[afro-nets] Supercourse Newsletter - 23 November 2004

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

Supercourse Newsletter - 23 November 2004
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http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/
 
Thanksgiving 2004
 
Dear Friends:
 
Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart. 
­ Seneca
 
Thanksgiving Thanks:
 
This is the thanksgiving newsletter. We write and give thanks to 
you.
 
Thanksgiving has become a time for us to give thanks. It has 
moved from its religious connotations to one of appreciation of 
others, our friends, family, students?Thanksgiving day began in 
the US shortly after the Pilgrims arrived. At this time there 
were 7 graves dug for every hut built. They gave thanks for many 
of the same things we give thanks today. On Thanksgiving day Jan 
and I will be going to her parents house. It is a day to watch 
American Football, and to eat. As we watch football we smell the 
turkey cooking, and our belly rumbles. On the table is a steam-
ing huge turkey, potatoes, pumpkin pie, salad, beans, enough 
food for 18 people, but there will be only 4. It is a wonderful 
warm family, and friends feeling.
 
We present this description, as in many ways, it is the feeling 
of the Supercourse. We are surrounded by people world wide who 
appreciate each other, who want to share their knowledge, and 
wisdom, and in many ways their love for each other, for what we 
are doing, for global health and friendship. The Supercourse is 
truly an extraordinary movement. We need to keep the spirit of 
thanksgiving; it is the spirit of our global task.
 
"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the 
highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by 
them." JFK
 
Supercourse Thanksgiving: 
 
We should sit now around the global table of prevention, appre-
ciate each other and savor our success. We have saved a very im-
portant announcement for Thanksgiving: We have cracked the 2,000 
lecture barrier. Eugene said that we now have 2012 lectures. We 
most certainly have captured a large percentage of knowledge of 
public health and prevention and we give it away for free. We 
wish to thank you all on Thanksgiving day, and we will be think-
ing of you all. Isn?t amazing what you and all of our friends 
have built? In addition, we have 17,860 participants. Ezzeldeen, 
Samar and Monica have been relentless in their pursuit of Global 
Supercourse members. Ezzeldeen has ?signed up? close to 1,000 
scientists from Arab/Muslim countries. Ezzeldeen is an extremely 
good friend. We have been especially interested in having more 
scientists from Arab countries as we all need to talk and col-
laborate in order that we can understand and thank each other. 
Samar and Monica have identified over 1,000 faculty in schools 
of public health in Europe who we are now approaching now. We 
will continue to try to recruit 20,005 faculty by 2005.
 
The spread of the Supercourse was evident at the American Public 
Health Meetings. Faina presented a paper. At the beginning of 
her session she asked how many people heard of the Supercourse. 
Over 80% heard of us. Next time you are presenting ask if they 
know the supercourse. It will be interesting to see the global 
presentation.
 
China:
 
Jan and I just returned from China. Our Chinese brother is Yang 
Ze, who is brilliant and heads the genetics program at Beijing 
hospital and has been our friend since the early 1990s. China 
has seen remarkable changes in 5 years. With Yang?s help there 
are enormous possibilities. We are discussing the building of a 
Chinese Supercourse. Beijing will host the 08 Olympics. We 
talked with some who are interested in our Olympic lecture. Our 
contacts with the International Olympic Committee and the US 
Olympic Committee, sadly have not evolved. The International and 
US Olympic medical committee appear to be much more interested 
in blood doping with only very limited efforts for physical ac-
tivity and prevention. However, the Chinese Olympic committee 
appears to be much more interested. There are numerous areas of 
possible collaboration within China besides this. The Chinese 
are interested in building prevention training courses. All Uni-
versities have high speed Internet access. In addition, it 
seemed that everyone has a cell phone (my talks were punctuated 
every 6.3 seconds with a cell phone ringing!!). We might be able 
to push the Supercourse lectures throughout China as they have a 
fantastic satellite TV system that reaches almost every village, 
it is really exciting. Yang was wonderful. One day we had a 15 
course breakfast, a 20 course lunch, and a 25 course dinner. I 
look like a snowman, with a rather large belly. As Yang has 
said, some people have arm strength, Ron LaPorte has belly 
strength.
 
Yang was telling us something extremely important. The numbers 
of cars in Beijing has proliferated. I thought it was almost all 
due to the rise of SES. However, he said that much of this was 
due to SARS as people were afraid to use mass transportation. 
Isn?t that fascinating?
 
Lecture of the week:
 
Thanksgiving is about giving thanks to our friends and loved 
ones. This week we need to thank Dr. A.K.Avasarala for the won-
derful lecture "SOIL AND SHOWER OF HIV / AIDS IN INDIA" that can 
be accessed at www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec17831/index.htm 
This lecture provides very important information about the 
spread of HIV/AIDS epidemic in various geographic areas of In-
dia. It also provides very important data on the characteristics 
of the epidemic and the modes of HIV transmission. In addition 
to being an active Supercourse lecture developer, Dr. Avasarala 
was also one of the main evaluator of Supercourse lectures in 
Faina's dissertation work. Thank you very much for all your hard 
work!
 
I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, 
the old and new. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
Best Regards from Pittsburgh on Thanksgiving. It would be great 
to hear from you as to why you are thankful for the Supercourse 
(mailto:ronlaporte@aol.com). We thank you all for being our 
friends, and working with the Supercourse to improve global 
health.
 
Ron, Jan, Faina, Yang, Mita, Soni, Eugene, Samar, Ezzeldeen, 
Monica, Julia, Akira, Deb, Tom, Tom Turkey