BusinessWeek on The Day Gift

I'm one of the biggest free speech enthusiasts I know, but even I wonder if the tone of the discussion that still surrounds the Day Gift . Maybe this tone is manufactured by media types more interested in looking at sources of conflict than points of agree, but still, I feel I must respond to some of the accusations floating around. The latest issue of BusinessWeek (and most recent place to cover the Day Gift) seems just as good a place to start as any other.

BusinessWeek's headline alone should give us pause: "Poets, Painters, and Portfolio Managers." It suggests that there's something wrong with this picture -- that surely portfolio managers don't belong at liberal arts colleges. This implicit assumption is maintained throughout the article, but does it stand up? What's wrong with studying Drucker or Schubert?

Professor Faggen, whose scholarship and character I respect and admire, has correctly framed the issue, but his point as quoted by BusinessWeek seems to be an argument for the Day program. (Remember Day students will still have to go through the same rigorous requirements as the rest of us.)

Here's how BusinessWeek quotes Faggen.

Robert Faggen, chairman of the literature department at Claremont McKenna and a prominent Robert Frost scholar, was one of several faculty members who raised objections to the master's program shortly after the announcement. Faculty had concerns ranging from specific aspects of implementing the program to its overall effect on the college, he says.

"There are a number of possible paths to success in the world of finance, and some of those paths include in-depth study of the humanities," Faggen says. "One would like to think that the overall quality of mind that is being cultivated in a liberal arts college does not become too narrowly focused on job training."

Faggen's right, of course, there are millions of possible paths to success in the world of finance. I would go so far as to argue that like snowflakes no two paths are entirely alike, but I think Faggen's point is more than a little problematic for the following reasons.

The kind of prospective business people that would be drawn to a liberal arts college in the first place are a rare sort indeed. Most will just go to big universities and become like the numbers they seek to cipher.

Faggen and others should relish the opportunity to introduce these young prospective businessmen to great works of literature. At the very least, he, the Frost Scholar, might be able to show them that the "road less traveled" is more enjoyable. He may even persuade a few of them to give up their dreams of I-Banking. Yes, it's true that the essential reason students and their families invest so much in college is to get marketable skills for the job market, but that doesn't necessarily mean the Day Program will in and of itself will corrupt the other departments.

I don't believe that the Day gift will not dilute the other interests that C.M.C. has. It can't, really. No college will want to just admit a certain type of student because it will minimize the chances that other students will strike it big in other fields and in the end, restrict the school's publicity and sources of revenue.

To assume that the Day Gift will distort the atmosphere of the school is to assume that there will be more than just a hand full of seats for Day Scholars. I frankly don't see how a student population roughly the size of Posse will have an over all deleterious effect on the school. I think C.M.C. is bigger than that.

Sure, part of the school will "over-specialize," but who decides what's "over-specialization"? Shouldn't that value judgment be a conversation we have as a school?

Fortunately Faggen has started that conversation. Faggen's criticisms show that he loves this college enough to question some of its decisions. But the news coverage would have you asking: Is Robert Faggen the only professor that questions the Day Gift?

I would tend to doubt it. Why aren't other tenured professors speaking out in favor or against the Day Gift? Could it be that the media is only quoting Faggen? Why is this happening?

On a finer point, this conversation that BusinessWeek has picked up on should be a school-wide conversation. Why aren't other professors on the record?

Faggen may very well be wrong in the long-run, but that doesn't warrant President Gann's defensiveness. By the way, if I were Gann, I would invite Faggen to serve on the Admissions committee if he doesn't already serve.

I even agree with most of Gann's logic about expanding key cadres into a MBA program.

"We aren't in any way reducing our commitments to the liberal arts. We believe that is the best education for leadership," Gann says. "We are saying that we are a real world college and don't just work in theory. We are doing a disservice to students if we are not offering them core competencies like accounting, leadership, and finance today."

But Gann's argument is a bit of a straw man. Why can't we be both a real world college and a theoretical liberal arts college at the same time?

David Brooks Notes from Salvatori Discussion

Charles Johnson’s note: Please recognize that this is a very rough draft and that the quotations may not be perfect. The notes should also not be seen as complete. I missed certain sentences here and there.

Many of you asked me for my notes on Brooks. Here they are.

On his relationship with W.F. Buckley

W.F. Buckley offered me a job. David Brooks, if you’re in the audience, I want to give you a job. He wasn’t there. He was at Stanford debating Milton Friedman.”

“Milton Friedman debated the young. Tyranny of the Status Quo (debated undergrads)… There were six of us.”

Brooks quotes Schlesinger’s view of Friedman – “His arguments were never longer than a postcard.”

“Friedman just demolished his opponents. He took us all out to dinner afterwards.”

Moves to Buckley…

WFB Died at his desk, which is the way he wanted to go…No one has the glamour that he had…”

“No one is as big now as he was then.”

Thoughts on blogging. He doesn’t read as many blogs as he once did because he doesn’t have the time and because he’s tired of finishing a very interesting blog post and finding out that some middle schooler wrote it.

“Bloggers all pick on Times columnists. For awhile it bugged me, but now it’s part of the atmosphere.”

Welcome to the Times where it’s all criticism all the time.

“The general theme of the emails I receive is ‘Krugman is great, you suck.’”

As for the more general phenomenon of blogging,

“The newspaper feels like a dying industry. There’s something addictive about clicking through candy.”

Generally, bloggers write on something very arcane.

“Bloggers force print journalist to go a little higher to bring some big concept or bring some reporting to bear. … They have made it harder because now if there is an opinion on something, 8,000,000 have already had it and published it online before you have.”

As for writing for an audience, “The ideal audience is a U.S. Senator and they’ve never heard about the stuff on blogs.”

On writing generally

“There a million things you cannot write.”

The average person on the Subway doesn’t want to read about political philosophy. “They don’t want to read about Leo Strauss.”

“If you write Bush is Evil, Obama is God. You’ll make it to the New York Times most emailed list. It’s horrible social science, but it’s something we all look at.

My parents are academics. I was going to be an academic.

“I have an unlimited travel budget. I can go anywhere in the world if I want. You get access to pretty much anyone you want, but you have to write 780 words for an audience that is basic.”

On the supposed decay of the arts.

I’m a cultural optimist. I don’t think we’re heading towards stupid land.

• Lots more people going to the museums
• I’ve heard that more people go to classical music recitals than football games.
“Books about the founders are going strong.”

On subsidized news programming and liberal-media bias

Non-profit news. New Hour with Jim Lehrer. Lehrer wanted to talk about campaign finace reform. IBrooks just couldn’t get excited about it.

“[The media elite] tend to be Rockefeller – very Establishment mentality. “It’s the ethos of the place that shapes what’s news – kind of like how different colleges have different feels to them.”

“The Times looked down on Yahoo. The Washington Post exists because they were smart to buy Stanley Kaplan – a company whose tests I’ve sure you all enjoyed taking.”

“My general rule for journalism is aloofness.”

“I take copious notes… It’s all pile-driven.” Brooks writes dozens of pages of observations and never leaves home without his notebook. When he’s about to write a story, he puts all of the notes into a pile and then types them up. Each note sheet is a paragraph.

Brooks explains “part of the trick of writing a book. 60% of the job is traffic management.”

On his fellow columnists

“Tom Friedman, Maureen Dowd, and me – ego alley. Maureen and I are beginning to thaw. We have yet to sit down and have lunch.”

“Her writing style is social. It’s a little volcano of conversation and noise. I like to shut out the world and get to work.”

“Friedman… Tom is bigger than the universe. He’s bigger than all of us.”

Quotes somebody else about Tom Friedman, “Going to the Middle East with him is like going to the mall with Britney Spears.”

“Tom’s a phenomenon. Wherever he goes, he gets the usual requests. ‘Would you give my regards to Tom Friedman?’”

He likes that Kristol has come on so that he won’t be the only one getting flak for being conservative.

On his job

“I do two to three interviews a day.”

“The more and more I learned about this job, the more I realize, character and the mental habits of politicians is more important than their policy positions.”

“Bush is not that interested in execution. He likes to say he can see fifty years ahead. But he’s not concerned with next week.”

“This business that magazines have influence is overdone.”

‘Sociology is the queen of the social sciences. The unexamined patterns of behavior shape everything else.’

“You can make fun of rich people all you want. You can’t make fun of poor people it’s not nice.”

“Forgive me for being patronizing, but I’ve run across in colleges that believe there are essentially only two career tracks, the noble ‘Teach for America types or the greedy Investment Bankers.’”

“Jobs happen by chance. You’ll probably get married in your later twenties. You have ten years to bounce around.”

Brooks talks about his acquaintance that is a Las Vegas fountain choreographer.

Brooks explains his priorities.

1. I want to be a writer

2. I want to be a journalist.

3. I want to be a conservative.

Brooks ends on a discussion of college. “Certain schools have just a Golden culture… There’s definitely a Claremont group in D.C.”

David Brooks Before the Ath

Sahil Kapur has already written about what Brooks said before the Ath, so I will try not to rehash his arguments. I have a few bones to pick with it, but all in all, it's a well done review. Of course, I laughed out loud when Kapur wrote that he liked Brooks, even though Kapur is a "non-conservative."

You see Brooks' "limited, but energetic governance" isn't conservatism at all, but a more of a compromise some conservatives want to make with the welfare state. I can understand why some conservatives want to make this compromise -- it is nice to be elected -- but what's the point of being elected if you aren't going to do something principles with it? Brooks could argue that at least Republicans would lead us down that road to serfdom slower than the Democrats, but they would lead us just the same.

At the same time, I think David Brooks is right that the conservative movement is losing its ability to get new ideas, but I throw that problem at the feet of his big government conservatism. We have been too willing to concede battles rather than take up mental arms against them. We didn't continue fighting for social security privatization or for the elimination of the Department of Education and so we lost those struggles. Had we phrased them differently, had we shown that we can offer the American people a "choice," not an "echo," we might have lost the election but won the people. As others have said, Goldwater may have appeared to lose the election in '64, but it took 16 years to count the ballots.

I think Brooks is wrong to judge the defeat of conservatism as the miscalculation of Gingrich's government shutdown. Indeed, Gingrich's cult of personality -- his turn from the libertarian principles that underwrote the Contract with America, his embrace of his own celebrity, and his reluctance to live up to the very principles he excoriated Clinton for -- was what destroyed the Republicans.

During the course of the evening, I asked Brooks about his views of Milton Friedman and how they influenced his concept of government. Brooks suggested that Friedman viewed people as only rational beings who make decisions based upon economic calculus. I don't agree. (Let's put aside the question of whether or not Friedman actually believed what Brooks says he did for the sake of argument.)

Brooks made the argument that there is no economic sense for high school students dropping out of high school. Based upon the accepted norms we have today that encourages students --rich and poor, dumb and smart alike -- to attend college this explanation seems accurate upon first examination. We are told over and over again that a high school degree is the bedrock of prosperity and that anyone who wants to be someone must have one. If you are reading this blog, chances are you agree.

But is this the whole story?

The answer to this problem, ironically enough, was addressed by Milton Friedman himself -- allow families and students to pick schools that best capture their learning styles and habits.

What Brooks doesn't make clear is that the children who are dropping out do so because school isn't meeting their perceived needs. Maybe those decisions would change if they were going to schools that they felt a part of.

They are a whole host of reasons for why these kids drop out. They are as multifarious and diverse as the children who attend the public schools. They might want to help their family by getting a low-skilled, but high-paying job, school might be too tough or the work may seem tedious. You might want to sell drugs or join the Army and high school just seems like a waste of your potential. There are any number of reasons for leaving high school. Perhaps the most famous one -- and I find it the most hilarious -- is Chris Rock's quip about a G.E.D. "Let me get this straight, I can make up four years of schooling in six hours?"

There are thousands of Americans who didn't graduate high school. Here's a list of some of the more famous ones. Notice that the occupations they entered -- politics, entertainment, and yes, crime -- didn't require the skill sets developed in high school.

After all, at the end of graduating at an abysmal public school, all you have is a degree from that abysmal public school. If you were a bad student or a slow student, chances are you aren't going to college anyways.

Brooks then went on to talk about the marshmallow study. His argument can boil down to how its better to nurture skills in young children than to let the bad habits develop into adulthood.

Brooks is right to draw a conclusion that the habits people form as a result of good parenting makes parenting desirable, but he is wrong to involve government in that process. Yes, government can create incentives for people to get married. Why not tax married people at an even lower rate?

But his solution of a "limited, but energetic government" is problematic. How should government step in to help those children? Will parents take less care of their children so that government comes in and relieves them of unwanted kids? Just where do we draw the line of "energetic" between "totalitarian"? Can a limited government be energetic?

Brooks tries to tether his philosophy to Hamilton. He believes government should be used to expand opportunity, but how? How does this differ from Keynesian economics that tries to use government as a form of investment? How does this help people in the long run? Doesn't he recognize that when the federal government invests in people it robs other private entities from investing?

True, I suppose Brooks could argue that government can achieve the ends of expanding opportunity by refusing to give special hand outs to certain groups -- no earmarks and no corporate welfare -- but how do we square this belief with his view that conservatives make peace with the welfare state? Aren't social programs, like welfare or Social Security, another kind of earmark, albeit one that's harder to taken on than the Bridge to Nowhere?

Brooks tries to draw smaller distinctions with Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's view of government. But the differences between Brooks and Clinton or Obama is one of degrees, not of principles. I see no functional difference between Brooks' view that government ought to enter into childrearing so as to level the playing field and Hillary Clinton's Brave New World-esque It Takes A Village where we get rid of the idea that there is any such thing as anybody else's child.

Further, citing Hamilton as a limited government conservative is also problematic. Putting aside the question of the National Bank, Hamilton believed in a larger, more robust executive.

To say that Hamilton, on balance, is a limited government conservative is nearly impossible, but I suppose a similar thing could be said of David Brooks.

Thomas Sowell Mentions Harvey Mudd College on NRO TV

Thomas Sowell has mentioned Harvey Mudd College as one of America's finest schools for teaching science, math, and engineering. I blogged about this issue back in October, but now you can hear Sowell talk about how tenure hurts the learning of students. Sowell has been out promoting his book, entitled modestly enough, Economic Facts and Fallacies. (If anyone has a copy of the book, I will promise to name my first born child after you if you let me borrow it.)

He makes that argument by citing the fact that Harvey Mudd students go on to earn PhDs much more often than do their counterparts at some of the bigger name universities. He's right, but he would be. He's Thomas Sowell.

Elise Viebeck, Editor of the CI, Gets Mention on Phi Beta Cons

Our highly esteemed editor of The Claremont Independent moonlights as a writer for the highly influential Independent Women's Forum. Who knew!

They have just recently published her piece on the perils of the Living Wage Activism. Naturally, her characteristic diligence and marshaling of language shines through.

Robert VerBruggen of Phi Beta Cons has a few criticisms of Viebeck's piece, but nevertheless agrees with Viebeck's essential argument that "living wage movements" end up hurting workers in effectively the same ways as minimum wage laws by reducing the likelihood that employers will hire those workers in the first place.

This argument has the same net effect on the people it is designed to help as the fair trade fraud has. (See Aditya and my piece here.) Of course, this effect is no coincidence. When you agitate through the use of emotionalism instead of reason, you often invoke unintended consequences. Maybe it's time that we all corralled these data points and wrote a book about the economic fallacies that dominate the American campus?

This is the second mention of a current Claremont Independent writer in two months. (My review of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism was picked up on The Corner.) Not bad, not bad at all. And if you throw in our own John Wilson, the former editor of the CI, we're knocking on all the right doors.

Claremont McKenna Alum Reflects on Buckley

Marlo Lewis Jr. is a libertarian and Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He was once a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Claremont McKenna and graduated from our esteemed college.

Though I first saw this post on National Review's The Corner, I'm reposting it in its entirety from OpenMarket.org. I have bolded the paragraph that most resonated with me.

William F. Buckley, Jr. passed away today. How very sad. For some libertarians, it all started with Rand. For me, it started with Buckley.

WFB was my guiding light through those formative years in the 1960s when the “anti-war” (pro-Hanoi) movement, the New Left, and the counter-culture were in full cry.

Though vastly outnumbered in high school by peers and teachers mouthing cliches of socialism, appeasement, and moral relativism, I confidently debated any and all comers, armed with facts and arguments from National Review, Firing Line, and a slew of books by WFB and other NR columnists, and emboldened by his courage, brilliance, and wit.

Very likely I would not have read Mises and Hayek in my teens, attended Claremont McKenna College (a school hospitable to conservative students and faculty), studied there with Harry Jaffa (the great Lincoln and Aristotle scholar whom Buckley esteemed), or pursued graduate studies in political philosophy had WFB not opened my young eyes to the perils of statism and the excitement of the war of ideas.

WFB’s contribution to American politics and civilization should not be underestimated. Would the Reagan Presidency–critical to the demise of Soviet communism–have even been possible without the conservative movement WFB did so much to found and nurture? I doubt it.

Although never personally associated with WFB, I always felt a personal fondness for him that went beyond admiration for his talents and contributions. I’m sure many others share this feeling. He will be missed.

Well said. I'm glad to see that the Claremont McKenna alums far and near recognize the importance of Buckley at changing the terms of the cultural discourse for the better.

William F. Buckley: The Man, The Legend, and Everything Else

I'll write up my reflections on Brooks and Buckley tomorrow as I spent the night with some fellow conservatives and just got back to Stark. I promise to make it up to you. I took notes during the Salvatori reception, which, upon editing, will also be available on my blog.

I suppose we all know today as the day Buckley died. And yet, I'm more interested by how he lived. He was the intellectual who weaponized conservatism by disarming its critics and by rallying its troops. A bon vivant who never lost track of ideas and an idea man who never lost track of the more basic human pleasures, Buckley's characteristic humor moved The National Review from mockery to mandatory.

Though I don't believe David Brooks is right when he says that many conservatives wanted to be William F. Buckley, I do believe there is a contingent that worships the ground upon which he walks and that Buckley wouldn't have it any other way.

I remember the first William F. Buckley thing I ever read -- God and Man at Yale. I remember discovering it in sophomore year of high school, almost sixty years after it was written.

Like all good journalists, Buckley was fearless. He named names and documented the abuses of professors with the kind of glee that only a conservative can feel after surviving years of thought-reform.

I had witnessed these similar abuses at my prep school, Milton Academy. Minority rights reigned supreme, free speech gave ground, religious students were harassed, and a whole generation of young people were led to believe that the new holy trinity -- race, class, and gender -- mattered more than character, liberty, and truth.

For me and my numerous run-ins with the thought police, Buckley (and later the other NRO writes) led me back to the kind of conservative libertarianism I espouse and still believe is the only way to live.

Buckley proves that the fight half-finished is the fight half-done. He never gave up on the movement he embodied.

You see, I believe it is no coincidence that Buckley launched his career by fighting against the encroaching statism and coercion that is tragically characteristic of the American academe. For only when liberty is at its ebb do we see what man is made of.

Nor is it any coincidence that National Review continues to evolve. Buckley always had a way of making the conservative fresh. He distanced it from the age old crackpotdom. His successors push it forward by diving into the new territories of blogging and videoblogging, while simultaneously remembering the values that made it great.

Unlike David Brooks, I never met William F. Buckley. I knew the man from his ideas. Much like our own Martin Diamond, who died defending the Electoral College, we'll remember Buckley by how he left this world -- at his desk, a better place, still unfinished.

Pomona Birth Control Subsidies Coming Soon?

Will Bigham of The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin recently interviewed Pomona President David Oxtoby. The interview is a bit boring -- nothing new to really see -- except this:

Q: Pomona College student body president Elspeth Hilton has said the college is considering subsidizing the cost of birth control and other contraceptives for students. How important a priority is that effort? Do you expect it to happen by the end of this academic year?

A: This is an issue for the entire Claremont Colleges Consortium and for Health Services. I am optimistic that progress will be made over the next several months.

Goodness! Why does Pomona's administration think this action is appropriate?

News-in-Brief: A Bit of Levity For the Evening

I wrote these news and brief for a campus publication. Some of them were put in and others were not. I think it will become a regular feature on this blog. Why can't we have some fun? Please let me know which one(s) you like.

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Green in every sense

Congratulations Claremont McKenna, you won the 5-C Dorm Energy Challenge.

Emily Meinhardt, admitted "environmental crusader," boasted on the Portside's blog.

Your prize is a "to-be-determined amount of green power, energy-saving technology for the dormitories" and this cactus.

Where might that cactus be?

Why don't you know?

On Ms. Meinhardt's refrigerator. After all, to the crusader go the spoils. Now she has her holy grail.

Hillary is a [Censored] Lesbian

Some poor Mudder got a stern talking to when he expressed himself on his white board.

Dean Noda informed me :

"Campus Safety is notified about all such cases in compliance with the Claremont Colleges' "Communications Protocol for Bias-Related Incidents" found on p. 1-45 of the [HMC] student handbook."

Of course the LBGT community was so hurt by that comment that Dean Noda didn't send it to all five schools and I certainly didn't blog about it.

Because we care.

Pomona's Student Government Wants You to Pay for a Multilingual Newspaper

Should we pay for something that never would exist in the real marketplace?

No.

Nyet.

Nein.

Non.

Ji nahi.

Thua không

Am I making myself clear? I sure hope I’m not leaving anyone out. Wouldn't want to do that.

Day's Saving Time?

A spokesman for Day confirms that we're still getting our $200 million.

"I'm a Barbie girl…" can continue uninterrupted. (YouTube it.)

Yee Believe What Yee Hears...

We're in pretty good company. Yee's last public appearance was before Syria TV in October. Way to go C.M.C.

Yee says its "unfortunate that Newsweek had to withdraw their story".

Yee talked first hand with prisoners who were held in Camp X-Ray that the Korans those prisoners had brought with them were tossed into buckets that were used as "toilets in that makeshift camp."

Of course that was before Yee got there.

The interviewer asks, "Did you actually see any of this happen?"

Yee says, "I didn't see it, because I wasn't a part of the intelligence operation but I was aware directly from the prisoners when they came to me with their complaints and concerns."

Because if someone whose at Gitmo wouldn't have any incentive to lie, would they?

No, I didn't think so either.

He's a Rocket Man

Stan Love, HMC '87 blasted off into space the other day. No word yet on when he'll bring back Harvey Mudd's administration.

Red light, green light.

For T.N.C., all of the attendees went wearing red, yellow, and green.

Red for those that "taken," yellow for the "complicated," green that are “single.” Color blind kids stay shafted or beat up, but they just might taste the rainbow.

“That is not a job, it is a way of life.”­ – Dean Debra Wood

That’s a line taken from her Scripps website bio and has particular appeal after her run in with the blogosphere. She branded DJ Timbo, a rapper and husband to his grammar school sweetheart, “sexist” and called a party organizers “racist.”

The Washington Post’s Off Beat as nominated her for their “Idiot of The Year.” Make sure to vote early and often.

After all, voting isn’t just a job, it’s a way of life.

Great Expectations

David “Big Government” Gergen spoke at Claremont McKenna about Leadership in America.

On sort of kind of requiring national service for young people, he said that service is “an expectation, not an obligation.”

If only he had given the inverse of that advice to Clinton or Nixon before they lied under oath.

Another Weekend, Another Party Cancelled

So that means ASCMC will give back all the money they collect that we pour into their coffers, right? Right?

Government, even student government, always spends only what its authorized and they keep excellent records.

Better Living Through Logging, Mining, and Fine Home Building

Elaine McGlaughin of The Student Life , wrote an opinion piece about “they key to a sustainable future.”

Now that Pomona has a really big endowment they can attack those sustainability issues, tackle global climate change, and save the world.

Just what’s the key to Pomona’s development?

Why, according to Pomona’s treasurer Carlene Miller, who oversees the $1.8 billion, it’s diversification into alternative investments like timberlands, gold, and commercial real estate.

Timber, gold, and commercial real estate are very sustainable, after all.

The Student Life doesn’t seem to care. That endowment cuts them a big check to keep printing and we know how sustainable they are.

Stop Pill Popping and Feeling Comfortable

Alex Aznar, a writer for The Portside, thinks the Claremont Colleges “must be a place where students feel comfortable and are encouraged to break any bad habits acquired in grade school.”

Just what habits?

“Obsessing over grades.” “Cramming schedules” “and substituting quality of performance with quantity of activities or classes.”

I’d respond but alas I’m too strung out on caffeine, and busy writing for The Claremont Independent, and reading my Civ homework.

In other news, there was a Hookah Bar Party up in Wohlford this past weekend.

Claremont McKenna's History of Censorship

I've been reading a lot lately about liberty on America's college campuses. My favorite of the books I have read thus far, is Alan Kors and Harvey Silverglate's The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses.

I came to this paragraph and just stopped reading. It had to be blogged about even if I feel very, very sick right now.

In April 1997, the Claremont McKenna College suspended a student for a newsletter in response to charges from three female readers that the publication created "a hostile environment" making his return to the college dependent on successful completion of sexual harassment sensitivity training. The Southern California chapter of the ACLU took the case to the Pomona Superior Court, arguing that the newsletter was obviously protected speech. Judge Wendell Mortimer, Jr., however ruled ingeniously that the newsletter "had the potential to create a hostile environment"... --Alan Kors and Harvey Silverglate, The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses, 179

Never forget that censorship can -- and has -- happen here.

Distortions, Statistics and the Campus Feminist Agenda

UPDATE: Robert VerBruggen weighs in over at Phi Beta Cons about how campus feminists have been distorting Mac Donald's articles.

He says he's "finally figuring out how feminists think" based upon their reactions to the Mac Donald piece. I couldn't agree more.

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Heather Mac Donald exposed the dubious claims of several organization that believe, without proof, that rape is an everyday event on American college campuses. Here she is in The Los Angeles Times and in City Journal.

Here are my favorite paragraphs:

So what reality does lie behind the campus rape industry? A booze-fueled hookup culture of one-night, or sometimes just partial-night, stands. Students in the sixties demanded that college administrators stop setting rules for fraternization. “We’re adults,” the students shouted. “We can manage our own lives. If we want to have members of the opposite sex in our rooms at any hour of the day or night, that’s our right.” The colleges meekly complied and opened a Pandora’s box of boorish, sluttish behavior that gets cruder each year. Do the boys, riding the testosterone wave, act thuggishly toward the girls? You bet! Do the girls try to match their insensitivity? Indisputably.

College girls drink themselves into near or actual oblivion before and during parties. That drinking is often goal-oriented, suggests University of Virginia graduate Karin Agness: it frees the drinker from responsibility and “provides an excuse for engaging in behavior that she ordinarily wouldn’t.” A Columbia University security official marvels at the scene at homecomings: “The women are shit-faced, saying, ΩLet’s get as drunk as we can,≈ while the men are hovering over them.” As anticipated, the night can include a meaningless sexual encounter with a guy whom the girl may not even know. This less-than-romantic denouement produces the “roll and scream: you roll over the next morning so horrified at what you find next to you that you scream,” a Duke coed reports in Laura Sessions Stepp’s recent book Unhooked. To the extent that they’re remembered at all, these are the couplings that are occasionally transformed into “rape”—though far less often than the campus rape industry wishes.

It's as if Ms. Mac Donald were actually on campus to observe. She might have a few words to say about this Portside article riddled, as it is, with bogus statistics and feminist agenda. (Fortunately, Dan O'Toole CMC '09 and others have taken that article's authors to task.)

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I wrote Ms. Mac Donald several years ago when I was caught, unarmed, in a politically correct firestorm. Though some students on campus threatened to kill me and assaulted a fellow student over our critical examination of the school's diversity program, I was, curiously enough, the only one punished.

After I was given an administrative slap on the wrist -- the school had first threatened me with expulsion -- I came across Mac Donald's article entitled "Prep School P.C. Plague." Her depiction of the political correctness cabal mirrored everything about my experience.

Eventually, I sent her an email, asking her why she didn't focus too much on my former prep school, Milton Academy. She responded about how it was just too easy to poke holes in. Unfortunately, she's right. What a pity there isn't a FIRE for high school students.

One of the Major Problems with Claremont McKenna

I am sitting in Stark lounge right now watching yet another student be wheeled by gurney from Auen to the hospital room and it hit me: there is something seriously wrong with our school's drinking culture. After all, weren't parties supposed to be banned this weekend? (Looks like prohibition has worked wonders again...)

I don't know if I favor a ban, but I can certainly understand why some people are considering it. I would only be comfortable with a ban if the school were to give us back all the money we put into the college partying fund. Now that there are no parties, surely non-drinkers and drinkers could unite on this point? We paid for a service and now that service isn't being rendered. Put simply, where do we go to get our money back?

This party inform is part of the problem. How pathetic is it that we need to have our elected officials tell us how to have fun? He literally needs to list ways for you to amuse yourself. Of course you just know the reason this email was sent out was that people complained about the lack of parties.

To all those who party,

The "let's not talk about it" from the party inform from this Saturday seemed to be a bad idea on my part. Some people mistook that there was a hidden agenda for the night. There are no school sponsored parties tonight. However, there are tons of fun things to do on a Saturday night.

The reasons for tonight not having a party is a mix of things. But in short, we're changing some rules right now, and we're not done changing them. Believe me when I say this is temporary. I know the transition phase has been long, but it'll soon be over. I promise you huge parties and great day parties soon.

For those of you upset about partyless weekend nights, I'll start off by saying I understand. One of the many great things about our school is that we have school sponsored parties. You can't forget how to have fun without these parties though. Before CMC, I doubt your highschool had parties every weekend. After CMC, I doubt your company will have parties every weekend (if they do, please tell me how I can get a job there). You still have fun on Saturdays though. So if you're reading this e-mail tonight (Saturday), go have fun. For those of you reading this after tonight, hope you had a great night!

I apologize for this last minute e-mail, I should of sent this out earlier.

YOHEI

PS: Here's a list of some fun things to do:
Bowling (It doesn't have to be a wednesday to bowl)
Bars (if you're 21)
Movie
Hookah Bars (there's a lot around campus)
Mount Baldy (if you haven't been there, there's some fun places up there)
Morongo (it's a casino)
Go on adventures
Do things you don't normally do with a group of friends (like what? it's up to you)
Hang out with me

Gov. Prof. Frederick Lynch on Obamamania

Gov. Prof. Frederick Lynch on the cult of Obama.

Frederick Lynch, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, said "the crying, cooing and emotionalism" surrounding Obama's campaign does suggest a craze or cult.

"It's well known that the problem for people within a craze -- such as a stock market or real estate boom -- is that you don't know you're in it until it bursts," he said.

The peril for Democrats, Lynch said, is if the Obama bubble bursts after he is nominated but before he is elected.

Yes, we can ... only hope.

I love our government faculty.

Convincing TSL Article On Admissions Preference For Student Athletes

Aaron Hosansky’s “Admitting More Powerful Athletes Could Make Pomona A Formidable Force in D-III,” was one of the best articles I have ever read in The Student Life.

He careful laid out many of the reasons Pomona ought to consider laxer admission standards for some sports.

If Hosanky's plan were to be implemented, his focus on small programs ought to be the primary consideration. Otherwise Pomona’s hypothetical lowering of admission standards risks a mission creep that might be detrimental to its larger mission.

Historically, only two college sports – men’s basketball and football – generate revenue for colleges as a whole. If Pomona’s student body population remains constant, Pomona would be ill-served to have lower admission standards for other sports that do not bring in serious revenue. In fact, as Daniel Golden notes in his masterful, The Price of Admission, lowering admission standards for groups where the gain was comparatively little might even be immoral as students in lower income areas may never have had access to more expensive, esoteric sports. Though Pomona’s administrators might have a hard time justifying to the racquetball, swim, and tennis teams why basketball and football deserve exceptions, they ought to try.

If Pomona tries to be politically correct by lower admission standards for all sports, Pomona risks its academic reputation when it lowers standards for sports which few watch or play.

The Moral Police: Pomona Students Talks Against Casinos

In today's issue of TSL, Andrew Greenfeld penned an article, "Casino Expansion Will Bring Problems," about the recent ballot initiatives to allow gambling.

The article is an attack on gambling as a whole and makes several specious claims. Before I address the substance of the post, let me make several points clear.

1. I do not like to gamble. Life is enough of a gamble for me. But just as I would not be a gambler, so too would I not deny someone the right to risk their entire fortune on a game of cards. In this most wonderful country, a fool and his money are easily separated. Fortunately, we have not yet outlawed stupidity. Our jails would be even more overrun than they already are.
   
2. I don't believe that the tribes should be taxed at all and see the ballot initiatives as more of a way for Sacramento to maintain profligate spending on social programs. Most of those programs ought to be eliminated yesterday.
   
3. I also believe that the tribes shouldn't have exclusive right to run casinos, but that's a discussion for another time.

The article tries to make the case against those four SoCal tribes using some appeals to socialism that must go checked. I will try to take the points in the order in which they are presented and leave my final analysis on the final paragraph of Greenfeld's article

Andrew tries to make the case that the proposal is bad because large tribes are participating.

"...these four SoCal tribes and other rich gaming tribes wallow in profits while other tribes live in terrible poverty. Or that these four tribes hired expensive consultants and shelled out millions of dollars in order to pass the propositions, portraying a vote for their coalition as a 'vote to protect California’s budget and economy.'"

I don't care if the tribes paid for expensive consultants or shelled out millions of dollars. They have every right to put their money where their mouth is. Moreover, if other Indian tribes are poor, the solution is not to impoverish all Indian tribes.

Andrew then tries to make the case that Casino Morongo is trying to "target gamblers who are not yet 21 years old and cannot gamble in the rest of the state of California." The implicit assumption is that it is immoral for the four tribes to take advantage of a California law that bans gambling under the age of 21. On Indian reservations, the gambling age is 18.

I would counter that is is immoral and dangerous for California to withhold the right to freely spend one's money for eighteen to twenty-one year olds. Why can California tell adults that they cannot spend their money on what they choose? Eighteen year olds can get married and go off to war. What's so bad about letting them gamble?

Greenfeld cites anecdotal evidence that teenagers are also gambling. So what? Sixteen year olds can drive cars and work jobs. Seventeen year olds can even join the Army (albeit with parental consent.)

Now that we've dispensed with that stuff, let's go after the final paragraph because here is where Greenfeld's anger comes out the strongest. Let's take it sentence by sentence.
Greenfeld says,

1. By encouraging youth gambling and attracting unsavory types to the surrounding area, these casinos do more harm than good for California residents.

What unsavory types? Why is someone who wishes to gamble "unsavory"? How does a casino harm California residents? Some of the areas where these casinos are being built or expanded will offer jobs to local residents. That money that the Indians pay in taxes will be used for thing like firefighting, public schooling, and of course, growing an already out of control government, to name just a few people that will benefit.

2. Native Americans have been severely mistreated throughout our government’s history, but there are other ways to compensate them without justifying massive casino expansions.

Though it's true that government has mistreated the Indians, why should we compensate groups that just want to make a buck? While we're on the topic, why should we, people who weren't even born when that mistreatment was occurring, compensate them?

Reparations are inefficient (and immoral). We don't require a child to serve his father's prison term. Why should we force Californians, most of whom are descendants of groups wholly disconnected with the historic maltreatment, to pay for the sins of long dead relatives?

3. With the meager amount of money our state will be receiving from these extra revenues and the complete lack of government gaming regulations for these casinos, I do not see how expanding these already-wealthy casinos will benefit ordinary Californians.

Why should the state receive any revenue? Why does the government have the right to regulate the casinos in the first place? Why should "ordinary Californians" get a cut from "already-wealthy casinos"? The only reason the state is getting anything is because they can shake down these tribes without suffering political fall out.

Some might say that these moneyed tribes’ ability to manipulate our political system marks a turning point in our once-dominant relationship over the Native Americans. However, this whole thing exemplifies a harsh political reality of twenty-first century America: where moneyed interests take precedence over the well being of the average citizen.

How have the "moneyed" tribes "manipulated" our political system? All they did was run ads and advocate for their right to run a business -- something they never should have had to fight for in the first place. How have "moneyed interests taken precedence over the well being of the average citizen"? If robbing (by taxing) the Indians to pay for social services the state shouldn't pay for in the first place is thinking of the average citizen, then our political system is broken indeed. If the citizens want more services, they can pay for them with higher taxes or by privatizing state run systems.

I wonder if we would take the same approach to a grocery store. Would we ask the grocer what concern he should pay for the "average citizen"? Of course not. Why is a casino any different?

Digging Up The Dead : Pomona's Obsession With Race Goes Back to 1910

Yes, it has come to this: I will defend Pomona's school song.

You see, the story has allegedly racist origins. And for that all Pomona students -- dead and alive -- must atone for their sins.

Even though a professor quoted in TSL elucidates that history, Dean Feldblum says "[Pomona] students must be open to critical self-examination of our College's history, consider the implications of this revelation, and discuss together our response." Now that doesn't sound threatening, does it?

Here's what the music expert says.

Graydon Beeks, the music professor that confirmed the story, said the music and lyrics are more reminiscent of a hymn than of a minstrel performance.

“My sense is that Mr. Loucks was not inspired by the minstrel show to write ‘Hail, Pomona, Hail!,’ but by a desire to write a school song,” he said. “There is nothing in the words that relates to minstrel show traditions, and so far as I can tell the words are eminently suitable to their purpose as a school song.”

The Claremont Insider got a copy of the letter from Dean Miriam Feldblum. (Just how, I'm not entirely sure, but well done, sir.)

The story about Pomona's history with minstrelsy seems silly on several levels.

Will someone please point out what is racist about the song itself? The text seems clear enough.

Hail! Pomona, hail! We, thy sons and daughters, sing
Praises of thy name,
Praises of thy fame.
Til the heav'ns above shall ring:
To the name of Pomona
Alma Mater hail to thee!
To the spirit true of the White and Blue.
All hail! Pomona hail!

If the song's lyrics aren't racist and no one knows the history, why bring it up? What does it matter?

The larger question here is the following: Does Pomona really want to go down this road? If a large donor gave them money back in the day that was from a questionable source, would they question their own history?

What do you think about this story?

How Fair Trade Hurts Everyone from International Policy to Your Plate

How Fair Trade Hurts Everyone from International Policy to Your Plate

by Aditya Bindal and Charles Johnson

Fair trade is everywhere on campus. Valentine’s Day was no exception.

Valentine's Day this year came with guilt free, “ethical” chocolate. Apparently, our sweet and chocolaty desires fueled a civil war in the Ivory Coast. The fliers advertised “conflict-free” chocolate. Valentine’s Day candies encourage us to make trade “ethical.”

At the Claremont Colleges, fair trade is nothing new. All of the dining halls boast their local, organic, and fresh produce and fair trade coffee

These measures seek to solve the world’s problems at once: global warming, hunger, poverty, civil war – you name it. The buzz words ‘Locally Grown’, ‘Organic’ ‘Fresh’ and of course, ‘Fair Trade’ are bandied about interchangeably. But what exactly do they mean? Why should we embrace Fair Trade?

To answer this question, we headed to the bastion of progressivism – the Motley. The Motley, run by Scripps students since 1974, seeks “an ongoing process of empowering change.”

But just what kind of change?

The Motley, an “alternative space,” “open and welcoming to all,” seeks to serve its community, according to its mission statement. To achieve that goal, they support “fair trade.” A sticker from Oxfam on the refrigerator encourages customers to “make trade fair.”

*****

What’s wrong with trade as it is?

Motley Manager, Sophie Herron ’08 started by defining free trade for us: “free trade is based on free and unrestricted trade between countries with as low barriers, tariffs and overheads as possible. This means that in countries where the economy is not good, workers are not paid a reasonable wage.”

Ms. Herron then told us about all of the efforts to buy locally-grown produce.

The local, in her eyes, is better. When it can, the Motley buys locally, but coffee and chocolate aren’t typically grown in Southern California. For that, you need fair trade.

“Fair trade,” Herron explained, “is when trade is fair because the people providing the goods are receiving wages that they can afford to live on and support their community.”

A paradox lies at the heart of her definition: buying locally means not buying from poor farmers abroad, whose income the Motley seeks to raise. And yet, paying those workers more for their produce creates surpluses in the market and drives down prices.

Think about a factory worker in Vietnam, the country that produces the most coffee after Brazil. If coffee farmers get paid higher wages, more people will want to produce coffee, including the factory worker. Suddenly, everyone starts producing coffee. The cost per bean plummets as the cost for other goods climbs. If everyone is making coffee because it pays the most, who will grow bananas, teach schoolchildren, or work in the factories? The large coffee companies don’t mind. After all, a flooded market is to their advantage. They can have their pick of cheaper beans. Unfortunately Vietnamese farmers, thinking that their coffee prices will climb, don’t often plant other food on their tiny plots of land. The results can be starvation as no one can eat the coffee bean.

NGOs demanded a higher price for bananas to help raise the cost of living for the Guatemala banana producers and ended up encouraging the banana companies to relocate to Ecuador, where wages were lower.

Why do so many continue calling for more fair trade? For businesses, the results can be enticing.

The Organic, Local, Fresh, Fair-Trade buzz has been on the rise lately. Businesses that cater to this food trendiness can often make big bucks and say to be promoting “corporate social responsibility.”

David Janosky, Sodexo General Manager of Dining and Catering Services, endorsed this path soon after his arrival at Pomona in 2001. He explains that Sodexo was simply “responding to demand.” Demand, Pomona students certainly did. The ASPC Senate Progress Report for 2003-2004 (Volume I) planned “negotiations with Dining Services for more organics/fair-trade coffee.”

Student government, particularly Pomona’s, has been leading the charge for fair trade products. In 2005, TSL writer Terra Bennett gushed that Pomona students Katie Jones ’07 and Stephanie Corey deserve “[Pomona’s] congratulations” for convincing the dining halls to introduce fair trade coffee.

Although Janosky said that he doesn’t think Pomona’s student government is trying to “re-negotiate anything with Sodexo,” Environmental Affairs Commissioner Kyle Edgerton ‘08 believes just the opposite. In November 30, 2007 article about Sodexo choosing local produce, he said that the dining hall changed its policies as soon as ASPC President Elspeth Hilton ’08 “put the challenge to Sodexo.”

Now that they know fair trade hurts the people it is intended to help, maybe Pomona students ought to put the challenge to their own student government.

*****

Back at the Motley, Herron described how managers decide what policies to pursue. Most businesses, such as Sodexo, respond to customer demands if the costs aren’t too prohibitive, but the Motley, a non-profit, uses its platform to promote its politics.

The management, for example, decided to stop selling Vitamin Water and Naked Juice after they were acquired by Coca Cola and Pepsi Co, respectively. The transaction meant that these products could not be sold on campus since the two giants were obviously not family-owned or local, fresh, organic and fair.

The students, on the other hand, liked these two products. “We try to take the customer in our community really seriously,” says Herron. “They are one of the main things we are thinking really seriously about.”

As well they should. After all, the Motley is subsidized by both the federal government and Scripps College. The Motley is under the Scripps tax code, which means that it does not pay any taxes. The Federal Work Study program also helps defray the cost of workers. The Motley employs 52 people, including twelve student managers. Almost ninety percent of workers are on work study, according to Herron.

These advantages mean that they can undercut local coffee shops, like the Starbucks on Yale Ave. At Starbucks, employees are hired based upon sales. The more profitable the Starbucks, the more workers it can hire. Of course it isn’t easy to be profitable when you have to pay taxes and compete with the subsidized, tax-exempt Motley, but Starbucks seems to be doing well for itself. They have between fifteen and twenty employees, despite rents, taxes, and heavier traffic and a wider range of products.

Maybe that’s why starting Starbucks employees make $8.50 an hour compared to only $8.00 an hour for students who start on Work Study. Starbucks offers more benefits, too. At Starbucks, if you work more than twenty hours a week, you get twenty hours of paid vacation as well as full benefits, including vision, and dental. Starbucks, which must compete with other coffee shops for the best barista must have competitive wages. After all they don’t get tax exemptions or subsidies.

So why are these establishments willing to spend more money for fresh, organic, local and fair produce? That these policies do good, remains unchallenged on campus. Indeed, it is being celebrated in Pomona’s The Student Life. However, renowned think tanks such as The Cato Institute and Reason Foundation have this essential goodness predicting their eventual doom. (James Bovard, author of The Fair Trade Fraud, predicted this in 1992.)

But ensuring whether or not these policies help people is beyond the Motley’s means.

As Sophie Herron of the Motley concedes, “We have no way of verifying whether the trade is actually fair.”

She’s right. It’s nearly impossible to monitor these activities, especially with such large degrees of separation between us and the actual producers in the global coffee market. If there is no way to verify whether or not fair trade works, why conclude that free trade doesn’t work? The same degrees of separation should apply.

Why replace tried and tested economic models for something that has no concrete evidence? After all, Free Trade, not Fair Trade liberated millions from poverty in Asia. Fair trade hurts from Vietnam to Venezuela to your community and your plate.

A condensed version of this article will appear in The Claremont Independent.

Honest Political Dialogue? Surely You Jest, TSL

The Student Life's opinion page is always worthy of reading, if only for comic relief. Riddle with bias, it ought to consider renaming itself The Pravda Life. The only distinction I can find between the two papers is the quality of the paper itself.

As I make clear on this blog whenever the issue comes to print, that bias often that bias creeps into its news columns. But let's be clear that its original home is on the opinion page.

Let's see how they cover "politics" are the Claremont Colleges this season. Do they even attempt to find a Republican, libertarian, conservative, or moderate voice to write on campus issues? Don't count on it.

Here are the lowlights of this issue.

• An article entitled, "Campus caucus," which tries to make the case that Rock the Vote is a credible group that ought to promote "education."
  
• An unfunny and unoriginal satire about Republicans by Ben Conway.

But the crown jewel of the issue is clearly the editorial. They tried to make the case that Pomona has a political problem because the slightly less socialist candidate's fliers were torn down. Here's what they had to say.

That such an act of sabotage occurs on this college campus is a sad commentary on the maturity of the political dialogue that occurs here. It denies the legitimacy of supporting Hillary Clinton, something with a variety of serious implications. The incident suggests bigotry. It suggests intolerance. It suggests sexism. Each suggestion is as disturbing as the next, but reveals a disturbing undercurrent among Pomona students. Students must not feel pressure to toe the line of majority viewpoints on campus. While subtle, many students have voiced the opinion that there is a pressure to conform to certain “accepted” liberal ideals. For a school claiming to stress freedom of speech and liberty of opinion, this incident should force us to take a step back and examine ourselves. We must never become complacent in working to keep open dialogue, in which numerous viewpoints can speak and feel comfortable.

Memo to The Student Life: It's hardly "subtle" and you lead the charge by distorting your writers' stories, covering things from only one side, and suggesting hate crimes were none exist.

And while we're add it, no one has a right to feel "comfortable." They do have a right to speech, though, but you were critical of that right during the Minutemen and Jacob Hornberger debate.

I ought to be clear. I actually believe in free speech. When will TSL join the real fight for liberty?

QRC Hate Crime? No? That's Okay, We'll Make It That Way!

We all know that Pomona's The Student Life has a history of skewing the news to their own brand of far left agitation.

They constantly rewrite students' articles to reflect their own viewpoints and one time even used the phrase "undocumented citizen" to refer to "illegal immigrant."

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the story, "Pomona Begins Investigation Over Alleged QRC Bias Incident" by Lindsay Mullen continues in that inglorious tradition.

Let's fact check every sentence of the TSL's most recent propaganda pieces.

On Jan. 30, the eve of Pomona’s Queer Resource Center open house, unidentified members of the 5-C community broke into Walton Commons and discharged a fire extinguisher. After the fire alarms were triggered by the chemical fumes, Campus Safety and the L.A. County Fire Department responded.

How do you know it was unidentified members of the 5-C community? Couldn't it just have easily been someone else? The article doesn't say and we are just left to assume it. Tsk. Tsk, TSL.

Although there was no permanent damage and nothing was stolen, white soot coated the kitchen and furniture in the living room of the QRC. The housekeeping staff worked to clean the QRC for several hours.

Pay attention to that. "There was no permanent damage and nothing was stolen." How many
hate crimes do you know of that leave "no permanent damage"?

Why does the TSL mention that the housekeeping staff cleaned up? Isn't that there job?
I checked The Student Life's record and there's nothing about how people had to clean up the mess that Kerri Dunn made. I guess not all non-hate crimes are equal, eh?

Associate Dean of Students Daren Mooko is heading an investigation. Mooko is interviewing witnesses and working to develop a charge sheet. Although it is not yet known whether the incident was a random act of vandalism or a hate crime, it is thought that alcohol played a role.

Why is the Associate Dean of Students heading an investigation? Shouldn't the police handle hate crimes? Or is it not a hate crime? Why aren't they handling it?

The answer: because it isn't a hate crime. If the Deans were serious about this one, don't you think that they would have turned it over to the police?

Pomona defines bias incidents as “expressions of hostility against another individual (or group) because of the other person’s (or group’s) race, color, religion…or sexual orientation.”

By what right does Pomona define bias incidents? Who said that they had a right to construct this policy?

So let me get this straight. Pomona defines what a bias incident is, appoints there own special investigation, and comes to their own conclusions about who should be punished?

I wonder what happens if no one is found guilty...

The administration is reluctant to label the occurrence a bias incident because there was no message, slur, or explicit evidence left at the scene. The college says it is strictly adhering to its policies outlined in the Student Handbook.

Wait a second. No message? No slur? No explicit evidence left at the scene? And yet it is ongoing? Hmmm.....

Well, couldn't they at least make one up? You know, kind of like "Hillary is a foxy lesbian," and call it a day?

Joshua Harris, QRC Interim Coordinator and Graduate Advisor, observed that a rainbow flag was missing from the window of the building after the incident.

The theft of the flag, which hung in the QRC for over a year, “sends a deliberate message,” Harris said. While there is a strong likelihood that the flag was stolen during the incident, it is also possible that it was removed before the incident took place.

Hold up. I thought the TSL said earlier that nothing was stolen. Now something is stolen? Will they notify the police? Don't count on it. After all, the police have to do real leg work.

Although the administration has not yet classified the incident, Dean of Students Miriam Feldblum acknowledged that it has caused emotional responses similar to those that occur after a bias related incident.

“Those of us who use the QRC feel personally violated,” Feldblum said.

“Regardless of the intent…the people who work and use this space can’t help but feel violated and threatened,” Harris said.

It finally comes out. Even if there was no incident, some people feel there was an incident and so it becomes an incident. Oh Doublespeak reigns supreme at Pomona! *Your correspondent hunts around looking for his copy of the Constitution, can't find it, and he cries.*

Christopher Ramos ’08, Senior Budget Officer for the QRC, was not shocked by the incident.

“Let us not pretend that hate, homophobia, and heterosexism do not thrive on campus,” Ramos said.

You know, Christomer Ramos, I don't really have any evidence for hate, homophobia, or herosexism on this, or any other, campus. And given that your organization sort of kind of depends upon there being a problem which it can "solve," I think I'm going to be pretty skeptical of your accusations.

After all, I have plenty of evidence that fake hate crimes are perpetrated all the time on American college campuses, sometimes by the very minorities who would benefit from the increased publicity. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

As for invoking the word "thrive," I must take you to task.

You see, Merriam-Webster defines "thrive" this way.

1 : to grow vigorously : flourish 2 : to gain in wealth or possessions : prosper 3 : to progress toward or realize a goal despite or because of circumstances —often used with on<thrives on conflict>

Sorry. I just don't think hate "thrives" at Pomona. I do know that political correctness thrives there, even -- or is it especially?-- at a "liberal campus."

The QRC would like to continue discussion of the incident. Because similar events still occur across the nation, the QRC feels it is important to raise awareness and show that incidents that discrimination takes place even on liberal campuses.

Ah yes, here it comes at last: the appeal to the unseen oppressed masses of the world. You see, often these incidents end up with No one dares to paint the following scenario:

That a bunch of drunk/bored college students started messing about with a fire extinguisher and didn't want to get caught.

No, it's a hate crime now, whatever the evidence to the contrary. Pity the poor fool who is brought in the "charges."

Is It Time For Greater Gun Liberty On Campus?

In a weaker moment I read an article in today's The Chronicle of Higher Education about gun rights on college campuses.

Here's the graff in question:

in response to tragedies like the massacre at Virginia Tech and fatal shootings at other institutions, many state legislatures have introduced, and at least one has passed, laws to allow people to carry concealed weapons on college campuses. But such laws would not, as their proponents suggest, help students and staff members shoot active killers, administrators said during a panel here on Monday. Instead, the laws would have a slew of scary consequences, they said, creating campus environments not unlike the Wild West.

To address this critique ask yourself several questions: Why do gun control advocates always say that the country will descend into some kind of "Wild West" when we vote against their policies? Why are they always wrong? With shooting rampages occurring like clock work on America's campuses, might it be time to stop being sheep?

God forbid a shooting were ever to occur on this campus. We know from past posts that Pomona, not Claremont McKenna, is one of the nation's most dangerous schools. And we hope to keep it that way, though a knifing or so might retard our progress.

I used to think at my old private high school that the phrase "it could never happen here," protected me from the likelihood of being shot on campus. I didn't know my school's history.

Several years before I arrived two outsiders arrived to attend one of our dances -- sound familiar yet? One of them proceeded to open fire on the other. Though fortunately no one was killed, one student went to the emergency room with a bullet lodged in his butt. The school canceled all inter-school dances indefinitely.

The Claremont McKenna administration seems to consider a firearm on campus tantamount to endangering all of us. Just look at The Basic Rule of Conduct.

1. Actions which cause the personal injury or death of another, or which threaten or endanger the personal safety or well-being of others. Such actions include, but are not limited to

e. Possessing or storing on campus firearms or ammunition.

Will someone please explain to me how storing ammunition endangers?

*********************************************************************************

There once was a time when Claremont McKenna's student body boasted some of the fittest and finest the nation had. They were soldiers, thanks to the the G.I. bill, who knew their way around a rifle. Today we are targets for outsiders whose respect for property and persons extend only as far as their ability to take advantage of us.

I suppose we should be happy that at the very least the Claremont R.O.T.C. chapter runs a course entitled "Riflery and Orienteering." Your faithful correspondent tried entering, but with no success.

There were just too many students in the class.

A Difference of Opinion With The Claremont Institute on Iran

I love the Claremont Institute. I am not ashamed to admit it.

I think that they extend the light of freedom by preserving the principles of the American Founding. Their vision of an accountable government that "respects private property, promotes stable family life, and maintains a strong defense" is my vision. It goes without saying that I consider myself a "Claremont Conservative."

And yet, I am troubled by an article I read in today's Detroit Free Press about the Claremont Institute.

Here's the paragraph in question (emphasis added)

Claremont [Institute] would like to see the United States embark on developing a $15-billion missile defense system and discourage U.S. citizens and institutions from investing in Iran or corporations that do business in Iran.

I have no disagreement with the national missile defense system. I think a better location for it would be in Azerbaijan, as the Russians suggest, and not, Eastern Europe, as the Americans want, but that's a matter for policy experts to ponder.

I do not believe, as St. Barack, does, that we ought to sit down with the governments of our enemies and bomb our allies.

But just because I would not sit down with the Hitlers of the world does not mean I would not trade with the Germans, languishing as they were for the socialist economic policies of the Third Reich. The Germans, we must remember, thought Hitler was an emissary of "hope."

And so it is with Iran.

Yes, a regime change needs to occur in Iran. But sanctions are the wrong way to achieve that end. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that sanctions never achieve the ends they set out to accomplish. Witness Myanmar (Burma), North Korea, and Cuba (though its chains may be loosening.) Do you really think that those countries' elites have missed a single meal? Do we really believe that the homophobic, anti-Semitic, hateful Iranian regime is upset when we refuse to trade our ideas or goods in their markets?

We need more companies to invest in Iran because those companies can bring a taste for the amenities and dignities of capitalism. A great man once said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." That great man was aided by some of the very people who work and have worked for the Claremont Institute. Why they, of all people would want to establish the economic versions of those walls is something I fail to grasp. If history is any indication, the reason the Soviet Empire fell was due to the message of freedom we, through the Voice of America, broadcast into contraband radios. I firmly believe that that message is intended for every human heart.

An economic downturn in Iran would mean that millions would try to leave, which, would in turn, damage the families by tearing them apart, give the state more control over those who stay behind, and could potentially inflame the region. In short, it's against the aims of the Claremont Institute.

General Musings about Campus Life On Presidents' Day

I have written elsewhere about how we fail to observe Veterans' Day at Claremont McKenna College. Today, I am sad to inform you, we do not observe Presidents' Day.

Though it would be wise to observe Presidents' Day for a number of reasons -- not the least of which is the close proximity (at least this year to Parents' Weekend -- we do not.

I am not advocating a simple day off, though. I would hate to see Presidents' Day turn Sunday evening into a night of drinking and merrymaking.

I would prefer to see many more activities and meetings. Imagine, for instance, if the Dean of Students office paid as much attention to Presidents' Day as it does to Martin Luther King Jr. Day in which it spends a week bringing some left and far left speakers to campus.

In many respects I find this to be symptomatic of the larger problems facing the American university -- that we try so hard to cater to political minorities instead of embracing the principles which ought to unite us.

Nowhere were those principles more in evidence than today. I had the good fortune to hear Professors Spalding and Barilleaux today. Luckily we still have scholars willing to teach children about the great individuals.

And yet it seems there are so many forces which insist on dealing with "great movements" or "social histories." So it is with Caesar Chavez Day, which I am informed that we observe Caesar Chavez day out of courtesy for the other five colleges. Of course, I believe Caesar Chavez Day is a waste of time and taxpayer money for the reasons Steve Sailer so clearly outlines. I happen to think that Claremont McKenna ought to stand on principle and go to class, but I can imagine that that plea might fall on deaf ears. (After all, the only day that Pam Gann has canceled classes was the Kerri Dunn hoax. 9-11, or the day after, did not warrant a day off. Or so I'm told.)

Pretty, though, not all is lost. Maybe we will come to celebrate Presidents' Day if the Left succeeds in getting their guy, St. Barack, into the oval office.

Far fetched, you say?

Consider this. We are already on our way. In the Athaneaum there is a gilded plaque in honor of Caesar Chavez with the words "Si, se puede" etched in. Si, se puede. Yes, we can.

Just where have I heard that one before?