[afro-nets] Supercourse Newsletter, November 1, 2004

[Ron LaPorte <super1+@pitt.edu>]

Supercourse Newsletter, November 1, 2004
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http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/
 
Halloween:
 
The Ghosts, and Spidermen, and Angels are appearing on Halloween 
04. They are delivering incredible Halloween Treats. Thank you 
all.
 
20,005 and 2,005 by Jan. 1, 2005
 
Booming Faculty: We have a really good chance at hitting 20,005 
faculty in the Supercourse, and 2,005 lectures. Last month was 
an incredible recruitment month. We first targeted all of the 
Schools of Public Health in the United States. There was enor-
mous interest with over 3,000 new people joining in just the 
past few months. Samar and Monica did excellent work. Izzeldin 
Sharief, my Sudanese brother, has done a fantastic job. He con-
tacted 670 faculty in Arab countries. We now have by far the 
largest Arab/Muslim network on health. It also makes me feel 
very good as for me, this is one of strongest World-US-Arab col-
laboration, as it is based upon common, and wonderful goals. 
Amazingly, the total number of participants is about 18,500. To 
put this in context, we have about 5 times more international 
health people than full time people at WHO and probably 15 times 
more international health people than CDC. We think we can reach 
20,005 by Jan. 1. Would that be a buzz?
 
Halloween Lectures:
 
Eugene just told us that we have 1,997 lectures. We are ex-
tremely close to reaching the magic 2,005 lectures. Look in your 
drawer...right now...do you see any lectures sitting there, turn-
ing to green mold? Do you see some fantastic lectures that are 
sitting there, feeling VERY lonely as only 30 students saw them 
last year? Isn?t it a shame, that your baby, your best lecture, 
is not getting the proper intellectually stimuli by being seen 
by so few students, when it could be seen by 20,000. Think of 
this, when you retire, or when you die..,all of your lectures 
die with you. There you will be, in your casket with CDs of lec-
tures, and memory keys, and hard drives going with you to the 
great beyond. Who could use your lectures better, those in the 
great beyond or the Supercourse students of the world. Hmmm, it 
seems like as the latest saying a "slam dunk" the choice is ob-
vious. We of the Supercourse ask you...Halloween/Supercourse Trick 
or Treat. Your lectures or a trick!!
 
Using the Supercourse:
 
After yesterday I can attest to the power of the Supercourse. 
You should think about it. Jan and I are going visit Yang Ze (my 
Chinese Brother) in Beijing to discuss US-Chinese collaboration. 
I had to prepare 2 topics that I had not done before. For my 
diabetes lecture, I took slides from Peter Bennett, Abed Hus-
seini, and Ingrid Libman. In about 45 minutes I constructed a 
lecture. Then I needed a lecture on Vital Statistics, and too 
Betty Jung?s wonderful lecture which took about 40 minutes. 
Great template lectures from our faculty are wonderful. I was 
thinking as I was doing this as to how powerful this would be if 
I had little access to the literature say in Mali, Congo, or ru-
ral Pakistan. If you could provide a treat of your lecture, it 
would teach future generations after you became moldy!!! Think 
about it, a supercourse legacy lecture would let your mind live 
on.
 
BMJ:
 
We have kidded that editors at the BMJ as the only problem with 
the BMJ is the Dead English Doctors. Does anyone in Canada, 
Pittsburgh, or Tokyo really care about the GP who died in Man-
chester, England. Boring...But...on this Ghoulish, Halloween day, 
perhaps our treat for you is that we can exchange a lecture, for 
a Supercourse tombstone. Thus if you give us your best lecture 
as soon as you die, we put you into the Supercourse Cemetery 
with a Supercourse tomb stone. You can be in the supercourse 
FOREVER, and the world will know that you are dead. Is obvious, 
by now, that we plan to compete with the BMJ for dead doctors 
(please do not tell Tony Delamothe at the BMJ).
 
You all are a great group to celebrate Halloween, 19,000 par-
ticipants 1,997. Remember in the post-Halloween celebration to 
be a lecture donor, so that you can give the gift of knowledge 
for future generations.
 
We will be in China from Nov. 3 to 16. It might be difficult to 
reach me. Please contact Faina Linkov (mailto:fyl1@pitt.edu). I 
am slowly migrating to my gmail account, so please write to me 
at mailto:ghnetron@ghnet.com. The free gmail system looks really 
good.
 
Best regards from Pittsburgh and the world.
 
Ron, Faina, Mita, Soni, Goblins, Eugene, Ezzeldeen, Yang, Samar, 
Alfred Hitchcock, Monica