CLAREMONT INDEPENDENT VOLUME XXI, NUMBER 1 MARCH 2012
CLAREMONT INDEPENDENT table of contents. Editor in Chief Evan Lind Publisher Michael Koenig Layout Editors Lynsey Chediak Tess Sewell
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CMC AND THE ALLURE OF PRETTY NUMBERS
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RAGE IN THE CAGE CANCELLATION: A HYPOTHESIS
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THOUGHTS WHILE RUNNING THROUGH COLLEGE & LIFE
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SOPA, PIPA, AND THE AFTERMATH
Publisher Emerita Justine Desmond
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THE STOLEN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Web Editor Parth Padgoankar
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A CULTURE OF UNSAFETY
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SCRIPPS COLLEGE, MEET CONSERVATISM
Managing Editor Will Mitchell Associate Editors Marina Giloi Christina Noriega Editors Emeriti Hannah Burak John-Clark Levin
Illustrators Heidi Carlson Aliza Kellerman
Hannah Burak, CMC ‘13
Amelia Evrigenis, CMC ‘15
Charles C. Johnson, Guest Writer Matt Taylor, CMC ‘14
Chris Gaarder, CMC ‘15
Michael Koenig, PO ‘12
Christina Noriega, Scripps ‘13
Staff Writers Eliot Adams, Janet Alexander, Travis Athougies, Joanna Chavez, Breanna Deutsch, Amelia Evrigenis, Aiden Fahnestock, Chris Gaarder, Paul Jeffrey, Linden Schult, Jason Soll, Colin Spence, Matt Taylor, Catherine Tung
© Friends of the Claremont Independent. All rights reserved.
campus news
CMC AND THE ALLURE OF PRETTY NUMBERS Hannah Burak
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Editor Emerita
In 2011, Claremont McKenna College broke the top ten in U.S. News and World Report’s College Rankings. In 2012, Claremont McKenna College revealed that it had been manipulating SAT score data submitted to U.S. News since 2005. Only the latter brought news reporters and cameras to our campus. For a school that, only a year ago, was considering the addition of an ethics requirement, the administration’s official response to the actions and subsequent resignation of Richard Vos has been rather soft. In a carefully worded open letter to the CMC community, President Gann explained that SAT scores of entering freshmen had been manipulated “generally by 10-20 points.” Lacking any of the shock or condemnation observed by alumni and the student body, we find no apology—not even indignation— at the prospect of what this kind of behavior reveals about our school and the value we place on a CMC education. The truth is that numbers have eclipsed learning as the measure of our success. It’s easy to see how the methodology of U.S. News and World Report’s ranking system orders our academic experience at CMC. Admissions selectivity makes up 15% of a U.S. News ranking. SAT/ACT scores comprise half of that category according to U.S. News’ methodology. Another favorite statistic of CMC’s—ranking in the top 10% of one’s high school class—makes up an additional 40% of the selectivity ranking. Students have adapted to the homage we pay to rankings. U.S. News considers nineteen students or less a small class size—the same cap placed on most CMC classes. It is well-advised to take a popular class in the spring, when U.S. News does not do its evaluations, and the caps on class size are, well, flexible. Rankings have been the obsession of our president since her inauguration in 1999. President Gann’s appeal to alumni in the Fall 2003 CMC Magazine projects the vision of ascendance in rankings onto potential donors: A thriving Annual Fund […] plays an important role in advancing the reputation of CMC, including the U.S. News & World Report college rankings […] we have set an important new goal to increase alumni participation [which] will place us within the range of Williams, Swarthmore, and Amherst colleges—the top three liberal arts institutions as ranked by U.S. News—but will also secure a position that is superior to every national university in the country except Princeton.
It is very clear that President Gann cares about results— just not the right ones. Numbers attract the stereotypical CMCer—a hyper-rational student of economics or government. The “results” of the past ten decades are statistically seductive. Our admittance rate has plummeted to 14%. Gann has secured impressive gifts from Robert Day and Henry Kravis. Our U.S. News and World Report ranking among liberal arts colleges was ninth last year.
The truth is that numbers have eclipsed learning as the measure of our success.
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These numbers mean that perhaps fewer people give us pitying looks, assuming that Claremont McKenna is a community college. Or perhaps our peer-group is somewhat more selective than last year’s. We are right to care about results, but SAT scores are the results of high school, not college. Breaking into the top ten says absolutely nothing about what CMC students learn, their preparation for future leadership roles, or how much they can attribute their great success to their education. U.S. News and World Report’s rating system does not include a single variable that accounts for post-graduation success in career, admission to graduate school, performance on LSAT, GMAT, or GRE, or satisfaction with the education received. The only variable that might be construed to account for the actual education gained at a liberal arts college involves not the evaluation of core requirements, courses, or professor effectiveness, but evaluations of “academic reputation” from high school counselors and peer administrations. It seems that CMC has fallen victim to its own vanity. Seduced by the aesthetics—rankings, fundraising—the administration has devoted itself to appearance rather than substance. But if “civilization prospers with commerce”, not beauty, then CMC might devote itself to the education of its students rather than the appeal of its rank. CI
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campus news
RAGE IN THE CAGE CANCELLATION: A HYPOTHESIS by Amelia Evrigenis
Staff Writer
First things first. Let me assure you that in writing this article, defending drunken dodge ball is my top priority. On to the good stuff. At 6:48 PM on Friday, February rd 3 , Claremont McKenna students received a devastating email from William Brown, CMC’s Social Affairs Chair. The e-mail announced the cancellation of CMC’s highly acclaimed bi-annual Rage in the Cage event. What’s Rage in the Cage, you ask? It is a drunken dodge ball tournament on a plot of North Quad’s beautiful grass enclosed by a chain-link fence. Thirty-two teams dressed in home-made uniforms compete for first prize while intoxicat-
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Now that there’s attention on us, we want to make sure that drunk people don’t do anything stupid at Rage in the Cage that will make us look even worse.
ed bystanders admire their ability (or inability) to dodge and throw balls while inebriated. CMC freshman Dante Toppo, who competed for the “Italian Stallions” in last semester’s Rage in the Cage, offers his reflections: “The Italian Stallions employed a strategy of ‘Stay Sober-er’ and it served us well into the semi-finals. Our all-freshman team held our own against hordes of upperclassman bros, and it was this mental toughness that earned us a respectable third place.” The Italian Stallions wore traditional Italian garb: black boxers, a white v-neck, and a ‘stache. And let me tell you, they looked good. Unfortunately, the Italian Stallions were not afforded the opportunity to “go for the gold” this semester. Brown’s cancellation e-mail explained that the Dean of Students Office cancelled Rage in the Cage due to the safety concerns of combining alcohol and dodge ball. But wait—hasn’t this drunken dodge ball fest happened
before, multiple times? Yet safety concerns haven’t been an issue until now. When’s now? “Now,” is February 3rd, 2012, five days after the unveiling of CMC’s SAT scores scandal. Brown’s cancellation email reads, “It is with deep regret that I inform you that tomorrow night’s Rage in the Cage event will be cancelled. This directive was issued by Dean Spellman and delivered to me by Dean Nauls earlier this afternoon. It is unfortunate that the Dean of Students Office has taken such a hard stance on this highly anticipated bi-annual tradition. The rationale behind the cancellation is that alcohol in combination with dodgeball creates too dangerous of a situation. Even after I conceded to run Rage in the Cage as a dry event, Dean Spellman was unwilling to negotiate or discuss this matter personally with me…” I translate the “rationale behind the cancellation” like so: Five days ago CMC got busted for lying about its SAT scores to improve its rankings. Now that there’s attention on us, we want to make sure that drunk people don’t do anything stupid at Rage in the Cage that will make us look even worse. I’m just saying, there has to be a connection here. It’s hard to blame CMC for protecting its reputation while in such a vulnerable, exposed position. However, if the motives behind cancelling Rage in the Cage were indeed related to the SAT scandal, the administration essentially punished CMC students for the actions of an administrator, and that’s just unfair. CMC students didn’t take this cancellation lightly. Toppo expressed the disappointment of the Italian Stallions: “We fully expected to bring home the first this semester and our whole team was devastated when the tournament was canceled. I ask you, how am I supposed to rage without a cage? It would just be unsafe.” Fortunately, there will be a future cage in which to rage. When questioned later, Brown explained that Rage in the Cage will indeed be resurrected. He said, “The cancellation of Rage in the Cage resulted primarily from a miscommunication within the Dean of Students Office regarding the registration status of Rage in the Cage. I can assure you that Rage in the Cage will happen again, albeit with a slightly different layout and most likely without alcohol.” “Without alcohol”—now that’s a new concept for CMC. But like I said, defending drunken dodge ball is my top priority. Regrettably, Rage in the Cage will never be the same. CI
campus news
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THOUGHTS WHILE RUNNING THROUGH COLLEGE & LIFE Charles C. Johnson
Guest Writer
Hannah Burak, our editrice emerita, has asked me to write to you about what I wish I had known when I was a student. “When I was a student.” It has been seven months since I left campus. And though toward the end I was counting down the days, it still feels odd to write in the past tense. I’ve learned since that everything will come to pass. Everything does. You will most assuredly ignore the counsel I have to offer here. I would have. This is how youth is. There’s bought learning and learnt learning. I’ve spent a lot of time buying the learning through experience that I wish I had had the wisdom to learn from example. A few months in the real world have taught me this: The world doesn’t care what you are going to do. It cares only what you have done. It cares a lot more about what you have not done. For many of you the biggest decision you will ever make was to go to Claremont McKenna. It wasn’t much of a decision. We don’t really let young people make decisions anymore. Indeed if our country has anything of a national motto these days it is this: Everyone goes to college. In our days, it’s something of a cliché, but speaking truthfully I never really wanted to go to college. I certainly didn’t want to go to Claremont McKenna College. I wanted to go to Harvard or rather, I wanted to go to the Harvard you read about in the Harvard catalogue or maybe see in The Social Network. Harvard had other plans. I planned accordingly. A friend with ties to the admissions office had urged me to reapply—that I would be accepted at last!—but as I left for Los Angeles with everything I owned in two duffel bags, I knew I would never come back. It was painful to have to explain to friends and family where Claremont McKenna was, that it was a good school, and that I had turned down other, supposedly better (read: higher-ranked) schools to go there instead. Before long I just accepted that it was Claremont Mechanics School. Everyone goes to college, after all, so it might just as well have been. I’ve learned that where you go to school matters less than what you happened to learn or what you happened to teach yourself. I arrived on campus in a hurry and hurried through it. I was— I am—a young man in a hurry. I literally ran or biked everywhere I went. I felt, and still feel, as if I didn’t have a moment to catch my breath. The more hours I had, the more I could spend on the things I loved, I thought when I had time to think. If I ran through college fast enough, my real life could begin. And oh, how I wanted it to begin, just how it would I wasn’t sure. I thought I wanted to go to law school—everyone now goes to grad school, too!—but before long realized I
wasn’t suited to it. The problem with law school—and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise — is that after contracting all of that debt you might actually wind up being a lawyer. You might think that you like arguing or debating. You do go to CMC, let’s not forget, but sometimes the person you want to argue the most with is yourself. One side can never win without the other losing. I argued with myself about the wisdom of continuing the relationships I had left either behind or in limbo. Freshman year I carried pictures (and not much else) in my wallet of the girlfriend I wanted to transfer to come be with me. I didn’t know it at the time but sometimes the worst thing that can happen is to get exactly what you want. My then-girlfriend did transfer—only to break up with me a few weeks later and, some two years later, falsely accuse me of sexual harassment a few days before graduation. And yes I had to get a lawyer to defend myself against the dishonesty. Bought learning comes at a high price. Our age, our generation, and certainly our college, are too concerned with what is legal than what is right. The culture at CMC, for all its profession of leadership, is a very insular place that doesn’t enjoy those who break from its forms. Those who do suffer — and often dearly. “Leaders in the making” should, more aptly be called leaders on the make. When the offers from the investment banks or the consulting firms come rolling in, we all wonder who is making what and where. We forget that our motto isn’t just about commerce, (or, as often the case, a harsh reaction against its excesses in the form of secular good works like Teach for America.) It’s about cultivating civilization, which is to say it’s found in cultivating ourselves. To try to be more moral, more refined, more ethical, more humane, more manly. I now believe civilization prospers more from conviction than from commerce, more from courage than from lucre. Greed may be good, but envy and the love of money are still sins, notwithstanding the desire to make them public policy. Of course it isn’t easy to be convicted in your own mind, though it is rather easy to be convicted by your peers for thinking for yourself. There is no appeal from this conviction for the simple reason that the court of public opinion is far harsher than even the most biased J-Board. But try to be courageous, anyway. Genuine conviction terrifies those who live for snark and glib. They can cut you down. They hate you because you
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national news
SOPA, PIPA, AND THE AFTERMATH
Matt Taylor
Staff Writer
Have you heard of the famous CMC alum Ashwin Navin? Mr. Navin CMC ’99 helped create the Claremont Independent in 1996. However, it may surprise you that being a founding member of the CI is not why he’s famous. Mr. Navin was the president and co-founder of BitTorrent, a file-sharing program in which you upload or download content (usually movies, TV shows, music). BitTorrent, along with most file-sharing programs and websites, has been accused of being a haven for the illegal distribution of works under copyright. Copyright infringement is a serious crime. Nevertheless, America and the rest of the world seem to have embraced a culture of internet theft. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the music industry alone loses $12.5 billion in yearly revenue due to piracy, and only 37% of music in 2011 was legally acquired by U.S consumers. The IFPI, the international equivalent of the RIAA, claimed in 2008 that only 5%of all music downloads in were legal.
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America and the rest of the world seem to have embraced a culture of internet theft...the music industry alone loses $12.5 billion in yearly revenue due to piracy, and only 37% of music in 2011 was legally acquired by US consumers.
I agree that laws need to be created to control this problem, but bills like SOPA/PIPA would do much more harm than good. If Congress had passed the bills SOPA and PIPA it would have allowed the US government to shutdown websites that displayed illegal links to or download buttons for copyrighted content. That means YouTube, Twitter, and essentially any site
with a comment box would have been at the whim of the US Justice Department without any legal right to protect itself. Yes, that means the government could shut down every college student’s beloved Facebook without the due process of law. However, the author of SOPA is not, to put it politely, computer savvy. Senator Lamar Smith, the sponsor of the SOPA bill, illegally used a copyrighted picture on his own official website. So, under SOPA, his entire site should be removed (yes, this actually happened). Obviously Senator Smith doesn’t understand the Internet’s architecture, and therefore does not appreciate all the implications of legislation like SOPA. Because the government only has the power to remove a website’s URL (e.g. facebook.com) the site could still be accessed by simply typing in its IP address (e.g. http:// 69.63.176.11/), thus solving nothing. Here’s a simple analogy to sum it all up: Instead of closing down and arresting everyone in a crack house, it’s like changing all the street signs so that it’s much more difficult to find the crack house. But it’s still there, and if you try hard enough, you can find it. It also confuses other people just trying to find buildings near the crack house. Fortunately, Congress came to its senses when it sheepishly announced that it was withdrawing the two bills in the wake of the massive tidal wave of protests coordinated by Wikipedia, Reddit, and Google. For the moment, it may seem as if our internet freedom is once again protected. Wrong. Many SOPA/PIPA opponents were confused and even shocked when they learned about the shutdown of Megaupload. Under the PRO-IP Act, the U.S Justice Department removed the site, indicted the owners in New Zealand, and seized millions of dollars in assets all under unproven accusations that the site deliberately aided copyright infringement. The very power many feared SOPA/PIPA would give the US government, the power to seize and shut down websites based solely on accusations with no trial, is a power it already possesses and, obviously, is willing to exercise against even the world’s largest sites. However, I agree that Kim Dotcom, the CEO of the Megaupload empire, is probably a criminal. In addition to the most recent charges of copyright infringement, racketeering, and money laundering, he previously had been charged with computer fraud, insider trading, and embezzlement. As seen with the Megaupload incident, the U.S government and media corporations already have many legal ways to fight internet piracy in and outside the U.S. Several anti-piracy bills have been passed over the last two decades; for example
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opinion
THE STOLEN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM Chris Gaarder
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Staff Writer
Piracy provides such a short path to pleasure; one can see why it tempts many. I want to listen to this song. I download it. Bits of data are instantaneously transferred from one location to another. I listen. This infantile state in which our wants are satisfied with negligible effort, mental or physical, is fantastic, but it should also be troubling. The Freudian Id reigns supreme in this system, where actions occur with such rapidity that our moral Superego hasn’t the opportunity to step in and raise a red flag. A process so rapid as downloading pirated materials does not have time to enter into the right-wrong equation. Anyway, why should some 60- or 70-year-old politician who doesn’t know Linux from a lynx have a say in what I do in my domain, in my worldwide web? The obvious answer, the one that we are not willing to admit, is that an octogenarian comprehends stealing no less than a twenty year-old. Hopefully, any 5C student would say that stealing CDs or DVDs is wrong. However, taking the same content from the net is either flatly denied as immoral, or more often is justified by hiding under a group identity and saying, “everybody’s doing it.” What a great rationalization. Somehow though, in the real world, that does not quite cut it, or at least it should not. Around the country, the law has been flouted. At the Claremont Colleges a few years ago, student-organized and maintained databases containing thousands pirated movies were threatened when the issue was raised to IT departments. I’m not knowledgeable about how to pirate, but as these systems saw widespread usage, it mustn’t have been too complicated an operation, nor was there the social pushback to discourage these setups after legal and moral codes did not suffice. So what? So the movie studios bring in a little less money. So the music corporations make a bit less profit. As one Scripps first-year said, “If it’s like Beyoncé, then I don’t feel that bad [about pirating].” Nope. Why is piracy immoral? There’s a lot more at stake than padding the pockets of the already wealthy. On the web exists a serious profit potential in distribution that producers lose out on due to piracy. Sure, we don’t see their storefronts in our everyday, but the Amazons and Netflixes hire real people, with real lives, and pay out licensing fees to real studios that also employ people who would probably prefer to remain employed, who don’t have the job security of a Beyoncé.
As one Scripps firstyear said, “If it’s like Beyoncé, then I don’t feel that bad [about pirating].
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Now that I’m done preaching, here are some solutions. First: take a break from piracy. Go a week or two, and don’t pirate anything new. See if you can last a week within the law. Use the radio on your alarm clock or Pandora. Use Hulu or other free, legal services. Borrow DVDs from the HonnoldMudd. Read. If you succeed, second, look into getting in on the next big thing in digital media: subscription services. But Netflix, isn’t that so expensive? Not really, just $8 a month. Spotify runs between $5 and $10 a month, and is free when used on a limited basis. Getting in on this trend early on, you wouldn’t need to consider starting much more expensive services like cable when you are on your own. Today, you could invest in useful hardware like the Roku box and have it for years to come. Convince your family to make the switch to all-web-based media consumption, and allow your parents to reap the savings by cancelling your cable or satellite subscription. Subscribe to Hulu Plus rather than Tivo. If you can obtain a job on campus, or do odd jobs during the summer, it shouldn’t be impossible to scrounge up $18 a month for Netflix and Spotify. And if you and your roommate join together, you cut that cost in half. Not too unreasonable, I’d say. For a cheaper alternative to iTunes to purchase tracks, try Amazon’s online music marketplace. After your purchase, you can then import these songs to your iTunes or stream them online. Around your birthday, when people ask you what to get, you can say Amazon gift cards, and they’ll think you are going to buy books with them, but in reality you buy music. You help support that company’s razor-thin profit margin at the same time. And you could always put that toward buying textbooks, but I mean, who does that, right? (I joke, but in 5 or 10 years, I bet this joke will be prescient).
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opinion Michael Koenig
A CULTURE OF UNSAFETY Publisher
A little over three years ago, during the winter of 2009, Pomona alum Sheri Sangji died as a result of a laboratory fire at UCLA. She had graduated in 2008, and after a summer at a pharmaceutical company, she moved on to a gap year of research with organic chemist Patrick Harran. After a few weeks of laboratory work, she was fatally injured when she pulled out the plunger to a syringe she was using. The substance in the syringe, t-butyllithium, is a chemical that ignites upon contact with air. Sangji succumbed to her injuries eighteen days later, and a few months ago the Los Angeles County district attorney filed three felony charges against Harran and the University of California Regents for willfully violating OSHA standards. On top of the OSHA fines they have already paid (upwards of $30,000), Harran faces four and a half years in prison and UCLA is facing $4.5 million in potential fines. This is the first time that a public research lab has been charged with felony violations of the law. This tragedy should be a reminder of how easy it is to abdicate responsibility when there are safety nets, and about how devastating the consequences can be. Why did Sangji die? In a 95-page report Brian Baudendistel, a special investigator for OSHA, listed the systematic failures of lab safety at UCLA. A dispassionate look at the evidence will convince anyone that something was wrong: no one was required to wear lab coats, inadequate tools were used for the procedure, no officially documented safety training was provided for Sangji, and she was only taught the technique that caused her death once by example before using it. While Sangji’s failure to wear a fire-retardant lab coat contributed to this accident, it was not a failure unique to Sangji’s case. Moreover, while the techniques Sangji used were incorrect (she tried to fill the syringe she was using too close to the top, used too short a tip, and reused the syringe twice), they were not necessarily doomed to fail. This procedure had been conducted similarly in that lab before, and Harran’s not correcting her does not necessarily make him criminally negligent or willfully irresponsible. While it is unlikely that Sangji was shown the technical recommendations for the chemical, that was and continues to be a problem common to many laboratories. While these shortcomings were grave, and led to Sangji’s death, they were merely symptoms of a far more serious problem. Sangji’s death was the product of a culture of irresponsibility, a culture in which scientists across the nation were complicit. What this culture is and whether it still exists is a matter of vigorous debate. So who was responsible? This is a tough question to an-
In reflection, it is easy to simply blame the bureaucracy, but we must also bear in mind that this is a reminder for personal responsibility.
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swer in cases of negligence, and the evidence indicates several major abdications of responsibility. There were failings at a national level, as many institutions did not prioritize lab safety; there were failings at an institutional level, as UCLA’s oversight of labs was ineffectual; there were failings at a professional level, as Professor Harran ignored his legal mandate to ensure his employee’s safety and promote proper technique; and there were failings at a personal level, as Sangji was not motivated to explore the potential risks of what she was doing. Unfortunately, when failures on multiple levels align, a person will be injured. Science has reported on incidents at universities in Texas Tech, Dartmouth and dozens of other institutions. UCLA is not the only university that has fallen short on lab safety. Those charged with watching over safety at institutions also failed their mandate. The law is clear in stating that institutions and principal investigators are responsible for lab safety, neither of them did their job at UCLA. The department at UCLA charged with lab safety is the office for Environment, Health and Safety (EH&S). This office was powerless at the time of Sangji’s death. The department manager in charge of lab inspection—William Peck—freely admitted that reports filed about laboratory violations were “basically recommendations.” That is because EH&S had no actual authority to correct problems in labs, and repeated problems just generated a stack of reports. The only way Peck could bounce a problem higher up was by bringing it to his boss informally, which he did only once in over 6 years. When pushed on the issue of personal protective equipment (PPE) like lab coats, Peck admitted that they simply didn’t care about that sort of thing. As for
opinion principal investigators, Peck also made clear that UCLA was making no effort to confirm that professors were aware of Federal and California law. Peck said the professors didn’t wear lab coats. If the professors don’t wear lab coats, why would the postdoctoral fellows? If the postdoctoral fellows don’t wear lab coats, why would the graduate students and technicians? After Sangji’s death, UCLA led by example in reforming lab safety. EH&S at UCLA is now serious business, and random lab inspections with real consequences for noncompliance are the norm. In reflection, it is easy to simply blame the bureaucracy, but we must also bear in mind that this is a reminder for personal responsibility. What is less clear is whether this lesson is resonating with individuals and with the schools in Claremont. After the incident, Pomona College almost immediately instituted a “lab coats always required” policy. Harvey Mudd and Joint Sciences, however, do not have such a policy. Even walking the halls at Pomona, a student can look into labs and see students wearing sandals and lacking lab coats. Three years is a long time for a college, three quarters of the people here when Sangji died are gone, and not one of us students knew her as a classmate. Institutional memory is short. I have been a Molecular Biology major for nearly four years now, and even I have lapses (I am only going to be in the lab for two minutes, I don’t need to change into close toed shoes…). Lab coat rules make sense, but complying with the policy soon feels like a chore. People will begin to rationalize when and when not to follow that chore. They forget that even the tamest of biology labs contain ethanol, glass and heat sources. These are recipes for a fire, and just such a fire severely injured a UCLA student in a biology mere weeks before Sangji’s death. Any laboratory is a dangerous place, and personal safety starts with personal responsibility. CI
Agree? Disagree? Write to editor@claremontindependent.com
and we’ll print your letter and a response in the next issue!
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Thoughts while running through college & life, cont. from page 5 by Charles C. Johnson love something and they love nothing. Cynics fail because they never really try. Aristotle provides a definition of courage: the mean between fear and recklessness. If you are like me, you often bounce between the two. Fear of the big test. Fear of life after college. Fear of rejection. Fear of trying to be loved. Others enjoyed the initial merriness that comes with recklessness, wondering: How much can I really drink? How many women can I sleep with? Please remember, while you are experimenting on yourself, that there is no control to this experiment. If you dose too much, you might just not wake up. If you sleep around too much, your physical or spiritual self will suffer. Work won’t set you free. Only you can be free. Luckily you do have a head start: the liberal arts are, after all, the arts that make men free. But it is easy to get distracted thinking you can purchase the good life at the bargain counter or that you can get a good liberal education just by doing your homework. There is always a limit. And you too are limited, though for many of you this will seem an abstraction, you will quickly learn that it is one of life’s great lessons. No matter how hard you work there will always be more work to do, if not in the office place then around the family dinner table. And believe me relationships are work. Fortunately, you will never be as successful as you are in your dreams; you will never be as inadequate as you are in your nightmares. You must content yourself to be somewhere in the middle, just as most of us muddle through. You can find your way if you have directions and goals, but oftentimes life will jumble you up again just because. The waking world teaches you your limits. Some of us learned our limits the hard way, too. But remember that this too shall pass. In my view, that is the best saying there ever was. It reminds you to be humble in success, manly in defeat. The things that do not pass quickly are love and good works. So, find someone and something to love. And work hard. Work very, very hard. Run fast. But pause to think. I wish I had. CI
Charles C. Johnson was an editor at The Claremont Independent and author of Coolidge: Then and Now (Encounter, 2012).
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speaker review
SCRIPPS COLLEGE, MEET CONSERVATISM
Christina Noriega
Associate Editor
Every spring, Scripps College hosts its Malott Public Affairs Program, a speaker series aimed at facilitating debate by bringing politically conservative speakers to a predominantly liberal campus. The speakers in the six year history of this program have been distinguished not only by their backgrounds and opinions, but also by the greater college community’s reception of them. The first student-nominated speaker, Ben Stein, spoke in Scripps’ Garrison Theater on Thursday, February 9th. Throughout the talk, he focused on such themes as the prosperity and progress of America, the national budget and growing debt, and the education crisis. Stein spoke at length about our standard of living in the
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Though the reception of audience members was mixed, Stein’s talk seemed to promote the mission of this speaker series: that we hear viewpoints that are truly underrepresented at the Colleges.
United States, and how far we’ve come as a nation in making opportunity more universally available. As recently as in his lifetime, segregation of schools and buses still existed in the DC area. He further recalled that some of the smartest people in his graduating class were women, who could usually aspire to nothing higher than secretarial work. While he did not deny that there is still work to be done, he refused to understate the progress that has been made by the United States, a needed reminder that there is still much of which to be proud in our nation. In speaking about the credit catastrophe and resulting recession, he touched on Lehman Brothers’ failure and described the danger of “Weimar-like” inflation as America continues
to spend. He stated that eventually default will be inevitable (either explicitly or default simply by inflation); for he believes our current debt is simply too large to pay off. The best way to turn this economy around, he continued, was with one hard-working person at a time. We have done well in the past because we’ve welcomed all innovative ideas, he explained, “we need lots of different people doing lots of things, many of which don’t have to do with money.” This led to a general discussion about our education system and the lack of motivation many people have in the workforce. Stein spoke extensively about the value of hard work, not only for its concrete results but in the development of one’s character. He described this crisis of motivation in education and the workforce as a “legacy of racism” in urban areas and a “national disgrace.” He said that the wealth of the nations comes from peoples’ minds, and until the population in its entirety recognizes this, he anticipated no bottom to our educational problem. Citing, as an example, contestants from his VH1 game show “America’s Most Smartest Model,” he stated his belief that the wealth of our nation is slowly vanishing. In the question and answer section of the event, Stein was confronted about his views in the allotment of money toward education. He stated his belief that more money spent per student does not necessarily equal greater achievement and that allotting more money to lower-achieving districts is not going to be a permanent solution to the greater problem: a lack of enthusiasm and motivation for learning. The student asking the question was not satisfied with this answer, approaching Mr. Stein almost as if he did not care about those in less-privileged schools. While Stein certainly seemed to be at a loss as to what could be done to serve such students, it does not seem fair to say that he did not care about them or their future. As he put it, “having high speed internet in every classroom” will not make much of difference in learning. If students want to learn, they will find a way to learn; and if they don’t, it takes more than money to make them want to. Even in Beverly Hills, he stated, some students simply don’t want to learn. Stein acknowledged that change in education is necessary, but he believed it was going to come from a place other than more money. Not all the questioning was so heated, however. Even other critical questions were more inquisitive than anything, facilitating the overall mission of the Malott Public Affairs Program to promote dialogue. Other people asked about Stein’s opinion of Nixon as a “peacemaker” in light of the Pen-
speaker review tagon Papers scandal, and military actions taken in Cambodia and Chile. Stein argued that such actions were necessary and ultimately yielded good results for the people. Stein went onto describe Nixon’s belief that no person should be denied healthcare. Rather than revamping the whole system, however, Nixon had proposed to simply send checks to each qualifying person, allowing them to choose and buy their own insurance. Though his talk was called “Dark Days in America,” Stein’s tone was optimistic. In response to a question about personal investments, he supported the idea of index funds, stating that low-cost, broad investments were a profitable option for the average person. In regard to the economy, he said that this year is off to a great start with a buoyant stock market and corporate profits doing well despite lingering uncertainties. He did not conclude before recognizing the military, “the real stars,” telling a touching story of an Afghanistan veteran who was researching business schools no less than two hours after his leg had been amputated. Stein acknowledged that every nation faces problems, and that it’s going to take work to continue improving upon America’s greatness. Though the reception of audience members was mixed, Stein’s talk seemed to promote the mission of this speaker series: that we hear viewpoints that are truly underrepresented at the Colleges, and ask rightly-motivated questions in critiquing and learning. The perspectives offered in the Malott Public Policy Program over the years have represented valid viewpoints held in the world beyond our Claremont bubble and, therefore, are at the very least worthy of thoughtful and critical consideration. CI
Stolen elephant in the room, cont. from page 7
SOPA, PIPA, and the aftermath, cont. from page 6
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by Matt Taylor the No Electronic Theft Act (1997), the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998), and the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act (2008). In addition to laws, the U.S is a member of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a multi-national agreement establishing international standards for intellectual property rights. This organization is dedicated to enforcing internet copyright laws globally. Yet, even with all this government policy, internet piracy is still a big problem. A recent study done by the FBI shows that removing Megaupload from the web has done little to reduce internet piracy as people are now using Megaupload’s competitors like Rapidshare and Mediafire. There are plenty of ways to combat internet piracy without SOPA and PIPA or any other government law. And even if a bill like SOPA or PIPA passed, internet users will still find creative ways to circumvent the restrictions. Companies need to find their own solutions to truly rid the internet of copyright infringement through competition. The digital music service Spotify is a great example. In Sweden, the piracy of music has dropped 25 percent in the past two years since the start of Spotify.. Even the pirate-friendly blog TorrentFreak pointed out that, “the spike in popularity for streaming music is largely due to the fact that legal services, like Spotify, have become cheaper and simpler.” Media and entertainment companies should stop wasting money on lobbyists to get the government involved, and instead fund development for products and services like Spotify. CI
by Chris Gaarder If you won’t make these changes for their moral superiority to piracy or because they aren’t illegal, do it out of selfishness. These companies will only benefit from more subscribers, and will be able to offer even better content to the consumer. It’s a win-win cycle! Seeing how far it has already come in only a few years, and with studios wanting to present a legal alternative, it’s not inconceivable that all movies could be on Netflix within a couple years. Netflix currently has around 22 million streaming subscriptions, according to a recent WIRED article, and in a nation where 78 million households could use the service (and surely more in time), it would not be inconsiderable for subscribership to double or triple. Content that those who use the
web enjoy the most would improve and expand if suppliers saw a profit by licensing it to Netflix. In deciding whether to make new movies, TV series, or albums, studios perform cost-benefit analyses to see if they will be profitable. If digital services expanded, the studios would consider digital distribution profits more in their computations, rather than as marginal areas for profit. Let’s support the benefit, so that more is invested in the cost side, and movies will be even better in quality as a result (movies like Pirates 14, if Johnny Depp gets his way). If half of all 20- or 30-somethings were to sign up, Netflix would be well on their way to this goal. We would enjoy media legally while acting out of self-interest, but more importantly, we would also act morally. CI
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