Identity of Gorilla at Rove Protest Uncovered

Looks like we found the missing link, too!

Do you remember the Gorilla drumming at the Karl Rove protest?

Turns out that this gorilla wasn't native to Pitzer as previously thought. A friend confirms that the gorilla in question was a sophomore from U.C. Santa Cruz.

Monkey see, monkey do.

Good Luck Next Time, Mr. Lerew!

I'm sorry to say that John Lerew lost his bid for Colorado's seventh congressional seat, but I'm sure he'll be back. With a bit more money, he could have made big inroads in a once upon a time competitive district.

For those of you who care, it wasn't close. "Perlmutter led first-time Republican challenger John Lerew 63 percent to 37 percent with 57 percent of the projected vote counted."

Pitzer Prof Defends Charles!

Yesterday, Dr. John Norvell, our neighbor to the north at Pitzer College, visited the comments box to weigh in on the now-infamous Prop 8 satire Nico Brancolini posted on The Forum. Norvell had some courageous things to say in defense of Charles's right to disagree with the mainstream:

I am amazed that a debate with 74 comments as I write this comment has proceeded from a deleted post which has not been restored despite the fact that numerous people, including the “editor,” have QUOTED from it. The “Chief Development Officer” of the site has even interpolated several commentaries INTO Charles Johnson’s subsequent replies. There are some good points above, and some bad ones, but how can this debate serve any purpose whatsoever if the original response to a very provocative (in a good way) article is censored by a site purporting to provide “news” and “exchange of ideas” and serve as a “forum”?

I wish I were as amazed as you, Professor, but the double-standard employed against Charles is far from new. Groups posing as "open forums" and "democratic" often have a history of censoring the information they disagree with...look no further than YouTube's recent and ongoing censorship of Live Action's exposes of Planned Parenthood, or for that matter, Planned Parenthood's actions to have Lila Rose silenced.

People who want to do something wrong, whether breaking the law (Planned Parenthood covering up sexual abuse) or breaking human decency (Mormon bashing), will always try to censor the people who call them out on it. This will not be the first time or the last they attempt to do so if we don't fight to end it.

William Voegeli and Peter W. Schramm on the Welfare State and Barack Obama

Peter Schramm has been having quite a few Claremont McKenna professors and scholars on his "You America" podcasts over at the Ashbrook Center. 

Schramm brought Professors Busch and Kesler to talk about the election and Barack Obama, respectively and now William Voegeli, author of the forthcoming, "So, What Would Be Enough?" which examines the welfare state in modern, post-industrial societies. It examines the so-called libertarian paradox. Voegeli serves as a scholar at Claremont McKenna's Henry Salvatori Center. Here is the podcast of their conversation.

I found the most fascinating part of the discussion on the differences between the European and American welfare state. What follows are some brief notes I have from listening to the audio. "In one respect, there's a similarity. Voegeli looked at about a dozen countries in which you see two things going on -- economic growth happening across the board, relentless, in every country. What you also start to see is that portion of GDP that gets allocated to welfare state programs also steadily increases and if you sit back and think about it, it's sort of a paradox. You would think that as societies get richer over time, the number of people who need support would go down as their needs would become less acute. 

What it means to be poor changes as societies become richer. Now there's a scary topic!