Kravis Center Project Mired by Lawsuit

By: John-Clark Levin and Charles Johnson

Posted: 11/2/08

The entire community of Claremont McKenna College learned this past summer of a $75 million gift from the The Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Foundation that would be used for the construction of a state-of-the-art facility on the west side of campus, designed by internationally acclaimed architect Rafael Viñoly. Named in honor of the principal donor, the Kravis Center would boast 100,000 square feet of space, divided between classrooms, faculty offices, underground parking and the Office of Admission and Financial Aid. In addition, it was designed to accommodate five of CMC's ten research institutes.

Sketches displayed on the website of Viñoly's firm show a thoroughly modern design, with covered porticos and tree-lined terraces which the college plans to use for informal gatherings. The entire building will be designed as a sort of grand gate, its courtyard forming the end of the broad avenue that runs through the heart of campus, connecting Bauer Center to Honnold-Mudd Library. President Gann stated in CMC's initial press release that "[t]he new building reflects the College's ongoing commitment to environmentally responsible, sustainable design, and will be certified at LEED Silver designation or higher."

LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is an initiative by the U.S. Green Building Council to promote innovation and advancement in sustainable building practices. Proposed buildings are scored on a 69-point checklist. Points can accrue in such categories as "Brownfield Redevelopment," "Landscape & Exterior Design to Reduce Heat Islands," and the installation of "Alternative Fuel Refueling Stations." The Kravis Center was indeed certified as a LEED Silver/Gold facility, and thus will incorporate between 33 and 51 of these environmentally progressive innovations.

In addition to LEED certification, the project was also required to be compliant with the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA. This law requires that before certain types of construction may be undertaken, documentation must be submitted outlining the potential environmental impact of the project. When CEQA was passed in 1970, it only applied to public projects, such as highways, reservoirs, and development by local government. Two years later, however, the California Supreme Court's ruling in Friends of Mammoth v. Board of Supervisors of Mono County widened the applicability to extend to almost all projects in the state.

Therefore, pursuant to current CEQA protocol, a Claremont-appointed Lead Agency prepared a document called a Mitigated Negative Declaration. In essence, this document cited findings of an initial study which determined that although the Kravis Center project entailed potential environmental impact, special steps had been taken to mitigate that impact so that it was not significant. The City of Claremont accepted this as sufficiently convincing evidence that all impact was mitigated and it allowed work to begin. If the initial study had found significant unmitigated impacts, however, CEQA would have mandated a much lengthier and more expensive document called an Environmental Impact Report.

It is here that the Kravis Center project hit a snag. At the end of July, a neighborhood group called Protect Our Neighborhoods filed a lawsuit trying to force the City of Claremont to block construction until a full Environmental Impact Report has been completed. Composed primarily of residents of the Arbol Verde neighborhood just off campus, Protect Our Neighborhoods alleges in the suit that without an Environmental Impact Report, the consequences of the project could not be adequately known.

The Kravis Center, they feel, could negatively affect many of the environmental factors protected by CEQA. They worry that lowered air quality, noise pollution, light pollution and increased traffic could all result from the project. Whether the Mitigated Negative Declaration was enough to establish that there would not be significant impact hinges on the exact meaning of some of the CEQA's text. According to CEQA § 21002.1, "Each public agency shall mitigate or avoid the significant effects on the environment of projects that it carries out or approves whenever it is feasible to do so." According to the suit, in accepting the less extensive report, the city inadequately mitigates or avoids potential environmental impact upon residents of Arbol Verde.

The group is represented by Temecula attorney Raymond Johnson of the law firm Johnson & Sedlak. Johnson has come under criticism over the past decade for what some see as a pattern of frivolous litigation. By 2006, an article ran in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin detailing his lawsuits, which tend to target construction projects based on CEQA. Municipal governments around the region have faced Johnson's lawsuits, including Apple Valley, Victorville, Beaumont, Hemet, Palm Springs, Temecula, Murrieta, and Riverside - more than two hundred total suits. To that list one can now add Claremont.

The CI attempted to contact Johnson in person to understand what he believes is incomplete about the Mitigated Negative Declaration or unconvincing about the LEED Silver/Gold certification. His office, however, did not return repeated phone calls.

Suffice to say, Johnson's suit has mired the whole project. With legal action hanging over its head, the City of Claremont has not issued the demolition permit required to tear down Pitzer Hall, where the new Kravis Center will be constructed. If the case goes to trial and the court finds in favor of Protect our Neighborhoods, the construction would be delayed by a further year to eighteen months while the Environmental Impact Report was being prepared at an expense of some tens of thousands of dollars. Given the high stakes, there is now a strong incentive for the college to settle with the plaintiffs. Matt Bibbens, CMC's Registered In-House Counsel, declined to comment to the CI for this article, citing ongoing confidential settlement discussions, giving credence to the view that the CMC may be nearing an out-of-court settlement.

If no such settlement can be reached, there will be a hearing on October 27 in Norwalk Superior Court. The Contra Costa Times quotes Johnson as suggesting that a trial date would likely be set at the hearing. A trial would delay the project further, even if Claremont ultimately wins the case. In that time, many professors and offices of the college would continue to occupy the cluster of temporary modular buildings referred to by some students as "Gannville." More importantly, every day of delay and legal wrangling is a day when Mr. Kravis' generous gift cannot benefit the students at Claremont McKenna and the rest of the Consortium.

For now, we can only hope that from behind closed doors the settlement negotiations are successful. Only then can Pitzer Hall be torn down; only then can the two busy years of construction begin in earnest.

John-Clark Levin is a freshman at CMC and a staff writer for the CI. Charles Johnson is a sophomore at CMC and an assistant editor of the CI.

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© Copyright 2008 Claremont Independent

Paul Muldoon at the Ath, in Claremont

Paul Muldoon, Princeton professor and poetry editor of The New Yorker, came to speak at the Athenaeum yesterday. I couldn't make it -- unfortunately -- as I had class, but from what I'm told, he was really amazing.

I saw Muldoon speak at my high school, Milton Academy, a few years back. I'm ashamed to say that I don't remember all that much about his talk, only that the creative writing teachers seemed to love him before he opened his mouth to speak. That and one of my friends asking him what music he listened to. He said Fountains of Wayne, which I found amusing.

"As in the same Fountains of Wayne that wrote 'Stacy's Mom?'" I asked.
"I'm rather partial to 'Hey Julie,' he said, laughing.

From that moment on, I've been a fan of his. Too often literary folks tend to obsess a little too much about their own work.

Larry Wilson over at Public Eye has more about Muldoon's visit.

Christopher Hitchens is Going to Speak at Pitzer?

This week has been downright screwy. First, Pomona has invited the American Enterprise Institute to offer her students jobs.

Now I hear that Pitzer College has invited Christopher Hitchens to speak. Yes, that's the same Pitzer College that damaged our fountains over inviting Karl Rove to come and speak.

Now they have invited Christopher Hitchens, a self-described neocon, and one of the boosters for the Iraq War. He'll be there on Nov. 11. I'm not complaining, I'm just curious as to what the heck happened. Didn't the people at Dining with Democracy get the memo that no one who supports the Iraq war is to be invited to campus? In any event, listen to Hitchens describe his steadfast support for the war to the editor of The Nation. The fight is worth it.

American Enterprise Institute Goes to Pomona ???

You've got to be kidding me.

The right-leaning American Enterprise Institute goes to one of the most left wing schools in the consortium, despite the (sometimes) right-leaning school being right across the street?

On Wednesday, November 5, 2008, at 7-8 pm, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) will be holding an informational session on unpaid internships in Smith Campus Center, Rm. 208.

The Claremont Independent brought one of their scholars, Joshua Muravchik, barely a month ago and the Athenaeum has brought such AEI speakers as Christina Hoff Sommers in the past.

Pomona doesn't even bring moderate Democrats to their campus.

Sven Arndt, CMC prof., worked on key trade policies for AEI while Eric Helland gave both a presentation and wrote a book for their press. Meanwhile, Professor Bessette has written two books for their press.

The New Scientist Describes Cool Harvey Mudd Tech.

So here's yet another reason why Harvey Mudd is amazing. . . Harvey Mudd's Professor Sarah Harris is helping to develop a device that "would enable their screams for help to be heard in space in case of an energy," according to The New Scientist.

"The astronaut might even flash them to send messages in Morse code," says Sarah Harris of Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, who is developing the device with staff at the Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California.

Though you've got to be careful that you don't "flash" any bias related incidents or anything. . .

Apple Shouldn't Endorse Same-Sex Marriage Says CGU Prof.

Apple has given $100,000 to defeat the marriage amendment -- Proposition 8 -- and endorsed efforts to defeat the ban. It might seem like this is sound politics for the Left, but it will certainly hurt shareholders of Apple, says Peter Sealey in The Los Angeles Times.

At a time when the stock market is particularly rough,

...Apple’s decision could drive away customers who disapprove of same-sex marriage, said Peter Sealey, adjunct professor of marketing at the Peter Drucker Graduate School of Management at the Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, Calif. Sealey said he personally opposes Proposition 8 but thinks Apple’s decision was “wrong-headed.”

“It will hurt shareholders of Apple,” he said. “People will not buy a Mac because of this decision.”

The business of business is business, after all -- not social engineering. Businesses have only one responsibility -- to return money to their shareholders.

Geoffrey Baum, Former CMC Administrator, Named to the California Community Colleges Board of Governors

Geoffrey Baum was recently named to the California Community Colleges Board of Governors. He served as the assistant vice president of marketing and public relations at Claremont McKenna College.

Here is the write up about him from Scramento Scope:

Geoffrey L. Baum, 45, of Pasadena, has been appointed to the California Community Colleges Board of Governors. Since 2001, he has served as the assistant dean for the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. Baum worked for C-SPAN as executive producer from 1999 to 2000 and as a senior producer from 1989 to 1993. From 1994 to 1999, he served as the assistant vice president of marketing and public relations at Claremont McKenna College. Baum was the acting senior editor for public radio’s Marketplace in 1994 and was an editorial assistant for the Army, Navy and Air Force Times from 1986 to 1987. He was a substitute English teacher for the Huntington Beach High School District in 1989. Baum is a member and past president of the Pasadena Area Community College District Governing Board and serves on the Armory Center for the Arts Board of Directors and Claremont McKenna Alumni Association Board of Directors. Additionally, he is a member of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Non-fiction Peer Group. This position requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $100 per diem. Baum is a Republican.

Jonah Goldberg on Kesler's Essay

Jonah Goldberg of Liberal Fascism fame is something of a Kesler devotee. Here's written a quick post on the latest issues of The Claremont Review of Book.

Censorship of The Advocate

David Daleiden put out issues of The Advocate, a pro-Life magazine producer by a friend of ours, Lila Rose of Live Action fame. David is the president of Claremont's Live Action group.

David and I have had disagreements over the tactics of the pro-Life movement, but I have always found him a passionate, articulate force for his views. I commend him for his tenacity and his courage. David is always up for a debate -- I was once his debate partner on the CMC team -- and he is always civil. Even when his partner urged more aggressive tactics.

Still, it pained me greatly to see that other members of the Claremont colleges are far less tolerant of his right to speech as he is to theirs. I saw dozens of The Advocate ripped up and thrown on the ground.

I would remind whoever destroyed it that it is a crime to interfere with the press, though I doubt we'll get any emails from what was obviously a bias-related incident.

Kesler's Ashbrook Center Podcast with Peter W. Schramm

Professor Charles Kesler recently wrote about Barack Obama's political philosophy in The Claremont Review of Books. I blogged about it here. It's been making the rounds.

I have the good fortune of taking Liberalism & Conservatism with Professor Kesler and am looking forward to his planned conversation with Bill Bennett. Currently, we are reading about Woodrow Wilson in his own words. The book is anthologized by none other than Ronald J. Pestritto, a CMC alum and professor at Hillsdale College.

Until then, listen to Kesler expound upon his points in this podcast with Peter W. Schramm of the Ashbrook Center. With podcasts, you have no commercials!

Birthday Gift to All of You: Harry Jaffa Speaking About The Declaration of Independence

Today is my birthday. I am officially twenty years old. I'll save reflections on the numerological and supposed biological significance of being twenty for another day, but suffice it to say, I like the idea of being two decades old.

Birthdays have always struck me as odd. The idea of receiving gifts for the simple act of having been born is the basic underpinning of the welfare state.

Of course into every life a little socialism must fall and I do thank those of you who ponded me, gave me gifts, and Facebook well wishings. (Thank goodness for pre-programmed email reminders of birthdays!)

As corny as it may sound, I'd like to give a gift to all of you. It's something that I have been meeting to post for quite some time so you'll have to forgive the belated gift. It couldn't wait any longer.

To what am I referring? Why to Harry V. Jaffa's interview with Hugh Hewitt on the Declaration of Independence!

Here's part 1 and here is part 2. Please listen to them and let me know what you think!

H&R Block CEO, CMC Alum in Investor's Business Daily

"First you make ze money, then you develop ze conscience."

As much as I hated Bono's visit to Claremont McKenna, his quoting of a German man on the subject of philanthropy got me thinking.

But of course, much of Claremont McKenna has it completely backwards as anyone who has listened to President Gann knows well. She wants students to go work for non-profits instead of profit producing firms because presumably there's something ennobling about not making money.

I don't hold to that. And neither should you. Civilization actually does prosper on commerce, notwithstanding Justice Holmes's quip about how taxes are what we pay for civilized society. The leeches must always have a strong host, if only for their own survival -- though they rarely recognize it.

There are some acts of self sacrifice that boggle the mind and are truly worthy of note, if only because of their selflessness. Take the example of Tom Bloch, CMC '76, former CEO of H&R Block. Here's the story from IBD.

From Tax CEO To Math Teacher

BY TRANG HO

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 10/14/2008

As the CEO of H&R Block (HRB) — America's top tax preparation firm that revolutionized electronic filing — Tom Bloch produced huge profits and earned nearly $1 million a year.

Despite his success and fortune, he gave it all up at age 41 to do what he saw as more fulfilling and beneficial to society: teaching math at an inner-city middle school.

His career change drew national attention in 1995. Oprah had him on her TV show, as did NBC's "Today." People magazine featured him, as did the New York Times.

They all quoted people wondering how a CEO could leave the firm that his dad built and take a 98% pay cut.

Bloch's answer? He borrowed one from the Dalai Lama on the meaning of life: Be happy and useful.

"I think when you find your calling and you follow your heart, you just become a more fulfilled person," Bloch told IBD. "I find that my work in urban education in a very, very small way (is) working at repairing the world. And what I learned over these years is that when you work at repairing the world, you repair yourself."

Bloch, 54, believes that had he been born to anyone other than the co-founder of H&R Block, he would have pursued teaching rather than taxes from the start. Henry Bloch and his brother Richard started the first firm of its kind in 1955 with a $5,000 loan from their aunt.

"My dad was a very average student in school. Yet he went on to be a business legend," Tom Bloch said. "He would tell you it was a result of really hard work combined with some luck… And he always looked at problems as opportunities to do better."

Bloch always looked up to his dad, and while growing up he focused on following in Henry's footsteps.

In his third-grade class in Kansas City, Mo., the teacher asked the pupils to draw a picture of what they wanted to be when they grew up. While other kids drew a fire engine or a police car, Bloch drew a picture of a man sitting behind a desk, with a sign above that read: income taxes.

Bloch didn't even know what taxes were, but he knew that one day he would take over the family business. He was so sure, he swept the offices and skipped school to go with his dad on business trips.

Immediately after graduating with honors from California's Claremont McKenna College in 1976, Bloch started working at H&R Block as a tax preparer in the Kansas City headquarters. He worked in every department and held several executive positions.

By 1989, he had scaled the ranks to president of the company.

In 1992, he replaced his dad as chief executive. He was 38 and on top.

Under his leadership, H&R Block's earnings rose every year. In just his first year as president he doubled earnings, from $100.2 million to $200.5 million.

As CEO, he oversaw the company's revolution of filing taxes electronically and pushed the Rapid Refund program, which gave clients their money on the spot.

Bloch believed he had to prove he was worthy of his position, that he didn't get where he was just from his dad. His drive helped him carry on the rampant growth the company enjoyed before he was in charge. Today the firm dominates the market — preparing one in seven returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service and running up revenue of $4.4 billion in fiscal 2008.

"I got to the point where personally I didn't need to make money. But I felt such pressure to continue the progress at H&R Block," Bloch said. "The company had such a strong record of growth and consistent improvement in earnings, and it became much more difficult as the company matured."

But success came at a cost to his health and family. He had trouble sleeping. He worried about work and spent little time with his wife and two sons, Jason and Teddy.

"He loved the people and he loved the job, but it was all-consuming," said Mary Bloch, his wife of 26 years. "It was really taking a toll on him, and I could see him dropping dead of a heart attack at age 50 unless he did something to change his lifestyle."

Bloch calls that change his most painful decision — especially since he felt he was letting down his dad.

"But the bottom line (was) I wanted to leave my own kind of legacy with my one and only life," he wrote in his memoir, "Stand for the Best."

In 1995, after 19 years at H&R Block, he resigned from his high-profile post. "I was disappointed and happy at the same time," Henry Bloch told IBD. "He had such a great job: CEO of a New York Stock Exchange company, making a lot of money. I couldn't see him giving that up, but my main interest was that he was happy."

After leaving the company, Bloch took classes at Rockhurst University in Kansas City and finished an independent program to get his teaching credential. He took that to a Catholic middle school, St. Francis Xavier, in the inner city and taught.

As a former businessman, Bloch wanted to improve education by applying free-enterprise concepts. He decided to create a charter school that operates autonomously from the local school district, adheres to higher standards and has the freedom to use an innovative program to meet individual student needs.

Result: In 2000, he teamed up with Barnett Helzberg, former owner and president of Helzberg Diamonds, to start University Academy, a tuition-free charter school in a poor area of Kansas City.

Helzberg donated $40 million to build a sparkling facility. State and federal grants cover the school's operations. Mary Bloch organizes a fundraiser that rakes in $300,000 to $600,000 annually.

More than 1,000 students from kindergarten through 12th grade attend University Academy. Its waiting list is as long as its enrollment.

In the first year, many students found the college preparatory curriculum so rigorous, they dropped out. Then the numbers improved. After five graduating classes, all but two students have reached college — a major feat for an urban school.

Bloch helps those students by staying in the classroom, where he teaches seventh-grade math and eighth-grade algebra."It is my responsibility as a teacher to motivate a child to be successful," he said. "And while it's true I don't have full control over that, I feel that I am not successful unless every child is achieving."

The Claremont Port Side and Saving the Whales

Abraham Gesner saved the whales by giving us kersone

The Claremont Port Side wants you to save the whales through increasing governmental power. (Maybe they got tired about writing about saving Darfur.)

Mr. Kyle Ragins would have you believe that

1) whaling is harming endangered species.
2) whalers employ inhumane practices.
3) whale meat is dangerous to humans.

On the second point first, aren't whalers supposed to be inhumane? They are after all whaling!

On the first point, there is widespread disagreement as to whether or not some whales are still "endangered." In the latest assessment by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), several prominent whales species have been downgraded to not endangered. One such species is the gray whale and the southern right whale.

On the final point, it may well be true that whale meat is unhealthy -- though considerable debate remains -- but let us suppose that it is unhealthy. Privatizing the whales would mean that people would take greater care to ensure that their whales weren't contaminated.

Still, one might reasonably ask whether or not the threshold for PCBs was set too low. Japan has a limit of .5 ppm for PCBs. The U.S.'s Food and Drug Administration has a 2 ppm standard. Whales fall comfortably at .072 at their highest levels! As a reasonable person would know, it all depends just how much whale you eat. Still, it seems odd that anti-whaling activists make such a big deal over a limit of .72 when people in the U.S. routinely eat over that limit for swordfish.

Naturally, Mr. Ragins wants the U.S. to use its soft power to mau mau the Japanese into no longer whaling. Why that is in the interest of the U.S. is anyone's guess. Last I checked whales do not vote. (ACORN has had trouble registering them. They tend to be migratory and fickle voters. Given that their songs can broadcast for miles, they believe in free speech and would likely vote Republican and against the so-called Fairness Doctrine.)

But if one were so inclined to save the remaining whales, the smart thing to do would be to issue property rights. Save the whales? No, privatize and then farm them!

It isn't so far fetched an idea when it's properly considered. After all, capitalism and property rights saved the whales before. Abraham Gesner devised a method to distill kerosene from petroleum, guaranteeing that the whale for oil market would be vastly too costly to continue in its mass scale.

There is a reason that cows are not facing extinction and from what I'm told, cow and whale taste much the same when filleted. (The latter is a bit more fishy.)

Fortunately, this issue seems to be just one more that technology can help address, if only government got out of the way. It seems to have worked with elephants and ivory, in any event. It also worked with tiger farms.

In 1997, The Asian Wall Street Journal believed it was possible. If anything, the technology has probably gotten better. They wrote then,

Privatizing whales may seem farfetched, but in fact the technological obstacles to an ownership program are rapidly disappearing. Back in the heyday of whaling, it was simply not feasible to exert ownership over living whales, but the whalers did construct an elaborate set of rules that governed harpooned whales. Readers of "Moby Dick" will be reminded of clearly marked harpoons that carried different rights of proprietorship over a whale depending on the speed of the current and the type of whale. In 1993, scientists tracked a single blue whale for 43 days over 3,200 kilometers (1,984 miles) based solely on its individual song. Other advanced technologies such as satellites and unmanned submersibles could be even more effective if given the chance.

We could even use the information we learn about the whales to farm them.
Of course the Greenpeace nuts won't let us farm the whales. They'd prefer to have them live in the wild and therefore go extinct.

Former C.I. Writers Make It To the Big Leagues

I freely profess there really ought to be no such thing as a former Claremont Independent writer.

Of all the publications on campus, it tends to be the most family-like. Its alums marry one another, attend each others' weddings, and remain lifelong friends.

So naturally, I've been following what they've been up to post-graduation. Here's a quick smattering. You're unlikely to get to know those conservative students as the college is making a serious effort to lurch to the Left.

• Kevin Vance CMC '08, editorial assistant for The Weekly Standard, fellow of the Collegiate Network, and editor emeritus of the Claremont Independent wrote a piece on the heroic efforts of Republicans to keep a Northern Virginia congressional district.
  

• Adam D'Luzansky CMC '08 is now fast at work on The Uncommon Knowledge blog. Yes, that is the same outfit as the Peter Robinson, Uncommon Knowledge Blog. He once served as the Claremont Independent's publisher.
  

• Joanna Repsold, CMC '06 is an aspiring actress, wedding guest number #1 in American Carol, and praying mantis eater.
  

• Katherine Kellet and Marc S. Bathgate CMC '08 and CMC '05 are now engaged.
  

Prof. Kesler on RCP Home Page, on Barack Obama

If you care to read the entire essay, "The Audacity of Barack Obama," I would very much recommend it to you.

I don't know if I share his view on Obama seeking a new majority. Obviously every politician seeks it, but will Obama achieve it? That would, it seem, be the question presented to us.

I don't believe he will sustain any majority. As Kesler makes clear, Obama's progressivism knows no natural limits. He writes,

Thus unity is for the sake of "dignity and respect," which require both "social justice" and "economic justice." The latter ramifies widely, demanding, for instance, that "if you work in America you should not be poor"; that a college education should be every child's "birthright"; and that every American should have broadband access.

I wonder what stops him from declaring that every American ought to have a graduate degree and why we would stop at broadband. The answer is that we won't stop at things like college or broadband because there is no natural limit to what people will demand or want from government.

Still, I don't think Kesler focused enough on the cult of Obama that seems to be I suspect a President Obama will be a lot like Deval Patrick, governor of the state of my parents, Massachusetts. He will move too quickly, catering and caring little of the whims and interests of the complicated machinery that is Washington, D.C. Alas, though I feel as if I was the first to make this argument, it's made more fully and nicely in this piece from Matthew Kaminksi of The Wall Street Journal:

Gov. Patrick's bigger challenge was to turn an autobiographical, pseudo-postideological campaign into a mandate for governing. The transition proved hard and, today, remains incomplete. Having made himself the focus of the election, Mr. Patrick could not easily point to a particular policy agenda of his own. "He won a mandate for a governing style," says Byron Rushing, a House Democrat. "That presents a problem because everyone in their mind has an agenda to go with that style." Jay Kaufman, another representative, adds, "Each decision disappointed someone."

Sound familiar?

Harvey Mudd's Bogus Bias Incidents Take II

You all remember Harvey Mudd, right? That school where someone called Hillary Clinton a "foxy lesbian" and received a talking to and a campus wide email to everyone?

Well, now someone was quoting an Asian comedy and used the "negao" word, so you know people are going to be upset. Mudd's Interim Vice President and Dean of Students Guy L. Gerbick has officially freaked out and sent an email to his and now Pomona's entire campus. I'm sure you'll be shocked to know that Gerbick is author of a bogus paper entitled "Diversity Works: The Emerging Picture of How Students Benefit."

For the actual record, there's very little, if any evidence to suggest "diversity" is good. Social scientist Robert Putnam of Bowling Alone fame concluded that it may actually cause groups to "hunker down" in ethnic enclaves. Sound familiar?

Notice how at the end they talk about how a "black man" will be president. I wonder where their sympathies lie. I'm offended that they would suggest that the reason he'll win is that he's black...

Let's go line by line.

Last Friday night, an HMC student entered the room of another Mudder where several people were gathered watching an Asian comedy movie. The entering student, quoting a line from another Asian comedy, said "good morning, negao," which is intended to sound like the word "nigga" with a Japanese accent. Realizing that the joke wasn't funny to the group, the entering student quickly left the room.

So the joke isn't funny. And? Does this really warrant the Dean's disapproval? Are we going to ban all jokes or art that uses the phrases "nigger" or "nigga" now?

The next day the host of the gathering wrote to a dorm chat list forcefully expressing her offense at the use of the n-word, even in jest or imitation. Other people similarly wrote of their offense. The offending student wrote to the list explaining why she said what she did and apologized for offending people. She also apologized to the host in person.

Apologize. Apologize! Anyone thinking this scene from South Park right now?

While some people may not consider this a bias-related incident or act of hate, it starkly highlights several important points for everyone at Mudd.

1. Harvey Mudd's goal is to provide a safe, supportive community of respect for everyone on campus.

Safe and supportive? Isn't education supposed to be just the opposite? Something that draws out actual discussion and moves you beyond your comfort zones to genuine wisdom?


2. While everyone has full free speech rights here, words can have real consequences. When you say something, even in a light-hearted way with no bad intent, people can be substantially, negatively impacted. Your use of language can even affect the great amount of work that many people have done to build a community that values the differences we all bring to being Mudders.

First of all, impact isn't a transitive verb. You can't be "impacted" by something, unless its a tooth or an asteroid. Second, so what if your language offends people? They retain the right to hate you or spread rumors about you. But you still retain the right to speak or make unfunny jokes.


3. Saying racist, sexist, or homophobic things doesn't just affect people of color, women, or gay people. It has real effects on people in majority groups and makes for an unwelcoming environment for everyone.

Notice how Mr. Gerbick conflates the use of a bad racialist joke with actual acts of homophobia, sexism or racism. Shame on him for making light of those incidents, few in number though they may actually be.

If you want to talk with a supportive person trained in talking about race, please check the list of MAP (Multicultural Ally Program) allies at http://www.hmc.edu/about/administrativeoffices/institutionaldiversity1/map1/allynames.html or talk to your proctor, who has also been through MAP training. Talking with an ally may be especially useful for people who have prejudiced attitudes and would like to change.

An "ally"? Is this a war? Why has your proctor been through mandatory sensitivity training which is, by and large, bunk?

4. We need to talk more about race. So, this Friday's Forum will have Gary Kelly leading a discussion on race, including clips from a full-length movie completely devoted to how people feel about the use of the n-word. We can then talk about how to continue the discussions, particularly as the possibility of a black man being president of the U.S. becomes more probable.
Please, if Obama's elected, it'll be because he's a Socialist, not because he's black (all that certainly does help get out the guilty, Volvo-driving, latte-drinking, progressive vote.)

Bias Incident at Mudd?

Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:01:50 -0700
From: Ric.Townes@pomona.edu
Subject: [ALL_STUDENTS] Message About a Bias Related Incident At Harvey Mudd
To: ALL_STUDENTS@LISTSERV.POMONA.EDU

Dear Students,
We received this message from the Dean of Students at Harvey Mudd. As per our 5C protocols, I am sending it to you.
Always,
Dean Townes
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: bias-related incident and race at Mudd
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:57:11 -0700
From: Guy Gerbick <guy_gerbick@hmc.edu>
To: students-l@hmc.edu, faculty-l@hmc.edu, staff-l@hmc.edu


Last Friday night, an HMC student entered the room of another Mudder where several people were gathered watching an Asian comedy movie. The entering student, quoting a line from another Asian comedy, said "good morning, negao," which is intended to sound like the word "nigga" with a Japanese accent. Realizing that the joke wasn't funny to the group, the entering student quickly left the room.
The next day the host of the gathering wrote to a dorm chat list forcefully expressing her offense at the use of the n-word, even in jest or imitation. Other people similarly wrote of their offense. The offending student wrote to the list explaining why she said what she did and apologized for offending people. She also apologized to the host in person.
While some people may not consider this a bias-related incident or act of hate, it starkly highlights several important points for everyone at Mudd.
1. Harvey Mudd's goal is to provide a safe, supportive community of respect for everyone on campus.
2. While everyone has full free speech rights here, words can have real consequences. When you say something, even in a light-hearted way with no bad intent, people can be substantially, negatively impacted. Your use of language can even affect the great amount of work that many people have done to build a community that values the differences we all bring to being Mudders.
3. Saying racist, sexist, or homophobic things doesn't just affect people of color, women, or gay people. It has real effects on people in majority groups and makes for an unwelcoming environment for everyone.
If you want to talk with a supportive person trained in talking about race, please check the list of MAP (Multicultural Ally Program) allies at http://www.hmc.edu/about/administrativeoffices/institutionaldiversity1/map1/allynames.html
or talk to your proctor, who has also been through MAP training. Talking with an ally may be especially useful for people who have prejudiced attitudes and would like to change.
4. We need to talk more about race. So, this Friday's Forum will have Gary Kelly leading a discussion on race, including clips from a full-length movie completely devoted to how people feel about the use of the n-word. We can then talk about how to continue the discussions, particularly as the possibility of a black man being president of the U.S. becomes more probable.
Guy and Gary
--
Guy L. Gerbick
Interim Vice President and Dean of Students and Gary Kelly Associate Dean for Institutional Diversity Harvey Mudd College
301 Platt Boulevard, Claremont, California 91711
(909) 621-8125

The Futility of Well Wishers and Genocide Fighters

"Fight the genocide in Darfur. Support Challah for Hunger."

Such slogans would be laughable if they weren't so damaging, but alas they are damaging for the very virtue they extol -- "charity." But it is not charity in the Christian sense -- that is to say "uplifting" sense of the term -- but in the modern welfare state idea of food as a right to be doled out by a worldwide welfare state.

The Stop Genocide movement is really, at base, an effort to expand the power of the U.N. (Useless Nations) at the expense of America's interests, of which they are few in Darfur. Unlike the days of old when activism meant going to fight against evil as American communists and fellow travelers did against Fransisco Franco's Spain, most of the people calling for boots on the ground in Darfur aren't the ones that will bear the brunt of the consequences that will likely occur.

In case you were wondering, the Claremont Colleges have divested from Darfur, all but eliminating the only influence we could have had in the region and giving over said influence to the Chinese. Curiously, though, the same group of students that called for divestment works to provide "charity" for the people of Darfur by enabling students to donate via PayPal, Flex, cash to their cause. Instead of actual work that would be provided by American companies and their involvement in Sudan, modern progressives would rather put the Sudanese on their beneficent -- and unpredictable-- doles.

Does that mean that I oppose economic sanctions? In principle, no, but in practice, they have seldom, if ever achieved the ends they sought.

You might remember a post I wrote several months ago on this very point.

Brian T. Kennedy of The Claremont Institute and I had coffee a week ago and discussed this very matter vis a vis Iran. Mr. Kennedy argued that Iran is a modern day evil, analogous to the tyranny of the Soviet Union or Nazism. After some deliberation, we agreed that there were an evil regime and that something must be done to disrupt that regime's stability, though we did not agree as to ends. Mr. Kennedy still favored a divestment, while I cautioned him against such rash action as depriving ourselves of leverage over what is an evil regime.

I argued that the progressives in the academy might retaliate by boycotting Israel, which I take as a serious threat. Since our conversation, I have thought hard on how a state might short of war disrupt another state's activities in favor of some end.

How might we unseat leaders that are hostile to our interests?

One such way is assassination, which would be the surest way of guaranteeing a regime change, as Harvard economist Ben Olken makes clear in his paper described by the American.

In “Hit or Miss? The Effect of Assassinations on Institutions and War,” Olken and Jones looked at the effects of political assassination, using a strict empirical methodology that takes into account economic conditions at the time of the killing and what Olken calls a “novel data set” of assas­sination attempts, successful and unsuccessful, between 1875 and 2004.

Olken and Jones discovered that a country was “more likely to see democratization follow­ing the assassination of an autocratic leader,” but found no substantial “effect following assassinations—or assassination attempts—on democratic leaders.” They concluded that “on average, successful assassinations of autocrats produce sustained moves toward democracy.”

But it seems unlikely that the Challah for Hunger people would favor such means, preferring to bake bread while others die.

Death of Claremont Confessions?

The anonymous gossip web site, Claremont Confessions, was deleted by its creator, Josh Siegel CMC '10 a day ago in what can only be described a Frankensteinian undertaking.

We are told that Josh didn't like the negative publicity and bad reputation he got from starting a web site that catered to the lowest common denominators among us. Surprise, surprise. People actually like to spread vicious things against one another when the risks are minimal.

Siegel is to be commended, though, for killing the site before he or Claremont McKenna got sued.

CMC Prof. Riggio on Young Public Servants; The Obsession with the Young

Recently, it has become fashionable for everyone to vote.

Often the argument isn't so much an argument as it is an exhortation, an emotional appeal to make us all vote Democrat.

You might say that it isn't overtly partisan, but there can be little doubt that young people, indoctrinated by public school unions and a leftish media, would vote for anything other than the Democrat ticket. As such, they've become something of a voting block.

In Pomona, of the 19 candidates seeking office, six are under age 30. I quote from the Contra Costa Times,

For Mark Nava, a 20-year-old candidate for mayor, the notion of public service is not new.

"All of my life, there's been this need to serve the public," he said.

. . .

Nava isn't unusual. He's part of a generation that wants to act now, said Ron Riggio, director of the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College.

"What we're seeing is a 'We need to change the world attitude,"' Riggio said.

Riggio pointed to the documentary film "The Youngest Candidate," which followed a handful of young adults who sought political office. One of them, Michael Sessions, was elected elected mayor of Hillsdale, Mich., a community of 8,230 people, two years ago. He was 18.

These young people are realistic, but they haven't lost the idealism that makes them forge ahead and work to change the problems they see, Riggio said.

"They see the future looks dark, but they still have the optimism," he said.

These are also young people who are impatient and tend to say, "I don't need to wait. I don't need to pay dues," Riggio said. "It's a very different generation from the Baby Boomers."

The dangers of this kind of attitude were in evidence in my hometown of Milton, MA where 18-year old, Michael Joyce, was elected to my parents' precinct with 207 votes.

His ignorance of all manners politic was such that he campaigned on the wrong side of the street, but as his father was none other than a local state senator, Brian A. Joyce, he was elected. (Joyce the elder is something of a political sleeze bucket. At a funeral we both attended, I watched him hand out his business card to people and talk about how much he missed the deceased. In reality, if rumors are true, she hated him and voted against him every chance she got.)

This isn't the kind of government that the founding fathers imagined we'd have. The idea for age restrictions was to keep the aristocratic families from ruling us.

I belong to the John Lerew school of thought when it comes to running for office. Actually do something before you run.

Refuse to Fund UNICEF on Principle

Recently I came across a flier in my elevator encouraging me to donate to UNICEF. The flier even promises that the dorm that raises the most money per person will win a 21 Choices Party. (We won't go into the question of how it isn't charity when there's a reward attached.)

The flier says that UNICEF helps children worldwide. Assuming that the first point is true, the question becomes how are those children helped and to what end. I can find little evidence that UNICEF helps, even smaller evidence that it helps in the right direction.

One thing that UNICEF supports is the Hague Convention on Protection of Children, which has had disastrous consequences in Guatemala and has led to the death of hundreds of children.

As I've said before, I've visited Guatemala three or so times. My uncle is a radio talk show host in Guatemala City and I have had the privilege of meeting the ambassadors of Canada, Sweden, and America down there, in addition to Guatemala's former president.

I do not doubt that there are "baby brokers" who abuse and misuse adoption law for their own private gain. As callous as it may sound whenever there is a good and one willing to supply it, there will be a market price. But, as John Stossel points out in a column from February, there were but five confirmed cases of 4000 legal adoptions in 2006. (As an aside, I'd like to think that I had a hand in getting Stossel to write this piece as I asked a question of him at UFM on this very topic.)

And yet now adoption in Guatemala is a "social service" rather than a "business" and its had disastrous consequences for the children.

The sentiment was captured perfectly by a UNICEF representative who huffed to The New York Times that adoption "has become a business instead of a social service."

Oh, yes, everyone loves "social service." But when adoption was a government-run social service in Guatemala, the results were disastrous.

I happened to be in Guatemala City last month visiting the Americas' most free-market university, Universidad Francisco Marroquin. UFM's president took me to visit Ines Ayau, a nun who runs an orphanage that was formerly in the hands of the government. The children are well cared for now, but before her church took over, Ayau said, the government staff had forced some children into prostitution. The orphanage itself was rat-infested and without electricity, and the government used the facility to funnel money to cronies. "Thirty-six persons were working, (but) 105 were on the payroll."

. . .

Even if the new bureaucracy isn't corrupt, there's little chance it will process adoptions as quickly as the brokers did because without profit, it has no incentive to move the kids through the cumbersome adoption process. When other countries have put adoption in government hands, adoptions slowed or stopped. Paraguay went from sending more than 400 kids to the U.S. in 1996 to sending zero in 2006.

That's a tragedy.

Well said, but alas, it's a UNICEF-backed tragedy.

On this point, here is a letter from Families Without Borders with which I very much agree with encouraging UNICEF to change its policies vis a vis adoption. UNICEF's positions are in bold, while the argument against that policy is in italics. The introduction has no emphasis.

On any given day in Guatemala, 60 children under the age of five die as a result of poverty-related factors. This is almost eight times the child mortality rate of the United States. Another 1500 to 5000 children live on the streets and survive by begging, robbery, or prostitution.

Yet another 25,000 to 30,000 children live in orphanages (mostly private) due to abuse, neglect, poverty or parental abandonment. At least half of the children in Guatemala are considered to be malnourished so severely that their growth is stunted and immune systems compromised, two- thirds live in poverty, and 30% live in extreme poverty.

Each year, a relatively small number of Guatemalan children (2219 in 2002) find homes in the United States through the legal intercountry adoption process, and fewer than 1000 more are adopted into other countries. As we write, the future of intercountry adoption in Guatemala is being decided as politicians and government officials are pressured to implement prohibitive adoption laws aggressively promoted by UNICEF. The backdrop for this struggle is a larger debate over how to protect "the best interest of children "worldwide". UNICEF has been an active and powerful voice in this debate, placing considerable pressure on the Guatemalan government to accede to the Hague convention on Intercountry Adoption and attempting to influence the framework and conditions under which future intercountry adoptions will proceed.

We acknowledge that UNICEF offers considerable assistance to children worldwide through vaccination, education, and nutrition programs, and we do not find fault with that well-intentioned mission. However, we feel that elements of the UNICEF position on intercountry adoption are misguided and threaten the welfare of the very children they claim to protect.

UNICEF Position 1- Every effort should be made to keep the child in his biological family and within his ethnic group. If this is not possible, adoption should preferably be by Guatemalan parents, then by foreigners residing in Guatemala, and as a last resort, by foreign parents.

Formal domestic adoption is rare in Guatemala, not because of cost but because a culture of formal adoption does not exist in that country. While Guatemalans rarely adopt formally, a system of "informal adoptions" already exists in which family members simply take over the care of relatives' children. Other factors make intercountry adoptions more common than formal domestic adoptions- including the fact that middle to upper class Guatemalan couples reportedly prefer to adopt children a particular hair and eye color, ethnic origin, etc., while the majority of children available for adoption are indigenous (Maya, Garifuna, or other) heritage. While we support efforts to make formal national adoption affordable and desirable, we do not support any proposal that delays a child's eligibility for intercountry adoption while domestic options are sought. Such a system can only lead to a greater number of children languishing in temporary care for long periods of time. Potential adoptive parents, whether domestic or intercountry, should be the ones that wait on a list, not the children.

While we fully defend in-family adoptions, we vehemently oppose the system supported by UNICEF in which an adult birth mother would be forced to notify her extended family of her pregnancy and decision to place the child for adoption. Similarly, we do not support a mandatory waiting period to allow for family or domestic adoption. We believe each adult birthmother should have the right to decide whether family placement is a viable, legitimate option for her child. A system in which every adult birth mother is compelled by law to notify her family of her adoption plan would undoubtedly increase child abandonment and infanticide and unnecessarily delay placement of children into permanent homes.

UNICEF position 2: Adopting parents should not reside in a country with racial discrimination.

While we acknowledge the intent behind UNICEF's position- to protect the adopted child from prejudice- we do not believe that any country is free of racial discrimination. We cannot support such a standard as it would lead to the cessation of virtually all intercountry adoptions.

Furthermore, racism and a rigid class system within Guatemala places most children born into poverty or of indigenous heritage at a distinct disadvantage within their own birth country.

UNICEF Position 3: The current laws established for intercountry adoptions in Guatemala do not create a transparent adoption process that provides clear knowledge of the child's origin.

The adoption process in Guatemala for children voluntarily relinquished by their birthmothers (described by UNICEF as "extra-judicial") currently includes a birthmother interview and social study by a court- appointed social worker, a secure DNA study of the birthmother and potential adoptive child, four separate occasions over a period of several months that the birthmother affirms her intent to relinquish, and an investigation into the background of the prospective adoptive family. Along with a specialized attorney (the Notary), two separate Guatemalan government institutions- the Family Court and the Attorney General's Office (PGN)- are involved in this process, along with the U.S. Embassy and Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. The Notarial Process, sometimes referred to as the "extra-judicial" process because it is finalized before a Notary rather than a Judge, was established in the Guatemalan Constitution as a way to deal with non- litigious matters and is in fact a part of the judicial system. The Notary is held to the same legal standards and consequences as a judge. The current system is relatively efficient and effectively reveals any misrepresentations of the child's origins. Consider that less than 0.6% of US adoption cases have been denied due to "negative" DNA matches since 1998.

It is unclear what changes UNICEF would propose to make the system more effective at preventing fraud than the current "extra-judicial" system. Systems which place great power in the hands of judges are typically prone to corruption, incorporate less accountability, and generate greater delays in permanently placing children. T he one component of reform UNICEF clearly supports is centralization of adoption procedures by the government. However, in countries that have implemented a "central authority" to regulate adoptions without sufficient economic and infrastructure support, the effects on the welfare of children has been devastating. In most cases, intercountry adoptions have virtually come to an end and alternate systems remain nonexistent or are ineffective at caring for the children. Ms. Gladys Acosta, the UNICEF representative in Guatemala, has responded to concerns raised about inadequate alternate support systems by stating, "To take care of unwanted children is not the main concern of UNICEF, but of the local government. UNICEF only has to take care that Guatemala passes laws that the international community expects, to fulfill the international treaties that Guatemala has accepted to become a party."

Guatemala currently does not have any significant program in place to assist the poorest families. In 2000, public spending on social protection (assistance and insurance) was 1.8% of the GDP while it is estimated that 8.4% is the minimum annual cost of eradicating the poverty gap, and most of the recipients were in the wealthier urban areas rather than the poor rural regions of Guatemala.

UNICEF Position 4- International adoption should be reformed because it has become a profit- making enterprise that has led to the commercialization of children.

A great deal of UNICEF's agenda focuses on economic aspects of intercountry adoption. UNICEF has been critical of the fees paid to attorneys to process adoptions, arguing that any economic gain leads to commercialization of children. We believe that attorneys must remain at the center of the legal adoption process in Guatemala and that reasonable fees should be paid to the specialized professionals. It is not the child that is being marketed, but rather the services provided by the attorney, Notary, foster mother, translators, and medical professionals.

UNICEF Position 5: All private relinquishment adoptions should be suspended so as to favor the large number of older, institutionalized children.

We cannot favor any proposal that pits on child's best interest against that of another. We do not support the elimination of relinquishment adoptions as a means of encouraging adoption so certain other children. Instead, we support initiatives tat reform the public adoption process while maintaining proper safeguards. UNICEF has suggested that the "popularity" of private adoptions among biological parents is evidence that child trafficking is taking place. However, after reviewing 90 randomly selected cases in 1999 as part of a UNICEF- sponsored study ILPEC, not a single case in which a biological parent was forced or paid to relinquish her child was identified. In fact, the popularity of direct relinquishment adoption likely reflects a birthmother's desire to avoid placing her child in an orphanage.

UNICEF Position 6- Children should not be relinquished for adoption due to poverty.

We agree that a main goal for humanitarian aid should be the elimination of poverty , so that every family has sufficient resources to raise all the children born into it with a reasonable level of nutrition, medical care, shelter, etc. However, this is simply not the reality in developing nations such as Guatemala. Unfortunately, extreme poverty is a fact of life for 30% of the population and there are few, if any, government programs to assist these families. Even private humanitarian aid is only effective at reaching a small minority of needy individuals. Therefore, until there is adequate support for the desperately poor families, the reality is that poverty will continue to be a major reason for birthmothers to make adoption plans for their children.

The unfortunate Impact of UNICEF Policies on Guatemalan Adoptions-

UNICEF continues to aggressively lobby the Guatemalan Congress to pass extremely restrictive adoption laws that, if implemented, will likely have disastrous consequences on the health and well-being of thousands of needy children and their birthmothers.

The lobbying of UNICEF has successfully disrupted adoptions in India, Romania, El Salvador, Honduras, and many other countries. For instance, a recent UNICEF report has proposed a ban on relenquishments and a national moratorium on intercountry adoption in India. The impact of this report has caused unnecessary suspicions of all adoptions and has had a negative humanitarian effect on the children.

If you agree that UNICEF's positions on intercountry adoption do not support the best interest of the children of Guatemala AND that your donations to UNICEF would be better served on vaccination, education, and nutrition programs, then we ask that you contact UNICEF and ask them to reconsider these positions and re-allocate resources to humanitarian programs, or that you consider shifting your sponsorship to a humanitarian organization that better represents the mission you support.

John Lerew CMC '81 Runs for Congress on Segway

Hitting the streets on his Segway

If you want to hear him talk about his financial background and how he'll help with the financial markets, watch this video.

Here he is in The Rocky Mountain News giving the argument for why he should be elected.

With more than 20 years as a financial professional and a current Certified Financial Planner, I am well versed in the matters of finance. Given the current financial crisis, you will want a congressman who not only understands these issues, but will keep you in mind when Congress starts to write new regulations for the financial markets.

As a small-business owner and family man, I have your same concerns about the financial stability of this nation and our individual financial future. We are seeing the effects of a Congress that let the regulatory process be tilted toward a special few and not fair toward the whole. That same Congress cannot now bail out every bad business decision in our markets with taxpayer dollars. A great deal more could be accomplished with government-sponsored programs directed toward this country’s crumbling infrastructure. The $850 billion of taxpayer money could be used to repair roads and bridges. People who work on these projects would pay taxes on the local level, which would benefit cities and our state.

I am an independent thinker running a grass-roots campaign. I am beholden only to the constituency of the 7th Congressional District. As a Republican, I am interested in preserving individual rights and enforcing fiscal responsibility of our government.

In walking door to door in the district over the last four months, the issues remain the same: high energy costs, government intrusion, illegal immigration and our government’s insatiable appetite for debt. All of these lead down a path to a weak economy. I ask for your vote and look forward to working for you. Check out Lerew2008.com for further information.

Here he is in The Rocky Mountains News on why he's the man for the job, given this financial climate.

Here his sister and campaign treasurer tells PolitickerCO.com that the FEC got their fundraising numbers wrong. They actually made raised more money than was reported.

Seventh Congressional District John Lerew raised $13,718 during the third quarter of 2008, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission.

But the FEC report mistakenly show Lerew's cumulative fundraising numbers as being less than his third-quarter numbers.

Deborah Lerew, John Lerew's sister and campaign treasurer, told PolitickerCO.com that the campaign's total contributions from individuals totaled $21,218. Total campaign receipts after the third quarter totaled $31,211, she said.

The FEC report stated Lerew's cycle-to-date contributions from individuals as $12,610.28 and his total operating expenditures as $15,696.

Lerew's campaign had $5,833.24 at the end of the third quarter, according to the FEC report and Deborah Lerew.

Here he is in PolitckerCO.com on his door-to-door segway campaign. How entrepreneurial!

With only a small campaign budget, 7th Congressional District Republican nominee John Lerew has turned to an unconventional campaign vehicle: his Segway.

"The district is so large, and when you're a grassroots campaign and you don't have any money for mailings, the only way I can get around and do lit drops is I use a Segway," Lerew said. "They're good on the sidewalk, and they're easy to run."

Lerew estimated he can cover about 350 homes in two hours using his Segway, which he rents from his financial planning business.

He predicted that the personal vehicles could become a valuable tool for political candidates.

"It may not happen in two years, but probably four years from now, as Segways become more of the society, I would think if you ran a mail-distribution-sized campaign or you did lit drops, you could put your whole crew on Segways and you could cover thousands of homes in one way," Lerew said.

Jared Diamond Is Coming to HMC on Oct. 23

2008 Dr. Bruce J. Nelson '74 Distinguished Speaker Series:
Jared Diamond: "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed"

7:30 - 8:30 PM

Galileo Hall
Harvey Mudd College
240 E. Platt Blvd.
Claremont, 91711
(909) 607-0899

"Biology and the Environment: Past, Present and Future." Jared Diamond, Professor, Department of Geography, UCLA, and Pulitzer Prize winner for the book Guns, Germs and Steel. Lecture followed by a dessert reception.

Jared Diamond is author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and most recently, Collapse.

Although I very much disagree with Dr. Diamond's thesis that geography explains culture, I find his work full of fascinating insights. It is a shame that so many on the multicultural left have taken to his work as somehow evidence of geographic determinism. This book review by Victor Davis Hanson essentially answers many of Diamond's arguments.

May 20, 2005, 8:37 a.m.
Decline and Fall
From the March 28, 2005 issue of National Review.

By Victor Davis Hanson

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond (Viking, 592 pp., $29.95)

Jared Diamond’s bestselling Guns, Germs, and Steel argued that geography trumped culture, and that the current privileged position of the West was therefore mostly attributable to the advantageous resources in, and location of, Western countries, rather than to Europe’s singular values. Despite the allure of such a politically correct exegesis — President Clinton endorsed the book wholeheartedly — there were numerous criticisms of this determinist idea of natural accidents resulting in the present-day dominance of the West. At some point a Cleisthenes, Plato, Augustine, Magna Carta, Sistine Chapel, Thomas Edison, or Albert Einstein — and the thinking and substructure that produced them — is worth more than long, indented coastlines and concentrations of iron ore. Diamond seemed to be terribly confused about the course of 2,500 years of Western history: Environment, far from being a precondition for Western success, was often almost irrelevant to it.

For example, how did the Ptolemies create an even more dynamic civilization than that of the earlier dynastic pharaohs, when they inherited from them a supposedly exhausted and increasingly salinized landscape? Or why did the palatial culture of Mycenae prove to be a dead-end society, and yet the radically different Greek city-state centuries later blossomed in the exact same environment? More immediately, are we to suppose that there are underappreciated micro-climates that separate Tijuana from San Diego, strangely different soils on the two immediate sides of the Korean DMZ, and something about those ever-changing lagoons of Venice that made it irrelevant in late Roman times, a world power in 1500, and once again a backwater by 1850? Did the environment of Britain improve from A.D. 400 to 1700 while Rome’s declined, thus explaining why the former outpost of the Western world became its new center and vice versa?

Never mind that these bothersome historical details point to a particularly innovative — and ever evolving — social, economic, and political Western paradigm that can not only destroy, but repair, and, yes, often improve on nature in a way not quite possible in other cultures. The hillside slums of Mexico City, Sao Paulo, or Calcutta may support Diamond’s gloomy assessments of what population density and environmental ignorance have wrought, but why does such a theory break down when we look at civilized and relatively affluent life in similarly congested Tokyo and London? Instead of the hard work of sorting out the subtleties of how sophisticated Westernized cultures both succeed and fail in inhospitable landscapes, the morality tale of Guns, Germs, and Steel was soothing salve to the increasingly berated Westerner, who apparently was amused by the idea that he had not stolen, but bumbled onto, his embarrassing bounty. And so the book, presented in a chatty and often witty style, went on to sell a million copies.

Perhaps Diamond sensed those inconsistencies and thus in his new book, Collapse, he attempts to demonstrate through case histories of small micro-climates from Easter Island and modern Montana to Iceland and Greenland how civilizations disintegrate: Mishandling of the fragile environment causes wars, famines, depopulation, and eventual breakdown — and we modern wastrels should learn from them all before it is too late. Of course, empires can seem to fall for other reasons, but usually historians fail to see that political and military causation “masquerades” deeper environmental degradation.

Diamond’s natural determinism and condemnation of the West’s pathological means of exploitation are nothing new, but represent a synthesis of the previous pessimisms from Marx and Toynbee to Paul Ehrlich and Kirkpatrick Sale. Most scholars, however, would accept the notion that societies like those of the Egyptians, Romans, Aztecs, or Ottomans — civilizations that, unlike those of Diamond’s tiny settlements at Pitcairn Island or Vineland, had millions of inhabitants — at some period in their growth, evolution, and maturity inevitably declined; whether abrupt or insidious, such breakdowns were largely due to government overcentralization and rigid bureaucracy, affluence and leisure among a bored elite, high taxation, and depopulation in the countryside — all of which made rulers insensitive to change and unable to react rapidly to the radically new stimuli of invasion, novel religions, internal dissent, and, yes, occasional natural challenge.

In contrast to this broad historical picture, most of Diamond’s examples are slanted: They involve fragile, mostly isolated or island landscapes that witnessed colonists, renegades, or adventurers who sought in their greed or ignorance to put too many people in the wrong place. Modern Montana cattlemen and miners, like Norsemen and Mayan big men of the past, are easy targets; Diamond breezily disparages them through comparisons to “modern American CEOs” and caricatured chauvinists who proclaim “the unconscious message, ‘We are Europeans, we are Christians.’” When the reader begins to suspect that these light, anecdotal impressions are either irrelevant to larger historical questions or themselves internally inconsistent, Diamond coughs out a necessary qualifier: “I am not claiming,” “On the other hand,” and “Nor am I . . .”

The main problem, however, with this book is that Diamond’s well-meaning, environmentally correct storytelling cannot impart any coherent lesson of why in fact societies fail. Environmental degradation, climate change, hostilities, political and cultural failures, and trade are cited as the roots of collapse, but are used so interchangeably that we never learn to what degree mismanagement of nature or of people brings on doom. As a result, when Diamond ventures into systematic analysis of historical questions that he knows nothing about, he has a predictable propensity to say things that are not simply wrong but hilarious.

Yes, Americans once clear-cut the northeast, but now it has more forests than ever — because, among other things, technology moved us beyond wood-burning fuels. Iceland lost its topsoil and trees and thus many of its early settlements — but modern technology, liberal government, and Western jurisprudence ensure that its current Scandinavian descendants inhabit a successful society despite its cold, denuded, and unfertile island. And if Diamond believes that is so because Icelanders finally got smart and now follow his environmentally correct nostrums, he should ask why that is so — or what would happen in a decade should they magically be transferred to Haiti or Yemen and, in turn, Haitians and Yemenis were to take over Iceland.

Perhaps the wealthy, pampered 9/11 terrorists did count on the teeming slums of the Middle East for their base of support, and no doubt Rwanda’s genocide likewise had elements of too many people expecting too much from too few resources, but such environmental explanations are in the end fatuous when seen in larger and far more important political and economic terms. A Singapore or South Korea — or Manhattan — shows that modern technology, free markets, and the rule of law create a fluid and ever responsive social structure that can trump tribalism, religious fundamentalism, and the miseries of material poverty, limited resources, and an unforgiving nature.

Diamond also fails to see that his “masquerading” works both ways. If we historians are fooled into thinking environmentally degraded societies lose wars owing to military ineptness rather than resource depletion, then he is utterly incapable of seeing that material want is often a mere pretext for national delusion and aggression. Germany is more populous today on smaller territory than in 1939, when it advanced the bogus notion of Lebensraum; overcrowded contemporary Japan, Inc. does fine within its smaller borders without warring for a Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere. Few think that the Falklands were vital to Argentina’s food supply.

In an age of sophisticated fertilizers that can implant huge amounts of nitrogen into the soil through a variety of mechanical, chemical, and “organic” mechanisms, it is simply not true — as I can attest from 30 years of farming trees and vines — that in Montana “apple orchards, which were initially very profitable, collapsed, due to in part to apple trees’ exhausting the soil’s nitrogen.” Diamond laments that out-of-state homeowners are “careful to stay in Montana for less than 180 days per year in order to avoid Montana income tax and thereby [not] to contribute to the cost of local government and schools,” but ignores the logical corollary that many of his maligned affluent Californian interlopers (and other commuters like them from other states) already pay almost 10 percent of their salaries back home for services that they, as absentee residents, do not fully use.

Diamond idealizes the Netherlands as one of the world’s most environmentally sound countries, where the need to manage the tides has made it an especially communitarian culture of the “polter” — as if resource management will address unassimilated Islamic ghettos, or as if such environmental sensitivity extended to the more mundane task of cultural integration. (In any case, that country is in near paralysis from, and now furious at, the murder of Theo Van Gogh and Islamic fundamentalist threats to its democracy.) Similarly, Diamond’s idea that the Australian continent not only cannot support its present small population, but is doomed unless it reverts to a more natural human community of 8 million is ludicrous. The recent history of Australia has actually seen a steady rise in the standard of living, directly connected with growing population and a newfound allegiance to free trade, open markets, and foreign investment — all of which have capitalized on the rich Australian environment in novel and often sustainable fashion.

Finally, the moral lectures about contemporary Western dissipation are sadly compromised by occasional hypocrisy. While I think Diamond is absolutely right that “wealthy people” often “insulate themselves from the rest of society” and “use their own money to buy services for themselves privately,” I also know that his own environment of Westwood and UCLA is not quite Bakersfield or Memphis, but one of the most affluent and secluded in the world. Diamond’s ample reference in the text to dozens of overseas trips, and numerous sabbaticals and research grants the world over, testifies not merely to his privilege, but also to the success of the modern Western world in altering the environment. Safe and rapid global travel, modern medicine, and the security brought through jurisprudence — all developed over the same 2,500 years of Western exploitation that Diamond takes jabs at — are a world away from the brutish, more natural world of New Guinea that in the past he has often romanticized, but ultimately chooses to visit periodically rather than raise his children in on a permanent basis. Indeed, the exploitation of fuels, ores, and soils that Diamond seems to think is so often reckless and presages our own collapse is very often not reckless, and thus inseparable from his own current enlightened and rich existence.

Parts of Collapse are a therapeutic and salutary reminder to recycle more, trade in our gas-guzzling SUVs, and cut back on the parathion, but sound history this book unfortunately is not.

— Mr. Hanson, a contributing editor of National Review Online, is a military historian and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.