Polls and the News Media - the Nastiest Poll of All - SIX Percent

As we sit back and tune in to another polarizing cable news show about the presidential race, we prepare ourselves for a barrage of insults, half-truths, rumors, innuendo, lies, distortions, agitations, and frustrations, and that is just what is coming from the news reporters and commentators, not the candidates.

They say deaths from opiate over-doses in America have tripled in the past four years.  One wonders if the polarizing hatred seen on cable television 24/7 might be a factor.  What bigger source of pain can there be than politicians, especially ones who will say anything to win and make up all kinds of lies about the others.

Right next to the beer and remote control are the bottles.

In the bottles, you will find the legal pain relief opioid drugs including:

• codeine (only available in generic form)
• fentanyl (Actiq, Duragesic, Fentora)
• hydrocodone (Hysingla ER, Zohydro ER) 
• hydrocodone/acetaminophen (Lorcet, Lortab, Norco, Vicodin)
• hydromorphone (Dilaudid, Exalgo)
• meperidine (Demerol)
• methadone (Dolophine, Methadose)
• morphine (Astramorph, Avinza, Kadian, MS Contin, Ora-Morph SR)
• oxycodone (OxyContin, Oxecta, Roxicodone)
• oxycodone and acetaminophen (Percocet, Endocet, Roxicet)
• oxycodone and naloxone (Targiniq ER)

Now you are ready to face the pain of what you are about to hear.

I am pretty certain lying and political campaigns are synonymous, inter-related, Ying and Yang.  Even fact checkers have to be fact checked to see whose side they are protecting.  Instead of saying "Veritas vos liberabit", "The truth is out there," perhaps one should say "Est ex veritate non est," "No truth is out there."

With that in mind we come to a poll that should be the most dreaded news ever reported by the media.  Of course they do not report it.  What they do report is how Trump has the highest unfavorable rating in modern history.

It is the truth they refuse to report that weighs down on them.  Here is the headline they should be reporting.

   

New Polls force Democrats to push Panic Button as Main Street Media attack Trump

Since we know polls in America show journalists covering the presidential campaign are liberal by a 12-1 margin, it should be no surprise that the liberal media is taking up the attack to stop Trump in the general election.

Trump still has not secured the Republican nomination and Clinton continues to battle Bernie Sanders for media coverage, but the media is acting as if Trump is a real threat to beat the media favorite Clinton.

Quite a contrast to earlier in the campaign when the media dismissed Trump yet wanted him to win the GOP nomination since polls showed Hillary winning by a landslide if Trump were the opponent.

A funny thing happened on the way to the conventions and polls confirmed it after Trump's landslide wins in the Northeast and Indiana primaries blew his last two opponents, Cruz and Kasich, out of it.

Trump and Clinton are now in a near dead heat in nationwide polls and the general election has not even begun.  This week when Trump suddenly started winning the support of major GOP party officials and it looks like the Republicans are going to be united more tremors were felt in the Clinton campaign.

The press says very little about the crosstabs in the polls, and for good reason.  You hear Trump has the highest unfavorable score ever recorded at 65%, yet no one says Hillary has the second highest unfavorable ever recorded at 57%.

So the media has mounted a massive campaign to discredit Trump and drag out anything he ever did in his life, say 30 to 50 years ago, as if it will have a direct effect on whether he pushes the nuclear button.  That is about as yellow as journalism can be.

However, I am not defending Trump.  I say, what he says and does today, is far more relevant than what he did three or four decades ago.  I mean people do change over the course of a lifetime. Besides, every time he opens his mouth he is capable of stumbling over his tongue.

To me fair reporting is an issue of credibility.  Now to get to the most dreaded poll results not reported.

The American Press Institute published a survey April 18, 2016, and the real headline was:

"Only 6% of Americans trust the media"

Just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public’s view of other institutions. In this presidential campaign year, Democrats were more likely to trust the news media than Republicans or independents.

The bottom line is this.  Why is the media trashing Trump as a strategy to defeat him, pointing to his negative ratings in public polls, when 94% of the same public does not trust the media?

To me the 35% of the public trusting Trump today is six times better than the public trusts the media, 6%.  That is truth in reporting.

. 

Morning Joe Meltdown - MSNBC Hosts Choke on own Egos

.

It has been clear lately that the Morning Joe program is suffering from egotistical constipation as the two hosts, Joe and Mika, fight with each other and then shower each other with incredible foresight and honor for being first on the air to call the 2016 election.  This is when they are not hyping the books they have written, the band Joe plays in, or the books by Mika's family.

Well I have been watching since day one and the only person who stretches the truth more than Donald Trump are the MSNBC egos on air.  Their fortunes are dependent on sucking up to Trump to spike ratings for the show and they have consistently upset the Donald with their gratuitous and unsolicited advice, thus jeopardizing their access to the Donald.

Morning Joe, the token Republican on the show, and token may also be an a exaggeration, has taken to pontificating to Donald the few times Trump has called in, when in fact Joe's only interest is self-promotion. His claim to fame was being a congressman in the late 1990's.

His GOP credentials come from being elected to congress in 1994 and winning four consecutive elections, the last in 2000.  Shortly thereafter he mysteriously resigned from congress in 2001.  This was around the time of rumors of infidelity and his sudden divorce.  Then a married staff member was found dead in his District Office.

Scarborough claims credit for balancing the budget in the late 1990's and of championing New Federalism in congress.  In truth the Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich and President Bill Clinton negotiated the budget balancing although the National Deficit continued to increase at the time.

As for the New Federalism claim, I was part of a Presidential New Federalism task force The New York Times called the most extensive reorganization of the federal government since Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.  We worked in the Nixon White House between 1972 and 1974 and we did pass a massive number of New Federalism initiatives that stand alone to this day as the greatest decentralization of the federal government in history.

Sorry Joe, your claim was an exaggeration as well.

Well after Joe last lectured Donald, Trump has refused to call in to the show thus undermining the ratings for a show long suffering from tepid ratings.  As MSNBC has continued to reorganize the network to be more fair and balanced, the shows have continued their dismal runs in last place in cable news programs and the strain on the Morning Joe hosts is clear.

This week Mika and Joe have gone off the deep end stating over and over how they and they alone called the election, forecast Trump's success,  and are the greatest political pundits on  earth I guess.  The level of insecurity oozing from them was painful to watch.  Everyone knows they are egomaniacs, they tend to constantly overemphasize their importance, knowledge, and status, and that they are firmly in last place in the cable ratings.

Need I say more?
.    

What if Trump is a Stalking Horse for the Clintons?

.

Since this has become the most bizarre campaign in the history of American politics, we still have not had the party conventions to officially nominate Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump,  and we still have five months before the campaign is over, why not inject yet another explanation for what is happening.

Consider this, Trump, by his own claim, was a top student in his Ivy League class at the Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business.  If true it is impressive.  For his entire life Trump has been keeping company with the movers and shakers.  His business empire is dedicated to providing the rich with the best toys possible for this elite class.

In the course of this presidential campaign Trump has defied the experts, befuddled the press, and toyed with the politicians time and again while coming out of nowhere and powering himself to the Republican nomination.  In the process he has left everything involved in politics a shambles.

Now that he locked up the nomination, he seems to have gone way off the deep end in the most self-destructive campaign in history in recent weeks.  Everything he has been saying since locking up the nomination contradicts everything he said would happen when he got the nomination.

For a time the Trump antic of misdirecting the media was fun to watch since the general public distrusts the news media more than congress, Trump, or Clinton. But things have changed.  His actions now seem intent on destroying his chances of ever winning the general election, now that he has won the primary season and clinched the nomination.

The daughters are buddies as well.

If I were a good Glenn Beck type of conspirator I would suspect what is happening was planned all along.  Since we know the Clintons and Trumps were a lot closer than either party wants to admit, what if they long ago plotted to help Trump get the Republican nomination and he, in turn, would deliberately sabotage his chances of getting elected to assure Hillary would be the next president.

Remember, it was well known Hillary had some serious problems with emails and trust and the typical Clinton modis operandi.  Her negatives would reach all time highs or lows, however you look at them, before the campaign was over, so how about get Trump to  seize the GOP nomination as an insurance policy.  His actions to undermine his own success seem to indicate he never wanted to be president, just control the presidency.

If so, this is truly the greatest scam in history in which all American voters have been had, taken for a ride, and had their pockets picked.  Hillary will be the next president whether she is indicted or not and Trump will have unlimited access to the White House without having the overbearing *to him" responsibility of being   president.

When Nuns can Change Lives - Pat Rock and Corita Kent - the Girls from Iowa

.

Sister Mary Corita

At least two Nuns had a profound effect on me when I was growing up in the 1960's, meaning my years in high school and college.  One taught me English and Creative writing, Sister Louis Marie aka Pat Rock, and the other taught me the meaning of individual freedom, Sister Mary Corita, aka Corita Kent.

Pat Rock

Patricia McGuire, later known as Patricia McGuire Rock, was born in Rock Rapids, Iowa in 1930.  Frances Elizabeth Kent, later known as Corita Kent, was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa in 1918.  Me, I was born in Iowa City, Iowa so we had that much in common at least.

The following is a link to a story I wrote about Pat Rock, http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/2013/11/farewell-to-my-friend-patricia-mcguire.html

and it adequately describes her impact on my life.

Corita Kent, on the other hand, never taught me but Sister Louis Marie brought her radical art style to my attention when she was teaching me in the early 1960's.  If you did not live the 1960's you may never understand the meaning of revolution, change, war, academic freedom, civil rights, environmental concerns, protests, civil disobedience, riots, murder, corruption, and on and on.

I believe it was the greatest decade of upheaval in our nation's history and an unsuspecting Nun who was born in Iowa and teaching in California was a champion of change because of her unique art and powerful messages manifested in signs, slogans, and billboards.

Sister Mary Corita was such a champion that it led to her leaving the convent, just as Sister Louis Marie did a few years later.  Few people knew her back then, and fewer know her now, but it is time we learn about some of the unsung heroes in our nation's history.

Here is her story as told by the Corita Art Center in California.

Corita Kent, Warhol’s Kindred Spirit in the Convent

APRIL 10, 2015

“The only rule is work,” read the seventh point on the Immaculate Heart College art department’s list of rules, devised by Corita Kent, known as Sister Mary Corita, one of the most unlikely Pop Art phenomena of the 1960s and ’70s.

“If you work, it will lead to something,” the edict continued. “It’s the people who do all of the work all the time who eventually catch on to things.”

Warhol and Kent art

Predating even Andy Warhol (who later became an influence on her work), Kent was an early adopter of serigraphy, or silk-screening — considered a sign painter’s lowly tool at the time. She shared Warhol’s interest in the iconography of advertising but used it to very different ends, lifting texts from advertisements and poems and deconstructing and juxtaposing them to form colorful typographic works to help people “use their whole selves better,” as she once said.

This idealism dovetailed with the zeitgeist — her work found its way into civil rights and Vietnam protests — and landed her on the cover of national magazines; a stamp she designed for the United States Postal Service sold more than 700 million copies. But today she’s mostly remembered as a cult icon of sorts, whose life and work suggest a kind of alternate history of Pop Art. The curator Ian Berry, who recently assembled a traveling exhibition of Kent’s work with another curator, Michael Duncan, describes her as “a key figure in the history of American art,” and “a fiercely independent maker with a unique voice and vision.”

Frances Elizabeth Kent was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, in 1918 and grew up in Los Angeles. Her family was Catholic, and after high school, she joined the Order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, earning an arts degree at the college the order ran. Ten years later, while pursuing her master’s degree, Kent was introduced to print making, the medium that would later bring her to the attention of art world.

By the early 1950s, she was forging her own unique aesthetic, and soon “priests and nuns from orders all over the country were sent to be educated at Immaculate Heart College,” wrote Ray Smith, director of the Corita Art Center in Los Angeles, in an email. For nearly a decade in the late ’50s and early ’60s, Kent toured widely, delivering lectures at institutions — religious and otherwise — across the country about her work.

In the late ’60s, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council — a landmark effort to modernize the church, which many Catholic clergy members took as a blessing for social and political activism — the Immaculate Heart sisters began chafing at the strictures that had traditionally bound the order.

Kent transformed Immaculate Heart College’s annual Mary’s Day procession from an austere march into a community celebration that included theatrical performances, food drives and masses of flower-decked followers holding up signs inspired by her art — part of the sisters’ campaign to bring secular and religious people closer together.

At the same time, Kent’s work was becoming increasingly political, addressing the Vietnam War and humanitarian crises. Tensions between the order and the church leadership in Los Angeles mounted, and Sister Mary Corita left the order in 1968, returning to secular life as Corita Kent. (Most of the other Immaculate Heart sisters followed suit not long after; in 1969, the order separated from the church, continuing its work as a lay organization. The Immaculate Heart College closed in 1980.)

Kent continued printmaking, even through the 12-year battle with the cancer that finally claimed her life in 1986, at age 67. Some of her work achieved prominence in the ’80s, though few people who saw it would have known the name of the artist; she was commissioned for several corporate and public arts projects, including designs for a Boston Gas Company fuel tank and the Postal Service’s “Love” stamp. Still, her work is not in many large museum collections, and until recently was rarely shown outside the Corita Art Center, which was established in her memory shortly after her death.

The Corita Art Center has a vast catalog of unprocessed photographs of Kent and her work. The photographer Suzanna Zak recently went digging through them and turned up a remarkable record of Kent’s life. The selection here includes images of Kent teaching as well as many photographs that Kent herself took.

. 

Memorial Day - Need we say anymore?

.

Double click to enlarge picture

China's Proudest Moment at Harvard - A Celebration Honoring He Jiang

The first Chinese citizen to give a Harvard graduation speech recalled why his mom lit his hand on fire

Zheping Huang,Quartz

A biology student from rural China became the first Chinese citizen to deliver a graduation speech at Harvard University this week.

On Wednesday (May 26), He Jiang, a doctoral student in biochemistry, spoke about the time his mother set his hand on fire when he was a boy, after a poisonous spider bit him. The incident inspired him to bring scientific knowledge to where it’s needed the most, he said.

The graduate explained he grew up in a village in central China’s Hunan province. When he was bit by the spider 15 years ago, there was no doctor in the area. So his mother wrapped his hand with layers of cotton, soaked the cotton in wine, and ignited it. The pain made him want to scream, he said, but “all I could do was watch my hand burn—one minute, then two minutes—until mom put out the fire.”

Heat deactivates proteins, which is what a spider’s venom is made of, so his mother’s cure was actually effective. “I now know that better, less painful, and less risky treatments existed… why didn’t I receive one at the time?” he asked in the speech. He said he is “troubled by the unequal distribution of scientific knowledge throughout the world,” and dedicated to communicate what he has learned to those who need it, like “the farmers in my village.”

He was one of the three graduate speakers at Harvard’s 365th commencement. China’s state media outlets bragged he was “making history” and have run many profiles of him leading up to the graduation.

He was the first in his family to attend college. “If you don’t study hard and leave this village, you will be farming your whole life,” he said his father always told him.

Here’s the full text of He’s speech, in both English and Chinese, from financial publisher Caixin.

科技知识分子正文

·                                  

·                                 143

·                                

·                                

昨天，中国学生第一次在哈佛毕业典礼致辞（含视频）

2016年05月27日 10:14 来源于 财新网

何江获得了相当于哈佛大学给予毕业生的最高荣誉——从全校数万名毕业生中各选出一名本科生和研究生代表作毕业演讲

相关报道

新科美国院士、哈佛教授施扬：兴趣追求与人生选择

哈佛校长：中国大学日益察觉人文教育的必要性

【一语道破】哈佛校长：中国资助有利于美国高校发展

哈佛刘军：医疗数据融合大有可为

哈佛教授：独生子女政策四大误识亟待澄清

哈佛刘军：看好中美医疗大数据合作前景

哈佛刘军：看好未来中美医疗大数据合作

【来去美国（八）】哈佛大学与波士顿美术馆

【财新周刊】哈佛购物指南

哈佛学者看中国企业“走出去”

　　编者按：       

　　美国东部时间5月26日上午10点，哈佛大学生物系博士毕业生何江作为优秀研究生代表发表演讲。何江是哈佛大学历史上第一位享此殊荣的中国大陆学生。

　　这位1988年出生于湖南农村、家境一般的中国学生，凭借自己的努力，在中国科技大学获得了最高荣誉奖——郭沫若奖学金后，进入哈佛大学硕博连读，如今又获得了相当于哈佛大学给予毕业生的最高荣誉——从全校数万名毕业生中各选出一名本科生和研究生代表作毕业演讲。

　　何江在毕业演讲中讲述了一个自己中学时代被毒蜘蛛咬伤的“农村故事”，进而推及到自己在哈佛大学所切身体会到的先进科技知识，他说道，“作为一名科学家，积极地将我们所会的知识传递给那些急需这些知识的人是多么地重要”。

　　“改变世界可以非常简单”。在演讲的最后，何江说，“改变世界也意味着我们的社会，作为一个整体，能够更清醒地认识到科技知识更加均衡的分布，是人类社会发展的一个关键环节，而我们也能够一起奋斗将此目标变成现实。”

　　撰文 | 何江

　　责编 | 李晓明、陈晓雪

　　►何江毕业演讲三连拍

　　在我读初中的时候，有一次，一只毒蜘蛛咬伤了我的右手。我问我妈妈该怎么办，妈妈并没有带我去看医生，而是决定用火疗的方法治疗我的伤口。

　　她在我的手上包了好几层棉花，棉花上喷撒了白酒，在我的嘴里放了一双筷子后，妈妈打火点燃了棉花。热量逐渐渗透过棉花，开始炙烤我的右手。灼烧的疼痛让我忍不住想喊叫，可嘴里的筷子却让我发不出声来。我只能看着我的手被火烧着，一分钟、两分钟，直到妈妈熄灭了火苗。

　　你看，我在中国的农村长大，那个时候，我的村庄还是一个类似前工业时代的传统村落。在我出生时，我的村子里面没有汽车，没有电话，没有电，甚至也没有自来水。我们自然不能轻易获得先进的现代医疗资源。那个时候，我妈妈也找不到一个合适的医生可以来帮我处理蜘蛛咬过的伤口。

　　在座各位如果有生物背景的，你们或许已经理解到了我妈妈使用的治疗手段背后的基本原理：高热可以让蛋白质变性，而蜘蛛的毒液就是一种蛋白质。这样一种土方法实际上有它一定的理论依据，想来也是挺有意思的。但是，作为哈佛大学生物化学的博士，我现在知道在我初中那个时候，已经有更好的，没有那么痛苦的，风险也没那么大的治疗方法了。于是我忍不住会问自己，为什么我在当时没有能够享用到这些更为先进的治疗方法呢？

　　被蜘蛛咬伤的事已经过去大概十五年了。我非常高兴地向在座的各位报告，我的手还是完好的。但是，我刚刚提到的这个问题这些年来一直在我的脑海徘徊，而我也时不时会因为先进科技知识在全球不同地区的不平等分布而感到困扰。

　　现如今，我们人类已经学会怎么进行人类基因编辑了，也研究清楚了很多癌症发生发展的原因。我们甚至可以利用一束光来控制我们大脑内神经元的活动。每年生物医学的研究都会给我们带来不一样突破和进步，其中有不少令人振奋，也极具革命颠覆性的成果。

　　然而，尽管我们人类在科研上已经有了无数的建树，但怎样把这些最前沿的科学研究带到世界最需要该技术的地区，我们做得仍然不尽如人意。世界银行的数据显示，世界上大约有12%的人口的生活水平仍然低于每天2美元。营养不良每年导致三百万儿童死亡。将近3亿人口仍然蒙受疟疾带来的痛苦。在世界各地，我们经常看到类似的由于贫穷、疾病和资源匮乏导致科学知识流动受阻。现代社会里习以为常的那些救生常识经常在这些欠发达或不发达地区未能得到普及。于是，在世界上仍有很多地区，人们只能依赖于用火疗这一简单粗暴的方式来治理蜘蛛咬伤事故。

　　在哈佛读书期间，我切身体会到先进的科技知识能够既简单又深远地帮助到很多人。本世纪初的时候，禽流感在亚洲多个国家肆虐。那个时候，村庄里的农民听到禽流感就像听到恶魔施咒一样，对其特别的恐惧。乡村的土医疗方法对这样一个疾病也是束手无策。农民对于普通感冒和流感的区别并不是很清楚，他们并不懂得流感比普通感冒可能更加致命。而且，大部分人对于科学家所发现的流感病毒能够跨不同物种传播这一事实并不清楚。

　　于是，当我认识到将受感染的不同物种隔离开等简单的卫生举措可以减缓疾病传播时，当我能够为将这些知识传递到我的村庄贡献力量时，我的内心第一次有了一种作为未来科学家的使命感。但这种使命感不只停在知识层面，它也是我个人道德发展的重要转折点，我自我理解的作为国际社会一员的责任感。

　　哈佛的教育教会我们敢于拥有自己的梦想，勇于立志改变世界。在毕业典礼这样一个特别的日子，我们在座的毕业生都会畅想我们未来的伟大征程和冒险。对我而言，我在此刻不可避免还会想到我的家乡。成长的经历提醒我，作为一名科学家，积极地将我们所会的知识传递给那些急需这些知识的人是多么地重要。因为利用那些我们已经拥有的科技知识，我们能够轻而易举地帮助我的家乡，还有千千万万类似的村庄，让他们生活的世界变成一个我们现代社会看起来习以为常的地方，而这样一件事，是我们每一个毕业生都能够做的，也都能够做到的。

　　但问题是，我们愿意来做这样的努力吗？

　　比以往任何时候，我们的社会都更强调科学和创新。但我们的社会同样需要关注的一个重心是将知识传递到那些真正需要的地方。改变世界并不意味着每个人都要做一个大突破。改变世界可以非常简单，它可以是作为世界不同地区的沟通者，找出更多创造性的方法将知识传递给像我母亲或农民这样的群体。同时，改变世界也意味着我们的社会，作为一个整体，能够更清醒地认识到科技知识更加均衡的分布，是人类社会发展的一个关键环节，而我们也能够一起奋斗将此目标变成现实。

　　如果我们能够做到这些，或许，将来有一天，一个在农村被毒蜘蛛咬伤的少年或许不用火疗治疗伤口，而是去看医生接受更为先进的医疗。

　　►何江在哈佛

　　何江毕业演讲英文原文：

　　The Spider’s Bite

　　When I was in middle school, a poisonous spider bit my right hand. I ran to my mom for help—but instead of taking me to a doctor, my mom set my hand on fire.

　　After wrapping my hand with several layers of cotton, then soaking it in wine, she put a chopstick into my mouth, and ignited the cotton. Heat quickly penetrated the cotton and began to roast my hand. The searing pain made me want to scream, but the chopstick prevented it. All I could do was watch my hand burn - one minute, then two minutes –until mom put out the fire. 

　　You see, the part of China I grew up in was a rural village, and at that time pre-industrial. When I was born, my village had no cars, no telephones, no electricity, not even running water. And we certainly didn’t have access to modern medical resources. There was no doctor my mother could bring me to see about my spider bite. 

　　For those who study biology, you may have grasped the science behind my mom’s cure: heat deactivates proteins, and a spider’s venom is simply a form of protein. It’s cool how that folk remedy actually incorporates basic biochemistry, isn’t it? But I am a PhD student in biochemistry at Harvard, I now know that better, less painful and less risky treatments existed. So I can’t help but ask myself, why I didn’t receive one at the time?

　　Fifteen years have passed since that incident. I am happy to report that my hand is fine. But this question lingers, and I continue to be troubled by the unequal distribution of scientific knowledge throughout the world. We have learned to edit the human genome and unlock many secrets of how cancer progresses. We can manipulate neuronal activity literally with the switch of a light. Each year brings more advances in biomedical research-exciting, transformative accomplishments. Yet, despite the knowledge we have amassed, we haven’t been so successful in deploying it to where it’s needed most. According to the World Bank, twelve percent of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day. Malnutrition kills more than 3 million children annually. Three hundred million people are afflicted by malaria globally. All over the world, we constantly see these problems of poverty, illness, and lack of resources impeding the flow of scientific information. Lifesaving knowledge we take for granted in the modern world is often unavailable in these underdeveloped regions.  And in far too many places, people are still essentially trying to cure a spider bite with fire. 

　　While studying at Harvard, I saw how scientific knowledge can help others in simple, yet profound ways. The bird flu pandemic in the 2000s looked to my village like a spell cast by demons. Our folk medicine didn’t even have half-measures to offer. What’s more, farmers didn’t know the difference between common cold and flu; they didn’t understand that the flu was much more lethal than the common cold. Most people were also unaware that the virus could transmit across different species. 

　　So when I realized that simple hygiene practices like separating different animal species could contain the spread of the disease, and that I could help make this knowledge available to my village, that was my first “Aha” moment as a budding scientist. But it was more than that: it was also a vital inflection point in my own ethical development, my own self-understanding as a member of the global community. 

　　Harvard dares us to dream big, to aspire to change the world. Here on this Commencement Day, we are probably thinking of grand destinations and big adventures that await us. As for me, I am also thinking of the farmers in my village. My experience here reminds me how important it is for researchers to communicate our knowledge to those who need it. Because by using the science we already have, we could probably bring my village and thousands like it into the world you and I take for granted every day. And that’s an impact every one of us can make! 

　　But the question is, will we make the effort or not? 

　　More than ever before, our society emphasizes science and innovation. But an equally important emphasis should be on distributing the knowledge we have to where it’s needed. Changing the world doesn’t mean that everyone has to find the next big thing. It can be as simple as becoming better communicators, and finding more creative ways to pass on the knowledge we have to people like my mom and the farmers in their local community. Our society also needs to recognize that the equal distribution of knowledge is a pivotal step of human development, and work to bring this into reality. 

　　And if we do that, then perhaps a teenager in rural China who is bitten by a spider will not have to burn his hand, but will know to seek a doctor instead. ■

　　►颇有节日气氛的毕业典礼现场

　　何江演讲原标题为《蜘蛛咬伤轶事》，本文获搜狐教育授权刊载，略有修订。

　　《知识分子》是由饶毅、鲁白、谢宇三位学者创办的移动新媒体平台，致力于关注科学、人文、思想

责任编辑：崔筝 | 版面编辑：李丽莎(ZN024)

·                               分享到腾讯微博

·                               分享到新浪微博

·                               分享到微信朋友圈

.