A Big Red Fraud

Driving to Ithaca on Wednesday, I saw these words on a sign by the side of Route 79 near Lisle.

I didn't feel like stopping to read the rest of the sign, but an Ithaca Journal article from back in June filled me in:

An unusual billboard along Route 79 east of Ithaca is drawing attention with the words, "A Big Red fraud."

Bill Gehm, a partner in LR Gehm, LLC, a manufacturer of milking equipment based in Lisle, filed a lawsuit against Cornell University last summer, alleging that the university is disseminating false information about one of its products... The sign includes a Web site about his conflict with Cornell, stemming from a study in which Cornell researchers claimed his product doesn't do what he says it does.

Gehm originally put up the billboard for graduation weekend, turned it around to get traffic leaving Ithaca, and now has it back facing the westbound traffic as it heads from Whitney Point to Ithaca.

I don't know enough about the dairy science to understand what's going on, but it's fun to see some lively anti-Cornell activity in the area. I think these feelings are too often confined to local council meetings, comments in the Ithaca Journal, or discussions between townies, none of which reach any Cornell students. I don't think most students realize that there are people in the community (besides their landlords or the police, maybe) who don't think Cornell is the greatest thing to happen to upstate since the Erie Canal.

Aside from the billboard, there aren't any hugely exciting changes to Cornell or Ithaca. The whole area between the suspension bridge, Thurston Ave., White Hall, and Libe Slope is an ugly construction zone. To facilitate handicapped access to Lincoln Hall (which was previously from now-closed University Ave.), some of the Arts Quad pedestrian pathways were widened to allow for cars to drive across the quad from the Johnson Museum to Lincoln. The result is that the north part of the Arts Quad looks more like a suburban driveway and less like the Arts Quad I know and love.

Freshman move-in day seemed to go smoothly, at least from where I was working in Dickson and Jameson. It's interesting to see how the freshmen arrive each year. The familiar mixture of excitement and nerves, the parents fretting about every detail, the clothes chosen for the first impressions of college. One family -- five of them -- flew from LAX into Buffalo and rented two cars to drive everything to Ithaca. 2013 seems far away, but I suppose 2010 seemed that way to my class at the time.

[Ithaca Journal (subscription only)]