A response to CJ, Aditya, and Dan

Ed. Note: Yup, I'm writing a response to a response. I will now light myself on fire.*

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I'm not really sure why several students asked Charles Johnson and Aditya Bindal to post a retort to comments made by Brad Walters on his Facebook profile page, but evidently these students did, and now the two of them have rebuked these comments as a means to fire shots at Brad and ASCMC.

Let it be known before I offer any thoughts on the post that I am not writing to further the argument I have had with Charles over whether or not ASCMC should exist. I think it's clear to anyone who cares (anyone? anyone? Bueller?) where each of us stands on that issue.

I also want to make it clear that I applaud Charles and Aditya for straying completely from any ad hominem attacks and sticking to their main problem: ASCMC itself.

My primary problem with the post stems from trying figuring out why they would feel so threatened by a couple of paragraphs on a student's Facebook page.  They write, "we at the Claremont Conservative have to reply when our good name is sullied." Now, I understand the desire to defend one's work against public attacks, but seriously, since when does the CC have its own version of the Truman Doctrine?

Are they offended that Walters would use his Facebook page as a way to get his friends to stop looking at a blog that they on a daily basis tell him they so detest? I doubt it. Or at least, hopefully they're no more offended than I am when I see "Hey There Delilah" and "Fountains of Wayne" listed under Charles's favorite music (I'd rather endure waterboarding than listen to either one).  

On a serious note, lest the Dan O'Toole's of the world think that I am muddling the argument in low-brow relativism (the non-Nietzschean kind, of course), I would actually posit that maybe Charles Johnson ought not to be throwing stones here.  After all, he has never ignored an opportunity to rail against Bono on his blog, and yet as of now, Charles is a member of the Facebook group entitled "Is that the moon? Let's take a fucking walk on it!" The group's description is as follows: "A tribute to Bono's 'A Lesson in Giving Back' at the Bridges Auditorium on 10/30/07."

Maybe Charles is a member of this group as a joke.  Or maybe he's just demonstrating the intellectual flexibility to proclaim his enjoyment of the speech without agreeing with the message.  Or maybe he's a huge hypocrite.  I don't know, and even if I had a strong inkling towards the third option (which I don't), I wouldn't launch into a public attack.  After all, the answer is probably better known to his actual friends than to myself, a mere "Facebook friend."

My guess is that Charles and Aditya do understand that Facebook profiles often contain messages best perceived by those who most often read them (see: close friends), but instead are understandably threatened that a figure as popular on campus as Brad Walters would be encouraging people to stop looking at their blog.  What they did instead was make a mountain out of Brad's mole hill and stirred up more controversy to keep people coming back. Still, they had the courage to attack Walters for what he (at least in their eyes) stands for, instead of attacking him personally.

Since I began writing this post, Dan O'Toole has done just the opposite. Now, perhaps once Dan (for all I know, a very witty and intelligent guy) will turn a little red when he realizes that Brad was actually just yelling at all of his friends who rail against the CC... and then create further controversy in the comments sections... which in turn encourage themselves and others to frequent the blog (frustration of purpose much?).  Maybe he'll stick by textualism and stick his nose even further in the air.

What I do know is that Dan O'Toole very much resembles the depiction of the central character is this little bit below (courtesy of one of Charles Johnson's self-professed favorite TV shows, South Park).

So let it be known, don't have any fun at Dan's expense, or attempt to, or he'll foight cha. Ya relativist scrotum!

Update - Dan has since removed his post. I don't think I need to say that I applaud this. Although, to be fair to Dan, his post would have actually been really funny had it been deserved.

CMC stuff I found on YouTube

After watching the new Ducey video on YouTube, I checked the related video section and found some CMC goodness (and badness). Enjoy.

1) April Fools Prank. A tour gets a preview of life under the "housing crunch."

The good: the mom's expressions; the deadpan delivery; the cardboard desk

The bad: They could've gone a little more over the top. Maybe a story of the time when all the old cardboard caught on fire but it wasn't a big deal because he only got 2nd degree burns. But who am I to complain? I wish I had done this.

2) Here's a clip by the same guys of people meandering through CMC.

The good: Professors Haley and Nichols; the raising hands joke; the prominence of RN15

The bad: song choice (song still haunts my dreams after a semester in Europe), stalking yours truly starting around 1:19 from outside Adams all the way to Story House (green hat). Creepy.

3) The Further adventures of Andrew Lee.

The Good: You're the RA of Stark. Your residents have just pranked you by stealing your door, leaving only the first of several clues to help you find its location. What do you do? If you're Andrew Lee, you document the entire scavenger hunt and post it on YouTube.

The Bad: If you're intrigued on how this turns out, I recommend you click on the video outside the play button, go to You Tube, and watch all 24 or so clips. (Not recommended for Seniors working on thesis).



4) Mr. Stag 2007 a.k.a. "The Ramon Torres Show"

The Good: Ramon Torres! Dancing! Dude can tear it up!

The Bad: ummm, poor audio quality?



5) "Los Suenos del Deseo"

The Good: An amusingly self-aware dream sequence

The Bad: A shameless attempt by me to pimp my friends' work



6) The Money Shot

The Good: Just for making it this far, I give you the video to beat all videos. That's right, it's Pam Gann dancing! Shot at the closing of the $200 million Bob Day gift ceremony. Money really loosens up the knees, but does nothing for ability.

The Bad: No comment.



The rest you'll have to find on your own time.

I love my school - Ducey Gym Edition

The Forum has released the following video containing a virtual tour of the new Ducey Gymnasium. The best part? It's set to a very popular song by the band Survivor (hint: rhymes with "Tie of the Iger").

My favorite part is definitely the random kid in the workout room tapping his heel and snapping his finger to the music.

[thecmcforum.com]

Tip: Charles Johnson

W.O.A. There!

Ignore what I've previously said! thecmcforum.com has news! Lots of it!*

!

First, an article by Josh Siegel '11 on the new Phillips computer lab. No word on how they'll handle the air quality issues.

Second, an article by Alex Bargmann '11 about plans for free, mandatory W.O.A. trips. This is troubling.

Jennifer Marana, who the article infers as the main proponent of this plan, has some troubling quotes in the article. Here's my favorite, presumably a response to those who would (rightly) question forcing people to go on a trip they otherwise would not sign up for:

We can see it benefiting the students more than hurting them.

Well that's a ringing endorsement. I suppose mandatory broccoli will be served as well. Here's another gem from Dean Marana:

If funding comes through, we’ll make it work.

The funding she's referring to is the estimated $100,000+ it will cost to pay for over 300 W.O.A. trips. Maybe I'm reading too far into it, but it seems like a lot of practical considerations are going to get overlooked or dealt with unsatisfactorily on the way to Dean Marana's egalitarian dream. The article mentions several problems with the plan such as Fall athletes. But there are other problems. Where will all these trips go? You can't send them all to Yosemite. The article mentions a possible LA trip. Is this actually what this program aims for? Why are we fighting so hard to spend so much money to send people on a watered-down version of W.O.A.?

To be clear, free: yes; mandatory: no. Give everyone who wants to do it the opportunity to do so, spend a little bit more money advertising it (a cool brochure explaining all the trips with pictures from years past and quotes from students would be a good start), and save the rest. There is no need to spend money so a bunch of people can go on these trips and whine the whole time because they never wanted to be there in the first place. For once in my life, I find myself aligned with Jim "~" Nauls. I guess I'm a traditional W.O.A. kinda guy.

*No need to be cynical. I'll be the first to admit that this is a blatant attempt to make it up to the forum editors, whose work I completely overlooked, and then accidentally stole.

Jonathan Petropoulos to step down

Just thought I'd pile on and link to Elise Viebeck's new article in the CI on the Petropoulos scandal, announcing that he will step down as director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights this summer.

While we're here, just thought I'd mention how strange headlines can be. Over at the Claremont Conservative, Aditya Bindal linked to the same article with the following headline:

Petropoulos resigns as Holocaust Director

Wow. I knew the guy was doing some shady stuff, but I never imagined he would be directing Holocausts.

The Student Life is a travesty

It's always nice when we, as CMCers, can put aside our differences and take a moment to laugh at Pomona. This time, we need not stray from the topic of journalism.

Actually, there's another -ism to discuss, and that's plagiarism. Charles Johnson already tore Travis Kaya and Cindy Hernandez's piece on Jonathan Petropoulos a new one, and upon seeing the print issue outside Collins I was halfway through a post expanding on this when I realized the Claremont Insider beat me to the punch within the last hour!

To recap, the writers did almost none of their own research, blatantly stole quotes from Elise Viebeck's article in the CI, ran a paraphrase of her entire piece, never even mentioned that the CI had run the story or obtained the quotes, and managed to make libelous legal claims in the process!

So there you have it. If you're biased and interested in learning how to break every rule of journalistic ethics, then TSL is the place for you!

As an aside, the April 4 edition is nowhere to be found on Pomona's campus and their website has been down all weekend. Pure coincidence, I'm sure.

There's more to enjoy in the April 4 edition, however. On the bottom half of the front page, we get the following quote, word for word: 

On Mar. 13, Pomona College announced Academy Award-winning director Alex Gibney will to speak at this year's commencement ceremony.

Note to Alistair Rockoff (great name, by the way): if you can't bother to proof-read your lead, don't write the rest of the article, no one will read it.

Not to fear, on page 9, the editorial board claims to need your help in a new ground-up assessment of the paper. And I quote:

This is where you, the reader, enter the process. If you - or your friends who do not read TSL - have thoughts on how to improve the quality and usefulness of TSL, please let us know by sending us an email at tsl@pomona.edu.

Hmmm.... I think I have a few suggestions for them... but I just can't think of what they'd be...

CMC Journalism on the up and up (Part I)

After a Caesar Chavez-inspired period of reflection, Stagafling is well-rested and ready to commence coverage of the final 5 or so weeks of the semester. Fans of the blog need not worry, I promise the same (low) journalistic standards and (in)attention to detail that have made up the foundation of my writing.

On to the post...

Back in December, I wrote on the then upcoming battle between the well-established Claremont Independent and the upstart Port Side.  I remarked at the time:

What is most encouraging is that it looks like both the CI and the Port Side will benefit from a mutual desire to be the better publication.

Nothing too shocking here. As Mike Huckabee remarked while justifying his extended stay in the Republican nomination race, "competition breeds excellence."  What I was not counting on was the rise to prominence of The Claremont Conservative blog, which, if its own reporting is true, got over 1,000 hits this past Friday. 

A year ago, CMC could only boast one credible source of journalism.  If you remember, this blog started as a way to rant against Pam Gann after the Clinton debacle; I simply did not want to wait three weeks to read about it in the CI, and there was no CMC blogosphere to speak of at the time. We now have three legitimate publications: the Port Side, the Claremont Conservative, and the Claremont Independent (point of clarification: also conservative). 

Since I do not want to write a 4,000 word post, I will address each publication in a separate post.  Hopefully, I can get this done today, but if it stretches on into the week, just remember that I'm still a student here.

Also, for those of you hoping for something funny, here ya go:

Site News

Many have been wondering why I haven't been posting lately. 

The answer: in recognition of Caesar Chavez Month.

Mississippi leaves much to be desired - Update

This title is in no way related to the overall outcome of the Mississippi primary. Rather, I wish to highlight a disturbing statistic I saw on CNN.com's Political Ticker.

According to exit polls from today's primary (now yesterday's, i should really sleep), Obama took home 91% of the black vote, while Clinton earned 72% of the white vote. There's nothing shocking about this; if you replace "Obama" with "Democratic nominee" and "Clinton" with "Republican nominee, " this is about how these demographics split their votes in presidential elections. At least this time, there's a reason for it.

Then there's the fact that 30% of those polled said that race was an important factor in their vote, and 60% of these people voted for Obama.

Again, there's no problem until you look at the flipside: 40% of those who said race was an important factor in their vote ended up voting against Obama. So by this measure, 12% of the Democrats who voted on Tuesday voted against Obama largely because he's black. And that figure only represents those who admitted it.

Yikes.

Now, your first reaction is probably like mine: "What do you expect? It's Mississippi." But consider this: it was a Democratic primary. This is a state that went 60/40 for Bush in '04! It's redder than the ass on that stupid baboon. And a white Democrat there is probably kept in a neighboring cage at the same zoo.

Way to bury the lead CNN. Let's take that analysis one step further next time.

Update - These numbers have been cast into doubt by CNN itself. In this article, CNN reports the same line of statistics, with the exception that 90% of the voters who considered race went for Obama. This would mean only 3% of the voters admitted to voting for HIllary because she's white.

I tend to believe the first set of numbers because both the blog post and the article provide statistics that 60% of Ohioans who strongly considered race voted against Obama (12% of the electorate). This causes me grief as a native Ohioan, but I am optimistic that Mississippi Dems are not more enlightened than my home state voters.

It was supposed to be a 3-hour tour

Ed. Note: As it is impossible to fully separate rumors from facts at this point, no names will be used in this piece

I often report on just how awesome CMC is, and so I think I need to be responsible and write something about the travesty that was the CMC 100 Days Party. For those of you who are out of the loop, here's the setup: Every year, the Senior Class President, in conjunction with the Development office, throws a 100 days party, to mark approximately 100 days until graduation.

The party serves several functions, but the main two are:

• To jump-start the Senior Gift Fund
• To provide the kind of shared class experience not found outside Freshman Orientation

Basically, this party is a big deal. Bigger than the White Party. Bigger than 6:01. Everyone goes. There were people at this party who I never knew existed, much less knew were co-members of the class of 2008.

The location of the festivities has varied over the years. The past few parties were held a stone's throw away from campus at the now defunct Cellar bar. Transportation was provided by underclass ASCMC officers.

This year, we went a little bigger. CMC Seniors piled into four charter buses for an hour trip to Newport Harbor. The reason? The 2008 100 Days Party would be taking place on a gorgeous, three-story yacht.

There were some bad omens right from the get-go. The buses left 45 minutes late on account of some less-than-punctual Seniors. Upon exiting the bus, a guest member of the Class of '09 vomited all over the sidewalk directly in front of the door. It took impossibly long for a crew member with a megaphone to quiet down the rambunctious mob to go over information regarding life-preservers. Nonetheless, after a little while, everyone was given wristbands and allowed onto the boat with tickets redeemable for two free drinks at the bar.

The vessel itself was breathtaking. Comfortable couches lined the walls at the fore and aft of the first floor. A full-service bar area was located in the middle. The second story housed a large dance floor where a DJ had set up for the night. Another bar was set up at the rear, and an outdoor deck allowed the party-goers to take in the warm night's breeze by the bow. The third floor was entirely uncovered, with tables providing a nice place to cool off from dancing.

I cannot stress it enough: this was heaven on Earth. Of course, anyone with an ounce of biblical knowledge knows what humans do when they have it this good.

Here's a quick summary of what I can say with reasonable certainty transpired in the hour and a half spent aboard this glorious vessel:

• Students were caught stealing bottles of hard alcohol out of the bar's storage area
• Students threw chairs overboard from the third floor deck
• After our party organizers convinced the crew to expel only the evil-doers, those students became rude and belligerent towards the staff

Shortly after that, the bars stopped serving alcohol. You can only imagine the class our fellow students displayed towards the bartenders at this moment. After the crew had endured enough verbal and physical harassment, a decision was made; enough was enough. Time to go home.

Of course there was still time for a few more low-lights. I watched as a group of students tried to dissuade a police officer from taking action against a student whose body hung limp from the arms of two friends. The bus companies have reported that both vomit and fecal matter were found in the buses the next day. I have even heard a rumor that beer bottles were thrown at the police/coast guard boat that followed the yacht back to the dock.

The sad part is, you could make up any story about Saturday night and I would have no ability to deny its plausibility. Even worse, the number of offenders that led to the truncation of these glorious festivities is likely no larger than a half-dozen. Still these, well, let's call them adults, ruined what could have been the pinnacle social event of several hundred people's college lives. And they disgraced CMC in the process.

As a Senior, I've come to expect a certain level of debauchery at large college parties. Generally speaking, a fair amount of cleanup is always involved. I even joked to a friend when the crew told us the appropriate locations to take a cigarette break that they were actually letting us all know how to effectively puke off the boat. But to have silver-spooners stealing alcohol and highly-educated kids trying to fight crew members is just depressing. And let's not even talk about what was found on those buses.

In case you're wondering, the price tag for this event was $11,000. And despite all the hard work put in by the organizers, a handful of kids put it to waste.

Driven to optimism, I'll choose to remember the night for the amazing suits and dresses my classmates wore. I'd rather think of the DVD of Michael Jackson music videos we watched on the bus ride to Newport. I'll never forget how impressive the yacht was both inside and out; the repetitive conversations over how boats like these could justify a lifetime's worth of unfulfilling work. I'm proud of the fact that I rallied the troops for a late night soiree at our humble abode.

Still, we deserved better. I cannot even describe the esprit d' corps on that boat. The wide, unforced smiles. The ease of conversation. One just got the feeling that this was going to be one of the most memorable nights of our lives.

The night was certainly memorable, although infamous might be a better adjective. Thanks to a few screw-ups, the night ended up just being a tease; a glimpse into what could have been. I cannot even have a conversation about the 100 Days Party without thinking of this embarrassing boat endeavor, and in the words that come most easily to me at this stage of life, that sucks.