5CENE

A recent and popular article by John Cloud in Time magazine provocatively asks whether liberals are smarter than conservatives. The notion that they are, Cloud says, "is familiar to anyone who has spent time on a college campus." He cites the old shopworn stereotypes: College Democrats are "ugly, smug and intellectual," and College Republicans "pretty, belligerent and dumb.
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For the fourth consecutive year now, Scripps has angered some and surprised many by inviting a renowned speaker who strays from its characteristic liberal values. This effort to balance the campus' typical flow of leftist dialogue with conservative opinions can be credited to the Elizabeth Hubert Malott Public Affairs Program.
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Craig McPherson is running for election in Kansas's third congressional district with a generous help from the education he picked up at Claremont McKenna and at the Henry Salvatori Center, where he was a research assistant. Combining a deep interest in America's Founding Fathers, a PPE major here at CMC, and a law and economics education from George Mason, can the 26-year-old from Kansas win the nomination in a crowded primary field?


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Recently the Claremont Colleges have been fortunate enough to get a new journal of opinion:, Liberty's Last Stand. And of course the campus welcomess another perspective to the ongoing campus debate. The journal started off with a bang, condeming both left, for spending and bailouts, and right, for its efforts in national security.
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CMC's new Dean of Students, Mary Spellman, comes to CMC after working as the Dean of Students at Sarah Lawrence College in New York for the past five years. She graciously agreed to sit down for an interview with the CI.

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On January 27, 2010, Jesse Jackson spoke at the Athenaeum. Appropriately, for a speech that was part of the commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr, the first half was primarily a history lesson detailing Reverend Jackson's experiences with segregation and his struggle for civil rights.
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Sister Helen Prejean has many redeeming qualities as an anti-death penalty advocate. She presents herself unassumingly, but speaks with passion, earnestly and honestly, when the conversation turns to justice for the weak and vulnerable. A native of Louisiana, she tempers her prophetic zeal with southern charm as she stands behind a vision of the good that is unashamedly inspired by the teachings of the Catholic Church.
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Every political group tries to claim the middle ground by labeling its opponents the extremes. To Jefferson, the Hamiltonians were all monarchists; to Hamilton, the Jeffersonians were all mobocrats. To such thinking, Lincoln becomes an abolitionist, and Douglas is pro-slavery - crude simplifications which fail to capture the depth of each man's political thought.
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In late January, the Supreme Court declared a 5-4 ruling in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, declaring that corporations and interest groups have the right to spend freely on advertisements endorsing or criticizing politicians. Already, members of Congress are drafting a constitutional amendment in order to effectively undo the Supreme Court's ruling, and again seriously restrict political speech by corporations.
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Editor's Note: the following conversation came out of Ohio State University President Gordon Gee's response to Jason Soll's article, "Shifting the Nature of Change." Named by TIME Magazine in 2009 as the greatest university president in the country, President Gee is the 14th president of the Ohio State University.
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Every year, Harvey Mudd Students construct an intricate network of bridges, platforms, and waterfalls for the infamous Slippery When Wet party. The construction and engineering has typically been part of a final project for ENG 115.
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Holy crap!!!

It's probably for our awesome scoop:

Pamela Gann (who is from the future!!) is going to be replaced by Captain Kirk!!!!!1!

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Things are getting busy and since it's final paper time, we at The StagHen have taken time out of our schedule to provide fellow students with some valuable tips on how to improve that final essay.

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At a press conference this morning, nurses from the 5C Student Health Center announced a startling trend.  As illustrated in this chart, the results of STD diagnoses have been on the rise since the Health Center began keeping track of these statistics.

A health center nurse told The StagHen that diseases like Hepatitis C were relatively prevalent on campus in previous decades but, "Recently, students expect and feel entitled to getting Hepatitis A."

Statistics show that both the quantity and quality of Sexually Transmitted Diseases are rising on campus. At first, this doesn't seem so bad but many students wonder, if everyone gets herpes anyways, what is the point of even taking STD tests?

"What is the point of graduating from Pomona with Chlamydia if anyone can do it?" noted one student.

Some have suggested that  the college needs to change its definition of what an STD is or that, perhaps, older professors need to stop giving out so many infections.

"I think there is this feeling amongst students and professors," said Alex Parson, CMC '11," that because you got into college here, you deserve to be an Aids + Student -- and that needs to change."
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Following the notorious Scissor Me Scripps bias incident, the women's college administration has announced in an email
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This week Bill Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground?a group which bombed the Pentagon, US Capital, and 23 other sites?spoke at Pitzer College. Ayers was on campus to launch Pitzer?s Achieving Radical Change: Conversation with ?Terrorist? leaders speaker series.

?It was totally great to have him here? said Charlie Sands, a Pitzer senior. ?It?s so clear that we need radical change. We need to break our paradigm. The oil companies, and the WTO just run this world, man, and it?s not right.?

Ayers was only the first speaker. Future speakers will include:

    * Timothy McVeigh- the Oklahoma City bomber will deliver an address entitled The Power of Knowledge: How chemistry changed my life, and how it can be the change we need
    * Khalid Sheikh Mohammed- the architect of 9/11 will lecture on Effective Community Organizing: How can you improve communications with your target audience?
    * Osama Bin Laden- the world?s most notorious activist for change, and movement leader will deliver the keynote address of the series Fighting for Social Justice: How will you remake the world we live in?

 

Pitzer College initially had trouble financing the series. ?Certain people were reluctant to fund this project? said visiting professor Bobby Seale. ?We went to KLI (the Kravis Leadership Institute) and they said ?are you f***ing kidding?? but I wasn?t deterred. I know Pitzer students deserve the break out of the prisms of ?rational thought? that the other 4Cs try to impose..?

Senior Administration officials at other colleges were unavailable for comment, though several CMC Government professors were overheard plotting to purchase firearms. Said one anonymous CMC professor ?Times are tough, and there?s a $25 million bounty on Bin Laden.?
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Just like the rest of CMC, the Forum has checked out for a few days. While we take our well-deserved vacation, please enjoy our recent content. We’ll be back in action in a few days– and soon, we’ll announce a new editorial team.

If you’re taking it easy on campus or at home and you’re tired of reading 8:27 Procrastination and ramblings on Claremont weather conditions, may we suggest TED? It’s like the Ath, but better. (And, might we add, excellent prep for Idea Night? **end shameless plug **)

PS: We brought the FlipCam to Cabo…only good can come of this.

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Twenty years from now, many of us will experience a funny sort of deja vu as pictures from our college days come to light for the viewing pleasure and delight of our children. These won’t be the days of old, like the 90’s or early 2000’s, when children had only the dozen or so fuzzy pictures of parents with fro’s, bell bottom jeans, and tie-dye T-shirts to try to recreate their parent’s lives circa 1970. Our kids will have a bounty of pictures and videos to choose from as they reflect on the legitimacy of our authority.

Along with the awkward questions from the kids, there will moments of pure hilarity as we reassemble with CMC classmates and browse pictures from a trip to Cabo or watch a video of freshman year bloopers. Memories that would have gathered dust and faded ten years ago can now, for better or worse, be easily immortalized. A great way to assemble these memories is through simple video-editing programs.

Now why is a “how to make a movie” post appearing on campus news publication? Because it is fun and important to learn the basics of movie creation. Tufts University thinks so too; their application process now calls for an optional YouTube video supplement. If you need to make a quick movie to promote an event, make a freshman (or senior?) year blooper reel, or put together a travel highlights video, you can. Tools like iMovie and Windows Movie Maker are too fun and too easy not to take advantage of.

So I am not actually going to teach you how to use iMovie â
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The Men’s Basketball and Swimming teams, as well as the Women’s Swimming team took home their respective SCIAC championships for the second year in a row. Although a spirited run brought the Athenas baskeball team to the SCIAC playoffs, they were unable to take down #1 Occidental in their semifinal game.The Men’s Swimming team won their third straight SCIAC title, defeating Redlands by over 200 points. Andrew Fevery CM ‘13 won the 1 and 3 meter diving SCIAC titles. Joining him on the top podium were Austin Hallett CM ‘12 who won the 100 butterfly. The 800 free relay team of Blake Weber CM ‘13, Jeff McNerney CM ‘12, Andrew Cosentino CM ‘11, and Stephen Andron CM ‘10 also set a 25 year old CMS record.

The Women’s Swimming team beat Redlands by over 100 points to win their eighth straight SCIAC championship, the third longest active SCIAC winning streak next to the women’s and men’s track teams. On the first day, he Athenas team of Jenni Rinker SC ‘11, Elica Sharifnia CM ‘12, Katie Bilotti CM ‘12 and Emma Jones CM ‘12 started the night by winning the 200 free relay and followed by closing the same night with a victory in 400 medley relay (Rinker, Annie Perizzolo CM ‘11, Bilotti, Jones.) On the second day of competition, Athenas also took gold, and set a CMS and SCIAC record in the 200 medley relay (Elsa Cheng CM ‘13, Perizzolo, Bilotti and Jones). In addition, Emily Ott CM ‘13 won the 400 individual medley, Perizzolo won the 100 breaststroke, and Bilotti won the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke, setting meet records in both swims. On the final day CMS cemeted their victory with wins from Whitney Dawson CM ‘12 in the 1650 free, Tessa Dover CM ‘11 in the 200 back, Perizzolo in the 200 breast and the team of Rinker, Perizzolo, Bilotti, and Jones in the 400 free relay. Dover set a CMS and SCIAC record in the 200 back and Perizzolo set SCIAC meet records in the 200 breast and the 400 free relay. A number of swimmers will move onto NCAA’s and will be previewed in The Forum before the competition.

In the SCIAC final at Ducey Gymnasium on Saturday, two-time SCIAC player of the year Chris Blees was the star, scoring 14 points to go with 6 rebounds and 3 steals, including the final steal and two free throws that clinched the Stag’s victory. Second team All-SCIAC forward Joey Anderson dominated the glass with 13 rebounds, and added 6 points of his own. Connor Faught came up huge off the bench, with 13 points in just 18 minutes of play, including two big threes. Hounded by the Pomona-Pitzer crowd with chants of “Ja-Son”, Jason Toney CM ‘11 was off, shooting just 2 for 10 from the field, but handled the ball well, and led the offense effectively. Toney was also named to the SCIAC first team for his efforts this season. The Stags were unable to continue their run, as they dropped their first round NCAA tournament game to Chapman 58-47.The Stags will have to wait another year to win their first NCAA tournament game.

The women’s basketball team entered the SCIAC tournament, having high hopes, especially after taking Occidental to OT in their previous match up. They played the first thirty minutes with the same confidence, rolling to a 10 point lead on top seed Oxy. A back and forth game still had the Athenas with an 59-51 lead with 5:31 remaining, but the Tigers did not back down. They clawed back to even the score at 59-all in the next minute and a half. Occidental then went on a run, and looked like they had the game won in the final minute, up 68-62, but All-SCIAC guard Aria Krumwiede CM ‘12 scored 7 points in the final minute to give the Athenas a possession down 72-69 with eight seconds remaining. Krumwiede again was called upon, but unfortunately her shot fell short, and the Athenas season came to a conclusion.

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In lieu of a real student center, ASCMC and the administration have been mulling ideas to improve Emett Student Center â
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What makes us happy? For me, it’s watching the sunset over the Pacific Ocean, giving hugs to my mom, and taking walks through the neighborhood I grew up in. Those things make me happy, but it is only a transient happiness. Anyone can list the things that make them smile, give them a warm feeling, as I have just done, but what good does one fleeting moment do? To be able to determine the source of true happiness, one must examine the bigger picture: what makes us happy in life?

Of course the pursuit of happiness has been an eternal question, but studying happiness in a measurable, scientific way is currently in vogue. The internet is cluttered with blog posts and research on the subject. Even Facebook is doing a study of its own– measuring Gross National Happiness through our status updates. Our lives have changed drastically in just the last fifty years. Advancements in transportation, communication and day-to-day conveniences have given us an unprecedented ability to access the world. But with all of these new advancements come new choices, and somewhere in the midst of all this new-age connectedness, many wonder if happiness has taken a back seat. But what is happiness and why is the pursuit of it so important?

A post by career blogger Penelope Trunk proposes that the goal of achieving happiness may be overrated. This is a novel thought for me. Trunk upholds that she would rather have an interesting life than a happy one and sets up the two ideals up in opposition to one another. She has lived in both New York City and Madison, WI, and uses the two locations to draw a comparison between living an interesting life and a happy one. Trunk characterizes people from New York as people seeking interesting lives. New York provides the choices necessary to have a diverse and exciting life, and those who choose to live in New York do so because they would rather have a varied life than a happy one. Wisconsin, on the other hand, is the land of contentment. It may not have the limitless opportunities present in the Big Apple, but your average Wisconsinite isn’t looking for that. As Trunk says, “People live in Wisconsin because the lifestyle is easy– family is here, personal history is here, things generally are fine. Nothing is fine in NYC. It’s very challenging. Every single day.”

Being from Wisconsin myself, I am used to debunking falsehoods about my home state. I wish I could disagree with what Penelope Trunk said, but her logic rings true. Before you write me off as a simple-minded Midwesterner, however, you should know that I was born in Newport Beach, grew up in Madison, went to boarding school in Massachusetts, and now have returned to California. I have a broad understanding of a multitude of lifestyles but as embarrassing as it is to say, I would forsake an interesting life if, as Trunk suggests, it stood opposed to the possibility of a happy one. Don’t get me wrong, I am exhilarated by the limitless possibilities of the big city, but I also feel a visceral loneliness when presented with such a vast array of forking roads and diverging tunnels.

In our world today, it is impossible to avoid a certain level of “interesting” in our lives. For those like me that choose to pursue happiness, life is a constant struggle to balance decisions with satisfaction. The following video by photographer/designer/producer Ryan Lewis is what inspired me to write this article in the first place; he so accurately depicts the daily conflict between interesting and happiness.

I am continually amazed by iPhone apps, but I would much rather hang out with you than with my iPhone. I would rather see a smile flash across your face than read your measured text messages. There are some things that just cannot be said in 140 characters or less. According to Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, social relationships are the key to happiness. Taking the time to sit down and talk is an invaluable source for human connection and happiness. But there is an even more important kind of social relationship that, depending on who you are, may not seem as obvious in terms of your net joy. I’m talking about sex. It should be noted that when researchers note the monumental effect of sex on one’s happiness, they mean sex with a consistent partner. According to David Blanchflower, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College, “Going from sex once a month to sex once a week creates a big jump in happiness.”

So returning to the question of whether to be an interesting New Yorker or a happy Wisconsinite, I would prefer to be the latter. Alicia Keys and Jay-Z may love their “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of” but I’m not quite convinced. There’s a place in my guileless heart for that Wisconsin happiness and I’m going to continue searching for it.

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What do you get when you cross a thesis defense with a start-up pitch? The CMC Forum is proud to present Idea Night at the Ath on March 25, 2010.

Students are invited to submit papers, projects, or original research for the enjoyment of the CMC community below. Participants and their topics will be selected by a committee of student representatives for uniqueness, interest, and quality. We are looking for interesting arguments on any topic — politics, culture, CMC, etc — and although the content will vary greatly, the form will remain constant: each participant will have 10 minutes, a projector, and a podium.

Presentation skills will be valued equally alongside content. At the end of the event, the audience will be asked to rank the speakers on their interest and persuasiveness, and while everyone will get a token of our appreciation, the winner will get a special prize: Ath VIP Status, including a head table spot at Mitt Romney and your name on the wall. More details regarding the prizes to come.

To get you thinking, here are some ideas (although not necessarily good ones) from our own Carl Peaslee: “Will NASCAR be the sport of the future?” “Who is the bigger nuclear threat, Iran or North Korea?” “Is Ford a better investment than Toyota?” “What does Twilight have to do with the recession?” “How is Star Wars the perfect metaphor for the Obama administration?”

Enter to present your idea using the form below, and be sure to sign up at the Ath for the dinner. Check out who else is going and invite your friends on facebook.

P.S. Everyone who steps up and applies will get a (very CMC) surprise gift.

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India’s a great place to indulge yourself in activities which, for legal, cultural or expense reasons, are not practical to do in the US, like ordering tailored clothes, littering, paying for a shave, trying out vegetarianism, or making it rain. India’s also a great place to blow up an obscene amount of fireworks.

Last weekend was the festival of Holi, a two-day festival around the first full moon in February or March, according to the Hindi calendar. According to legend, the son of the king of demons, Prahlada, was a devotee of Vishnu (a good god), and as you may imagine, this development greatly displeased the king of demons, Hiranyakashipu. After trying and failing numerous times to take his son’s life, including poisoning him, trampling him by elephants and placing him in a room full of deadly snakes, Hiranyakashipu placed Prahlada on his sister’s lap, on top of a burning pyre. The fire burned his sister, Holika, but Prahlada was saved because of his devotion. Today people celebrate the festival Holi with fire and color.

It’s tradition to light bonfires and fireworks the night before Holi, and the collective noise turned our neighborhood into the auditory equivalent of North Philly for the night. We lit some fireworks that sparkled in place, turning our courtyard fluorescent green for ten seconds, and hand-held sticks that made a blue chemical fire, which we danced with until they died out and we’d light a new one. We lit some elaborate fireworks that could have been mistaken for those at your local July 4 party. We also set off some “bombs,” which didn’t light up but did produce a loud gunshot-like noise. We ate, partied, and danced around the bonfire late into the night.

On the morning of Holi, everyone buys packets of beautiful dyed powder and watercolors, and spends the morning throwing colors on everyone else, chaotically. The Day of Color would not be an enjoyable festival for an obsessive-compulsive. The correct way to apply colored powder to someone’s face is to pour some out in each hand, then smear it over the person’s face and hair like your grandma used to do to you when you were six. The other person then does the same to you, and you embrace. If things are going well, you can grab a bucket, add some water and colored dye and pour it on your opposite number. My face changed color from red to blue to purple as the day went on, as did everyone elseâ
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The past week in sports was a tough one. Sure my hometown Dallas Mavericks are the hottest team in basketball, spring training began, CMS won SCIAC in Men’s Basketball, the NHL trade deadline made history, the uncapped NFL era was ushered in, and the New Jersey Nets won two games(!). Yet it still seems difficult to get rid of the bad taste left from Sunday.

With just twenty-five ticks left, on Zach Parise’s beautiful goal off of a rebound, US Hockey tied our neighbors to the north in the gold medal game for men’s hockey only to be outlasted by the Canadians in overtime . I think I am finally coming out of my gold-medal-game coma, but it is probably only because of a certain vandal. Sidney Crosby’s stick and gloves “went missing” after the celebration– something tells me an American pulled off this cunning heist. Nothing like stealing priceless memorabilia to avenge a loss. Even if it wasn’t a patriot who managed to steal the dreaded Canadian’s gear, the Olympics were not a complete loss for the American skaters.

No, I am not talking about the silver lining of the second place medal or even the moral victory of doing better than expected (Team USA was a long shot to medal at all). No. I am talking about how cool USA goaltender Ryan Miller looked in that mask of his. Featuring a tatted and ripped Uncle Sam and a menacing bald eagle, the words “Miller Time” (which, the IOC made him cover up because they claimed it was advertisement) and “Matt Man,” a tribute to Miller’s cousin Matt Schoals, who died from bone marrow transplant complications in 2007, Miller’s mask was easily the coolest of the Olympic masks, with honorable mention to Swiss goaltender Jonas Miller’s for looking like someone taped on some pictures printed on computer paper.

Miller, the goaltender for the Buffalo Sabres, is only one of many who seem to be expressing themselves in between the pipes these days. NHL goaltenders tend to have a little more style than their Olympic counterparts…or at least what they lack in style they make up for in…creativity? Most goalies have illustrations related to the team or town in which they play (perhaps this is contractual?), but some are more expressive. Avalanche goaltender and Slovakian Peter Budaj has a Slovakian version of The Simpsons character Ned Flanders on the backside of his mask. Marty Bironâ
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“Lupe! Lupe! Lupe! Lupe! Lupe!” Thanks to ASCMC, Friday night was a big night for 5C hip-hop fans. Anthem, DJ Asoyolo (Austin Soldner CMC ‘09), B.O.B. and Lupe Fiasco each took turns blasting beats and spitting rhymes to roughly 2500 cheering students at Bridges Auditorium.As Lupe Fiasco kicked off his world tour, this photographer fought security guards to get the best shots for the Forum. All photos from the event can be found here.

Enjoy this selection:

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The Housing Committee met Thursday to revise the room draw system for the student apartments, hoping to simplify and rationalize the complex system governing who can and cannot land a so-called Senior Apartment. As Director of Residential Life Fid Castro explained, the administration wanted to make the process fairer for students who are behind on credits, while preserving the apartments as a sort of “reward” for seniors. Although the committee considered more dramatic changes (and wants to leave them on the table for future consideration) it settled on a fairly modest simplification of the lotto process.

In the past, students applied for apartments in groups of four, entering a weighted lotto in with each student was assigned a point value based on his or her number of credits. This system divided students by semester as well as year, making it nearly impossible to get an apartment if you were a semester behind (or even one class short of completing a semester) without having another member of your apartment balance you out by being a semester ahead.

Under the upcoming system, which the administration plans to announce soon, there will be no more arcane points totals and unforgiving margins of error. Students will simply be sophomores, juniors, or seniors, aligning the system with that used by the registrar’s office and making it rather more generous in the process. This system will allow students who are behind academically, even to the point where they will be December graduates the year after their proper graduation date to be counted as members of their entering class for the apartment lotto, benefiting students who took a semester off or otherwise ended up behind in credits.

The committee also considered a scheme in which each member of a group would be assigned an individual lotto number and the group could use the highest of them in consideration for an apartment but it was poorly received by the Deans and abandoned.

The new College Park apartments will be integrated with the revised lotto system.

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There's no excuse to fly the flag upside down