Claremont Independent

·         The new Athenaeum policy allowing just one head table visit per Fortnightly leaves much to be desired. Although Ath staff member David Edwards says "This new rule will allow more students to dine with our speakers," we predict that just the opposite will happen. It seems far more likely that the head table will have fewer attendees.  Reserved for students with a particular interest in the speaker, the head table allows students the opportunity to break bread with some of the world’s best thinkers and is one of Claremont McKenna’s most valued institutions. What a shame then, that the Ath has instituted a policy of quotas. A wiser policy would allow students to register for one head table each day and would keep the "head table hogs" at bay.

·         We wonder when the market forces of economics (or at least the babble of Organizational Pyschology) will be visited upon Story House, whose schedule vexed many a CMCer returning to campus. To quote one CMC student, its hours (10 a.m. to 3 p.m.) are equivalent to a typical work day in a European socialist state. The five hour window breeds an unwelcoming feeling among students. It would be best to pay the people at Story House overtime, stretch out the hours, and give them a few more days off during the middle of the semester. God knows they aren't using the time to bring us our mail any faster.

·         Rutgers Professor Keith Wailoo’s talk at Pitzer, titled, “How Cancer Crossed the Color Line: Race and Disease in America,” promises to shatter one more glass ceiling. Before Professor Wailoo’s research, cancer discriminated and was, like the ROTC policy that so affronts Pitzer and Pomona, promptly banned. We applaud bringing cancer across the color line.

·         The Forum’s Josh Siegel is at it again. On the Forum, he's told us that ASCMC turned a profit on ticket sales from the Ludacris concert. We also don't know how much money they made. While in principle the concerts pay for themselves, the band fund exists to cover losses. The past two concerts, Ciara and Reel Big Fish, resulted in significant losses for ASCMC, with Ciara’s performance taking up most of the $15k budget. To cover the losses from Reel Big Fish, ASCMC had to hold a special vote to permit it to disburse additional retained earnings to cover loses. We’re sure ASCMC is prepared to give us some of our money back with all that “profit.”

·         We've been informed that Pitzer's Class of 2013 is among the richest in recent memory. Not that we mind, as we don't begrudge a school for making tough choices in tough times. And tough times they are for Pitzer College. The L.A. Times reported that despite unusually good years financially, Pitzer's endowment was down 31%.  We found it in especially poor form that President Laura Skandera Trombley, in her "Statement on Pitzer and the Economy," lauded her college's Gold LEED certified residence halls, at least one of which cost $29 million. Had they not gone for the gold, they might have had more greenbacks for their students.

·         Staff writer Sam Corcos, has uncovered something sure to light afire the standard Pitzer activism if they needed a cause célèbre du jour. Smoking is banned inside or near any of Pitzer’s Gold LEED-certified buildings. From weed to LEED, progress marches on!

·         Bono, or as some would have it Bah-no, spoke to Claremont McKenna last year. Bah-no cost $100,000 and gave barely 30 minutes of scripted questions and answers. Worse yet, students were forbidden from taking pictures of the celebrity. Compare that to Justice Antonin Scalia, who spoke for hours at various functions as part of Res Publica and cost only $10,000. Bono recently performed at a pre-inauguration concert for then President-elect Obama's coronation. Bono told MSNBC's Brian Williams that Obama’s election "strangely changes everything." We hope Bono left Obama with a bit more change than he left us.

·         We've done a bit of reading on the history of the Athenaeum, which was modeled after the famous London locale of the same name. Our Athenaeum was founded to allow CMC students to hear and discuss issues with speakers known for their scientific and literary attainments. The building’s namesake, Ms. Marian Miner Cook, had hoped that "the Athenaeum would help students experience similar intellectual challenges and excitement" as those she and her husband had enjoyed.

·         Naturally, we are glad the Athenaeum could add glorious and great thinkers like the participants of the Hip-Hop Conference. These modern-day Shakespeareans and Socratics bless our campus with their presence. Crooked I's lyrics in particular do not quite seem to embody the spirit of the fine arts. Still, there might just be something for the CMC student in at least one of his raps. From "Stop Snitching,"

Don't snitch, don't be a bitch 

West Coast let's get rich 

Flood the industry wit' gangsta hits 

Smack some ass and grab some tits 

Don't snitch, don't be a bitch 

East Coast let's get rich

Ah, civilization surely prospers with the objectification of women, verbal assaults on homosexuals, and the glorification of gang banger violence. Never you mind, though, the Pomona Song Committee will censor any overtly racist, homophobic, and sexist lyrics infecting our campus. Right?

·         We'd like to congratulate the Scripps students who made Dean's List last semester, but it's tough to know where to begin. More than 35% of the Scripps College student body made the cut. Don't worry, though. We're sure that the academically rigorous new class, "A Cultural History of Rap," seems a firm step in the right direction.

·         Scripps Professor Gayle Greene is leading a conference on one of the more menacing things facing college students:  "The Mystery of Sleep." At the conference, Prof. Greene will give a speech titled, "Sleep: Gender, Class, Race (is the Sandman an equal opportunity player?)." Presumably some groups face discrimination when it comes to a good night’s rest. Might we suggest something sure to please both diversocrats and lazy students alike? Sleep affirmative action where some groups get to sleep in longer than others. Unlike current affirmative action policies, this one might do some good.

·         To the Scrippsies looking for a good night's sleep, we unequivocally suggest Pomona College. You’ll find none of it here.

·         We read Andrew Benton’s (Pitzer ‘10) blog from Nantes, France, where it seems Andrew and two other Pitzer students studying there have were visited by the ghost of the globalized administration. First, one of the students received a letter from the university in Nantes saying there was no record of her enrollment. Then a bill for the rent arrived, despite written promises from Pitzer College to pick up the tab. Mr. Benton, rightfully, was upset and wrote letters to the dean of Pitzer. We would, however, remind Mr. Benton that if he were looking for efficiency during his studies, he might have picked somewhere other than France (and Pitzer).

·         The savage beating of 61-year-old Claremont resident Vince Gottuso, who approached those in the process of burglarizing his home, reminds us once more of the naked truth that our current campus arms policy has left us unarmed with target signs painted firmly on our doors. Just one year ago, Pomona's North campus was the scene of an armed robbery in which a girl was beaten. As unemployment numbers rise in the Inland Empire and with the hopes of deterring the dumber robbers out and about, Harvey Mudd might relax its stipulation that "water guns and handmade play weapons" "be decorated with bright colors so [that] they can be identified from a safe distance."

·         We welcome the addition of another civic group in Claremont. "Drink Liberally Claremont" meets every Wednesday to drink and talk politics at a local bar. Naturally one would have to be a bit tipsy to find any arguments for socialism appealing. We counsel young women, especially, to travel in numbers and prepare their own drinks. Alas, we read in the newspaper that "people interested do not have to drink." Or was it think? We'll be rechecking the newspaper, but in the meantime, bottoms up!

·         Now that the One has promised to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the policy banning homosexuals from serving openly in our nation's military, we've learned that Pomona President Oxtoby won't be ending the ban on awarding ROTC credit to Pomona students who choose to attend military science classes at CMC, despite an implicit promise from Mr. Oxtoby's predecessor to the contrary. What a queer policy indeed! 

·         In the august Chronicle of Higher Education, Carl Olson , a Pomona alumus, said that "having your official college song banned is a little like having your baby shot in front of you." (Just a little?) Though President Oxtoby all but banned the song, Mr. Olson promises that "Hail, Pomona, Hail," will be sung again at future campus events. (He defiantly signs all emails, "The fat lady will sing when we all get to sing.”) Mr. Olson says further that the ban came about due to "political correctness run amok." President Oxtoby, for his part, looked into the etymology of the word "amok" and noticed it came from a dead white male (Rudyard Kipling) and from Malay roots, "meaning mad with rage." A committee was convened, led by another computer science professor, and decided that such a word would offend those many students of Malay extraction and so, "amok" has now been banned at the urging of The Student Life, among others. We regret printing it.

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