Open up any recent issue of the New York Times and you can be sure to find a headline on one of many Chinese triumphs often accompanied by another story on American woes.

It’s nothing new. While China is taking the lead in green energy technology, we are still entangled in a debate over the legitimacy of global warming. While their economy efficiently surges ahead — recently becoming the second largest in the world by surpassing Japan — ours struggles to return to its former glory. Even Thomas L. Friedman’s lamentations over our beloved country seem to be in overdrive these past few weeks.

Shouldn’t we be worried? After all, it is us against them. West versus East. Democracy against Communism. They are two nations stuck in an inescapable zero-sum game. Therefore, must not we, proud Americans, do everything we can to protect America?

Not necessarily. It’s a pity to see that our politicians have still not faced reality. America’s clout in the world is slowly fading away and we — especially our Cornell seniors who are entering the job market — have to adapt. Just take a look at the biggest names participating at the recent career fair. Hoping to work on Wall Street? You might have better chances of finding a job in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and Shenzhen, a city in China I bet you never knew existed. Asian cities are rapidly rising in the Global Financial Centers Index in the past few years and will eventually overtake their Western counterparts. Not interested in finance? For engineers, General Electric is the second largest multinational corporation in the world and is becoming more and more reliant on foreign workers. The ratio of U.S.-based workers to non-U.S. based workers was 1.15 to 1 in 2001, down from 4 to 1 in 1990. In fact, its largest research and development center is located in India. Similarly, General Motors, though our government owns around 60 percent of the company, sells more cars in China than it does domestically. Hoping to work in the hotel business? The largest hotel chain, the Intercontinental Hotel, is based in the United Kingdom and has established 25 hotel schools in China in hopes of tapping the talents of the country’s youth.

The world is not just flattening; it’s shrinking. Just look at our University today. We have people from every corner of the country, from every inhabited continent. The figure that we should be focused on now isn’t whether we have students from all 50 states but if we have students from all 194 nations. For undergraduates, international students comprise 8.7 percent of the student body. That means almost one in every 10 students you see on campus is from another country. The figure is even more startling for our graduate and professional schools: One in three graduate students is an international. The political borders and geographic barriers are slowly falling.

What does this mean for us and our futures? First, it means we have to unhinge from the belief that the world is centered on us — America. And we have to start to realize the world is larger than what we see on CNN, that there are more happenings in the world outside of Iraq, Lindsay Lohan and political sex scandals. It is imperative that we abandon the comfort of our insularity and reject the illusion that our nation is still at its prime. The fact is that a post-American world is quietly becoming realized and it is a world in which the term “nationality” will become more and more obsolete.

Secondly, it means that the solutions to problems — finance, education, politics, environment — will no longer find their roots solely in American ingenuity, but in the exchange of ideas between cultures. Most likely, it won’t be an American who will solve the looming energy crisis but a medley of scientists from all corners of the globe who have collaborated with eachother.

And finally, we have to realize that this trend is not reversible. The United States is not a monolith that acts in uniformity. It is composed of free thinking individuals, each pursuing opportunities to get ahead. As the world becomes more interconnected and opportunities abroad become easier to access, Americans will become attracted to them, which will only lead to greater accessibility, generating a self-perpetuating cycle. But it isn’t a bad thing. As long as we Cornellians are prepared and flexible, we can certainly excel in the age of globalization and should not be too worried about our employment prospects. There will be demand if we look far enough.

At the recent United Nations summit, China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabao claimed, “China’s development is an opportunity to the world.” Empty rhetoric or not, China is in a position to surpass our economy around 2020, and once it does, we will be forced to engage the awakening giant, as well as other rising nations to our south and west. For us Americans — whatever that means anymore — it is time to think outside of the red, white and blue box.

There are many police shows on television, and Hawaii Five-O has just put its foot in the door. What sets this series apart from the rest, however, is that Hollywood has come to us. “It’s such a well balanced show. It’s got character, crime, and comedy. It’s got great action. The main character of this show, no other cop show has. And that is Hawai‘i,” proclaimed Alex O’Loughlin, who plays the leading role as Steve McGarrett.

At the red carpet premiere of Hawaii Five-O last Monday in Waikīkī, the cast introduced themselves to thousands of screaming fans. The actors include Alex O’Loughlin, Grace Park, Scott Caan and Daniel Dae Kim. Alex O’Loughlin’s character, McGarrett, returns to Hawai‘i to hunt down the man who murdered his dad.

Grace Park plays a tomboy rookie cop named Kono, who in the original series was actually played by a big tough guy named Zulu. Scott Caan is “Danno”, the fish out of water who moved to Hawai‘i to get closer to his daughter. Daniel Dae Kim rocks as an ex-cop with great cheekbones, ready to bust a move.

The original Hawaii Five-O brought publicity, jobs and a bit of Hollywood to the islands for 12 seasons. That’s a lot of pressure for the directors, producers and actors involved in turning this remake into a success. The original had been so popular during the 1970s and ‘80s, that many have wondered whether it will be a hit for this generation, or if it’s to remain a classic.

When asked about this concern, Grace Park replied, “I think they’re going to be able to enjoy a whole new show of Hawaii Five-O. We have the original, we have people who loved it, and now we’re redoing it for everyone out there that might want a taste of Hawai‘i with a whole new spin.”

Thousands of people covered every spare patch of sand along Waikīkī, sitting on the edge of their beach towels as the show aired at 7:30 p.m. It is not hard to gauge that the pilot is going to be a hit, from all the clapping and yelling that erupted each time one of the stars slid across the hood of a car or blew something up. Apart from one or two painful dramatic scenes, and O’Loughlin butchering a few Hawaiian street names, the show was everything that O’Loughlin said it would be.

If you missed the premiere you can catch Hawaii Five-O on CBS Mondays at 9 p.m.

Through four weeks and four wins this season, there have been an awful lot of winners walking the Michigan sideline.

The most obvious winner has been sophomore sensation Denard Robinson who has captivated the nation and leads the NCAA with 688 rushing yards. Robinson’s performance has also shone a light on the team’s primary wideouts — Roy Roundtree, Darryl Stonum and Martavious Odoms — who have all come alive at some point or another in non-conference play.

Even Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez, who was vilified for the better of eight months before the season began, has proven that “winning cures a lot,” just like he said a month before the opener. He’s probably enjoyed a great deal more sleep in the last month than he had through the entire offseason.

But for all of Michigan’s shiny results through a third of the season, there’s been one lemon along for the ride. And winning may not cure enough to save his job.

Defensive coordinator Greg Robinson, in his second year running the defense, has done little to prove that he deserves to be off the hotseat, which he and Rodriguez shared at the start of the season.

Since year one of Rodriguez’s tenure, the Wolverines’ defense has been slowly decaying.

Under Scott Shafer — who was first brought to Ann Arbor by Rodriguez — Michigan gave up a fairly putrid 366 yards per game. Although a 3-9 record may have had something to do with it, Shafer was fired without many questions after the season.

After fielding one of the worst teams in the FBS in 2008, Robinson was removed as head coach of Syracuse and hired by Rodriguez to lead the Wolverine defense. The results he yielded in his first season were 27 yards worse than Shafer’s defense. And he was kept on.

And four games into his second season, the results have been even worse. Robinson’s defense was crushed for 535 yards against Notre Dame—the second-highest in a win in program history. Then, the week after, the Wolverines gave up 439 yards to an FCS squad that the defense was absolutely ill-prepared for.

The Wolverines are the second worst defense among undefeated teams in the FBS (only Oklahoma is worse), and overall, they come in at a stunningly awful 90th place in total defense, allowing 400 yards per game.

That’s not acceptable, unless you’re playing your buddy on Playstation.

And don’t blame it completely on a lack of talent. Yes, the secondary was expected to struggle because depth at the position group was paper thin. But at positions like linebacker (which Robinson personally coaches), Robinson’s unit has underachieved on a consistent basis.

For comparison’s sake, Shafer, who left town for Robinson’s old home in Syracuse, has the 29th-ranked defense in the FBS, while his defense is allowing almost 100 yards less than the Wolverines have on average.

That means only one thing with three quarters of the season remaining: Greg Robinson has the most to prove of anyone in Ann Arbor when Big Ten season starts next Saturday.

To say Rodriguez needs to fire Robinson to save his job, like ESPN analyst Mark May said following Michigan’s win over Massachusetts, is unfounded and untrue. But when it comes time to evaluate this team’s coaching staff at the end of the season, there should be a long look at Robinson’s track record through two years with the program.

When Athletic Director Dave Brandon was asked this offseason how Rodriguez could keep his job, Brandon said that he didn’t need to win a certain amount of games, but he needed to demonstrate a significant improvement and step in the right direction. There’s no reason why Robinson shouldn’t be held to the same standards.

So far Rodriguez, helped by his record-breaking offense, is on his way to doing that and Robinson is eating his dust.

While the defense showed some improvement this past weekend, consider the word out: If Greg Robinson doesn’t show noted improvement in Big Ten season, there’s no reason why his bags shouldn’t be packed.

Before you litter another plastic bottle, think about the ocean and the ‘aina. Plastic collects in the ocean, in at least five significant areas, and may eventually end up on the shores of Hawai‘i from trash that accumulates in the Pacific Gyre.

Nikolai Maximenko, senior researcher at the International Pacific Research Center at U. Hawaii-Mānoa, headed a team that developed a computer model which charts the likely paths of floating marine debris and where it concentrates in the ocean.

“Our model helps to familiarize the concept,” said Maximenko, who began developing the model three years ago.

“One idea, that we are researching, is that Hawai‘i is the final destination for the North Pacific debris. Whatever is dropped in the North Pacific still drifts to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and it will all end up on Hawaiian beaches,” he said. This happens occasionally when currents change, allowing trash to escape the vortex. When this occurs, the trash is likely to end up in Hawai‘i. Pieces that don’t find their way to the islands cycle back to the Pacific garbage patch.

Maximenko co-authored a paper based on research done by the Sea Education Association (SEA), Woods Hole Oceanic Institution, and the University of Hawai‘i.

The paper was based on data collected over 22 years by undergraduate students of the SEA Semester program who collected samples of plastic in surface plankton nets at over six thousand locations. The paper was published in Science Express magazine in August.

Results were also based on observations of about 12,000 satellite-tracked, free drifting buoys. The buoys measure ocean current velocities and where the flows separate or diverge or where they come together and converge. The areas where the flows converge are areas highly likely to collect debris. Maximenko’s model has predicted and identified five patches of debris, located at the centers of the world’s five subtropical gyres.

One of the regions where drifters collect or converge is in the North Pacific. This place, which lies between Hawai‘i and California, is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The patch is roughly the size of Texas and is estimated to contain 3.5 million tons of trash.

The study has also determined a previously undefined expanse of the North Atlantic Ocean that contains high concentrations of plastic debris comparable to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

“We are still far from understanding the scale of the problem,” said Maximenko. “We are still trying to unify and compile this global data and I think we are at the very beginning of this long process,” he said.

There are pivotal tipping points in which countries must make important decisions – decisions that will drastically affect the their future. This will be one of those situations.

For decades, a growing population of America’s citizens have cried for marijuana to be legalized. Even in the ’60s many thought America was on the verge of legalization, but here were are, all the way in 2010, with cannabis still banned from our home gardens.

I’m not qualified to speak on the moral, ethical or religious implications of legalization. I’ll leave that for the priests, philosophers and politicians. However, I believe we should know a little better exactly what we will, in all probability, be expected to vote on in our lifetimes.

A small introduction is in order. California is in a bit of a pickle. The state is running into some tough financial woes, much like our beloved University.

Estimates of California’s annual marijuana sales total around $14 billion each year. If that were taxed at 10 percent or so, it would bring in around $1.4 billion each year and go a long way toward helping California’s debt situation.

At first glance, many imagine pot-drained zombies running rampant in the streets, taxi cab and bus drivers lighting up a dubbie on the job and general mayhem on scales hitherto unseen.

That’s ridiculous. We don’t worry about people hitting 21 and suddenly being unable to hold a job or keep a relationship (usually), and if someone shows up to work drunk, we don’t harass those politicians that repealed prohibition in the ’30s. We fire the bum for not doing his job. So, we shouldn’t see a huge impact on production if states start to light up – we’ll still be able to get our books, TVs and boundless amounts of junk food without delay.

Consider this, though: You’re a lowly farmer, with massive debt to pay for your equipment and a pay barely above poverty. You can grow fruits and nuts for a modest price – or cannabis. If you grow cannabis, you’re actually growing a double crop. Hemp, one of mankind’s most useful fibers, is made from a different part of the plant than what’s smoked, so you can make a lot of money selling both parts.

Why should you care? California is the sole producer (99 percent or more) of goods like almonds, grapes, raisins, pomegranates and clingstone peaches. If the number of sellers for crops doesn’t increase, and they start to switch over to cannabis in the way classical economics predicts they will, the supply of the other goods decreases, meaning their prices will increase.

Marijuana legalization will affect crop prices, but what about jails? Well, it turns out quite a few inmates are in jail for drug-related offenses. According to the FBI, there were 858,408 arrests for marijuana charges in 2009. When we take into account the massive costs of finding these people, charging them and subsequently paying for their jail time, the costs are literally in the billions of dollars. Billions.

It’s a chaotic time, friends. This November, California will vote on Proposition 19, possibly becoming the first state to legalize what is a massive underground industry. These chaotic times can be tough for established businesses but provide a solid opportunity for start-up businesses, thus creating jobs.

One of the most concerning problems facing modern economics is the inability to really apply the scientific method. We can’t just legalize pot and see what happens any more than we can just tweak the unemployment rate or inflation. But we can expect a few things: the prices of many agricultural goods, especially those exclusively grown in California, will probably rise slightly. Start-up companies will emerge to capture the new market hoping their profits get as high as their customers (which would create new jobs for citizens) and the cost of law enforcement will be redirected to other, more violent crimes.

California’s economy just might have a budding opportunity here – though the state now has two green initiatives to manage.