How I've Come to Enjoy Writing for The Forum

After I stepped down as editor of The Claremont Independent, I've started writing for The Forum lately and God help me, I actually enjoy it. (And just so we're clear, I still believe that it should have its subsidy revoked, even though it now cuts my checks.)

You might remember my disagreements with its thankfully gone editor-in-chief over issues of censorship, but it's new editor, Abhi Nemani, runs a tight ship and he's given me the ability to write articles I never would have otherwise written. Abhi is a fair and gracious editor. I overlook some of his nutty politics and consider him the sharpest liberal on campus.

I'm going to be using my time as a blogger for The Forum to probe deeply into some ideas I have for reform at Claremont McKenna and the Claremont Colleges. So far, I'm really pleased with some of the conversations that have come up as a result. Here are the posts I've written thus far:

• "Dealing with the Deficit" about how CMC should rethink financial aid to consider us more stock issuing corporations than bond issuing ones.
• "Ebaying CMC" about how auction markets can be used to make the school more efficient with housing, courses.
• "Like it in the Ath" more, about various ideas I have for reforming the Athenaeum. My favorite of these ideas is to have the Ath videos be accessible on YouTube.

Please check them out and tell me what you think.

Jihadi Airlines, Next Stop Palau!

Today on The Huffington Post (hide your surprise)...

Dru Gladney, an expert on Uighurs, applauded Washington's decision not to send the detainees back to China, where he said they would be treated worse than at Guantanamo. Resettling them in the U.S. _ especially in the Washington area where there's a substantial Uighur population _ would have been ideal, but Congress opposed that idea, he said.

Palau will be tough for them because there aren't many Muslims in the predominantly Christian nation of 20,000 people, he said.

"They are going to have a very difficult time of it for sure," said Gladney, a professor at the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College in California.

When the Uighurs arrive, this balmy island nation will likely seem like an alien planet, with bikini-clad women on white sand beaches, meals of fresh saltwater fish and people snorkeling with dolphins in clear blue water.

Back in the Uighurs' desert home, camels haul cargo across dusty deserts, cold winds blow off snowy mountains, and women usually cover up with head scarves. Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most remote city from any sea in the world.

Okay, so apparently the Obama administration's response to the thugs we pick up on the battlefield, is to let them have paradise in this life as well as the next. Was Disneyland taken?

I have just one more question after I saw Palau's good looking women: where do I sign up to join the global jihad and can I get flown there at taxpayer expense, too?