Supercourse Newsletter, May 16 2002
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Dear Global Friends,
JFK + REL + LJ = May 29, 2002
Friends, on Mar. 15 the birthday party of the May 29ers was planned.
The present of choice was Supercourse lectures. We pushed to receive
53 lectures for Ron's birthday by May 29, we blew by that milestone
in days. JFK, if he survived his untimely death would have been 85
years old, and that number of lectures was gone in weeks. We are now
at the point that we could achieve the COMBINED total of 186 years of
JFK, REL, and yes, Latoya Jackson. It would be wonderful if sometime
we could celebrate the 399 year/lectures of Charles the II, with
someone also born on May 29 and virtually identical to him, Melane
Brown, one of the Spice Girls. What a glorious birthday it will be.
More importantly it will be of extraordinary benefit for the world.
We plan to combine all lectures and distribute CDs at the end of the
year so that you can have them, and so that you can give them as
holiday presents to your students. The 1,000 lecture goal is in
sight. We can cram them all on one CD...a Supercourse CD that is
bound to go platinum (LaToya and the Spice Girls could sing, REL,
JFK, Charles the II singing backup, two of which would be most si-
lent)
Arab Heritage:
There has been very rapid developments in the area of Arab heritage
tele-prevention and science. Recently Nature published a series of
articles describing the global leadership of Arab science centuries,
however, this has waned. They argued that Arab science could be reju-
venated through the infusion of considerably more money. The reality
is that there is not a lot of money to be spent. Abed Husseini, Rania
Saad and Ron, will be publishing a short piece in response where we
argue that money is important, but even more important is the im-
provement of the scientific educational and research system which can
be achieved through networking in Arab countries and outside to coun-
tries having a more developed infrastructure. We of course, pushed
for the development of an Arab scientific Supercourse (contact abed
at abed66@hotmail.com, if you would like a copy). Maxine Clark at Na-
ture has been wonderful in helping and supporting the Supercourse.
We also have been asked to write an editorial for the BMJ on Health
in Arabic Women. The papers on women's health in Arab countries for
the most part are not very good epidemiologically and scientifically.
We will overview the epidemiology of women's health. From what we
have seen, the results are quite fascinating, especially with regards
to how rapidly many of the countries have moved through the epidemi-
ologic transition. Using Egypt as an example, in only a 10 year pe-
riod of time in the early 1990s, life expectancy rose almost 10
years, representing a 18% increase, most certainly the largest seen
in the extremely long history of Egypt. We will argue for the build-
ing of a telepreventive medicine infrastructure in the area. We will
be completing this short paper in a few weeks, let us know if you
would like a copy.
Sept. 11:
Many of you responded to the note on bioterrorism, which is wonder-
ful. This helped us to frame an approach, and we would like your com-
ments. Lancet Infectious disease in May this year will publish the
article on Bioterrorism and the Epidemiology of Fear. In publishing
this, and reading your letters we have begun to outline a new model.
The concept was suggested by Carlos Gamboa, formerly of PAHO, and it
is simple; we will prepare 3-4 lectures, and distribute these world
wide to the schools across the world via email. If there is only one
email connection in a state say in India, the lectures can be printed
out; they can be put on slides, or "Supercourse comic books" or any
other means for distribution. Then on Sept. 11 world-wide the chil-
dren of the world will be taught via Supercourse lectures on bioter-
rorism. We are trying to have 2 of the lectures presented by noble
prize winners. We will also include Tom Songer's excellent lecture on
Airline Safety showing the remarkable improvement over the past 40-
year. Information concerning the true risks will be very helpful in
fear management with disasters and terrorists attacks. In addition,
we will develop a bioterrorism Supercourse. All lectures would be re-
viewed scientifically. In addition, we would make sure that each lec-
ture was politically neutral in that they would be reviewed by some
of you to see if the lectures appeared to offend you, your religion,
your country, your gender, your football team, etc.
The lectures would be based upon where one lived, thus a lecture for
Mexico or Japan would include information about Earthquakes.
We can get great lectures, as we already have almost 20 lectures on
natural disasters as well as terrorism. The critical element is to
figure out how we can push these lectures down the Internet pipeline,
and across the digital divide into the schools where most do not have
connectivity. But by targeting Sept. 11, this will give more and more
exposure to the Supercourse worldwide. Our concept is that bioterror-
ism can be the means for bringing top-notch prevention information
into the schools worldwide.
Please contact <ronlaporte@aol.com> to comment.
Best regards from Pittsburgh.
Ron, Akira, Faina, Eun Ryoung, Mita, Beatriz, Eugene, Julia, Fan,
Luciza, Abed, Rania, Deb, Tom, Fred
mailto:super2+@pitt.edu
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