neither be offended by the outcome, nor distressed about the future of the nation, nor bitter towards people who voted for the opposite side. We must be the light in a seemingly somber time. As millennials, we have the power to change the gloomy present to give ourselves a bright future. As society points out the negatives, we must rise above it all. We have shown that it is possible to get along with people who are different from us, so regardless of political affiliation, we must come together and continue to change.
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By Sean Lange
While majoring in Philosophy at Yale, one can imagine that Jeff Bewkes studied the principles of solipsism—the idea purveyed by René Descartes that oneself in one’s mind is the only real entity, and that all other people in the external world don’t exist – and rejected them as a presage to how he would comport himself in the corporate world. First as the CFO, then COO and President, and finally as the now-departing CEO and Chairman of Time Warner, Bewkes’s unsung managerial style often accentuated other identities while obscuring his own. Bewkes most recently exemplified this self-effacement in AT&T’s $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner on October 23. From this merger, Bewkes defers his achievements to AT&T chief Randall Stephenson, who now has the distinction of incorporating a stylish inheritance—including television staples such as CNN, TNT, and Cartoon Network; digital producers like Bleacher Report and Warner Brothers; and HBO’s burgeoning genre of subscription media—into his company’s global distribution avenues. Appropriately, these entertainment centerpieces were quietly curated by Bewkes during his tenure as Time Warner CEO—an effort that itself came in the shadow of predecessor Gerald Levin’s blighted 2008 buyout of AOL. For this reason, it’s ironic, although unsurprising, that Bewkes’s minimizing approach has sometimes served to highlight his anonymity. When looking to slim down the aggregations from the AOL merger, he divested entanglements such as Time, Inc. and Time Warner Cable into their own companies. Recently, as the federal government mulled blocking the formation of the AT&T/Time Warner behemoth, the Judiciary Antitrust Committee accidentally summoned Rob Marcus, the CEO of Time Warner Cable, to testify before the Senate instead of Bewkes. However, an identity that Bewkes’s stoicism can’t eschew is his relationship to New Jersey. Born in Paterson in 1952, Bewkes was a documentary researcher out of college at NBC News’s Moonachie bureau. This position later helped him earn the head role at HBO’s programming division, where he was responsible for bringing The Sopranos to mainstream television. For Bewkes, it’s only fitting that his Time Warner legacy might be best defined by New Jersey icons like Tony Soprano and Silvio Dante: characters that even ardent Descartes-dissenters will declare don’t exist in the real world. By Jonathan Sheridan
In the September International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, Elon Musk unveiled his plans to put the first humans on Mars. “Make Mars seem possible” was the mantra of SpaceX’s CEO during his hour-long presentation. Elon Musk (the founder of both Tesla and Paypal) has major plans in store that could make humans enter an inter-planetary race as early 2025. SpaceX’s main business function is servicing NASA by providing fuel to the international space station. SpaceX has now begun planning and constructing their proprietary Interplanetary Transport System (ITS). If SpaceX successfully executes its build plans, the ITS will be the largest space vessel ever constructed, standing at an astonishing 254 feet. The ITS will be able to carry over 300 tons of cargo and 100 passengers. In time, Musk believes the trip from Earth to Mars can be made in as little as 30 days. The wildest part of the ITS is that it is not just designed for travel to the red planet. Musk’s plans are much larger than just getting humans to the red planet; his end goal is to colonize Mars. Musk describes the importance of colonizing Mars during the September 27 conference as “minimizing existential risk.” Regarding the future, Musk explained that he sees only two paths humans down which humans can go in the long run. The first would be living out on Earth and Earth only until the planet ceases to exist. The second is “to become a multi-planet species.” Currently, the ITS is designed to make multiple trips to Mars, meaning the vessel will constantly be traveling between the two planets. Musk believes the current dilemma with colonizing Mars can be expressed as simply as a basic supply and demand curve. “Is there a way for anyone to go if they wanted to?” he urged the crowd at the conference. Musk believes as more and more trips are made to our closest planetary neighbor, the cost will be driven further and further down. Musk then compared the cost of traveling to Mars side by side with the current price of a plane ticket on a $90 million Boeing 737. According to Musk’s estimates, the cost of a Mars trip could be as low as $100,000 in the near future. After getting people to Mars, Musk’s ultimate goal is to create a self-sustaining city. While the specifics of the colony may be left up to speculation, Musk’s announcement may be a historic turning point for inter-planetary exploration. Just like John F. Kennedy stunned the world in 1962 when he asked Congress for funding to put a man on the moon, Musk may just have started a domino effect to propel forward technological advancements for space travel, changing the way humans think of space travel as we do today. It’s not as far out as it once was. By Paul Mulholland
Despite Syrian society imploding to their immediate south, Turkey’s economy managed to exceed many growth expectations for 2015, growing at 4%. Numerous threats to the Turkish economy, stemming from a volatile neighborhoods and an ever more unstable interior, seem to have caught up with their progress. The first major shock was last November, when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet operating in Turkish airspace. The Russian response was to sanction the Turkish tourism and agricultural industries. The next month, the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates, causing the Turkish Lira to drop 25% against the dollar. The Syrian Civil War for a while only harmed Turkish exports to Syria and created a large, but manageable, refugee population. Now Turkey considers itself at war with two of the largest actors in Syria: the Islamic State (IS) and Kurdish fighters. IS has bombed Turkey several times, most notably in Suruc and in Istanbul. Turkey has been bombing Kurds in Syria, and also fighting Kurdish guerrillas within its own borders The combination of Russian sanctions and growing domestic violence not only damaged foreign direct investment into Turkey, but hurt its important tourism industry. Many governments warned their citizens against travelling there to avoid the fighting, and Russians could not obtain the visas necessary to travel to Turkey because the sanctions. Then came the attempted coup last July. A rogue segment of the Turkish military closed off bridges in Istanbul, and shot missiles at the Turkish parliament in an effort to overthrow the government. President Erdogan encouraged his supporters to resist the coup, and ultimately it was put down by the Turkish citizens and police, who arrested offending soldiers. It has been the post-coup backlash that will frighten off business the most. Turkey now leads the world in jailed journalists.The editor of Cumhuriyet, Turkey’s last independent paper, was arrested on November 18. Turkey also recently arrested the leaders of the People’s Democratic Party, Turkey’s third largest party, on terrorism charges. Over 70,000 people total have been arrested in the crackdown. This is, needless to say, not conducive to Turkey’s long term growth and stability. By Alyssa J Freitas
“Are you ready to go?” I called out to my father as I grabbed my bag and threw in a notebook before we headed out of the door. We were off to sample a training session of Dale Carnegie’s title course focused around his book How to Win Friends and Influence People (you can read my review of the book on our blog here: http://bit.ly/2dOeGOL). This eight work course aims to teach students to improve their effectiveness in communications and human relations skills and can be taken in countries across the world. Built on the lessons from Carnegie’s books, students read outside of class and then participate in weekly activities and discussions,including homework assignments to complete tasks utilizing the lessons in their everyday lives. When we walked into the seminar room we found ourselves in a group of people from many different walks of life. There were people of all ages who were engineers and restaurant owners and secretaries and stay-at-home parents, collectively anxious to learn and improve their skills. We exchanged thoughts on how we currently felt about our self-confidence, people, communication, and leadership skills, as well as our desire to reduce stress and improve our attitude. What I loved was how the instructor walked us through an exercise of envisioning what success would look like, prompting us to put into words what we would need to do in conjunction with the course to get there. Since it was the first session out of eight, a fair amount of time was spent going over expectations and learning each other's names (so many name games were played that I felt like I was a freshman again going through Welcome Week). This course, while a hefty investment, certainly shows that it can provide value if you find yourself wanting to be an effective leader and communicator, and to win people over to your way of thinking. If you are already confident in your skills, however, I would recommend looking at the more specific and advanced courses, taking them to a higher level. There is no doubt that Mr. Carnegie would be proud of his namesake training institution today. You can get more information at www.dalecarnegie.com. |